Part 7 (1/2)
Surely this is a description, not of the Unitarian, but of the Lecturer's own creed It certainly is no part of his opponents'
belief, that God first aduilty to his favor, and _then ”proceeds”_ ”to restore his character” This arrangement, by which pardon _precedes_ moral restoration, is that feature in the Orthodox theory of the Divine dealings against which Unitarians protest, and which Mr M'Neile hihout his Lecture ”We think,” he says, ”that _before_ man can be introduced to the only true process of iuilt” What is this ”first” step, of pardon, but an ”overlooking of uilt”; and what is the second, of ”sanctification,” but a ”restoring of character”; whether we say by ”corrective discipline,” or the ”influence of the Holy Spirit,”
uilt is not overlooked, if Christ endured its penalty? I ask, again, whether justice regards only the _infliction_ of suffering, or its _quantity_, without caring about its _direction_? Was it iive the penitent? And hoas the injustice of liberating the guilty ainst sin: ”The soul that sinneth, it shall die” And how is this verdict executed? The soul that had sinned does _not_ die; and one ”that knew no sin” dies instead And this is called a divine union of _truth_ and _ation of both, of which any conception can be for the destinies of all mankind upon a solitary volition of their first parents, and then let loose a diabolic power on that volition to break it down; to vitiate the human constitution in punishment for the fall, and yet continue to deinal and perfect moral law; to assert the absolute inflexibility of that holy law, yet all the while have in view for the offenders a method of escape, which violates every one of its provisions, and ive that which is in itself unpardonable, on condition of the suicide of a God, is to shock and confound all notions of rectitude, without affording even the sublirandeur This will be called ”blasphemy”; and it is so; but the blasphe_
Unitarians are falsely accused of representing God as ”overlooking uilt is overlooked till it is eradicated from the soul_; and that pardon proceeds _pari passu_ with sanctification
[15] Mr Buddico his approbation of this rendering: ”Some of the best commentators have connected e? t?
a?t?? a?at?, not with d?a t?? p?ste??, but with ??ast????? and, accordingly, Bishop Bull renders the passage, 'Queuine suo per fidem'”--_Lecture on Atonement_, p
496
[16] John i 29 For an example of the use of the word ”_world_” to denote the Gentiles, see Ro of the rejection of the Messiah by the Jews, declares that it is only teiven occasion for the adoption of the Gentiles, so will this lead, by ultimate reaction, to the readmission of Israel; a consu or high-mindedness ”If,” he says, ”the fall of them (the Israelites) be the riches of _the world_ (the Gentiles), and the di of them the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fulness! For I speak to you Gentiles, inasnify my office; if, by any means, I may provoke to emulation them which areaway of the of them be but life from the dead?”
[17] Acts xx 28 It is hardly necessary to say, that the reading of our common version, ”_church of God_,” wants the support of the best authorities; and that, with the general consent of the most competent critics, Griesbach reads ”_church of the Lord_”
[18] Gal iii 13 Even here the Apostle cannot refrain fro to his _Gentile_ interpretation of the cross; for he adds,--”that the blessing of Abrahah Jesus Christ”
[19] In three or four instances, it is true, a sin-offering is de_ But in all these cases a suitable punishment was ordained also; a circumstance inconsistent with the idea, that the expiation procured reuilt The _sacrifice_ appended to the _penal infliction_ indicates the twofold character of the act,--at once a _cere, to re rite,--to chastise the other, a judicial penalty See an excellent tract by Rev
Edward Higginson, of Hull, entitled, ”The Sacrifice of Christ scripturally and rationally interpreted,” particularly pp 30-34
[20] Heb vii 27 Let the reader look carefully again into the verbal and logical structure of this verse; and then ask himself whether it is not as plain as words can make it, that Christ ”once for all”
