Part 7 (2/2)

Hoas its power to be fetched into the present? how applied toor Zurich? This was the proble of the Romish credentials: and the various answers to it constitute the body of Protestant theology In one point they all agree, that, to replace the priestly media that are thrust out, _Personal Faith_ is the eleht in In ay this subjective state of the individual mind draws or appropriates the efficacy of the Incarnation; in what _order_ the redeeiven ter disciple; whether any part of the process is al and virtual;--these are questions which the Reformation has found it easier to open than to close But answer thehts in the mutual relations and sentiments of three persons; and cannot be discussed without establishi+ng sorounds of interco with hypothetical problems of divine as well as human casuistry Hence the inevitable tendency of the doctrine of Mediation to venture on a natural history of the Divine Mind,--to construct a draht for the free hand of Heaven, and traits too specific and minute for reverent contemplation

It is deeply instructive to observe the pulsation of religious thought ininto natural, and natural returning to re-interpret the revealed We can almost see the steps by which sacred history was converted into dog-point, is ever producing new readings of the history This world arded as a _human theatre_, where the Wills of ency_, using the visible actors as the executants of an invisible thought

Its vicissitudes, presented in the forive rise to doctrine Noticed by Tacitus, the life of Christ is a provincial incident of Tiberius's reign, and his death a judicial act of Pontius Pilate's government In the three first Gospels and the book of Acts, the crucifixion is still the act of wicked orvicti _foreseen_ as the appointed precursor of a resurrection The event is thus in the ives it an incipient theological significance It appears under another aspect in the Gospel of John; there, Christ not only foresaw, but _determined_ his own death: his life ”no man taketh it from him,” but he ”lays it down of himself”; he is not ent of a Divine intent Finally, in St Paul,--to whom the person and ministry of Christ were unfamiliar, who, as a disciple of his heavenly life, looked back upon theher point,--the historical aspect almost wholly disappears in the ideal; and the cross becomes the Gospel, the wisdom of God and the power of God, the self-sacrifice of the Son the reconciling way to the Father, the very focus and symbol of all the ht through these successive stages is obvious An event is at first accepted as it arises But in proportion as its concrete ient to find its function: instinctive search is made for all those ele out itsand idea, until at last its doctrine absorbs itself, and enters the huion It is thus that the great antitheses, of Law and Gospel, of the Natural and the Spiritualen reconciliation with God, have settled upon the consciousness of Christendorown into the very substance of its experience They have becoion But in this character they may, conversely, be taken as the initiative of a new version of the history whence they sprung They could not be born into unmixed and formed existence at once; but, like all new affections, must feel their way out of an early indeterminate state, into clear self-apprehension and settled purity The testimony of the Christian conscience needs tiuilt may lie so dark upon the mind, the dawn of the divine holiness may so dazzle the inward vision, that blindness in partto Christ's healing touch, ht of life, er occupied with it alone, but find in it a medium for truer discernment of objects around The special sentiments awakened by the Gospel test the fully lived out, and tried as experiments upon the soul The type of character,--the edition of human nature,--in which they take embodiment, becomes a distinct object of critical appreciation; and while all its deep expressive traits speak for the inner truth whence they are moulded, every mixture of disharmony or defect calls for some revision of idea In the thirsty spiritual state to which men were reduced on the eve of the Reforerness the elical doctrine With purer health and finer perception they become aware that not all ater of life; and that coarse notions of the nature of justice, the conditions of mercy, and the measurement of sin, were intermixed and must become mere sediment Cleared of these, the theory is taken back to the facts of revelation, and so washed through theeneration Through such re-baptism does our author, furnished with a purified conception of ”atone for the whereabouts of the atoneuided, as in search for the pole-star, by two pointers whose indications we are to follow Its function was double,--to cancel a guilty past, to make a holy future: and it must be of such a nature as to disappoint neither of these conditions In deterians hitherto has been to fit it for its _retrospective_ action, and disembarrass the problem of salvation of the burden of accumulated sin It is Mr Campbell's distinction that he lays the superior stress on its _prospective_ action, and requires that it shall positively heal the sickness of our nature, and evolve thence a real and living righteousness God'sless If, indeed, He looked on our guilt merely as an obstacle to our ”salvation,” and desired to reht a pretext for oodness,--then the work of Christ e of the past, and register an infinite credit not our oithout inherent care for ulterior personal holiness But were it so, the divine _love_ would ahteous desire for our happiness, and the divine _righteousness_ to an unloving repulsion from our sin Such spurious analysis corresponds with no reality; and in the truth of things there can be no heavenly affection that is not holy, nor any holiness that is not affectionate

