A treatise on atonement

Part I. — Of Sin. CHAPTER PAGE

I. Its Nature 39

II. Its Origin 50

III. Its Consequences ...... 79

Part II. ATONEMENT FOR SIN

I. Erroneous Theories of Atonement . . 103

II. Necessity of Atonement, and where

Satisfaction must be made . . 141

III. Character of the Mediator . . . 154

IV. Nature of Atonement . . . . 163

Part III. CONSEQUENCES OF ATONEMENT TO MANKIND

I. Their Universality 182

II. Objections 193

III. Reasons for Believing in Universal

Reconciliation 228

Introduction

BY REV. A. A. MINER, D.D.

The issuing of another edition of this work furnishes an opportunity for directing attention to the remarkable character of the work itself, and of its distinguished author. To judge that character, the circumstances under which, and the condition of the public mind in the midst of which, the work was originally prejoared must be kept in view.

The volume was issued a dozen years before the author's removal to the city of Boston. He was then a young man. Living remote from all the great literary centres, and discharging the duties of pastor of several united societies in Vermont, he travelled somewhat widely in that and other States, proclaiming the "glorious gospel of the blessed God" to crowds of anxious inquirers. This, however, was the less inconvenient for him as he was a man of few books, and the principal of these, the Bible, was the constant companion of his travels.

It is at least an open question whether his lack of acquaintance with books was not one of the conditions of his originality and power. Certain it is that not a few men of his time, who had some glimpses of the

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truth, and who had been trained in the schools, were altogether unable to break from their educational bonds. Books and teachers, regarded as servants, and welcomed as helps to truth, are well nigh invaluable ; but, regarded as authority, and allowed to dominate the soul, they bind the free spirit in hopeless error.

No man ever entered upon his life work with a motive more single, or a purpose more sincere, than did our author. In the interpretation of the sacred Scriptures, to him, as they are to us, the priceless revelations of God, the query ever was, not what commentators have thought, not what the church in various ages has believed, but what the Scriptures themselves teach.

In solving this problem, he ever sought to give the Scriptures a full hearing. Biblical expressions which wrere made the catch phrases of the church, and the current imagery which was supposed to justify its smoking rhetoric, he never interpreted in a manner to violate fundamental principles of morality, or to dethrone common sense. Every biblical witness was cordially and reverently welcomed by him; but he felt called upon as an honest counsellor to crossquestion the witness, interpreting one utterance in the light of another, that the witness himself might not be misunderstood, nor the great jury of human souls be led into error. It would be well for the church and the world, for Christianity and man's present salvation, were this biblical appetite restored, and were men encouraged to rely less on dogmatic speculations, and more on divine revelation.

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The writings of our author have done much to exhibit the simplicity of Christianity. The ethical and logical confusion of the expositions of Scripture current in his day, and to a large extent still current, seemed to him" an unpardonable folly, — unpardonable because the adoption of even a single principle of Christianity, rigidly followed and adhered to, would have made such folly impossible. Mr. Ballou believed what others only professed to believe. Misinterpretations were swept away by the simplest statement of the divine character as easily as fog is dissipated by the risen sun. All Christians professed in words that "God is love"; our author believed it, and made it a premise in all Scripture exposition, and in all Christian reasonings. The infinite love of the Universal Father is the key with which he unlocked the treasury of heavenly blessings, resolved the mysteries of sacred rhetoric, and made clear the harmony of the utterances of the Holy Spirit.

In these respects he was the pioneer of truth in these modern times. Since the apostolic age, and perhaps the two or three centuries immediately succeeding, to no man has Christian revelation exhibited its transparency and simplicity more fully than to our author. This is the more remarkable as he felt his own way. There were no schools of popular thought or interpretation to guide him or even aid him in his work. Those with whom he most closely affiliated in respect to the common destiny of the race, presented too much that was fanciful in conception and incongruous in interpretation, to be greatly serviceable to him in his

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growth in grace and in the knowledge of the truth. It would be extravagant, of course, to assume that he fell into no errors of either philosophy or exegesis. This would be to assume that he was more than human. It will, however, be quite safe to aver that neither his philosophy nor exegesis ever marred the divine visage, or obstructed the trend of Scripture in regard to the triumph of good over evil. Xotwithstanding his adverse theological surroundings during his entire active career, he maintained the most complete mastery of himself even in his sharpest conflicts. Beset on every hand by the defenders of traditional barbarisms, he not only replied with a vigor of logic and an aptness of illustration that left him master of the situation, but he carried the war into Africa, routing the enemy, taking their strongholds, and inflicting an ignominious defeat. As usual with the discomfited, indignation was spontaneous and abounding. But whatever may have been thought at that time, the dispassionate critic of to-day will see no unwarranted severity in his writings. From dire necessity his tone was controversial; but his magnanimity and Christian courtesy were inexhaustible. Assailed on all sides, it cannot be thought strange if he did not always carefully measure the rod with which he chastised his assailants. Feeling, however, that he held the citadel, he could well afford to be patient, persevering, and calm.

