104 The Atonement not the centre doctrine of the Gospel.

and simply developing principles in the Divine mind, altogether in dependent of its effects on the hearts of those who are interested in it. The second leads us to consider the adaptation of the history of the Atonement, when believed, to the moral wants and capacities of the human mind.... There is something very striking and wonderful in this adaptation; and the deeper we search into it, the stronger reason shall we discover for admiration and gratitude, and the more thoroughly shall we be convinced that it is not a lucky coincidence, not an adjustment contrived by the precarious and temporizing wis. dom of this world, but that it is stamped with the uncounterfeited seal of the universal Ruler, and carries on it the traces of that same mighty will, which has connected the sun with his planetary train, and fixed the great relations in nature, appointing to each atom its bound that it cannot pass." pp. 97-100.

These last remarks are true of course in their place; so far as we think we see an adaptation, even though Scripture does not expressly mention it, let us praise God and be thankful; but it is one thing to trace humbly and thankfully what we surmise to be God's handywork, and so far as we think we see it, and quite another thing to propound our surmises dogmatically, not only as true, but as the substance of the revelation, the test of what is important in it, and what not; nay, of what is really part of it, and what not. Presently he says as follows:

"The doctrine of the Atonement is the great subject of Revelation. Gon is represented as delighting in it, as being glorified by it, and as being most fully manifested by it. All the other doctrines radiate from this as their centre. In subservience to it, the distinction in the unity of the Godhead has been revealed. It is described as the ever. lasting theme of praise and song amongst the blessed who surround the throne of God." pp. 101, 102.

Now that the doctrine of the Atonement is so essential a doctrine that none other is more so, (true as it is,) does not at all hinder other doctrines in their own place being so essential that they may not be moved one inch from it, or made to converge towards that doctrine ever so little, beyond the sanction of Scripture. There is surely a difference between being prominent and being paramount. To take the illustration of the human body: the brain is the noblest organ, but have not the heart and the lungs their own essential rights (so to express myself,) their own independent claims upon the regard of the physician? Will not he be justly called a theorist who resolves all diseases into one, and refers general healthiness to one organ as its seat and cause ?

One additional observation is to be made on Mr. Erskine's view of the Atonement. He considers, in common with many other writers of his general way of thinking, that in that most solemn and wonderful event, we have a Manifestation, not only of God's love, but of His justice. E. g.

"The distinction of persons in the Divine nature we cannot com

The Atonement not a manifestation of God's justice.

105

prehend, but we can easily comprehend the high and engaging morality of that character of God, which is developed in the history of the New Testament. God gave His equal and well-beloved Son, to suffer in the stead of an apostate world: and through this exhibition of awful justice, He publishes the fullest and freest pardon. He thus teaches us, that it forms no part of His scheme of mercy to dissolve the eternal connexion between sin and misery. No: this connexion stands sure; and one of the chief objects of Divine Revelation, is to convince men of this truth; and Justice does the work of mercy, when it alarms us to a sense of danger, &c." p. 74.

Again:

"The design of the Atonement was to make mercy towards this off. cast race consistent with the honour and the holiness of the Divine Gov. ernment. To accomplish this gracious purpose, the Eternal Word, who was God, took on Himself the nature of man, and as the elder brother and representative and champion of the guilty family, He solemnly acknowledged the justice of the sentence pronounced against sin, and submitted Himself to its full weight of woe, in the stead of His adopted kindred. God's justice found rest here; His law. was magnified and made honourable, &c." pp. 102, 103.

