Atonement : its reality, completeness, and extent /

Part I

THE QUESTION VIEWED IN ITS RELATION TO HUMAN SYSTEMS AND THE METHOD OF SCRIPTURAL PROOF.

CHAPTER 1. Page

The Ftirmularies of tlie Refoimation as distinguished, in regard to this subject, from ^

those of the Patristic Church . 17

CHAPTER H.

The Westminster Standards — Relation between tlic atonement and faith— Tlie sove¬ reignty of God . 83

The hypothesis of a postponed atonement further considered . 352

Chapter X

The source and origin of faitli— The Spirit giving life — The life in Christ — A fruit of his complete atonement . 367

PBEFA CE.

This is not exactly a new book. And yet I would not have it to be regarded as a mere reprint of an old one. The case stands thus : In an address delivered in the autumn of 1843, on the occasion of the Edinburgh Commemoration of the Westminster Assembly, I made some remarks on the subject of the Atonement and Faith, as handled in the Protestant Confessions generally, and in the Westminster Standards in particular. Having subsequently learned that my views had been in some I'espects misapprehended, especially in their bearing on a controversy then pending as to the Extent of the Atone¬ ment, I sent an explanatory paper to the Free Church Magazine, and I was led to follow it up by writing several additional ones, in successive monthly numbers of that periodical, in 1844—5. These papers were published separately, with an introductory treatise and supplemen¬ tary notes, in May 1845. A second edition appeared in the following month. The book was then suffered to get out of print. I have been repeatedly asked, not only by friends in Scotland, but by clergymen of the English Church, and others, if copies were to be had, and I have been earnestly urged to furnish a new edition. This I was reluctant to do until I could revise and recast the work, so as to present it in a moi-e satisfactory form than

VI

Preface

tlie fi’agmentary manner of its composition admitted of its having originally. I need scarcely say that for such a task it is often as difficult to summon resolution as to find time. This spring and summer, however, the com¬ parative leisure of a somewhat prolonged convalescence having made occupation of that sort rather welcome, I set about what I had long contemplated ; and the result is the volume as it now appears. I do not know if I have much improved my treatise. The same cause which set me to the work of revisal, has prevented much fresh theological stud^c The learning and the literature oi the subject, I did not at first, and do not now, profe.ss to deal with. Many of the large and wide questions that cluster round it I leave untouched. My range is limited, and my object to a great extent practical. With the exception of the last two chapters of the first part, on the Nature of the Atonement, I have added little to Avhat I formerly wrote, and have scarcely at all ex¬ tended my researches or discussions in any new direction. But I have re-written no inconsiderable portion of the book ; I have embraced the Introduction and Notes in the body of it ; I have sought to give greater order and clearness to its statements ; and on the whole, while I cannot flatter myself that the disadvantages arising out of the way in which it at first “grew” have been alto¬ gether, or nearly altogether, got over, I trust I may now present my “ Topsy,” as having become a little less untidy and uncouth than it then was, and therefore a little less unworthy of the kind notice of such readers as may be disposed to judge indulgently.

PREFACk.

vu

I have been the more willing to re-adjust and re-issue this treatise, because, on perusing it aftei' an interval of years, I have found it, as I think, quite as suitable to the ymesent aspects and tendencies of theological opinion, as it was to those which were more noticeable wlien it first appeared. The controversy then making some stir in the north, turned expressly and ff>rmally upon the question of the Extent of the Atonement. In dealing with that ques¬ tion, when I had to deal with it for my own satisfaction, I was very early led to regard it as chiefly important,, not on its own account so much as on account of its bear¬ ing upon another and more vital question, — the question respecting the Nature, of the Atonement. It is in the light of this last question that I have always been dis¬ posed to consider the former one. The two questions, in¬ deed, have always seemed to me to be in a large measure one and the same. Hence, probabl}^, it happens that what I have written is nearly as ap[)licable when it is the Nature or iidierent efficacy of the Atonement that is in dispute, as it was when it was rather the Extent of the Atonement that was discussed.

