John Wessel of Groningen (quoted by Ullman) says: “According to the second or servant form, the Lord Jesus is not only mediator between God and man, but is rather mediator for man between the God of justice and the God of mercy; for it behoved that the whole law of justice should be fulfilled without failure of one jot or tittle ; and as this has now been achieved by Jesus, it is easy to find the way in which mercy can flow forth in streams of compassion. The wisdom of the Father, however, made this way by the device of a mediator.” * ‘““Among all the miracles, not the least is that the same justice which is armed with divine and eternal laws against man, not only restrains the sword in judgment, but also the sentence ; and not only absolves the criminal whom it had determined to condemn, but orders him to be exalted to dignity, honour, and glory. Who is not here surprised to mark how the truth of the threatenings has been changed into the truth of the promises, and upon both sides the truth secured? These things, so contrary to each other, the gentleness of the Lamb alone has blended. For Christ, being himself God, and Priest, and Sacrifice, has satisfied himself, for himself and by himself.”’*+
* De Caus. Incarnat., cap. XVil., p. 453. ¢ De Magnitud. Pass., cap. xiv., p. 480.
HISTORY OF OPINION. 267
“Our loving Father has willed thee, his loving Son, to be cuarra a Surety, Sponsor, Bailsman, for the fully obeying and =~ the fully suffering (satisfaciendo et satispatiendo), by
an equal pledge on account of all my disobedience and misery.” *
[D.] At the opening of the Reformation, Zwingle, Testi- Luther, Calvin, Knox, and Cranmer, the organs of inde- Pie pendent movements of reform in five different nationala- and Crm ties, differing among themselves in almost everything not oi the ‘essential to the integrity of Christianity, all, without Sona exception, agreed in teaching the doctrine of vicarious Cwehes expiation. And, as far as this principle rs concerned, the Greek and Roman Churches agreed with the Protes- tant.
There is no need of illustrating the truth of this posi- tion by quotations from the writings of Luther, Calvin, or Knox. Their opinions will not be questioned, and it will fully answer our present purpose to show that Zwingle and Cranmer accurately agree with them on the question.
Zwingle (A.D. 1484-1531) was the first, as he was Zwingle. intellectually the most independent and rationalistic, of all the Reformers. In his Expositio Christiane Fides de Christo Domino,} he says: ‘“ But he suffered, for the purpose of expiating our crimes, a most humiliating form of suffermg.”’ ‘ Wherever sin is, death of necessity follows. Christ was without sin, and guile was not found in his mouth. . . . And yet he died this death, he suffered in our stead. He was willing to die, that he might restore us to life; and as he had no sins of his own, the all-merciful Father laid ours upon him.” }
‘““He is the sacrifice and victim, satisfying for the sins of all the world for ever.” §
* Scal. Medit. Exempli., i., p. 544. [ Zwingle, Opp., i., p. 204,
T+ Section 6. @ Ibid., p. 253.
CHAPTER xXxIX,
Cranmer.
The Greek Church.
The Toman Church.
268 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.
Archbishop Cranmer (A.D. 1489-1554), in his De- fence of the True Doctrine of the Sacraments,* says : “One kind of sacrifice there is which is called a propiti- atory or merciful sacrifice ; that 1s to say, such a sacri- fice as pacifies God’s wrath and indignation, and obtains mercy and forgiveness for all our sins, and is the ransom for the redemption from everlasting damnation.
There is but one such sacrifice, whereby our sins are pardoned and God’s mercy and favour obtained; which is. the death of the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The “ Orthodox Confession of the Catholic and Apos- tolic Eastern Church”—composed by Petrus Mogilas, Metropolitan of Kiew (A.D. 1642), and sanctioned by the Synod of Jerusalem (4.D. 1672)—says:+ ‘The death of Christ was of a very different kind from that of other men in these respects: first, because of the weight of our sins; secondly, because he wholly fulfilled the priesthood even unto the cross: he offered himself to God and the Father for the ransoming of the human race. Therefore even to the cross he fulfilled the media- tion between God and men.”