view, the benefits of Christ's incarnation are necessarily limited to His proclamation of the divine promises, the perfect example of His life, and still more of His death, and His pure utterance of the moral and spiritual law; and they even included in this last His revelation of the Lord's Prayer, forgetting that it was already in use among the Jews. His teaching and example were guaranteed by His death and resurrection, which also gave a pledge of ours, and He is henceforth to be adored as a glorified Man, our King and High Priest in heaven.* But there could be no room for a real mediation between man and God, where there was no real union of the divine and human natures in the Person of the Incarnate Word. The specific objections of Socinus, however, 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.t It has been already observed, that there was little of direct controversy raised between Catholic and Protestant writers on the doctrine of the Atonement, nor derive from Calvin and Whitby the help that fails me in Crell and Belsham. In devotional literature and religious thought I find nothing of ours that does not pale before Augustine, Taylor, Pascal. And in the poetry of the Church it is the Latin or German hymns, or the lines of Charles Wesley or of Keble, that fasten on my memory and heart, and make all else seem poor and cold. ...... I cannot help this. I can only say I am sure it is no perversity; and I believe the preference is founded on reason and nature, and is already widely spread among us." Martineau's Letter to Macdonald (London, 1859), quoted in Christian Remembrancer, Jan. 1864, pp. 204, 205. *See Möhler's Symbolism, vol. ii. p. 335, sqq. (Robertson's Translation.) + Socinus' system on the Atonement is to be gathered from his Prælect. Theol., Breviss. Instit. Christ. Relig., Refut. Sent. Vulg. de Satisf. Christi, and De Jesu Christo Servatore. 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 a full and entire satisfaction offered after a certain admirable manner' to the Father, a most acceptable sacrifice to God, a redemption from our vain conversation, and 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 doctrine of Atonement, its subjective side, 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 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. Möhler Symb. v. i. pp. 18-20. But it possesses the highest sanction as a Catechetical manual. † Cat. ad Par. Paro. i. c. 5. Q. 15. Ib. i. 1. 3. The Augsburgh Confession (Art. 3) says, 'ut reconciliaret nobis Patrem,' language which is of course capable of various interpretations. Council of Trent a full and elaborate statement of doctrine. Part of the fifth, and the whole of the sixth Sessions were 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 imputation, for instance, of our sins to Christ, and His righteousness to us, are only opposite sides of the same idea.† 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 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, as is shown even in the Socinian protest against Luther's illogical ascription to faith of a merit he denies to obedience.‡ *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.' 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 Reviewer of Newman's Apologia in the Westminster Review for Oct. 1864, after asserting that 'man has undergone no terrible aboriginal calamity,' adds, 'there has been no need for a Sacrifice of Blood.' .... Socin. De Jesu Chr. Servatore, iv. 11. Quasi vero major dignitas in ista fide, quam in hac obedientia reperiatur,' et sqq. 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. 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 controul 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 * Scholastic theology 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 controul 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, whereby he became holy and pleasing to God; the state of lapsa natura, when this gift is lost, and the natural faculties disordered; and, lastly, the state of redempta natura, wherein grace is restored, but the conflict between the higher and lower faculties (concupiscentia) remains, making us liable to sin. Bp. Bull defends at length 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 uncontrouled by grace, to lead men into sin (James i. 15). Freewill was impaired, but not destroyed, and man was therefore able to coöperate with grace when offered, but unable of himself to do any acts pleasing to God, and deserving eternal beatitude. 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 qualityand 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 can and must coöperate freely with the grace of God calling him to repentance, and this is sometimes termed in scholastic language 'merit of congruity.' On his true repentance he is forgiven, and with remission of sin the love of God is infused into his heart, and he is thus not only accounted but made righteous, and en the Catholic doctrine of the 'Primitive State of Man' with copious extracts from the Fathers. P |