* Vol. ii., p, 860. t Cat. Racov., p. 265,
CHAPTER XXI.
Christ’s suifter- ings: Bush- nell’s state- ment.
294 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT. l i!
doctrine maintained by Socinus, and by Maurice, Bush- nell, and Young, in our own day. Baur, as quoted by Hagenbach,* Says : “Thus the two: representatives of eeu lag tian In its first period, when it developed itself in all its youthful vigour, Anselm and Abelard, were directly opposed to each other with respect to the doc- trines of redemption and atonement. The one considered the last ground of it to be the divine justice, requiring an infinite equivalent for the infinite guilt of sin—that is, a necessity founded in the nature of God. The other held it to be the free grace ef God, which, by kindling love in the breast of man, blots out sin, and with sin its cult.”
To the same effect Bushnell says: “The true and simple account of his [Christ’s] sufferings is, that he had such a heart as would not suffer him to be turned away from us, and that he suffered for us even as love must willingly suffer for its enemy.’ + ‘‘ Vicarious sacrifice was in no way peculiar to Christ save in degree.” ft “The Holy Spirit works in love as Christ did, and suffers all the incidents of love—compassion, wounded feeling, sorrow, concern, burdened sympathy, violated patience—taking men upon him, to bear them and their sins, precisely as Christ himself did in his sacrifice.” § He “simply came into the corporate state of evil (sum total of natural consequences of sin), and bore it with us—faithful unto death for our recovery.” || He “came simply to be the manifested love of God.” {1 ‘ Christ became incarnate to obtain moral power” (that which belongs to a developed character). “‘ The understanding is to obtain through him, and the facts and processes of his life. a new kind of power; viz., moral power—the
* Vol. ii., pp. 47, 48. ¢ Vicarious Sacrifice, p. 74. tT Vicarious Sacrifice, p. 108. || Ibid., p. 514. } Ibid., p. 107. 4 Ibid., p. 141.
MORAL THEORY OF THE ATONEMENT. 295
same that is obtained by human conduct under human c#arrzer methods. It will be divine power still, only it will not —— be attribute power. That is the power of his idea (that —
is original power, intrinsic to the divine nature). This
new power is to be the power cumulative, gained by him among men as truly as they gain it with each. other.
Only it will turn out in the end to be the grandest, closest to feeling, most impressive, most soul-renovating,
and spiritually sublime power that was ever obtained in
this or any other world.” *
To the same effect, also, Young writes over and over Young's again, in many passages exquisitely beautiful, and true ment also, when accepted as an expression of one side of the truth—an inestimably precious side too: ‘The infinite Father in boundless pity looked down upon his un- dutiful children, and yearned to rescue them, by regain- ing their hearts and drawing them back to allegiance and to peace. With God-like mercy he unveiled all that was possible of divine purity, and truth, and beauty, and sweetness, and lovingness, and compassion. He humbled himself, descended to the level of his creatures, walked among them, spoke with them face to face, and appealed, as he still continues to appeal, to their hearts through the gentleness, the tenderness, the wisdom, the meekness, the patience, the sufferings, the tears, the blood and the death of Jesus Christ.
“The distinction here is radical and fundamental. The sacrifice was not offered up by men at all, or by a substitute in their room; and it was not required to _ appease God’s anger, or to satisfy his justice, or to render him propitious. The sacrifice was not offered by men to God, but was made by God for men and for sin, in order that sin might be for ever put down and rooted out of human nature. This stupendous act of divine
* Vicarious Sacrifice, p. 188.
CHAPTER XXII.
296 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.
sacrifice was God’s instrument of reconciliation and re- demption, God’s method of conquering the human heart,
and of subduing a revolted world and attaching it to his
Objec- tions to the Moral view :—- Moral in- fluence better ef- fected by the At-
_ onement when con- eeived of according to the orthodox view.
throne—pure love, self-sacrificing love, crucified, dying love.” *
The. objections to this view are conclusive.