There can be little or no doubt, among persons com¬ petently acquainted with recent Anglican Theology,” that the battle of the faith is now, as of old, to be rallied round the standard of a real and effectual Atonement. I do not profess, in these pages, to fight that battle. But I would hesitate about intruding them again on the Christian public at this crisis, if I did not believe that they contain materials which may be of service, — at least iu clearing the ground.

VIll

PBEFACE.

For, in fact, much depends on the ground being cleared, and the state of the question ascertained. Whatever plausibility there is in the arguments of opponents, and whatever success they meet with, may be traced almost entirely to the skill with which they seize on weak points in weak expositions of the received doctrine, and evade the reasoning of its really intelligent and able advocates. This sort of skill is characteristic in our day, not of avowed Socinians, but of divines connected with Orthodox and Evangelical Churches. I question, for ex¬ ample, if anything more unfair, as a representation of that doctrine, ever appeared in the pages of tlie most un¬ scrupulous Unitarian — I might say infidel — assailant of it, than is to be found in the writings of Maurice and Davies. I might be tempted to expose the “ Preface ” Avliich the latter has prefixed to his “ Sermons on the Work of Christ,” and to show with what adroitness he contrives to deal, not with any professed and recogaiised defenders of the obnoxious tenet, — not with any of the old masters in the science of theology who have main¬ tained it, — but with isolated extracts from the popular and rhetorical appeals of preachers, who may not always guard their illustrations with sufficient caution. I think, however, that I may do better if I call attention to the Lectures of an able and candid Scottish theologian of the last age. Principal Plill of St. Andrews, who, in meeting the precisel}^ similar artifices of the adverse controver¬ sialists of his day, has been led to exhibit what he rightly calls the “ Catholic opinion,” in a singularly clear and wellconsidered point of view.

PEEFACE.

IX

Inbe£:’nnino- his discussion of the “doctrine of the Atonenient” (Lectures, Book iv., ch. 3), Dr. Hill observes ; —

r “ The first tiling necessaiy is, to show tliat it may be stated in sucli a manner as not to appear irrational or unjust. The objections urged against it are of a very formidable kind. Christians who hold other systems con¬ cerning the gospel remedy unite with the enemies of revelation in misrejuesenting this doctrine ; and if you form your notion of it from the accounts commonly given by either of these classes of writers, you will perhaps bo disposed to agree with Socinus in thinking, that whether it be contained in the Scriptures or not it cannot be true. It has been said that this doctrine represents the Almighty as moved with fury at the insults ofi'ered to his supreme majesty, as impatient to pour forth his fury upon some being, as indifferent whether that being deserves it or not, and as perfectly appeased upon finding an object of vengeance in his own innocent Son. It has been said that a doctrine which represents the Almighty as sternly demanding a full equivalent for that which was due to him, and as receiving that equiva¬ lent in the sufferings of his Son, transfers all the affection and gratitude of . the human race, from an inexorable being who did not remit any part of his right, to another being who satisfied his claim. It has been said that a translation of guilt is impossible, because guilt is personal, and that a doc¬ trine which represents the innocent as punished instead of the guilty, and the guilty as escaping by this punishment, contradicts the first princii)les of justice, subverts all our ideas of a righteous government, and, by holding forth an example of reward and punishment dispensed by Heaven without any regard to the character of those who receive them, does, in fact, encour¬ age men to live as they please.

“ These objections are the more formidable, that they have received no small countenance from the language of many of the most zealous friends of this doctrine. The atonement presents a subject of speculation most in¬ teresting to the great body of the people, who are always incapable of meta¬ physical precision of thought ; it enters into loose and popular harangues delivered by many who are more accustomed to speak than to think ; and the manner of stati;ig it has been too often accommodated to pnjudiccs Avhich are inconsistent with truth, and adverse to morality. It is not sur¬ prising that, in such circumstances, the mistakes of the friends of this doc¬ trine have given much advantage to the misrepresentation of its enemies.”

