was actually contained, and therefore that the Church doctrine of satisfaction agreed with the literal sense of the Scriptures; yet it was insisted upon that this literal doctrine of the Bible involved difficulties affecting our moral nature, and was evil in its practical effects, and inconsistent with what the Scriptures themselves elsewhere taught of guilt, merit, imputation, and of God's justice." Hence, he goes on to say, that to escape from this dilemma it was taught that when in the New Testament it is said "that Jesus suffered punishment in the place of men, and procured for them the forgiveness of sin, this can only mean that God, through the death of Christ and the sufferings therewith connected, declared himself to be the righteous judge of all evil."1

C. Ch. Flatt endeavoured to find "a middle way between the course of those who introduced into the Scriptures their own philosophical opinions, or the philosophy of the age in which they lived, and the strict grammatical, historical interpretation of those who insisted on taking the words of Scripture either in their etymological sense, or in that sense in which it can be historically proved that at least a part of the contemporaries of the sacred writers understood them, or which stupid Rabbinical literalists attached to certain phrases without regard to the fact how often the meaning of words, without a change of form, through higher culture and refinement of moral feeling, is spiritualized and ennobled."2 This middle way, according to Flatt, leads to the conclusion that the main design of Christ's death as viewed by Himself was effectually to correct the false ideas of the Jews concerning the Messiah's kingdom as one of earthly splendor, and to open the way for the entrance of his doctrine which taught that blessedness is to be secured by moral excellence. This doctrine of Flatt agrees with the governmental theory so far as it denies the Church doctrine of a satisfaction to justice, and makes the design of Christ's death purely didactic.

Storr, in all his works, and especially in his "Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews," and his dissertation on the design of Christ's death, makes the Scriptures his authoritative guide, and therefore approaches much nearer to the Church doctrine than perhaps any German theologian of his generation. He assumes that Christ as man was bound to render the same obedience to the divine law as is due from all other men. But in virtue of the union of his human with the divine nature He as man was entitled

1 Lehre von der Versöhnung, Tübingen, 1838, pp. 597, 598.

2 Philos. exeget. Untersuch. Th. 2, 1798, Vorr. xxxii.; quoted by Baur, ut supra, p. 599. 37

VOL. II.

to all the exaltation and blessedness of which humanity is capable. Any reward, therefore, for his perfect obedience, and especially for his death on the cross, must be some benefit granted to others for his sake. The salvation of his people, therefore, is the Redeemer's reward. Such benefit, however, could not consistently be bestowed on sinners unless the death of Christ had been a vindication of the righteousness of God by being intended as an "example of punishment;" a manifestation of God's hatred of sin and of his determination to punish it.1

American Theologians.

The governmental theory of the atonement seems to have had an entirely independent origin in this country. It was the necessary consequence of the principle that all virtue consists in benevolence. If that principle be correct, all the moral attributes of God are modifications of benevolence. There is no such perfection in God as justice other than the purpose and disposition to promote happiness. The death of Christ, therefore, could have no other design than to render the forgiveness of sin consistent with the best interests of the moral government of God. This theory was elaborated by the younger President Edwards, presented in full in Dr. Beman's work on the Atonement, and adopted by that numerous and highly influential class of American theologians who embraced the principle on which the theory, as held in this country, is founded. In the work of Dr. E. A. Park, of Andover, on the Atonement, there is a collection of discourses from the pens of the most distinguished teachers of this doctrine. In the introduction to that volume Professor Park gives an interesting history of the development of this view of the atonement as held in this country.

Objections to the Theory.

1. The first and most obvious objection to this theory is that it is founded on an erroneous idea of the nature of punishment. It assumes that the special design of punishment is the good of society. If the best interests of a community, either human or divine, a commonwealth of men or the moral government of God, can be secured without the punishment of crime, then no such punishment ought to be inflicted. But suffering inflicted for the good of others is not punishment any more than suffering inflicted for the good of the sufferer. The amputation of a crushed limb is not of the nature

1 G. Ch. Storr, Pauli Brief au die Hebräer. Zweiter Theil, über den eigentlichen Zweck des Todes Jesu. Tübingen, 1789.

of punishment; neither are the sufferings of martyrs, although intended to redound to the good of the Church and of the world. The sufferings of Paul, which were so abundant and so constant, although so fruitful of good, were not penal. And the sufferings of Christ, if incurred in the discharge of his mission of mercy, and not judicially inflicted in execution of the penalty of the law, had no more tendency to show God's abhorrence of sin than the sufferings of the martyrs.

No evil is of the nature of punishment unless it be inflicted in satisfaction of justice and in execution of the penalty of law. A writer in the "British Quarterly Review" for October, 1866, says: “There is a story of an English judge who once said to a criminal, ‘ You are transported not because you have stolen these goods, but that goods may not be stolen.'" The reviewer then adds, "No principle more false in itself or more ruinous to public morality was ever announced from the English bench. The whole moral effect of punishment lies in its being just. The man who suffers for the benefit of others is a martyr and not a convict." It is on this false principle that the whole governmental theory of the atonement is founded. It admits of no ground of punishment but the benefit of others. And if that benefit can be otherwise secured all necessity for punishment ceases, and all objection to the dispensing of pardon is removed. If the fundamental principle of a theory be false, the theory itself must be unsound.

