continuously establish the personal witness of the Spirit. Therefore Jesus Himself gave the im- portant admonition that the real character of a tree is known by its fruit (Mt 7''"-"i.
LlTEKATDRE.— Calvin, /..''-;, 1, |,, ,1, ,, 55 15-17;
Westminster Confession. 1 , \\ 1 ,■ . „,t, "The
Reformersand the Docti I!. : -- i -:i\inhi8
Rr/ormersandtheThei'b In ■ I ti , i: ,,,,,' , ; ,i,,i|ii Wesley, Sermons on 'The Witne.^s 01 the .^inrit, and 'Thf Witness of our own Spirit'; Richard Watson, Tluol. Institutes, vol. u. pp. iHi-isl ; Hodge, Siislnnalic Theology, vol. lii. pp. 106, 107; Mik\. Su.ileiiuitic Theology, vol. ii. pp. 339-353; Bishop Sher- lock, Works, vol. i. Discourse 8; R. N. Young, The Witness oj the Spirit, Fernley Lecture of lSS-2 ; .T,,riatli:in KdMards, Be- ligious Affections, Part iii., Introd. ; I'nnn r, ,v;/./, ,„ „/ Chris- tian Doctrine, vol. iv. p. 184; J. A^.i I;,, i, /,,.,„„„,<, 231ff.; J. H. Newman, Parochial SermoH^, \. j ;'.i ; .1. Martineau, National Duties, IKS. iM. S. TerRY.
ATONEMENT. — The Atonement is the recon- ciling work of Jesus Christ the Son of God, in gracious fulfilment of tlie loving purpose of His Father ; whereby, through the sacrifice of Himself upon the Cross once for all, on belialf and instead of sinful men, satisfaction was made for the sins of the world and communion between God and man restored.
The starting-ix)int of Christian experience is the ResuiTection of Jesus (1 Co 15", Ro i'^). It may now be taken as accepted that the belief of the primitive community and the Apostolic preaching were based on this conviction (see Harnack, WhatisCh-istianity? Eng. tr. Lect. ix. ; Schmiedel, Encyc. Bibl. art. ' Resurrection '). This fact, rein- forced by successive appearances of the risen Christ whether to individuals or the assembled disciples, led to the further conviction, the ulti- mate root of the doctrine of the Atonement, that Jesus of Nazareth, crucified, risen, ascended, was present in the midst of the Christian congregation. He who in the days of His ministry had claimed authority on earth to forgive sins (Mt 9-"*), con- firming the word with signs following, Avho had awakened an implicit trust as alone having the words of eternal life (Jn 6^ 16*'), and wlio had manifested Himself as the one way by which men might come to the Father (Jn 14«), had fulfilled His own promise to return to His elect and abide with them to the end of the days (Mt 282"). The first corporate act of the disciples was to claim the promise to bepresent in the midst of two or three gathered in His name (Mt 18-°), by calling upon their Master to choose into the Apostolate one of two set before Him conceived as invisibly present (Ac l"-^). Moreover, He was present in power as exalted to God's right hand, not therefore limited by time and space, but acting under Divine, eternal conditions, arising to succour His martyr Stephen (Ac 7«-69), manifesting Himself as the Righteous One to St. Paul (22"), giving specific revelations of His will to Ananias and to St. Paul himself {9*-^- "-'^ IS'*- " 23"), and performing those greater works of which He had spoken (Jn 14'-) through those who wrought in His name (Ac 3* 9**). This conviction, peculiarly vivid in the earlier ages, is clearly traced in the hymns ad- dressed to Christ 'as to a god' (Pliny's Letter to Traian), and in the records of early martyrdoms. And the realism with which it was held even as late as the 4th cent, is attested by apologetic like that of Athanasius (see de Incamatione, 46 ff. ), or traditions like that of the consecration of St. John Lateran.
But proclamation of forgiveness of sins through faith in the name of Jesus, though arising out of the conviction that the Absolver was Himself in the power of His deity still present on earth, was not made until the realization of the promise of the Spirit in the Pentecostal gift. To this fact, the external results of which were present in the experience of his hearers, St. Peter appealed as
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V itnessing to the reality of Jesus' exaltation and His power to remit sins. (Ac 2*^, cf. Gal 3"). This significant element in the first preaching of the Gospel answers by anticipation oljjections urged against the Atonement as involving immoral con- sequences and unworthy views of God. Not only in this passage but throughout the Acts the possession of the Spirit is emphasized as the essen- tial mark of discipleship (Ac 2» 4=' 5^= g"-'" 9" 10"' Ijio J362 191-6). xiie call to repentance, intimately associated with the gift of the Holy Spirit (Ac 2^, cf. Mt 3^'), necessarily involved a life con- formed to the image of the Son of God. The Gospel, though a message of God's free favour with no condition of antecedent righteousness, referred to moral results, the manifestation of an imparted spirit, as evidence of the truth of the promise (Ro S'^- », Gal 5^^-24) ^nd when the doctrine of justification by faith was challenged by imperfectly instructed Christians, St. Paul met the charge by an abrupt appeal not only to ele- mentary moral convictions, but to the implications of baptism as a new and spiritual birth (Ro 6'""). Nor, again, was it possible for those to whom the possession of the Spirit was a fact of experience to regard God otherwise than as the Father. For He who dwelt within them was the Spirit of Christ Jesus (Ac 16', Ro 8^ Pli 1", 1 P 1"), the promise of the Father (Ac l"), whereby they had themselves attained the adoption, and were enabled to cry, 'Abba, Father' (Ro 8'*-", Gal 4«).