Driven to extremity, the defenders of the then current forms of faith resorted, as is usual in like cases, to calumny, detraction, and various alleged inferences from his writings, supposed to be damaging

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to their soundness, with a view to prejudice the public against both himself and his teachings. The calumny and detraction were never made to stick. But in the use of alleged prejudicial inferences his assailants maybe said to have been somewhat more successful. The strange fact about these supposed teachings is that not the members of other Christian bodies alone but many of the younger, and even some of the older members of our own body, apparently as ignorant of what he really did teach as they are of the Scripture authority on which he rested his teachings, continue even to this day, in these respects, to disparage his memory. While this may be justly attributed to a mere sectarian spirit, on the one hand, it is to be feared that an explanation no less dishonorable must be admitted on the other hand. There are some indications of an overweening anxiety to come into harmony with the modified thought of the past, even at the cost of sound biblical teaching and u clear thought." It turns the heads of some men to be told that they are " advanced thinkers." And when such cheap flattery is easily secured by vague disparagement of the fathers, the temptation is too great for a class of theologians who, whatever may be their age, are still in the gristle.

One of the most vital and perhaps most calumnious of these misrepresentations referred to his views of sin. The teaching of his day made every man to have sinned in Adam, and to have come into the world weighted with evil and pre-doomed to woe. So far, too, from the sinner's career in sin being limited to

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this life, it was currently believed that if he left the world unrepentant an eternity of both sin and suffering awaited him beyond the grave. Against these views our author distinctly raised his voice. He rejected the assumption of pre-natal sin on the one hand, and of post-mortem sin on the other hand, maintaining that "sin begins and ends in the flesh." Seizing upon this chance form of expression, and wresting it entirely from its proper logical connections, sectarian zeal alleged that our author denied the proper moral relations of transgression, and claimed it as a mere incident of the flesh — an accident of the body — consequently having no existence apart from the body. Thus his teaching that the period of human sinfulness was the period during which man dwelt in the flesh, was perverted into a denial of the reality of sin itself.

This perversion gained additional plausibility from the emphasis he laid on Rom. vi. 7, " For he that is dead is freed from sin ; " or as the revisers put it, " is justified from sin ; " or, again, as the American revisers have it, " is released from sin." The common thought could easily discover that if sin were an incident of the flesh, the dissolution of the body would be a deliverance from sin. It was an easy step now in this process of detraction to assert that our author looked upon death, rather than Christ, as the Saviour of the world. Might they not then safely charge that he held to a scheme of u death and glory?" Must he not believe in " instantaneous salvation " at death ? Is it not clear, therefore, that he believed that sinners went mime-

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diately to heaven in their sins? And what teaching, pray, could be more immoral than this ?

Such detractors did not, of course, perceive the contradictory character of the inferences into which, not the positions of our author, whether they be true or false, but their own intemperate zeal had driven them. If death frees men from sin, it does not save them in sin. He that is dead may be freed from sin, and yet some other cause than death may free them. That cause may be entirely independent of death. Though following it chronologically, its character and action may be exclusively moral. Passing behind the veil, what before was doubtful may become clear; what before was dark may become light ; what before w^as distant and unseen may become near and manifest. Paul clearly enough teaches us that " death is the last enemy," and that "that shall be destroyed" (1 Cor. xv. 26). His contrasts of death with the resurrection leave no place for sin in the resurrection state. " It is sown in corruption ; it is raised in incorruption : it is sown in dishonor ; it is raised in glory : it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power" (1 Cor. xv. 42, 43). With Paul, to live was Christ ; to die was gain. To depart was to be with Christ (Phil. i. 21 and 23). He was confident that " if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. . . . For we that are in this tabernacle do m*oan bein^ burdened : not that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life" (2 Cor. v. 1 and 4). Very distinctly does he

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state the difference between this world of shadows and the coming world of light. " For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. . . . For now we see through a glass darkly ; but then face to face : now I know in part ; but then shall I know even as also I am known " (1 Cor. xfii. 9-10). Our author believed these teachings of Paul. Hence, not death, but truth ; not the dark hypotheses of human wisdom, but the glorious light of the divine presence, comes with saving power to men. John voiced this truth clearly in saying : " Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be ; but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is" (1 John iii. 2). And so our author sings: —

" As night before the rays Of morning flees away, Sin shall retire before the blaze Of God's eternal day."