”While in reference to the not uncohteousness and holiness as opposed to the sinner's salvation, and mercy and love as on his side, I freely concede that all the Divine attributes were, in one view, against the sinner, in that they called for the due expression of God's wrath against sin in the history of redemption: I believe, on the other hand, that the justice, the righteousness, the holiness of God, have an aspect according to which they, as well as his mercy, appear as intercessors for man, and crave his salvation Justiceto sin its due; and there is in righteousness, as we are conscious to it, what testifies that sin should beat the sinner not si in a hteousness, and so its own opposite, must desire that the sinner should cease to be in that condition; should cease to be unrighteous, should becohteousness in hteousness in man alone can satisfy So also of holiness In one view it repels the sinner, and would banish hinance to sin

In another, it is pained by the continued existence of sin and unholiness, and must desire that the sinner should cease to be sinful

So that the sinner, conceived of as awakening to the consciousness of his own evil state, and saying to himself, 'By sin I have destroyed myself Is there yet hope foranswer, not only frohteousness and holiness Wethe response that is in conscience to the charge of sin and guilt, that, though the fears which accoht, they also in part arise fro darkness He who is able to interpret the voice of God within hience will be found saying, not only, 'There is to hteousness and holiness of God,' but also, 'There is roohteousness and holiness' And when gathering consolation from the meditation of the name of the Lord, that consolation will be not only, 'Surely the Divine mercy desires to see me happy rather than hteousness desires to see hteous,--the Divine holiness desires to seeto God's righteousness and holiness as hteous is the Lord, therefore will he teach sinners the hich they should choose' 'A just God and a Saviour'; not as the har opposition, but 'a Saviour, _because_ a just God'”--p 29

Froe the characteristics of Mr

Campbell's theory may already be divined He sets his faith on a concrete, living, indivisible God, who out His abstract attributes one by one, with their separate requireain to compute the resultant He insists on the absolute dohout the revealed econoehteousness and reconciliation; and only of this nature can be the e; related upward to the Father and doard to men, in a way accordant with the laws of conscience, and intelligible by its self-light He craves, therefore, a natural juncture, a real causal nexus, between the several parts of the process, to the exclusion of all forensic fictions and arbitrary scene-shi+fting and sovereign _tours-de-force_ In short, he will have no tricks passed off, no _quasi_-transformations upon the conscience; he feels the e in it irreducible to its solemn laould _ipso facto_ fall out of it and become a mere dynamical surprise Of _physical_ miracle our author avails himself to the full a, with him, as with others, the central fact and essential ust power thus _super_naturally set up--the Person at once divine and hureat proble the suspension of one rule of right, or holding any s with the character of God or man His problem, therefore, is to sho the life and death of Christ--considered as God in humanity--were fitted, and alone fitted, to blot out the sins of the world before God, and to introduce ahteousness and eternal life

The coelical scheeneral principles, and to render the way of redelicans It is so, however, only in the sense of hanging well together, and serving the purpose of a _theological Mneion readyany natural ground of reason, it does not earn its reproach The propositions which it lays down, as to the inability of a holy nature to forgive unless circuitously and with compensation, and as to the commutability of either penal liabilities or moral attributes, are without any support fro, and could be carried out by no sane ht in two principal forms;--the earlier and more exact scheme of ”_Satisfaction_,”

elaborated by Anselm of Canterbury, and perfected by Owen and Edwards; and the s of Dr Pye S wherever the first decadence fro on The first of these prepares its ground by laying down these principles as funda is inviolably secured on the veracity of God; that ”e have done all, we are unprofitable servants,” and have only rendered our strict due; that, far fro, except accuuilt, which, measure it as you will,--by the majesty of the authority defied, or the multitude of the offenders and their sins,--is practically of infinite amount Here, then, is a case of utter despair: infinite debt; nothing to pay; remission impossible; punishht into the labyrinth on one side, to ee from it on the other While _men_ can only multiply demerit, there are natures conceivable to whichaside a blessedness inherently his, and assu this out of a pure love, fulfils the conditions; and when the Son takes on him our humanity, the act, carried out unto the end, has a uilt of men Still, this only leaves us with two opposite funds--of infinite good desert and infinite ill desert--which sit apart and unrelated In due course, the one ought to have a boundless reward, the other a boundless punishment But to render his affluence available for our debt, the Son consummates his self-sacrifice, substitutes himself for us as the object of retribution, and dies once for all,--one infinite death for many finite hereafters of woe The Father's justice is satisfied; the allot to sin has been accurately observed; His desire to pardon is released fro dealt with the person of the Son as if it were mankind, He may deal with mankind as if they were the Son, and look upon them as clothed with a perfect obedience