These observations, which are at least as applicable now as then, are followed up by a reference to the standard writers on the subject. Thereafter, and as a preliminary to the examination of the teaching of Scripture

X

PREFACE.

on tlie subject, a section is devoted to the ckaring up of the state of the question. The first point here to be settled respects the nature of sin: — ■

“ The first principle upon uliich a fair statement of the doctrine of tlie atonement proceeds is this, that sin is a violation of law, and that the Al¬ mighty, in requiring an atonement in order to the pardon of sin, acts as the supreme lawgiver. So important is tliis principle, that all the objec¬ tions to the doctrine proceed upon other views of sin, which, to a certain extent, appear to be just, hut which cannot be admitted to be complete without acknowledging that it is impossible to answer the objections. Thus, if you consider sin as merely an insult to the majesty of heaven, God the Father as the person offended by this insult, and that wrath of God, of which the Scriptures speak, as sometliing analogous to the emotion of anger excited in our breasts by the petulance of our neighbours, it would seem, according to the notioiis which we entertain, more generous to lay aside this wrath, and to accept of an acknowledgment of the offence, than

to demand a reiiaration of the insult . In like manner, if, because our

Lord sometimes calls trespasses by the name of debts, we stretch the com¬ parison so far as to make it a complete descriiition of sin ; if, following out the similitude, we consider the Almighty as a creditor to whom the sinner has contracted a debt, and forgiveness as the remission of that debt which would have been paid by the punishment of the sinner, — there does not occur from this description any reason wliy the Almighty may not as freely forgive the sins of his creatures as a creditor may remit what is due to him¬ self . Furtlier : if the intrinsic evil of sin is the only thing attended

to, and the sinner be considered in no other light than as a reasonable creature who has deformed his nature, and whose character has become odious, it may be thought that repentance is the proper remedy of this evil . Many of the principal objections against the doctrine of atone¬

ment remain without an answer when we confine our notions of sin to these three view's of it. But .... there is a further view of it, not directly included under any of these ; and all the objections which I have mentioned arise from the stopping short at some one of these views, or at least employing the language pieculiar to them, without going on to state this furtlier view, that sin is a violation of the law given by the Supreme Being. But it is under the character of a law'giver that the Almighty is to be regahlcd both in punishing and in forgiving the sins of men. For although by creation he is the absolute lord and proprietor of all, who may withoht challenge or control dispose of every part of his works in what manner he pleases, he does not exercise this right of sovereignty in the government of his reasonable creatures, but he has made known to them certain laws, which express what he would have them to do, and he has annexed to these

PREFACE.

XI laws certain sanctions which declare the rewards of oheilience, and the con¬ sequences of transgression. It is this which constitutes wliat we call the moral government of God, of which all those actions of the Almighty, that respect what is right or wrong in the conduct of his reasonable creatures, form a part, and under which every man feels that he lives.”

I pass over what is said, and admirably well said, on the subject of tlie divine government, as a government by law, upheld and yundicated, in the last resort, by the exercise of “ what divines call vindictive or punitive justice,” — which, he remarks, “ far from deserving the opprobrious epithets with which it has been often loaded by hasty and superficial wiiters, belongs to the character of the Kuler of the universe, as much as any other attri¬ bute of the divine nature” (page 402). And I ask atten¬ tion now to Dr. Hill’s formal statement of the doctrine which he undertakes to defend : —