— Church Harmonies, Hymn 386.

It is plain that there is nothing in these views of our author, whether as regards the nature of sin, the necessity of salvation, or the divine influences by which it is effected, that distinguishes them from the known principles of the divine government in this present time. The Gospel is now the power of God unto present salvation to every one that believeth. It cannot be thought strange that the same light, love and truth that make the soul of that Gospel as it shines upon us here in the face of Jesus Christ, should reveal an

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indefinitely greater power when hereafter they shall shine upon men from the unveiled face of the loving Father himself.

In the light of these convictions of our author, his detractors have not a single inch of ground to stand upon. The phrases, "death and glory," "instantaneous salvation," and the like, arc not his phrases, but theirs. No unchristian meaning can be thrust into them that can at the same time be made to attach to his teachings. The imputations they were employed to cast upon his doctrines, derived all their significance from the utterly erroneous assumption that those doctrines involved the salvation of men, not from^ but m, sin. Such imputations, however they may be excused as emanating from the ignorance of his enemies, admit of no excuse when made by his professed friends.

The long-taught doctrine of the atonement, which this work especially controverts, was that Christ, the second person in the " blessed trinity," endured the " infinite penalty" due to man for the " infinite sin " committed by him in Adam, thus appeasing the " infinite wrath " provoked thereby in the breast of the first person in that same " blessed trinity " — in all of which man must believe, in this world, in order to be saved in the world to come.

No matter that the infinite mercy of the second person in this " blessed trinity " is here arrayed against the " infinite wrath " of the first person ; no matter that this doctrine of a God provoked to-day and appeased to-morrow sets at naught the Scripture

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teaching that God is " without variableness or the shadow of turning " ; no matter that it involves the Pagan blasphemy that " infinite wrath " may be in a state of infinite blessedness — Christian divines saw in all this the very "balm of Gilead," the "bread of God that cometh down from heaven and nourisheth unto everlasting life."

It was inconceivable to them that one teaching the heresies of this work could possibly be saved. That God so loved the world that He sent His Son to be its Saviour ; that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them ; that Christ, having "tasted death for every man,55 "shall see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied" — the preaching of doctrines like these was "daubing with untempered mortar." Such preachers were deemed enemies of God and destroyers of men. Nevertheless, their word has prevailed. The old doctrine is heard no more. A better mind has taken possession of the church. And though here and there a general is trying to collect his scattered forces into some midway camp, their guns are spiked and their flags are at half-mast. The Andover wail is the requiem of "Old Orthodoxy," and who that regards the logic of events will venture to say that it is not equally a prelude to the requiem of the "New ? "

In regard to the doctrine of future retribution, it is gratifying to note the change of tone on all hands. Future and even endless retribution was presumed to wait upon the sins of this life. Now future punishment is predicated upon future sinning. Formerly much

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stress was laid upon the "pleasures of sin," as the church phrased it, and upon the righteous being compelled to " bear the heat and burden of the day." This inequality was supposed to demand future adjustment. At the present time, few have the hardihood to deny the efficiency of the divine law, the moral law included, in the present world, or to declare that the retributions they inflict are inadequate to the ends of moral justice. Formerly, future punishment was predicated mainly upon supposed Scripture authority ; now mainly upon the supposed authority of philosophy. It is now admitted that " the way of the transgressor is hard " in this world. It is practically conceded that justice may demand no further penalty in the world to come. If further penalty shall there be endured it will be for sins there committed. But that men will continue to be sinners in the next life, philosophy is supposed to demonstrate.

