had. I shall content myself with giving, as simply as I can, his account of the Atonement. We shall have occasion presently to notice the writings of Pabst, who, if he represents the same theological school, is at least a much clearer and more intelligible exponent of its principles. Günther's system implies, if I understand him rightly, the Scotist idea of the Incarnation being decreed before the prevision of the Fall. Its primary object is the infusion of divine life into man, or his regeneration to eternal life. The death of Christ is "not the moving but the mediating cause" of redemption; or, in other words, God is not gracious to us because Christ died, but Christ died for us because God is gracious. The juristic view of vicarious satisfaction is rejected, on the ground that justice requires the punishment of the guilty, and can least of all be satisfied by the supreme injustice of punishing the innocent instead. That would be a direct contradiction. Some other explanation must therefore be found for the Sacrifice of the death of Christ. God will only forgive sin to those who are willing to be reformed; but for this man needs a practical proclamation of the heinousness of sin, which is given, as in a picture, by the death of Christ. But the ground of sin lies not only in ignorance or unbelief, but in the infirmity of a perverted will, and the work of redemption, therefore, must be something beyond a mere outward exhibition; it must consist in the real communication and im

Günther, Die Incarnationstheorie. Wien, 1829. His Philosophical Works were placed on the Roman Index.

planting of a new nature, to reunite the soul with God. The redeeming power must, then, be sought in the life of Christ, but it can only be imparted through His death. The Son of God took, in His Incarnation, a human body under the conditions of fallen nature transmitted from Adam, though without sin. This body of death He offered up to God, pouring out the earthly blood and animal soul or life;' and thus He satisfied justice and opened the hands of love. The necessity for His death does not rest on any attribute of the Divine nature, for God is Love, but on some quality of human nature, which as yet we cannot fully comprehend but which is indicated by the statement of Scripture, that "without shedding of blood there is no remission," for the soul is in the blood and the blood is that which atones for the soul. It is clear that this theory lays a special stress on the Incarnation, and views the death of Christ chiefly as a channel for conveying the benefits of the Incarnation to us, but the precise meaning of the latter portion of it I do not profess to understand. We may compare with it the following considerations of the philosopher Baader on the nature of human sinfulness.2 The soul of man, subjected through the Fall to the bondage of matter, can only through the medium of matter be restored to the freedom of spiritual life. But the blood, as the special organ of animal life, is also the organ of sin.

This may remind the reader of some similar expressions of Origen's, previously referred to.

2 Baader, Vorlesungen über eine kunftige Theorie des Opfers oder Kultus. Münster, 1837.

By the oblation of the outpoured blood the spiritual powers of man were set free, and the impure influences, which held him in thraldom, passed from him into that which was offered up, while the blood thus offered and consecrated in the death of Christ returned as a life-giving and fruitful principle into the substance of those for whom it was offered. This view of Baader's seems, at least in language, to come very near the Manichean notion of the impurity of matter.

And now let us turn to a theologian already mentioned, who is comparatively free from the lengthy periods and needless periphrasis often so perplexing in German writers, and speaks with a clearness at times almost rising into eloquence. A brief account of his general system will best introduce his exposition of the doctrine of Atonement.1 The idea of God, as the Ego, or absolute Being, implies from eternity the idea of the creature, the non ego, or conditioned being, as its necessary correlative. But the actual realisation of the non ego, as natura naturata Dei quâ naturæ naturantis, is not necessary, as the pantheistic scheme implies. Creation is a free act of God, implying a beginning, as the absolute nature is essentially neces

'This sketch is drawn mainly from Pabst's Der Mensch und seine Geschichte (Wien, 1830), but I have also compared with it a later work of his, Adam und Christus (Wien, 1835), where the subject is treated as introductory to an elaborate dissertation on the seven sacraments, and especially marriage, viewed in its sacramental character, to which the author attaches a crucial importance as marking the distinction between Catholicism and various forms of imperfect or unchristian be'ief. It would be impossible to give each reference separately here; the reader will have no trouble in verifying them, if he pleases, for himself.

sary and eternal; but the conditioned, once actually brought into existence, must last for ever, as the creaturely reflection of the absolute Being of God. There was no theoretical necessity for Him to create, but there was an ethical ground in His own nature, and that ground was love. As then by His free love He created us, so by love alone can the creature gain or preserve its union with Him. Creation is God's eternal revelation of Himself. The creature cannot attain to a real consciousness of its own being, without thereby becoming conscious of the absolute Being or Creator. As in the unity of God there are Three Persons, so creation, which is His image, is threefold also. There is free spirit, nature or the physical universe which is unfree, and man in whom both are combined, spirit and nature standing to each other in the relation of substance and accident. Man constitutes the organic unity of the two; he is at once distinct from each and partakes of both; in him the life of nature puts forth its most perfect bloom, while he is also a member of the spirit-world, and thus creation, as the outward revelation of God, becomes the perfect reflexion of the Divine consciousness. As the organic unity of nature and spirit, man is the coping stone of creation, the creature of all creatures, the ultimate realisation and representative of the creaturely idea and perfect antithesis of the Creator. Or, as the author says elsewhere, he is the last and most glorious fruit of the mighty increase of the earth, the wondrous fabric (Gebilde) wherein God by a new and special

creative act has bound the two worlds of spirit and matter into organic unity.

From this idea of creation is deduced the idea of sin, as consisting in a refusal on the creature's part to recognise its creatureliness and consequent dependence on the absolute Being of God. It involves an infinite debt (Schuld) incurred by the creature, and an infinite offence against the Creator whom it directly tends, so far as in it lies, to dethrone, because it is a negation of His self-existent Being. By thus denying God, it also denies the very basis of all creaturely existence and turns the life of the spirit into a lie, corrupting its whole nature and marring, though it cannot destroy, the image of God. It involves an eternal enmity between the creature and the Creator, as being a wilful aversion from the Highest Good; in a word, it involves Hell, not as an infliction of the Divine wrath, but as the inevitable sequel of its own act in choosing selflove rather than the love of God. Such are the effects of sin on the spirit-world; its effects on the world of man are further modified by the conditions of his composite nature, which is not mere spirit but formed of spirit and matter combined, each individual being part of an organic whole, the member of a race. Hence it follows, that the sin of the first and typical man becomes, not personally but generically, the heritage of all his children; for though God creates each soul separately, He creates it with reference to the particular body it is destined to inhabit, not for a separate existence, but to become part of the composite man who