_offered up_ ”_a sacrifice first for_ HIS OWN SINS, and _then for the people's_” The argu, for he has done it _once for all_; the never-finished work of other pontiffs, a single act of his achieved” The senti, unless that which he did once is _the selfsa_ which they did always: and as that?--the offering by the high-priest of a sacrifice first for his own sins, and then for the people's With what propriety, then, can Mr Buddicom ask us this question: ”Why is he said to have excelled the Jewish high-priest in _not_ offering a sacrifice for hi is said; but that, on the contrary, it is positively affirmed that Christ _did_ offer sacrifice for his own sins So plain indeed is this, that Trinitarian co word and an additional sentiment into the last clause of the verse Thus Pierce: ”Who has no need, like the priests under the law, from time to time to offer up sacrifice first for his own sins, and after that for the people's For this _latter_ he did once for all when he offered up himself; _and as to the former, he had no occasion to do it at all_”
And no doubt the writer of the Epistle _ought_ to have said just this, if he intended to draw the kind of contrast which orthodox theology requires, between Jesus and the Hebrew priests He limits the opposition between the _daily_,--the Son of God _once for all_ Divines must add _another_ particular;--that the Jewish priest atoned for _two_ classes of sins, his own and the people's,--Christ for the people's only
Suppose for a n; that the word ”_this_,” instead of having its proper grammatical antecedent, may be restrained, as in the commentary cited above, to the sacrifice for _the people's_ sins; then the word ”daily” may be left out, without disturbance to the other substantive particular of the contrast: the verse will then stand thus: ”Who needeth not, as those high-priests, to offer up sacrifice for his own sins; _for_ he offered up sacrifice for the people's sins, when he offered up hione, and the sentence becomes a mere inanity: to make sense, ant, instead of the latter clause, the sentiment of Pierce,--_for_ ”he had no occasion to do this at all” This, however, is an invention of the expositor, more jealous for his author's orthodoxy than for his co out the most emphatic word in this verse (the word _once_) Mr Buddicom has suppressed the author's antithesis, and favored the suggestion of his own I have no doubt that this was unconsciously done; but it sho systeles of Scriptural difficulties--I subjoin a part of the note of John Crell on the passage: ”De pontifice Christo loquitur Quid vero fecit semel Christus? quid aliud, quam quod Pontifex antiquus stata die quotannis[21] faciebat? Principaliter autem hic non de oblatione pro peccatis populi; sed de oblatione pro ipsius Pontificis peccatis agi, ex superioribus, ipsoque rationum contextu manifestum est”
The sins which his sacrifice cancelled must have been of the same order in the people and in himself; certainly therefore not moral in their character, but ceremonial His death was, for himself no less than for his Hebrew disciples, a commutation for the Mosaic ordinances Had he not died, he must have continued under their power; ”were he on earth, he would not be a priest,” or have ”obtained that more excellent ministry,” by which he clears away, in the courts above, all possibilities of ritual sin below, and hial to spiritual relations
[21] This is obviously the e; _from time to time_, and in the case alluded to, _yearly_; not, as in the common version, _daily_
[22] Mr Buddicom's Lecture on the Atonement, p 471
[23] See Mr M'Neile's Lecture, pp 302, 311, 328, 340, 341
[24] Mr M'Neile's Lecture, p 338
MEDIATORIAL RELIGION
_The Nature of the Atonement, and its Relation to Remission of Sins and Eternal Life_ By JOHN M'LEOD CAMPBELL Cae book A Greek would have hated it A Puritan would have found it savory, even where it was unsound Rosenkranz, who has written on the _aesthetik des Hasslichen_, would have been thankful for such a fund of illustration cumbrous, tiresome, monotonous, it has few attractions for the natural lish and nice graraces of carnal literature, and treats all the color and e as the Roundheads treated a cathedral, silencing the ”box of whistles” and slass” And yet, if you can get over its grating way of delivering itself, you will find it no barbaric product, but the utterance of a deep and practised thinker, charged with the richest experiences of the Christian life, and resolute to clear thele of fiction or pretence
Beneath the uncouth forreat tenderness and beauty,--a fine apprehension of the real inner strife of tempted men, and an intense faith in an open way of escape froh not tuneful in his speech, has the gifts of a true prophet; and often enables one to fancy what Isaiah pipe, and had set his ”burdens” to its drone Whether Mr