2. The theory contradicts the intuitive moral judgments of men. The testimony of every man's conscience in view of his own sins is that he deserves to be punished, not for the good of others, but for his own demerit. If not guilty he cannot justly be punished; and if guilty he cannot justly be pardoned without satisfaction to justice. As this is the testimony of conscience with regard to our own sins, it is the testimony of the consciousness of all men with regard to the sins of others. When a great crime is committed, the instinctive judgment of men is that the perpetrators ought to be punished. No analysis of human consciousness can resolve this sentiment of justice into a conviction of the understanding that the interests of society demand the punishment of crime. That indeed is true. It is one of the incidental benefits, but not the special design or end of punishment. Indeed, the whole moral effect of punishment depends upon the assumption that it is inflicted on the ground of ill desert, and not for the public good. If the latter object be made prominent, punishment loses its nature and of course its appropriate moral effect. A theory which ignores these intui

tive convictions of the mind is not suited to our state, and never can satisfy the conscience. We know that we deserve to be punished. We know that we ought to be punished, and therefore that punishment is inevitable under the government of a just God. If it is not borne by a substitute in our stead, it must be borne by ourselves. Where there is no expiation for sin there is inevitably a fearful looking for of judgment.

3. All the arguments heretofore urged in proof that the justice of God cannot be resolved into benevolence are valid arguments against the governmental theory of the atonement. The doctrine that happiness is the highest good, and that all virtue consists in the desire and purpose to promote the greatest possible amount of happiness, is almost discarded from the schools, and should be discarded from theology where it has wrought so much evil. It is so inconsistent with our moral nature, to assert that there is no difference between right and wrong except that between the expedient and the inexpedient, that the doctrine could never have been adopted except as a means of solving difficulties for the understanding, at the expense of the conscience. This point has been already considered when treating of the attributes of God and of the design of creation; and therefore it need not be further discussed in this place.

4. A fourth argument against the governmental theory is that it is unscriptural. The Bible constantly represents Christ as a priest, as a sacrifice, as a propitiation, as an expiation, as the substitute and representative of sinners; as assuming their place and sustaining the curse or penalty of the law in their stead. All these representations are either ignored or explained away by the advocates of this theory. Governments, civil commonwealths, from which the principles and illustrations of this theory are derived, know nothing of priests, sacrifices, and vicarious punishments. And, therefore, these ideas do not enter, and cannot be admitted into the governmental theory. But these ideas are the vital elements of the Scriptural doctrine of the atonement; so that if we renounce them we renounce the doctrine itself, or at least seriously impair its integrity and power. Whole volumes on the atonement have been written in which the words priest, sacrifice, and propitiation hardly occur.

5. This theory, as well as the moral view of the atonement, is false, because defective. As it is true that the work of Christ is designed and adapted to exert the most powerful moral influence on sinners to induce them to return to God, so it is true that

his work was designed and adapted to produce the strongest possible impression on the minds of all intelligent creatures of the evil of sin, and thus restrain them from the commission of it, but neither the one nor the other was its primary design. It has this moral impression on the sinner and upon the intelligent universe, because it was a satisfaction to the justice of God, and the strongest of all proofs that sin cannot be pardoned without an expiation, or adequate atonement.

§ 5. The Mystical Theory.

The fourth theory on this subject is the mystical. This agrees with the moral view (under which it might be included), in that it represents the design of Christ's work to be the production of a subjective effect in the sinner. It produces a change in him. It overcomes the evil of his nature and restores him to a state of holiness. The two systems differ, however, as to the means by which this inward change is accomplished. According to the one it is by moral power operating according to the laws of mind by the exhibition of truth and the exercise of moral influence. According to the other it is by the mysterious union of God and man, of the divine with the human nature, i. e., of divinity with humanity, brought about by the incarnation.

This general idea is presented in various forms. Sometimes the writers quoted in favour of this mystical view teach nothing more than what has ever been held in the Church, and what is clearly taught in the Scriptures. It is true that there is a moral and spiritual union between God and man effected by the incarnation of the Son of God and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. He and his people are one. Our Lord prays to the Father, John xvii. 22, 23, that those given to Him "may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me." And the Apostle Peter does not hesitate to say that we are made "partakers of the divine nature." This, and no more than this, is necessarily implied in the oft-quoted language of Athanasius in reference to Christ, autòs ἐνηνθρώπησεν, ἵνα ἡμεῖς θεοποιηθῶμεν. But besides this Scriptural doctrine there has prevailed a mystical view of the union of God and man to which the redemption of our race is ascribed, and in which, by some of its advocates, it is made exclusively to consist. So far as the fathers are concerned, a clear distinction was made between redemption and reconciliation; between the objective work of Christ in delivering us from the curse of the law and from the power of Satan, and the subjective application of that work.

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