The reasoning runs on this wise. Sin, oft repeated, grows into habit. Habit gives a certain fixedness to character. An evil energy thus comes to possess the sinner. By the momentum of character thus gained, the future is dominated. God does not banish the sinner ; but the sinner banishes himself. It is not that he could not obey if he would ; but such is the force of evil within him that he cannot will to obey. Every day of sin strengthens the habit, gives greater fixedness to character, and increases the energy that impels him on to evil. Such, it is said, is the nature of man. Such is the modifying power of evil upon him. Hence arises the inevitable continuance of sin and woe.

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This, in very brief, may be said to be the logic of modern Calvinism. On such a foundation, far more than upon the Scriptures, rests the temple of modern orthodoxy. Not a few accept the premises and follow the logic into the next world, but suppose that it may there be arrested, and after a time the onflowing of the stream may cease. The former maintain, after a fashion, the doctrine of ceaseless sin and woe. The latter ho}3e that sin may some time cease, and its woes consequently some time come to an end.

Were these premises correct, and this sort of reasoning entirely valid, the former conclusion, rather than the latter, would necessarily follow. All the considerations which are supposed to make it certain that sin and its consequent woes will continue for even a short time in the coming world, would, if valid, make it equally certain that they will continue for a long time. It is the force of habit, fixedness of character, momentum of evil, that is relied upon to make sure the continuance of sin for a short time. But the added sin for that short time intensifies still more the force of habit, increases still more the permanence of character, and imparts still more vigor to the energies of evil. If these were already such as to insure the continuance of sin for a month, or a year, or an age, the added power imparted during these periods respectively would insure its continuance for other months, other years, other ages ; and these again for increasing months, increasing years, increasing ages. This, it will be seen, is the logic not of simple continuance, but rather of perpetual continuance. What-

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ever value such logic possesses inures to the service, not of a theology of hopefulness, but of a theology of despair. Not a few who accept the premises will nevertheless shrink from the conclusion.

But are the premises sound ? It cannot be denied that there is grave difficulty lying on the very face of the problem. It is immaterial whether' we say men cannot obey, or say they cannot will to obey. Since both obedience and disobedience have their pivot in the will, inability to will is inability to obey. But inability to obey cannot be joined in the same person and at the same time with ability to disobey, that is, with ability to sin. He that cannot obey, cannot sin. Such a person is no longer moral. He has ceased to be an accountable being. Whatever other woes he may endure, he cannot suffer the condemnation of a free and responsible actor. Such philosophy, therefore, overthrows itself by proving too much.

These premises virtually assume also that the circumstances by which the sinner will be surrounded after death, are practically no more favorable to obedience than are those surrounding him in this world. But few persons will have the hardihood distinctly to affirm this. When death is reached, the futility of all schemes of evil must have become apparent. With the dissolution of the body, all temptations having their root in the body, or in sources immediately connected with the body, must cease. Its appetites, its passions, its lusts, of necessity die. All greed of gain for j>ossession, for luxury, for display, for ostentation, for vicious indulgence, or for

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the circumvention of others, will be at an end. On the other hand, the veil will have been rent away. The sinner will no longer look upon the transient and often deceptive appearances of things, but wTill behold them in their abiding essence. He may look into the face of .the Father, and hear the compassionate voice of the Son bidding him "go and sin no more." That Father's hand may be tenderly laid upon the head of his wayward child as no hand had ever before been laid upon it; and the sight of the holiest, the most paternal, and the most loving of beings may touch that child's heart as it had never before been touched.

Will it be said that obedience secured only by the removal of temptation is no virtue? My answer is, wre frequently and wisely remove the transgressor in this world from the midst of those circumstances which continually solicit him to evil, that we may give potency to the influences which would draw him unto good. Deliverance from temptation is not itself reformation ; but it often makes reformation comparatively easy. In like manner death removes the great body of our temptations. That done, the glowing light of eternity may open up the way to God, and make obedience easy.

My final remark is, the premises themselves are not sound. Such elements of truth as are really involved are strained and overworked. Habit, at the worst, is an obstruction, not a domination. It may present barriers to achievement, but not insuperable ones. It creates facility in the accomplishment of what we will to do, but imposes no necessity upon the will itself.

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The accomplished pianist has established such habitual correlation of thought and function that facile execution is extremely easy, but by no means necessary. When the cry of her first babe falls upon the mother's ear the sound of the instrument is hushed. The profane man, through long established habit, couples a thoughtless oath with almost every word; but bring him into the presence of the reverent and devout, and instantly all profanity is hushed. We might pursue these illustrations into all the more subtile realms of human activities, and the results would be found the same.

