inward state, either during life or at death, that he can stand before God to be dealt with according to that state. His only hope is that God will, and does, deal with his people, not as they are in themselves, but as they are in Christ, and for his sake; that He loves and has fellowship with us although polluted and defiled, as a parent loves and delights in a misshapen and unattractive child. We should be now and always in hell, if the doctrine of Dr. Young were true, that justice by an inexorable law always takes effect, and that sin is always punished wherever it exists, as soon as it is manifested, and as long as it continues. God is something more than the moral order of the universe; He does not administer his moral government by inexorable laws over which He has no control. He can have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and compassion on whom He will have compassion. He can and does render sinners happy, in spite of their sin, for Christ's sake, remitting to them its penalty while its power is only partially broken; fostering them, and rejoicing over them until their restoration to spiritual health be completed. Anything that turns the sinner's regard inward on himself as a ground of hope, instead of bidding him look to Christ, must plunge him into despair, and despair is the portal of eternal death. In any view, therefore, whether as bold rationalistic Deism, or as the most high-toned portraiture of divine love, the moral theory of the atonement presents no rational, because no Scriptural, ground for a sinner's hope toward God. He must have a better righteousness than his own. He must have some one to appear before God in his stead to make expiation for sin, and to secure for him, independently of his own subjective state, the full pardon of all his offences, and the gift of the Holy Ghost.

3. All the arguments presented on the preceding pages, in favour of the doctrine of expiation, are of course arguments against a theory which rejects that doctrine. Besides, this theory evidently changes the whole plan of salvation. It alters all our relations to Christ, as our head and representative, and the ground of our acceptance with God; and consequently it changes the nature of religion. Christianity is one thing if Christ is a sacrifice for sin; and altogether a different thing if He is only a moral reformer, an example, a teacher, or even a martyr. We need a divine Saviour if He is to bear our iniquities, and to make satisfaction for the sins of the world; but a human saviour is all that is needed if the moral theory of the atonement is to be adopted. Gieseler says, what every Christian knows must be true without being told, that

the fathers in treating of the qualifications of Christ as a Saviour, insisted that He must be, (1.) God; (2.) a man ; and (3.) as man free from sin. It is a historical fact that the two doctrines of the divinity of Christ, and expiation through the blood of the Son of God, have gone hand in hand. The one has seldom been long held by those who deny the other. The doctrine of expiation, therefore, is so wrought into the whole system of revealed truth, that its rejection effects a radical change, not only in the theology, but also in the religion of the Bible.

§ 4. The Governmental Theory.

This theory was introduced into the Church by Grotius, in the seventeenth century. He wrote in opposition to the Socinians, and therefore his book is entitled: "Defensio fidei catholicæ de satisfactione Christi." It is in point of learning and ability all that could be expected from one of the greatest men of his generation. The design with which the book was written, and the universally received formulas of expression at that time prevailing, to the use of which Grotius adheres, give his work an aspect of orthodoxy. He speaks of satisfaction to justice, of propitiation, of the penal character of our Lord's sufferings, of his death as a vicarious sacrifice, and of his bearing the guilt of our sins. In short, so far as the use of terms is concerned, there is hardly any departure from the doctrine of the Reformed Church, of which he was then a member. Different principles, however, underlaid his whole theory, and, therefore, a different sense was to be attached to the terms he used. There was, after all, no real satisfaction of justice, no real substitution, and no real enduring of the penalty of the law. His Socinian opponents, when they came to answer his book, said that he had given up all the main principles in dispute. Grotius was a jurist as well as a theologian, and looked at the whole subject from a juridical standpoint. The main elements of his theory are,

1. That in the forgiveness of sin God is to be regarded neither as an offended party, nor as a creditor, nor as a master, but as a moral governor. A creditor can remit the debt due to him at pleasure; a master may punish or not punish as he sees fit; but a ruler must act, not according to his feelings or caprice, but with a view to the best interests of those under his authority. Grotius says that the overlooking the distinctions above indicated is the fundamental error of the Socinians.2 In opposition to this view, he

