It is in- 4. The Scriptures explicitly declare that Christ was consis’ the Saviour of those who died before his advent in the applica” flesh as well as those who came afterward. If Christ work of did suffer the penalty due to his people, and so expiate ot their sins, it is clear what is meant when he is called ced be “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” advent. (Rev. xu. 8), and when he is declared to be set forth by God to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood, to declare his [God’s] righteousness in respect to the pass- ing over the sins that were past [previous to his advent] through the forbearance of God (Rom. in. 25). The eternal God assuredly may as well act upon a future as upon a present or a past expiation. But upon the hypothesis that the sufferings of Christ were designed simply for a moral effect upon men, it is self-evident | that he could be a Saviour only after his advent and the fulfilment of his tragedy to those who witnessed it, or at best to those to whom an adequately graphic account of it had been reported. It will not be pretended that aman can be saved by a moral influence before it is exerted, nor that the influence can be exerted before that exists which is to exert it. Hence it follows, if the Moral Hypothesis be true, that all who died before the passion of Christ perished, or were saved in some other way. le [ 5. This theory of Young-and Bushnell is no novelty— by its in no sense, even if true, ‘an improvement in theology.” historical ? : : record. It has appeared again and again. It has been rejected
302 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.
of those great fundamental principles as to law and jus tice, as to the nature and effect of the Jewish sacrifices,
as to the nature of justification, &c., which we have so fully established from Scripture in the preceding chap- ters of this volume. The establishment of the doctrine of the Christian Church is, of course, the virtual refuta- tion of all inconsistent theories.
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GOVERNMENTAL THEORY OF THE ATONEMENT. 303
uniformly, in every age, by the immense majority of curr nominal Christians. It has always been associated with *“ Pelagian and Socinian heresies and incipient infidelity. It has never been associated, among a single body of men for a measurable period of time, with a respectable degree of spiritual life and fruitfulness. The principles which it denies have, on the contrary, been in vital con- nection with the entire current of spiritual life issuing from the person of Christ along its entire course. Its history condemns it, and ought to put its abettors to shame. J
II. The Governmental Theory “ places the necessity The Go- of the Atonement of Christ in the exigencies of God’s frentar moral government ; not in the demands of an involun- Thy. tary organic emotion of retributive justice, common to God and man. The Atonement was necessary for the same reason, precisely, that the penalty annexed to the divine law was necessary: it takes the place of that penalty in respect to those who repent and are forgiven ; answers the same end as would have been answered by the infliction of the penalty—viz., it maintains the law and authority of God, and by maintaining that law and authority promotes those great interests for which moral government exists. Hugo Grotius was, probably, the tis his. . first man who distinctly stated and defended the funda- “” mental principle of this theory. His design was to defend the Satisfaction Theory against the Socinians, his work being entitled ‘ Defensio Fidei Catholicce de Satis- factione Christi. The result, however, was, that he actually rejected the foundation principle of that theory, and argued that the satisfaction of Christ was rendered, not to the distributive, but to the governmental justice OP. Gods Sipe He did not develop a complete and con- sistent Governmental Theory of the Atonement ; nor, after him, does there appear to have been any material
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CHAPTER XXI.
Its chief points.
304 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.