“ In the substitution of Jesus Christ, according to the Catholic opinion, there is a translation of the guilt of the sinners to him ; by which is not meant that he who was innocent became a sinner, but tliat what he sufferedwas upon account of sin. To perceive the reason for adopting this expres¬ sion, you must carry in your minds a precise notion of the meaning of the three words — sin, guilt, ami punishment. Sin is the violation of law; guilt is the desert of punishment which succeeds this violation ; and punish¬ ment is the suffering in oonsequence of this desert. When you separate suffering from guilt, it ceases to he punishment, and becotne’s more calamity or affliction ; and although the Almighty may be conceived, by his sove¬ reign dominion, to have the right of laying any measure of suffering uiion any being, yet suffering, even when inflicted by Heaven, unless it is con¬ nected with guilt, does not attain the ends of punishment. In order, there¬ fore, that the sufferings of the Son of God might be such as it became the Lawgiver of the universe to inflict, it was necessary that the sufferer, who had no sin of his own, should be considered and declared as taking upon him that obligation to punishment which the human race had incurred by their sins. Then his sufferings became punishment,— not, indeed, deserved by sins of his own, but due to him as bearing the sins of others.

“ Although the sufferings of Jesus Christ, in consequence of this transla¬ tion of guilt, became the punishment of sin, it is plain that they are not that very punishment which the sin deserved ; and hence it is that they

XU

PREFACE.

are called by those who hold the Catholic opinion a satisfaction for the sins of the Avorld. T!ie word ‘satisfaction’ is known in the Koinan law, from which it is borrowed, to denote that method of fuKilling an obligation which may either be admitted or refused. When a person, by the non-performa,nce of a contract, has incurred a penalty, he is entitleil to a discharge of the contract, if he pays the i)enalty ; but if, imstead of paying the peualty itself, he offers something in place of it, the i)erson who has a right to de¬ mand the penalty may grant a discharge or not, as he sees meet. If he is satisfied witli that which is offered, he will grant the discharge ; if he is not satisfied, he cannot be called unjust ; he may act wisely in refusing it. According to this known meaning of the word, the sufferings of Christ for sin have received the name of a satisfaction to the justice of God, because they were not the penalty that had been incurred, but were something accc])ted by the Lawgiver instead of it .

“ It follows from the account wdiich has been given of a satisfaction for sin, that it cannot procure the pardon of the sinner without the good-will of the Lawgiver, because it offers something in place of that which he was entitled to demand ; and for this reason the Catholic opinion concerning the nature of the remedy brought in the gospel, far from excluding, will be found, when rightly understood, to magnify the mercy of the Lawgiver. Those who know best how to defend it never speak of any contest between the justice and the mercy of God, because they believe that there is the most perfect harmony amongst all the divine perfections ; they never think so unworthily of God as to conceive that his fury was appeased by the inter¬ position of Jesus Christ ; but they uniformly repr-esent the scheme of our redemption as originating in the love of God the Father, who both pro¬ vided and accepted that substitution by w hich sinners are .saved ; and they hold that the forgiveness of sins is free, because, although granted upon that corrsideration which the Lawgiver saw meet to exact, it was given to those who had no right to expect it, and who could have fulfilled their obligation to punishment only by their destruction or their eternal misery.

“ One essential point irr the statement of the Catholic oirinion yet re¬ mains. Allowing that it became the Ruler of the universe to exhibit the righteousness of his government, by punishing transgression at the time w hen remission of sins was preached in the gospel, and that we are thus able to assign the reason of that translatiorr of guilt, without which a guilty world could not be saved, it may still be inquired upon what principle an innocent person w'as made to suffer this punishment ; and it is one part of the objections to the Catholic opinion, that no reason of expediency, not even mercy to the human race, can render it right or fit that he wdio had done no sin should be punished as a sinner. When the Socinians are asked in what manner they can account for the sufferings of Jesus Christ, they resedve them into an act of dominion in the Creator. But this is an account to which those who hold the Catholic opinion cannot have recourse, because

PREFACE.

xm their whole system proceeds upon this princijde, that the Almighty is to be considered, in every part of this transaction, not as an absolute proprietor, who does what he will with his own, but as a righteous governor, who de¬ rives the reasons of his conduct from the law's which constitute his govern¬ ment.- In the Catholic opinion, therefore, the consent of Him who endured the sufferings is conjoined with the act of the Lawgiver, who accepted them as a satisfaction for sin ; and it is by the conjunction of these two circum¬ stances — the consent of the Sufl'erer and the acceptance of the Lawgiver — that the sufferings of Christ are essentially distinguished from all other in¬ stances of vicarious punishment.”