1 Dogmengeschichte, pp. 384, 385, being the sixth volume of his Ecclesiastical History. 2 De Satisfactione, 11. [§ 3]; Works, edit. London, 1679, vol. iii. p. 307, a, 25-34. “Vult

8378: "Omnino hic Deum considerandum, ut rectorem. Nam pomas infligere, aut a penis aliquem liberare, quem punire possis, quod justificare vocat Scriptura, non est nisi rectoris qua talis primo et per se: ut, puta, in familia patris; in republica regis, in universo Dei."1

2. The end of punishment is the prevention of crime, or the preservation of order and the promotion of the best interests of the community. "Justitiæ rectoris pars est servare leges etiam positivas et a se latas, quod verum esse tam in universitate libera quam in rege summo probant jurisconsulti: cui illud est consequens, ut rectori relaxare legem non liceat, nisi causa aliqua accedat, si non necessaria, certe sufficiens: quæ itidem recepta est a jurisconsultis sententia. Ratio utriusque est, quod actus ferendi aut relaxandi legem non sit actus absoluti dominii, sed actus imperii, qui tendere debeat ad boni ordinis conversationem."2 On a previous page, he had said, in more general terms: "Pœna omnis propositum habet bonum commune, ordinis nimirum conservationem et exemplum."

3. As a good governor cannot allow sin to be committed with immunity, God cannot pardon the sins of men without some adequate exhibition of his displeasure, and of his determination to punish it. This was the design of the sufferings and death of Christ. God punished sin in Him as an example. This example was the more impressive on account of the dignity of Christ's person, and therefore in view of his death, God can consistently with the best interests of his government remit the penalty of the law in the case of penitent believers.

4. Punishment, Grotius defined as suffering inflicted on account of sin. It need not be imposed on account of the personal demerit of the sufferer; nor with the design of satisfying justice, in the ordinary and proper sense of that word. It was enough that it should be on account of sin. As the sufferings of Christ were caused by our sins, insomuch as they were designed to render their remission consistent with the interest of God's moral government, they fall within this comprehensive definition of the word punishment. Grotius, therefore, could say that Christ suffered the punishment of our sins, as his sufferings were an example of what sin deserved.

5. The essence of the atonement, therefore, according to Gro

(Socinus) partem omnem offensam esse pænæ creditorem: atque in ea tale habere jus, quale alii creditores in rebus sibi debitis, quod jus sæpe etiam dominii voce appellat: ideoque sæpissime repetit Deum hic spectandum, ut partem offensam, ut creditorem, ut dominum, tria hæc ponens tanquam tantundem valentia. Hic error Socini . . . . per totam ipsius tractationem diffusus. . . . ipsius rò rр@ror veidos [est)."

Ibid. 1. [§ 1]; p. 305, b, 20-24.

2 Ibid. v. [§ 11]; p. 317, b, 31-41.

tius consisted in this, that the sufferings and death of Christ were designed as an exhibition of God's displeasure against sin. They were intended to teach that in the estimation of God sin deserves to be punished, and, therefore, that the impenitent cannot escape the penalty due to their offences. "Nihil iniquitatis in eo est quod Deus, cujus est summa potestas ad omnia per se non injusta, nulli ipse legi obnoxius, cruciatibus et morte Christi uti voluit, ad statuendum exemplum grave adversus culpas immensas nostrum omnium, quibus Christus erat conjunctissimus, natura, regno vadimonio." Again: "Hoc ipso Deus non tantum suum adversus peccata odium testatum fecit, ac proinde nos hoc facto a peccatis deterruit (facilis enim est collectio, si Deus ne resipiscentibus quidem peccata remittere voluit, nisi Christo in pœnas succedente, multo minus inultos sinet contumaces) verum insigni modo insuper patefecit summum erga nos amorem ac benevolentiam: quod ille scilicet nobis pepercit, cui non erat ådíapopov, indifferens, punire peccata, sed qui tanti id faciebat, ut potius quam impunita omnino dimitteret, Filium suum unigenitum ob illa peccata, pœnis tradiderit." It thus appears that, according to this theory, the work of Christ was purely didactic. It was designed to teach, by way of an example, God's hatred of sin. The cross was but a symbol.

