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THE ATONEMENT.

THE ATONEMENT.

CHAPTER I.

PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS ON THE SUBJECT,
AND THE METHOD OF TREATING IT.

THAT Jesus died, the Just for the unjust, to redeem mankind from the bondage of corruption, and restore the broken communion between earth and heaven, is, and ever has been, a fundamental verity of the Christian faith. From that uplifted cross, for eighteen centuries, He has been drawing all men by the 'cords of Adam' to Himself. Round the altars where that one true Sacrifice, offered once in blood on Calvary, is presented perpetually in a bloodless mystery, from the rising to the setting of the sun, has been gathered through those eighteen centuries of her chequered history the faith, the penitence, the devotion of the Church He purchased by that greatest pledge of love. Yet, even as then among the spectators of the crucifixion there were some who worshipped and some who doubted, and its stillness was broken by the questionings, or the jests, or the mockeries of those for whose

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sake it was endured, so it has been till now. And especially has this been the case since the fierce controversies of the Reformation period involved the whole subject in the confusions of a theological warfare, where men darken counsel with many words, and strive rather for a party triumph than for simple truth. Forgetting or greatly underrating, for the most part, the significance of the Incarnation as the centre-point of all Christian belief, the first leaders of the movement in the sixteenth century dragged forward into disproportionate prominence, and often in connection with an erroneous theory of 'imputation,' one side and one only of that divine mystery, namely, the doctrine of the Atonement. And hence there has grown up in many quarters a way of looking at that doctrine, and speaking of it, full of difficulties to the devout believer, and offering abundant opportunities for the cavils of the sceptic. It has been so stated as to cloud our most primary conceptions of the attributes of God; and to imply, or seem to imply, a division of will between the Persons of the undivided Trinity, in whom being and will are one. And so men have come to complain that they cannot believe in a justice which strikes the innocent, while it spares the criminal; that they cannot understand a love which waits to forgive till it has exacted rigorous compensation; or recognize the holiness of that displeasure against sin which is content to exhale in displeasure against the Sinless One. Such objections may often be urged in a tone of mockery, or disbelief; but it is not always so. It will not then, I trust, be an unprofitable task to show that the doctrine of atonement held and taught from the beginning in the Catholic

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Church is open to no such criticism. An investigation of her teaching, as laid down by the Fathers and later theologians who are the accredited interpreters of her mind, will show that the opinions fairly open to objection are no part of it, but are either those of particular writers or schools only; or such as have prevailed for a season and then passed away, like the notion of a ransom paid to the evil one; or were put forward from the first with an heretical animus, and have never found a home within her pale; or are the doctrines of those who have formally renounced her creed. Meanwhile a few words may be said here, by way of preface, in reference to some common misapprehensions on the subject.

First, then, it must be always borne in mind that in speaking of the avenging justice, or the wrath of God, we mean by such language, which is necessarily more or less metaphorical, simply to express His holiness, in relation to fallen man. Righteousness is the best equivalent in our language for the theological term justitia, which has a far wider scope than is ascribed in ordinary usage to the English word justice, or giving everyone his due, though it of course includes it.* It is not that we have done an injury to God for which He requires a quid pro quo, as in a case of injustice between man and man, or that He is angry as though we had defrauded Him, as when Christ is said, in a hymn of Dr. Watts's, to have 'smoothed the

* 'Justice,' in its narrower sense, as applied to the Incarnation, is generally used by the Fathers in reference to Satan. Thus e. g. St. Augustine says, “Non autem diabolus potentia Dei, sed justitia superandus fuit." (De Trin. xiii. 13.) On the other hand he says, soon afterwards, "Quid enim justius quam usque ad mortem Crucis pro justitia perseverare?" (ib. c. 14.) where obviously 'what greater evidence of righteousness or holiness?' is meant.

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