An important passage follows, in wliieh the irrelevancy of reasoning, from the mere analogy of earthly jurispnjdence, against the principle of substitution in the divine government, is exposed in a manner peculiarly applicable to some of our modern impugners of that principle. I quote the passage only partially, for it is a long one: — •

“ When you turn to human judgments, you will find nothing exactly similar to what is called a satisfaction for sin by the sufi'erings of Christ ; and a little attention will satisfy you that the dissimilarity is not accidental, but is founded on the nature of things. In those cases in which the penalty incurred by breach of contract is a sum of money, or a prestation that may be performed by any one, he who pays the sum, or does the service for the person originally bound, undergoes what may properly be called vicarious punishment ; but he cannot be said to make satisfaction, because he does the very thing which was required, and the liberation of the panel be- C('mes, in consequence of such substitution, a matter of right, not of favour. In those cases in which the penalty incurred is a punishment that attaches to the person of the panel — as imprisonment, banishment, stripes, or death, human law does not admit of substitution ; because there cannot be that concurrence of the acceptance of the lawgiver, and the valid

consent of the substitute, without which substitution is illegal .

The imperfect knowledge which every human lawgiver has of the cir¬ cumstances of the case disqualifies him from judging how far the ends of punishment may be attained by substitution, so that it is wiser for him to follow the established course of justice which lays the punislmient upon the transgressor ; and in capital punishments the law of nature forbids substi¬ tution, because no warmth of att'ection, and no apprehension of utility, war¬ rant a man voluntarily to sacrifice that life which is the gift of God to him, merely that another who deserved to die might live. For these reasons, in everything which seems to approach to a substitution amongst men, there

XIV rREFACE.

is wanting that concurrence of the acceptance of the law'giver, and the con¬ sent of the substitute, without wliich substitution is illegal. But these two circumstances meet in the substitution of Christ ; and it is this peculiar concurrence which forms the complete vindication of the Catholic opinion.

“ Jesus Christ was capable of giving liis consent to suffer and to die for the sins of men, because he had that power over his life which a mere man cannot have. Death did not coine upon him by the condition of his being; but having existed from all ages in the form of God, he assumed, at a par¬ ticular season, the fashion of a man for this very cause, that he might .suffer and die. All the }iarts of his suiferings were known to him before he visited this world ; he saw the consequences of them both to mankind and to him¬ self ; and, with every circumstance fully in his view, he said unto his Father, as it is written in tiie volume of God’s Book concerning him, ‘ Lo, I come to do thy will, 0 God ! ’ (Heb. x. 7.) His own words mark most explicitly that he had that power over his life which a mere man has not ; ‘ No man taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of myself; I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again ’ (John x. 18). And upon tliis power, peculiar to Jesus, depends the significancy of that expression which his apostles use concerning him, ‘ He gave himself for us ’ — that is, -with a valid, deliberate consent he acted in all that he suffered as our substitute.”

I close with one more brief extract, in which the value of Christ’s expiatory sufferings is indicated :• —

“ It affords a favourable view of the coiisi.stency of the Catholic opinion, that tlie very same dignity of character which qualified the Substitute to give his consent implies the strongest reasons for the acceptance of the Law¬ giver, — the other circumstance which must concur in order to render vicari¬ ous suffering a satisfaction to justice. The support whicli the liuman nature of Jesus received from his divine, enabled him to sustain that wrath which the Law'giver saw meet to lay upon a person who was bearing the sins of the world. The exalted character of the Sufferer exhibited to the rational creation the evil and heinousiiess of sin, which the supreme Law¬ giver did not choose to forgive without such a substitution ; and the love of God to the human race, which led him to accept of the sufferings of a Substitute, was illustrated in the most striking manner by his not sparing for such a purpose a person so dear to him as his own Son.”

