give a systematic exposition of what has since been known as the Governmental Theory of the Atonement. In his great work—‘‘ Defensio Fidei Catholicee de Satis- factione Christi’””’—he maintains that the law of God is a product of his will, and not a transcript of anything inherent in his immutable nature. It hence follows that the law being a simple creation of the optional will of _the lawgiver, he must inalienably possess the power at all times either to execute, or to abrogate, or to relax it by sovereign Peete, as far as his own nature is concerned.
It is true, indeed, that in respect to the conscience of
CHAPTER Vv.
The divine law shown to be immu-
56 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.
cuarten the creature, every precept is binding because it is the — will of God; but, on the other hand, in respect to the will of God itself, it is evident, since his will is holy, and his “commandment holy and just and good,” that he wills the precept because it is intrinsically right. If this were not so, there could be no meaning in predicat- ine holiness, either of his will or of his law. There must be an absolute standard of righteousness. ‘This absolute standard is the.divine nature. The infallible judge of righteousness is the divine intelligence. And the all-perfect executor and rule of righteousness is the divine will. | It is true, also, that all duties spring out of relations, and every relation which a creature can sustain must be determined by the will of the Creator. or instance, there could have been no law of chastity unless God had sovereignly constituted man with a sexual nature. Nor could there have been a law forbidding murder unless man had been made mortal. But the instant the rela- tion is constituted by the divine will, the duty neces- sarily springs up out of the relation from a principle inherent in the divine nature. All moral agents are, by the very constitution of their nature, immutably bound by all that is morally good. The essence of all that is moral is, that it ought to be. Hvery—even the least—— discrepancy from all that ought to be, even to the utter- most, is of the nature of sin. This of course applies to | every part of the moral law as well as to the whole; “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all” (James 11.10). All in- volved in the preceptive part is commanded because it is intrinsically right and obligatory, and the penalty is attached because all that is forbidden is intrinsically worthy of punishment. The law of God, therefore, as to its essential principle of absolute moral perfection,
~IMMUTABILITY OF THE LAW. aay:
which is embodied in all positive statutes whatsoever, cnarrer is not relaxable. Christ’s declaration is that “it ‘is easier for heaven and earth to pass than one tittle of the law to fail” (Luke xvi. 17). If it be claimed that this applies to the ceremonial law, may we not argue, @ fortiori, that it must hold all the more true of the moral law ? |
The Rev. Daniel T. Fiske, D.D., of Newburyport, Dr.Fiskes , Massachusetts, in his able defence of the Governmental Sees », Theory of the Atonement, admits* (a) that the ultimate end of all God’s actions is within himself; and (6) that the divine law commands that which is wtrinsically good, and because it is so; and forbids that which is a- trinsically evil, and because it is so. At the same time he maintains, as the fundamental principle of his doc- trine, that “law as to its origin and end emanates from a divine purpose to promote by means of it the highest good of the universe.” But this is a manifest contradic- tion. For (a) if the ultimate end of God’s actions is in himself—that is, the manifestation of his excellence by the exercise of his attributes—the real end and origin of the law can only ‘be the same. The good of the uni- verse, though a true end, can only be subordinate to the former. And (0) if the thing commanded is wntrimsically right, then the true reason for the commandment is in the nature of the thing itself, and not in its effects upon the universe But if the real end and origin of the commandment is the good to be effected in the universe, then not the goodness intrinsic in the thing commanded, but the goodness of its consequences, is the true reason of its being commanded.
The essential principles of righteousness, which are embodied in all divine laws, consequently have their ground in the eternal and unchangeable nature of God ;
* Bibliotheca Sacra, April 1861.
58 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.
i £- es “es Pe ey
CHAPTER but of course the forms in which the principles are em-
The law
moral.