3. The fundamental principle which distinguishes this theory, namely, that in its last analysis all virtue may be resolved into benevolence, is both false and pernicious. To resolve all colour into sound would be theoretically to annihilate colour; and so to resolve all virtue into | benevolence is theoretically to annihilate virtue. The idea of moral’ obligation is simple, unresolvable, ulti- mate, because it is utterly impossible analytically to resolve it into any elements more simple, or synthetically to compose it out of such elements, It is plain that neither a desire for our own well-being springing out of self-love, nor a disinterested desire for the well-being of others, by itself, yields the idea of moral obligation\. is true that these states of mind are obligatory, but moral obligation which attaches to them is somethi which is independent of the self-love or the benevolen If the question be asked why we ought to do right, n! other answer can be given than that moral obligation i! an ultimate fact of consciousness, having its own reason in itself, and from its very nature necessarily supreme. |
Taylor, Fiske, and the advocates of their theory gener- ally, maintain: (1.) That the orthodox view represents the justice of God as pursuing its gratification blindly, like a physical appetite. Their doctrine is, that divine justice demands the punishment of the sinner only as a means to an end; that is, in order to maintain divine
GOVERNMIINTAL THEORY OF THE ATONEMENT. 311
goyérnment, the sole end and purpose of which is the %#tainment of the best interests of the subjects of that government. But it is very plain that their view only removes the ultimate end in which justice “blindly” terminates one step further. We say that God punishes sin, because it is an ultimate fact that moral excellence - demands that sin must be punished ; because it is an ultimate fact that sin is intrinsically in obligation to punishment. They say that sin must be punished in order to maintain moral government, and moral govern- -ment is necessary in order to the best interests of the moral universe; and it is an ultimate fact that the best interests of the moral universe ought to be sought as a paramount end. The fact is, that intelligence, moral and personal agency are inconceivable without ultimate, unresolvable principles of action and of thought, for which no reason can be given, It is just as certain and as intelligible and self-luminous a proposition that right is intrinsically binding, and that sin must be punished because of its intrinsic ill-desert, as that the best interests of the universe ought to be secured at any cost. If be- ~nevolence is the sum of all virtue, this benevolence must regard either the happiness or the excellence of its ob- jects as its ultimate end. Hence it follows necessarily that either happiness or moral excellence must be the ultimate end, and hence the ultimate motive, of moral action. If the latter is true, it must be because virtue is for its own sake intrinsically the highest good and vice intrinsically evil. Virtue must have, therefore, the ulti- ‘mate reason of its attracting divine approbation, and vice the ultimate reason of its attracting divine displeasure in itself. In that case the orthodox theory of the Atone- ment follows. But if the former is true, and ultimately there is “nothing good,” as Taylor says, ‘“ but happiness and the means of happiness, and nothing evil but misery
CHAPTER XXT,
CHAPTER XCXT.
312 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.
and the means of misery,’* then the distinction between men and swine is only one of degree.
(2.) Feeling the force of this infallible result of their system, these gentlemen are very fond of covering its nakedness with the comely terms proper to the funda- mental principles of the Church doctrine, and of insisting that they also maintain that virtue is intrinsically a good for its own sake, and that sin deserves punishment as
an ultimate fact. Fiske says: “Sin |is intrinsically
hateful and ill-deserving ; it is an evil per se, and not merely on account of its tendencies and consequences, This we hold to be a fundamental point in all our ethi- cal and theological inquiries.” ‘The preceptive part of the law must require of all creatures perfect holiness, forbidding all sin; because perfect holiness is inherently right and excellent, and being inherently right and ex- cellent is indispensable to the highest good ; and because sin is inherently wrong and evil, and being inherently wrong and evil, tends to interfere with the highest good of the universe.” “The sole function of penalty is that
of a legal sanction. Its sole value is its efficacy to en-