The wholly artificial structure of this schereatest conde within conducting-distance of reality, that a doctrine elicits resistance and meets the stroke of natural objection; and if it only keeps far enough aloft in theunarrested from zone to zone of time Men know not what to make of propositions so much out of their sphere, so evasive of any real encounter with their consciousness, and are apt to let theeness' sake But surely we are bound to demand for them some ”response of conscience,” and, with Mr Campbell, to de ourselves to the _mediatorial_ part of the theory, ill assume the problem of moral evil to be correctly stated, and only ask whether, from the supposed case of despair, the offered solution affords any real exit of relief

Nor do we assuument's sake alone We can perfectly understand any remorseful sense, however deep, of human unworthiness; any appreciative reverence, however intense, of Christ's self-sacrifice Set the one under the shadow of the Father's infinite disapproval, the other in the light of His infinite coo; there let them lie But what next? Here, on the left hand, is Sin with its need of punishht, a perfect Holiness with its merits While they are thus spread beneath the Father's eye, they break up their inviolable alliances; each moral cause crosses over and takes the opposite effect If such change took place, the _seat_ of the fact ht partly in the consciousness of Christ, partly in the Father's view of things In reference to the first, must we say that the Crucified _felt himself_ under Divine wrath and punish expression of his oard _remorse_? If so, can we affirm that his consciousness was veracious? or did he not feel, in regard to _others'_ sins, sentiments and experiences that are false except in relation to _one's own_? And, ascending to the other point of view, shall we affirry with him; so that, in the hour of sublimest obedience, the words ceased to be true, ”Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”? And on the other hand, what is meant when it is said that beneath the Divine eye hteousness? Is such an aspect of them _true_? or is it akin to an ocular deception? We seee of apparent moral place implied in ”imputation”

is either a faithful representation, or a _quasi_-representation, of the reality of things If the latter, then the Divine consciousness is illusory, and the world is administered on a fiction; if the for us of the personal and inalienable nature of sin, gives a false report, and there is nothing to prevent a circulating h the universe

Mr Careat advocates of this marvellous doctrine does not obstruct his perception of its difficulties

”I freely confess,” he says, ”that to my own mind it is a relief, not only intellectually, but also morally and spiritually, to see that there is no foundation for the conceptions that when Christ suffered for us, the just for the unjust, he suffered either 'as by imputation unjust,'

or 'as if he were unjust' I admit that _intellectually_ it is a relief not to be called to conceive to myself a double consciousness, both in the Father and in the Son, such as see the Son at one and the sah it were but for a moo forth, and also as worthy, in respect of the i the object of infinite wrath, he being the object of such wrath accordingly; and in the Son's knowing hi the consciousness of being personally, through imputation of our sin, the object of the Father's wrath I feel it intellectually a relief neither to be called to conceive this, nor to assume it as an unconceived mystery Still more do I feel it _morally_ and _spiritually_ a relief, not to be required to recognize legal fictions as having a place in this high region, in which the awful realities of sin and holiness, spiritual death and spiritual life, are the objects of a transaction between the Father and the Son in the Eternal Spirit”--p

310

The second form of mediatorial doctrine, to which we have referred as the modern type of Calvinism, has arisen from the endeavor to evade some of these perplexities The riddle that haunts its teachers is still the same,--how it can become possible to show mercy to sinners; but the difficulty in the way is differently conceived, and therefore met by a different expedient It is not an obstacle in God, arising from his personal sentis out of the necessity of consistent rectitude, and adherence to law in his adovernment The Father hiive, were there nothing to consult except his own disposition But it would never do to play fast and loose with the cri the most solemn enact were themore is due to _Public Justice_ If the due course of retribution is to be turned aside, it must be in such a way and at such a cost as to proclaiuilt res and death of the Son of God, which were substituted for our threatened punishment, not as its quantitative equal paid to the Father, but as a moral equivalent in the eyes of men Their validity is thus conceived to depend by no means on their particular measure, but on theand ani on the scale of a Divine nature, gave infinite value to the srief was held such a priceless righteousness, that, on beholding it, the Father ard it as an adequate plea for acts of mercy to sinners

He does not indeed impute to them the actual moral perfectness of Christ, so as to see theuilt, and frowned on Calvary It is the _effects_ only of that holiness which he i it as really theirs, and giving the_ which its possession would bestow

