Rev. G. 8. Faber’s Ancient Vallenses and Albigenses.
De Sacrificiis, Gulielmo Outramo autore.
The Life and Light of Men, by John Young, LL.D., Edinburgh.
Comparative Darstellung des Lehrbegriffs der Verschiedenen Christ- lichen Kirchenpartsien. Von Dr. Geo. Bened. Winer.
Hase, Libri Symbolici Eccle. Evangelice.
Niemeyer : Collectio Confessionum, &c.
Streitwolf: Libri Symbolici Ecclesize Catholice, vols. i. and ii.
252 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.
a leita manifest corruption ; and that it was developed into its —— present portentous form only slowly and after the lapse of centuries. His historical argument may be reduced , to two heads: (1.) He draws this conclusion from the comparative silence of the early writers on this subject, even when they were treating of topics which rendered allusions to this doctrine, if it was in fact believed, ap- parently inevitable. (2.) From the imputed character, intellectual or moral, of certain men to whose agency he refers the origination and diffusion of the corruption ; as
for instance, Athanasius and Calvin.
To the jirst of his points we reply by confessing that to an extraordinary degree his allegation is true, but that | (1) it is at best but a negative argument, and avails nothing im opposition to the positive testimony presented on the other hand. As we have shown above, from the essential nature of the principle involved, if its presence can be traced, however faintly, the conclusion will be inevitable that it is an essential part of the faith of the Church, and the central principle, to which all others will ultimately be subordinated when all the elements of that faith are accurately discriminated and adjusted. And (2) that the force of his objection is greatly abated by the consideration of the fewness, and of the fragmentary condition, and the immaturity and confusion, character- istic of the writings of the early Fathers, and the crude- ness of their views upon many other subjects of Christian doctrine. : |
To his second point we answer, that the position we assume, as distinctly stated above, 1s not that certain men have taught the doctrine of expiation, but that it
-is the doctrine of all the representative Church teachers of all ages; that it has again and again, with amazing coincidence, been revived by great and good men acting entirely independently of each other; and that it has
?
HISTORY OF OPINION. 253
always been the more emphasized the more true spiritual carrer religion has flourished ; and, finally, that true spiritual —— religion has never Abamenen among those who have ex- plicitly denied it. Very little light can be thrown upon the origin or value of such a doctrine by criticising the spirit or associations of individual men. The broad fact would remain to be accounted for, that the idea to which Athanasius, for the first time, gives a logically defined expression had appeared again and again in the writings of the best men who preceded him, and in the devotional writings of Augustine and his followers; that Claude, Bernard, Wycliffe, Wessel, the Vallenses, and all the best saints of the ages preceding the Reformation, held the same; that Anselm in the Latin Church, and Nicholas of Methone in the Greek Church, the two great systema- tizers of the Church’s faith on this subject, wrought en- tirely independently of each other, although almost cotemporaneously ; that not only Luther and Calvin, but Zwingle also, the most independent and rationalizing of the Reformers, and that all the branches of the Church, Greek, Roman, Lutheran, and Reformed, in all their sub- divisions, hold the same faith. Any attempt to account for such facts as these by reference to the personal char- acter of individual men, however great or numerous, is manifestly absurd.
[A.] The doctrine of Expiation was received, though Testi-
im a crude, unscientific form and in connection with Win.” much error, by the ante-Nicene Fathers. Nicene Fathers,
With respect to the writers of this period, Young admits that ‘‘ Injustice would be done to them, unless it be understood that most of them make use, though not frequently, of the New Testament language with regard to the death of the Redeemer; and also that in some in- stances they apply passages of the Old Testament—such as the 58rd chapter of Isaiah, and the 22nd Psalm—to
254 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.
that death. It is fully admitted that the ultimate and real question goes back to the meaning of the New Testament itself. No one could fairly dispute, that if the doctrine of Satisfaction be there, it is also in the post-apostolic writings. But if it be wanting there, as we have sought to show that it is, then unquestionably it has no place in them.” *
In answer to this position, thus candidly assumed, I present the argument to the contrary under the following heads :—