2

Remonstrants.

The Synod of Dort met two years after the publication of the work in which this theory was propounded. Grotius joined those who remonstrated against the decisions of that Synod, and who on that account were called Remonstrants. The Remonstrant theologians, however, did not as a class adhere to Grotius's peculiar doctrine. They did not regard the work of Christ as a governmental transaction, but adhered to the Scriptural mode of representation. They spoke of his death as a sacrifice and ransom. They rejected indeed the Church doctrine. They denied that what Christ did was a satisfaction of justice; that He bore the penalty of the law; that He acted as our substitute, fulfilling in our place all the demands of the law. As these ideas have no part, according to their view, in the doctrine of sacrifices for sin, so they have no place in the true doctrine concerning the work of Christ. Under the Old Testament a sacrifice was not an equivalent for the penalty incurred; it was not a satisfaction to justice; the victim did not do what the offerer ought to have done. It was simply a

1 Grotius, De Satisfactione, IV. [§ 18]; vol. iii. p. 315, b. 9-14.

2 Ibid. v. [§ 8]; p. 317, a, 12-24.

divine ordinance. God saw fit to ordain that the offering a sacrifice should be the condition of the pardon of the violations of the ceremonial law. So also He has seen fit to ordain that the sacrificial death of Christ should be the condition of the pardon of sin under the gospel. Even a ransom is no proper equivalent. The holder of a captive may take what he pleases as the condition of deliverance. On this point Curcellæus says: "In eo errant quam maxime, quod velint redemtionis pretium per omnia æquivalens esse debere miseriæ illi, e qua redemtio fit, redemtionis pretium enim constitui solet pro libera æstimatione illius, qui captivum detinet, non autem pro captivi merito. Ita pretium, quod Christus persolvit, juxta Dei patris æstimationem persolutum est." This is the old Scholastic doctrine of "acceptatio;" a thing avails, irrespective of its inherent value, for what God sees fit to take it. The death of Christ was no more a satisfaction for sin, than that of bulls and of goats under the old dispensation. God saw fit to make the latter the condition of the pardon of violations of the ceremonial law; and He has seen fit to make the former the condition of the pardon of sins against the moral law.

The Supernaturalists.

Although the Remonstrants as a body did not accept of the governmental theory as proposed by Grotius, his main idea was frequently reproduced by subsequent writers. This was done especially by the Supernaturalists in Germany in their endeavours to save something from the destructive principles of the Rationalists. They conceded that the work of Christ was not strictly a satisfaction to justice. They taught that it was necessary as an example and a symbol.2 It was designed as a manifestation of God's displeasure against sin; and, therefore, necessary to render its forgiveness consistent with the interests of God's moral government. This is true of Stäudlin, Flatt, and even of Storr. Speaking of the first of these writers, Baur says, "It was admitted that in the New Testament doctrine concerning the death of Jesus the Old Testament idea of a sin offering as a substitute and satisfaction

1 Curcellai Institutio Relig. Christianæ, lib. iii. 21, 8.

2 The word "symbol," however, is used in two senses. Sometimes it is synonymous with sign. Thus it is common to say that the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper are the symbols of Christ's body and blood. At other times, a symbol is that which expresses the analogy between the outward and inward. Thus, in one view, the atoning death of Christ is symbolical of God's feelings towards sinners. In another view, the struggles and triumph of our Lord in conflict with physical evil are symbolical of the believer's struggles and triumph in the conflict with sin. The former was an illustration of the latter, and intended to encourage the people of God with the assurance of success.