The view maintained in these and other extracts, and by others beside Mr. Erskine, is remarkable for several reasons. First, for the determination it evinces not to leave us any thing in the gospel system unknown, unaccounted for. One might have thought that here at least somewhat of awful Mystery would have been allowed to hang over it; here at least some "depth" of God's counsels would have been acknowledged and accepted on faith. For though the death of Christ manifests GOD's hatred of sin, as well as His love for man, (inasmuch as it was sin that made His death necessary, and the greater the sacrifice the greater must have been the evil that caused it,) yet how His death expiated our sins, and what satisfaction it was to God's justice, are surely subjects quite above us. It is in no sense a great and glorious Manifestation of His justice, as men speak now-a-days;* it is an event ever mysterious on account of its necessity, while it is fearful from the hatred of sin implied in it, and most transport

* This passage has been misunderstood from the word manifestation not being taken in the sense intended by the writer. The word may either mean the making a fact evident, or making the reason of it intelligible; it is used above in the lat ter sense. Christ's atoning death does indeed proclaim the fact that God's justice is satisfied, but it does not contain in it an explanation how it came to be a satisfac tion. In the former sense then it may properly be called a manifestation of God's justice; not in the latter, though it is often said to be so. The Atonement is a sat isfaction to God's justice, in that His just anger was in matter of fact averted there. by from us sinners; but we do not know in what way it satisfied His justice to afflict Christ instead of us. This is a mystery, though many persons speak as if they saw the fitness of it. It manifests to our comprehension the love and holiness of God; it is a proof of love towards man and of hatred of sin; it is not a proof to us that He is just, but must be taken on faith as a result of Ilis being so.

106 Vain attempts to remove the mysteriousness of the Atonement.

ing and elevating from its display of God's love to man. But Rationalism would account for every thing.

Next it must be observed, as to Mr. Erskine himself, that he is of necessity forced by his hypothesis to speak of God's justice as if manifested to our comprehension in the Atonement, if he speaks of it at all, however extravagant it may be to do so. For unless this were the case, the dispensation would not be a "Manifestation," the revealed scheme would be imperfect, doctrines would be severed from ascertainable moral effects on the character, which the Catholic Church indeed has ever considered, but which Mr. Erskine pronounces in the outset to be contrary to reason, and fatal to the claims of a professed revelation.

An additional remark is in place. The difficulty here pointed out has been felt by writers who agree with Mr. Erskine, and they have contrived to get rid of the remaining Mystery of the Dispensation, resulting from the question of justice, as follows. They refer God's justice to the well-being of His creation, as a final end, as if it might in fact be considered a modification of benevolence. Accordingly, they say God's justice was satisfied by the Atonement, inasmuch as He could then pardon man consistently with the good of His creation, consistently with their salutary terror of His power and strictness, consistently with the due order of His Government. This should be carefully noted, as showing us the tendency of the Rationalistic principle under review towards Utilitarianism. The following passage is given in illustration, from the Essays of Mr. Scott of Aston Sandford.

"The story of Zaleucus, prince of the Locrians, is well-known: to show his abhorrence of adultery, and his determination to execute the law he had enacted, condemning the adulterer to the loss of both his eyes, and at the same time to evince his love to his son who had committed that crime, he willingly submitted to lose one of his own eyes, and ordered at the same time one of his son's to be put out ! Now what adulterer could hope to escape when power was vested in a man whom neither self-love, nor natural affection in its greatest force, could induce to dispense with the law, or relax the rigour of its sen. tence?" Essay ix.

True, this act would show intense energy of determination to uphold the existing laws, clearly enough; and so did Mucius Scævola show intense energy in burning off his hand; but what is this question to the question of justice?

One more subject of examination, and that not the least important, is suggested by the foregoing passages. Mention has been made in them once or twice of the facts of revelation: the doctrines are said to be facts, and such facts to be all in all. Now according to Catholic teaching, doctrines are divine truths, which are the objects of faith, not of sight; we may call them facts, if we will, so that we recollect that they are sometimes

