ever, are mainly directed against the moral and theological aspects of the system originated by the earlier Reformers, as to satisfaction, imputed righteousness, and justification by faith; and are, many of them, perfectly just. We shall have occasion to refer to them again in this connection by and by.1

It has been already observed, that there was little of direct controversy raised between Catholic and Protestant writers on the doctrine of the Atonement, as such, nor did any fresh definitions on the subject emanate from the Council of Trent. The Tridentine Catechism, though not possessing direct dogmatic authority, is universally accepted and used in the Church, as containing a clear and luminous exposition of Christian doctrine on the Creed, Sacraments, Decalogue, and Lord's Prayer. In commenting on the fourth article of the Apostles' Creed, it recounts the "benefits merited for us by the Passion of Christ," which are summed up under the four heads of deliverance from sin, and from its penalty, rescue from the tyranny of the devil, and the opening to us of the kingdom of heaven. Its efficacy is explained to consist in its being a full and entire satisfaction, offered "after a certain admirable manner" to the Father, a most ac

*

1 Socinus' system on the Atonement is to be gathered from his Prælectiones Theologica, De Jesu Christo Servatore, Brevissima Institutio Christiana Religionis, and Refutatio Sentent. Vulg. de Satisfact. Christi.

2 When the controversy on grace and freewill (De Auxiliis) was under discussion before the Roman tribunals, the Jesuits protested against the Catechismus ad Parochos being appealed to as having a symbolic character, and their objection was admitted. Cf. Möller Symb. vol. i. pp. 18-20. But it possesses he highest sanction as a Catechetical manual.

1

ceptable sacrifice to God, and a redemption from our vain conversation; while it also gives us a bright example of patience, humility, charity, obedience, meekness, and constancy even unto death. No explanations are added of questions disputed among the Schoolmen, or stirred at the Reformation. The expression on which some of the Reformers so strenuously insisted, that the death of Christ reconciled God to us, is not used at all in the Catechism, which confines itself to stating, in the language of Scripture, that He reconciled us to God. But if no issue was raised on what may be called the objective side of the doc. trine of the Atonement, its subjective side, in all that concerns the application of its efficacy to ourselves, or, in other words, the doctrines of original sin and justification, formed, I need hardly say, matter of prolonged and vigorous controversy, and elicited from the Council of Trent a full and elaborate statement of doctrine. Part of the fifth, and the whole of the sixth Session, was occupied with this subject. It is here accordingly that we must look for the specialities of the Reformed systems, and it is in this connection, in accordance with their exclusively subjective spirit, that they treat the Atonement; but of course differences on the one point imply differences on the other too. The impu

1 Cat. ad Par. Pars i. c. 5. Q. 14, 15.

2 Ib. i. c. 3. Q3. The Augsburgh Confession (Art 3) says, "ut reconciliaret nobis Patrem," as does also the second of the Thirty-Nine Articles.

3 Luther accordingly, in the Smalcaldic articles, classes not only justifying faith, but redemption, among the doctrines at issue between Protestantism and "the Papacy, the Devil, and the world."

tation, for instance, of our sins to Christ, and His righteousness to us, are only opposite sides of the same idea.1

The two great Confessions inaugurated by Luther and Calvin are agreed in their rejection of the Catholic doctrine on the primitive state of man, the Fall, justification, and the need of personal satisfaction for personal sin-which last implies, under whatever name, the notion of a purgatory. But they differ in some respects from each other, and therefore require separate examination. We will afterwards notice the later Protestant developments, which had their origin, for the most part, in a recoil from the extreme views of Luther and Calvin, and manifest, amid many grave errors, a decided tendency on these points to recur to a healthier tone. This is shown even in the Socinian protest against Luther's illogical ascription to faith of a merit he denies to obedience.2

For understanding rightly the point of departure of the Reformed systems, it is necessary to indicate their relations to the Catholic doctrine on the state of innocence and the Fall, for here the root of all further differences will be found to lie. Coleridge does not go at all too far, when he says that "without just and distinct views respecting the article of Original Sin, it

Our view of the Atonement is of course necessarily determined by our view of original sin. It is with perfect consistency, therefore, that an able critic of Newman's Apologia in the Westminster Review for Oct. 1864, after asserting that "man has undergone no terrible aboriginal calamity," adds that “ there has been.....no need for a Sacrifice of Blood."

2 Socin. De Jesu Chr. Servatore, iv. 11. “ Quasi vero major dignitas in istâ fide, quam in hâc obedientiâ reperiatur," et sqq.

is impossible to understand aright any one of the peculiar doctrines of Christianity." I must, therefore, before proceeding further, claim my readers' indulgence for what I fear they may consider a somewhat dry and technical exposition of doctrine; it shall be made as brief as is consistent with clearness of statement.

That God "made man upright" was agreed on all hands; but Catholic theology distinguished between that integrity of nature, in which Adam was created after the image of God, with the body subject to the mind, and all the inferior faculties and instincts under perfect control of the reason, and that gift of supernatural grace (originalis justitia) superadded as a crown to the endowments of his unfallen nature, which raised him to communion with his Maker, and fitted him to be the heir of a blessed immortality. This gift, called in Scripture the likeness of God, was held to be bestowed on man at his creation, or shortly afterwards-a point left open purposely by the Council of Trent-but must in either case be carefully distinguished from the perfection of nature. By sin man

Aids to Reflection, p. 215.

2 The later scholastic theology, of which Cajetan and Suarez may be taken as exponents, distinguishes a state of pura natura as possible, though never actual, in which our various natural faculties would exist, but without being duly harmonized; the state of integra natura, in which many suppose Adam to have been actually created and to have awhile remained, where all the lower faculties are perfectly under control of the reason, and the soul is capable of knowing and loving God; the state of originalis justitia, to which man was supernaturally raised by grace, either at or after his creation, and whereby he became holy and pleasing to God; the state of lapsa natura, in which all men are born since the Fall, when this gift is lost, and the natural faculties disordered; and, lastly, the state of redempta natura, wherein grace

lost this gift of original righteousness, and marred, though he did not lose, his natural faculties for good. He was deprived of his supernatural and wounded in his natural powers; or, to adopt the language of Bellarmine, he lost the similitude, but retained the image of God. Original sin consists, formally, in the loss of that supernatural gift, materially in the disorder of his natural faculties which followed on its withdrawal, and, as some maintain, would have occurred sooner or later, had the gift never been bestowed. This disorder, or concupiscence, is not itself sinful, being involuntary, but is certain, when uncontrolled by grace, to lead men into sin (James i. 15). Freewill was impaired, but not destroyed at the Fall, and man was therefore able to co-operate with grace, when offered, but unable of himself to do any acts pleasing to God and deserving eternal life. This deprivation of supernatural grace, with its moral and natural consequences, implying further the loss of his claim to supernatural beatitude, our first parent transmitted to his posterity; but not, of course, his personal guilt, or, as was strangely imagined by the Reformers, any positive evil quality; and they could only be restored by the merits of Christ to the state of grace which he had forfeited. Man cannot merit or obtain restoration for himself, but he

is restored, but the conflict between the higher and lower faculties (concupiscentia) remains, making us liable to sin. See on this whole subject Kuhn's Die christliche Lehre von der göttlichen Gnade, Tubingen, 1868. Bp. Bull defends at length the Catholic doctrine in his Primitive State of Man, with copious extracts from the Fathers. It is in reference to this treatise that Dr. Newman says (Letter to Pusey, p. 47), "This is Anglican doctrine as well as Catholic."