No doubt this sche of the older Calvinism It shi+fts also the bar to free mercy away froovernain attempt to seize the _mediatorial expedient_, what is it? It is said to be a display of the enoruilt which needs to be redeemed at such a cost But is that need _real_? Have we not been told that it has no place in God? Does he then hang out a profession that is not true to the kernel of things, but only a show-off for impression's sake? If Eternal Justice in its inner essence does _not_ require the expiation provided, why in its outercan becoht in itself, so is ”Public Justice,” unsustained by the sincere heart of reality, a mere dramatic imposture Mr Campbell has supplied us with a forcible statement of this truth:--

”Surely rectoral or public justice, if it is to have any moral basis,--any basis other than expediency,--must rest upon, and refer to, distributive or absolute justice In other words, unless there be a rightness in connecting sin withat individual cases sihtness in connecting thee once said to a criminal before him: You are condeoods, but that goods may not be stolen' (_Jenkyns_, 175, 176) This is quoted in illustration of the position, that 'the death of Christ is an honorable ground for res answer the sanize any hare and the voice of an awakened conscience on the subject of sin It is just because he has sinned and deserves punishment, and not because he says to hiovernor, and ainst sin seems so terrible,--and as just as terrible”--p 79

Even were the expression backed up by reality, we cannot but ask about the fitness of the uilt is publicly proclaimed by the most awful cri off the offender, he exhibits the anguish of the innocent! The spectacle would see lesson to the terrified observer,--of raising to intensity the doubt whether, in a world that gives its silver to a Judas, its judgment-seat to a Pilate, and the cross to the Son of God, any Providence can care for rectitude at all Even when the death of Christ is conte the guilt which compassed it, we are at a loss to understand how it could be ”an honorable ground for re punishment” What difference did it overnht afterwards? If Catiline were undergoing his just retribution at the date of the Last Supper, what plea was there for releasing him at or before the date of the resurrection? That obedience rendered and suffering endured by one soul should dispense with the liabilities of another, is a supposition at variance with the personal and inalienable nature of all sin; and to say that God ”imputes the _effects_” of Christ's holiness to those who are not partakers in the cause, is to accuse the Divine governard to character and evasion of moral reality The old Calvinis an illusory _perception_ of hteousness The new Calvinis indeed a true perception of their unrighteousness, but, notwithstanding this, falsifying the truth _in action_, and proceeding as if the facts were quite other than they are Inasmuch as unveracious vision is intellectual, while unveracious practice is radation of the elder, not only in logical coious worth

Both of the economy proceed upon a _fiction_; but there is all the difference between unconscious and conscious fiction; between an inner ”satisfaction” brought about by an optical displacement of merit, and an outward ”exhibition” set up for the sake of impression The theory of Owen, stern as it is, bears the stah into the inmost recess of the Divine nature The newer doctrine is the production of a platfore, which obtrudes considerations of _effect_ even into its thoughts of God and his govern the universe itself into pathos and _ad captanduood reason, therefore, does our author feel that this whole subject is in need of reconsideration His own doctrine diverges from its predecessors at a very early point, and is seen at its source in the following proposition of Edwards, as cited by Mr Ca that sin must be punished with an infinite punishment, President Edwards says, 'that God could not be just to himself without this vindication, unless there could be such a thing as a repentance, humiliation, and sorrow for this (viz sin) proportionable to the greatness of the Majesty despised,'--for that there must needs be 'either an equivalent punishment, or an equivalent sorrow and repentance'; 'so,' he proceeds, 'sinthat the alternative of 'an equivalent sorrow and repentance' was out of the question But, upon the assumption of that identification of himself with those whom he came to save, on the part of the Saviour, which is the foundation of Edwards's whole system, it may at the least be said, that the Mediator had the two alternatives open to his choice,--either to endure for sinners an equivalent punishment, or to experience in reference to their sin, and present to God on their behalf, an adequate sorrow and repentance Either of these courses should be regarded by Edwards as equally securing the vindication of thesin”--p 136

