test, absolutely impotent, and must be practically sup- planted by the other: “In the facts, outwardly re- garded, there is no sacrifice, or oblation, or atonement, or propitiation, but simply a living and dying thus and thus. The facts are impressive ; the person is*clad in a wonderful dignity and beauty; the agony is eloquent of love, and the cross is a very shocking murder triumph- antly met; and if, then, the question rises how we are to use such a history so as to be reconciled by it, we hardly know in what way to begin. How shall we come unto God by help of this martyrdom? How shall we turn it or turn ourselves under it so as to be justified and set at peace with God? Plainly, there is a want here; and this want is met by giving a thought-form to the facts which are not in the facts themselves. They are put directly into the moulds of the altar, and we are called to accept the crucified God-man as our Sacrifice, an offering or oblation for us, our Propitiation; so to be sprinkled from our evil conscience, washed, purged, puri- fied, cleansed from sin. Instead of leaving the matter of the facts just as they occurred, &c. ... And so much is there in this, that without these forms of the altar we should be utterly at a loss in making any use of the Christian facts that would set us in a condition of practical reconciliation with God. ... We want, in short, to use these altar-terms just as freely as they are used by those who accept the formula of expiation or judicial satisfaction for sin; in just their manner, too, when they are using them most practically. We cannot afford to lose these sacred forms of the altar.” *
Our first argument, then, is, that according to the confession of its ablest expounders, that moral effect which the theory in question maintains is the sole aim of the redemptive work of Christ is at least as well
* Vicarious Sacrifice, pp. 533, 535.
MORAL THEORY OF THE ATONEMENT. 299
produced by our view of the work of Christ as by carrer theirs. ot 2. We go further in our second argument, and affirm rheMoral that upon their conception of its nature the work of ;y°r Christ is in no sense adapted to accomplish even that account effect which they represent to be its sole design. Upon produe- their theory there is. utter incongruity igoen the oo ee attempt to produce such effects by such means and the °** ordinary and unchangeable principles of human nature. This can be shown to be truc both with respect to the work itself objectively considered, and with respect to the process whereby the mind of the individual sinner must appropriate that work in the aspect presented, for the sake of the moral impression it was designed to effect. (1.) With respect to the nature of the work itself, it: is unquestionably a law of human nature that while tragic suffering, voluntarily incurred in fidelity to high principle and out of unquenchable love for us, in order to remove obstacles to our well-being exterior to our- selves, has more power over the depths of the heart than any other conceivable thing; on the other hand, such suffering, intentionally gotten up with the design of pro- ducing a pathetic effect upon us—not as a necessary mci- dent to a work for us, but as a calculated part of a work wpon us—necessarily defeats itself and excites disgust. If Christ had come, as Socinus was wise enough to insist he did, solely in the character of a prophet to reveal the will of God to man, and to afford an example of eminent virtue ; and if his painful martyrdom was an undesigned -end incidental solely to his persistence in his labour of love, in spite of the fierce opposition of his enemies ; then indeed that heroic exhibition of truth and love would have been effective in making a deep moral im- pression on every susceptible heart. But the Scriptures explicitly assert that Christ came into the world for the
300 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.