Edinburgh, December 1860.

PART 1.

THE QUESTION VIEWED IX ITS RELATION TO HUMAN SYSTEMS AND THE METHOD OF SCRIPTURAL PROOF,

THE ATONEMENT ; ITS EFFICACY AND EXTENT.

PART 1.

THE QUESTION VIEWED IN ITS EELATION TO HUMAN SYSTEMS AND THE METHOD OF SGEIPTURAL PEOOF.

Chapter I

THE FORMULARIES OF THE REFORMATION AS DISTINGUISHED, IN REGARD TO THIS SUBJECT, FROM THOSE OF THE PATRISTIC CHURCH.

The question, or set of questions, with which this chapter

treatise is occupied belongs, in an especial manner, -

to the theology of the Reformation, as it is em-udnbr^' bodied in the symbolic books and academic sys- jue^tleoterns of the sixteenth, and more particularly the seventeenth century.

The truth as it is in Jesus is doubtless essen¬ tially the same everywhere and always; and the apprehension of it, for salvation, by those to whom it is presented, must everywhere and always be in substance the same act or process. Christ cruci-

18 THE QUESTION IN ITS EELATION TO HUMAN SYSTEMS,

PART

I

Ctii'istianity always the same; hut dif¬ ferently viewed in different ages.

fieri, and faith appropriating Christ ciaicified, are the unchanging conditions of the spiritual life ; the outer or objective power, and the inner or subjective principle, uniting to effect what that formula expresses, — “ Christ living in me’" (Gal. ii. 20). But while thus far Christianity, whether doctrinally or practically considered, is identical in all ages, there is room for diversity in respect of the manner, more or less explicit and articulate, in which its several parts or elements may be developed, recognised, and expressed. Circum¬ stances may cause a greater stress to be laid on certain of its doctrinal aspects, or of its practical applications, at one period than at another ; and different habits of mental discipline, as well as different kinds of moral training and experience, may occasion, even where there is real agreement, considerable variety of exposition.

The objective doctrine of the atonement made by Christ, and the corresponding subjective doc¬ trine of belief in that atonement, are, as I think, instances in point. For I am persuaded that such speculations and inquiries as have in modern times gathered round these doctrines can scarcely be understood, or intelligibly dealt with, unless care be taken to keep in view the general character and tendency of the theological era which to a large extent they represent. It is for this reason that I begin, in the outset of my argument, with

FORMULARIES BEFORE AND AFTER THE REFORMATION. i9 what in fact originated the train of thought which led to my writing on the subject at all; — a brief general notice, that is to saj^, of a certain contrast that may be observed between the formularies of the post-Reformation Church and those of earlier date ; and a more particular explanation of the im¬ portance which came irr consequence to he attached to the precise adjustment and balancing of verbal statements, — in a somewhat more evangelical and more spiritual line, howeA'er, than that in which the Fathers used to cultivate the art so skilfully. The subject is interesting in itself, as well as in its bearing upon the forms which modern controversies on the Atonement and on Faith have assumed ; on which account I hesitate all the less in making some cursory consideration of it the commencement or starting-point of the discus¬ sion upon which I am entering relative to these great matters.

I have to obseiwe then generally, in the first place, that an important distinction may be noticed between the Patristic and the Reformation formu¬ laries, as regards the circumstances in which they were prepared, and the corresponding character which they came to assume respectively.

And secondly, and more particularly, I have to point out the influence of this distinction, as tending to give a particular turn and direction, in modern times, to the orthodox or doctrinal manner of view-

I.

Contrast of tlie era of tlie Re¬ formation with tlie era of the Fathers.

PART

I.

Creeds and Con¬ fessions before tlie Reforma¬ tion.

Character of the Apostles’

Creed.

inof the atonement, in .connection with that evangelical or practical faith of which it is the object.