The side of the alternative which Edwards abandoned, our author takes up and follows out The work of Christ, as a ground of re on behalf of humanity of an adequate repentance Adequate it could not have been but for his Divine nature; which attaches to his holy sorrow an infinite moral value, to balance the infinite heinousness of the sin deplored The only reason why human penitence does not in itself avail to restore, lies in its ih the cloud of evil, and with the eye of self, we are disqualified for true discernment of sin as it is: both the limits of a finite nature, and the delusions of a te the uilt and misery Even when our better mind reasserts itself, our very compunction carries in it many a speck of ill, and our repentance needs to be repented of But were it not for this, there would be ” worth in one tear of the true and perfect sorrohich the es of penal woe” It is not the inefficacy, but the impossibility, of due penitence that constitutes our fatal disability; to be relieved from which we need to be taken out of ourselves, to be identified with a perfect spirit; our humanity must cease to be human, and become one with the Divine nature This is precisely the condition which realized itself in Christ As God in humanity, he had perfect sympathy with the holiness of one sphere, and the infirmities of the other; he saw the whole aement, not only with infinite pity for its uilt He could both make a plenary confession for us, and respond unreservedly to the Father's righteous judgment; could bear our burden on his heart before heaven, and utter the _Miserere_ of holy sorrohich our most plaintive cry can never approach This is the true nature of his sufferings He ” for sin,” yielded it up to be filled with a sense of our real aspect beneath the O look Hence his sorrows had nothing _penal_ in theal child are penal They are incident to that attitude of soul which a perfect nature cannot but have in the presence of a brother's sin They are altogether moral and spiritual; and their efficacy as an expiation is that of true repentance; expressing at once our entire confession, acceptance of the Father's just displeasure, and sy at our alienation

At the same time, this mere retrospective confession would not of itself avail, were there no better hope for the future of mankind But our Mediator's own experience in humanity, his consciousness of intimate peace and communion with the Father, opened to him the other side of our nature, assured hiood, and filled him with hope in the very moment of contrition As his sympathy could have fellowshi+p with our tehteousness; and the light of Divine love that rested actually on himself was thereby a possibility for the universal hu to descend It was on the strength of this assurance that his intercession on our behalf was presented; it would never have pleaded for indemnity in relation to the past, but as the prelude to a real righteousness, a true partnershi+p in his life of filial harmony with God The validity of his transaction on our behalf consisted in its perfect seizure of the whole reality, its entire ”response to the mind of the Father in relation to ement, conviction of their possible return, and desire to draw theenuine Sonshi+p

It was needful, then,--so we conceive our author's ,--that the sentiments of God towards the world's sin and misery should quit their absolute position, and should come and take their station in huaze and expression upward to meet the Father's doard and accordant look As this ”Amen of the Son to the mind of the Father” constitutes the essence of the atonement on the Divine side, so does it consist on the human side in ”the Amen of each individual soul to the Amen of the Son” The reproduction in us of the filial spirit of Christ,--his confession, his pleading, his trust,--is our fellowshi+p with hi faith,--true righteousness,--being the living action, and true and right ht of eternal life And the certainty that God has accepted that perfect and divine Amen as uttered by Christ in humanity is necessarily acco, in whatever feebleness, a true A himself to the spirit of Christ to have it uttered in him is accepted of God This Amen in man is the due response to that word, 'Be ye reconciled to God'; for the gracious and Gospel character of which word, as the tenderest pleading that can be addressed to the most sin-burdened spirit, I have contended above This Amen is sonshi+p; for the Gospel call, 'Be ye reconciled to God,' when heard in the light of the knowledge that 'God ht be hteousness of God in him,' is understood to be the call to each one of us on the part of the Father of our spirits, 'My son, give round of that work by which the Son had declared the Father's name, that the love ith the Father hath loved hiht itself of that Amen to the mind of the Father in relation to hteousness of God in accepting the atoneht the Amen of the individual human spirit to that divine Ahteousness will necessarily acknowledge as the _end of the atonement accomplished_”--p 225

In this view, it is not the rescue fro, not any ihteousness, that Christ's mediation obtains, but a real transforh the divine infection and infusion of his own filial spirit Only in so far as his mind thus spreads to us are we united to hiift of life Personal alienation can have no reversal but in personal return; nor can anything ”extraneous to the nature of the Divine will itself, to which we are to be reconciled, have part in reconciling us to that will” The fear of hell is not repentance; the assurance of heaven is not salvation; nor under any modification can the desire of safety, or the consciousness of its attainood alone can touch the springs of goodness; and the divine and trustful life of Christ must speak to us on its own account, and win us by its oer, or not at all Not that it acts on us merely in the way of _example_ We do not so stand apart from him in our independent individuality, that by an external imitation we can copy hi in ourselves his offering of propitiation He is the Vine, of which we are the branches The sap is frohteousness, and does but flow as a derived life into us The Son of God is not a e, to be contemplated at a distance in the past, but ever with us in the power of an endless life; still succoring us e are te to conscience a present help and peace It is not, therefore, by _following_ hi in_ him, that we have our fellowshi+p in his harmony with God