Campbell's style has been formed north of the Tweed, we know not In any case, it is trained in the school of Calvinis for art; and runs on with a sort of extemporaneous habit, insufficiently relieved by occasional flashes of grotesque and forcible expression It is only in exterior aspect, however, that he presents the features of the rugged old Calviniser sons are distinguished like Isaac's children, ”Esau is a hairy man, and Jacob is a smooth man,” yet no true patriarch of the school can be so blind as not to see beneath our author's goat-skin dress, and know that he is other than the heir In fact, the peculiarity of this work as a theological phenomenon is, that it is a destruction of Calvinish its own interior Its postulates are not denied Its phraseology is not rejected Its statement of the problem of redemption is in the main accepted Its provision for the solution,--the Incarnation of the Son,--is sacredly preserved Yet these elements are put into such play as to make it checkmate itself on its own area Its definitions are shown to be suicidal; and its sharp-edged logic is used to cut through the ligaments that constrain and shape it
We have spoken first of the _style_ of this book, because it strikes the reader at the outset, and is not unlikely to repel him if he is not warned Of one other feature, derived from the saratitude which we shall then ungrudgingly tender to the author In coelical” school, he is too much at ho appears from the finite and the infinite point of view; can tell too surely how afrooes with too close a search to the ”secret place of the Most High” Not that he speaks unworthily on these high theest, except more silence But we must confess that when a teacher lays down the conditions of divine possibility, expatiates psychologically on the sentih he had been allowed a peep into the autobiography of God, we shrink from the sharp outlines, and feel that we shall believe s taken, and so one, and we find only a port of traffic, with coast-lights instead of stars The te has always proved peculiarly strong a the disciples of Geneva: and the reason is to be found in the very nature of the probleion has two foci to determine,--the divine nature and the human Athanasius and the Greek influence fixed the doctrine of the Godhead: Augustine and the Latin Church defined the spiritual state of y; the other, an anthropology In the construction of the former, it is obvious that the appeal could be made only to positive authority, whether of Scripture or the Church On the Nicene question no one could pretend to have personal insight or scientific data: it must be decided by arbitrary vote on i a doctrine of hu resources of consciousness and experience were present with perpetual witness; every proposition advanced could be confronted with its corresponding reality: the disciple could not help carrying the doge The scheme of the Trinity partook of the nature of a _Gnosis_, which dwelt apart fro once set and crystallized, could only be hung up for preservation The dogmas of human depravity and helplessness partook of the nature of a _Science_, co in contact with the facts of life and character at every point Moral experience had soood terround Hence the Augustinian divines have been constrained to seek a _philosophy_ of religion, and to collate the text of their Scriptural syste paraphrase of actual life No writers have contributed so s of human action and euilty self-deception, or so found the secret sorrow that lies at the core of every unconsecrated joy If we must concede to the Roman Catholic casuists and the proble an ethical Art eelical spirit, whether in its action or its reaction, the ground-lines of an ethical Philosophy;--or, if you deny that such a thing as yet exists, at least the true idea and undying quest of it The disciples of Augustine, belonging to an anthropological school, have been naturally distinguished by a reflective and psychologic habit
If it was the function of the Greek period to settle the doctrine of God, and of its Latin successor to define the nature ofthese two extremes undisturbed, to find the way of reat sacerdotal Church, living continuator of Christ's presence, was intrusted with the business, private Christians wanted no theory on the subject; all nice questions went into the ecclesiastical closet and disappeared But as soon as ever the hierarchy fell out of this position, there was an immense void left to be filled On the one hand, Infinite Holiness, quite alienated; on the other, Human Pravity, quite helpless: hoas any approxiinal Mediation on Calvary, which the papal priesthood pretended to prolong, rereat way off, a fact in the old past; and its intervention was required to-day by Melancthon, and Carlstadt, and a whole generation quite remote from it