It has been supposed that our author wTas unacquainted writh the theological subtleties of modern thought. He was undoubtedly too wTise to be carried away by them, but he was far from being unfamiliar with them. Accustomed during the last four years of his life to frequent seasons of protracted communion wTith him, I was often surprised by his keen analysis of a philosophy which with many a shallow thinker dominated the Scriptures, and made the "word of God of none effect." How completely he bowed in reverence before the teachings of the Master, those who study his writings with open mind cannot fail to learn.

In this edition, the work is for the first time divided into parts, subdivided into chapters, and supplied writh a table of contents.

Boston, July 1, 1882.

A LETTER TO THE READER.

Christian Reader, — I know it is frequently the case when a person takes a new work in hand, he first casts his eye over the title-page, and if he find no word on it that indicates perverse sentiments, and the name or denomination of the author be agreeable, he may think of having patience to read it; but being something in a hurry, passes slightly over the preface, supposing it to be of little consequence. But what sensations may have struck your mind, on reading the title of this book, and finding it to be the intention of the author to prove the doctrine of universal holiness and happiness, through the mediation and power of atoning grace, I cannot say ; howrever, I would invite you to read, with candor and attention, not only this letter, but the wrhole of the work, and make up your judgment afterwards.

Many circumstances might be mentioned which, in their association, have induced me to write and publish the following treatise ; but I can say, with propriety, that the central object was that in which I always find the most happiness; viz., to do what I find most necessary in order to render myself most useful to mankind,

A LETTER TO THE READER.

I have, from my early youth, been much in the habit of inquiring into the things of religion and religious sentiments ; and have, for a number of years, seen, or thought I saw, great inconsistencies in what has, for a long time, passed for orthodoxy in divinity.

The ideas that sin is infinite, and that it deserves an infinite punishment ; that the law transgressed is infinite, and inflicts an infinite penalty ; and that the great Jehovah took on himself a natural body of flesh and blood, and actually suffered death on a cross to satisfy his infinite justice, and thereby save his creatures from endless misery, are ideas which appear to me to be unfounded in the nature of reason, and unsupported by divine revelation. Such notions have, in my opinion, served to darken the human understanding and obscure the gospel of eternal life ; and have rendered, what I esteem as divine revelation, a subject of discredit to thousands, who, I believe, would never have condemned the Scriptures had it not been for those gross absurdities being contended for, and the Scriptures forced to bend to such significations. Christian authors and preachers have labored much to dissuade those whom they have caused to disbelieve the Christian religion from their infidelity. But, in this case, the salt has lost its savor, become good for nothing, and is trodden under foot of men, who are too sensible to believe the unreasonable dogmas imposed on the world, either through error or design, and sanctioned by tradition ; and too inattentive to search the Scriptures faith-

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fully and imjDartially whereby they might have learned that those errors were neither in them nor supported by them. One particular object, therefore, in this work is, if possible, to free the Scripture doctrine of atonement from those incumbrances which have done it so much injury; and open a door, at least, for the subject to be investigated on reasonable grounds, and by fair argument.

If we admit that our Creator made us reasonable beings, we ought, of course, to believe that all the truth which is necessary for our belief is not only reasonable, but reducible to our understandings.

In order to come at the subject of atonement so as to have light continually shining along the path which I intend to occupy, I found it necessary to show my reasons for not admitting the doctrine on the ground on which it is usually argued ; to do which, I found I must of necessity show that the common notion of the infinity of sin is unfounded in truth; and, of course, every consequence deducible from such an error, equally unfounded and unsupported. It may seem not a little strange to some of my readers that I dispute the infinity of the law against which sin is committed ; as all unholiness must be either in union or disunion with the eternal law of holiness and Divine purity. But if the reader will take a little pains to observe particularly, it will appear plain that no being can stand amenable to a law above his capacity. And as the creature is finite in his earthly character, in which character only he is, or can be a sinner, it is not reasonable to say that he stands amenable to an

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infinite law. But, as the reader will find in this work, so much of the Divine law of perfection as the creature obtains a knowledge of (which, in comparison to the whole, is no more than a shadow to a substance), is the law which he violates by his sin. And though we may speak of the sin of ignorance, it can amount to no more than the production of a virtuous intention thwarted by ignorance, or the same principle by which the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, and the fish of the sea, gratify their various inclinations and appetites. And I do not think my reader will wish to have me prove that such sin is not infinite.