facts of the unseen world, not of this, and that they are not synonymous with actions or works. But Mr. Erskine, by a remarkable assumption, rules it that doctrines are facts of the revealed divine governance, so that a doctrine is made the same as a divine action or work. As Providence has given us a series of moral facts by nature, as in the history of nations or of the individual, from which we deduce the doctrines of natural religion, so Scripture is supposed to reveal a second series of facts, or works, in the course of the three dispensations, especially the Christian, which are the doctrines of religion, or at least, which, together with the principle involved in them, are the doctrines. Thus Christ's death upon the cross is an historical fact; the meaning of it is what illustrates and quickens it, and adapts it for influencing the soul. Now if we ask, how on this theory the doctrine of the Trinity is a fact in the divine governance, we are answered that it must be thrown into another shape, if I may so express myself; it must be made subordinate, and separated into parts. The series of Christian facts is supposed to pass from the birth to the death of Christ, and thence to the mission of the Holy Ghost. We must view the divinity of Christ in His death, the divinity of the Spirit in His mission. That they are therein exhibited, I grant; but the theory requires us to consider this the scriptural mode of their exhibition. This theory is supposed by some of its upholders to be sanctioned by Butler; for they seem to argue, that as the course of nature is a collection of manifested facts, so is the course of grace. But that great divine knew better than to infer, from what he saw, what was to be expected in a Revelation, were it to be granted. He asserts plainly the contrary; his whole argument is merely negative, defending Christianity as far as nature enables him to do so, not limiting the course of the revelation to the analogy of nature. Accordingly the Church Catholic has ever taught, (as in her Creeds,) that there are facts revealed to us, not of this world, not of time, but of eternity, and that absolutely and independently; not merely embodied and indirectly conveyed in a certain historical course, not subordinate to the display of the Divine character, not revealed merely relatively to us, but primary objects of our faith, and essential in themselves, whatever dependence or influence they may have upon other doctrines, or upon the course of the Dispensation. In a word, it has taught the existence of Mysteries in religion, for such emphatically must truths ever be which are external to this world, and existing in eternity; whereas this narrow-minded, jejune, officious, and presumptuous human system teaches nothing but a Manifestation, i. e. a series of historical works conveying a representation of the moral character of God; and it dishonours our holy faith by the unmeaning reproach of its being metaphysical, abstract, and the like,-a reproach, unmeaning and irreverent, just as much so as it would be on the other hand to call the historical facts earthly or carnal.

I will quote some passages from Mr. Erskine's work, to justify my account of his view, and then shall be able, at length, to take leave of him.

"It may be proper to remark, that the acts attributed to the Di. vine Government are usually termed doctrines,' to distinguish them from the moral precepts of a religion." p. 25.

Thus the doctrine of the Trinity, as such, is not a doctrine of the Gospel. Again:

"It is not enough to show, in proof of its authenticity, that the facts which it affirms concerning the dealings of God with His creatures, do exhibit His moral perfections in the highest degree, it must also be shown that these facts, when present to the mind of man, do naturally, according to the constitution of his being, tend to excite and suggest that combination of feelings which constitutes his moral perfection. But when we read a history which authorita. tively claims to be an exhibition of the character of God in His dealings with men; if we find in it that which fills and overflows our most dilated conceptions of moral worth, &c.;...and if our reason farther discovers a system of powerful moral stimulants, embodied in the facts of this history;.... if we discern that the spirit of this history gives peace to the conscience, &c.;.... we may then well believe that Gop has been pleased in pity, &c, to clothe the eternal laws which regulate His spiritual government, in such a form as may be palpable to our conceptions, and adapted to the urgency of our necessities." pp. 18, 19.

...

"I mean to show that there is an intelligible and necessary con. nexion between the doctrinal facts of revelation and the character of God and farther, that the belief of these doctrinal facts has an intelligible and necessary tendency to produce the Christian character, &c." pp. 20, 21.

.....

"The object of this dissertation is to analyse the component parts of the Christian scheme of doctrine, with reference to its bearings both on the character of God and on the character of man; and to demonstrate that its facts, not only present an expressive exhibition of all the moral qualities which can be conceived to reside in the divine mind, but also contain all those objects which have a natural tendency to excite and suggest in the human mind, that combination of moral feelings which has been termed moral perfection." p. 16.

"God has been pleased to present to us a most interesting series of actions, in which His moral character, as far as we are concerned, is fully and perspicuously embodied. In this narration, &c." р. 55.

"It [the Gospel] addresses the learned and the unlearned, the savage and the civilized, the decent and the profligate; and to all it speaks precisely the same language! What then is this universal language? It cannot be the language of metaphysical discussion, or what is called abstract moral reasoning...... its argument consists in a relation of facts." p. 55.