jays en the atonement by eminent New England di- vines. A summary of it is given in the Bibliotheca Sacra for Jan. 1858, and is noticed in the Methodist Quarterly, April, 1858, p. 311. "Dr. Griffin held that the atonement was not a literal suffering of the penal- ty, nor a literal satisfaction of the distributive justice of God, nor a literal removal of our desert of eternal death, nor a literal surplusage of Christ's meritorious personal obedience becoming our imputed obedience. On the other hand, the atonement was a divine meth- od by which the literal suffering of the penalty might be dispensed with, by which government could lie sus- tained and honored without inflicting distributive jus- tice, by which the acceptors of the work might lie saved without the removal of their intrinsic desert of hell ; and all this without imputing Christ's personal obedi- ence as our personal obedience, but by Christ obtain- ing a meritorious right to save us, as his own exceed- ing great reward from God." The article named in the Bibliotheca Sacra contains a valuable sketch of the rise of the "Edwardean theory of the atonement," and sums up that theory itself as follows: "1. Our Lord suffered pains which were substituted for the penalty of the law, and may be called punishment in the more general sense of that word, but were not, strictly and literally, the penalty which the law had threatened. 2. The sufferings of our Lord satisfied the general justice of God, but did not satisfy his dis- tributive justice. 3. The humiliation, pains, and death of our Redeemer were equivalent in meaning to the punishment threatened in the moral law, and thus they satisfied Him who is determined to maintain the honor of this law, but they did not satisfy the demands of the law itself for our punishment. 4. The active obedience, viewed as the holiness of Christ, was hon- orable to the law, but was not a work of supereroga- tion performed by our substitute, and then transferred and imputed to us, so as to satisfy the requisitions of the law for our own active obedience. The last three statements are sometimes comprehended in the more general proposition that the atonement was equal, in the meaning and spirit of it, to the payment of our debts ; but it was not literally the payment of either our debt of obedience or our debt of punishment, or any other debt which we owed to law or distributive justice. Therefore, 5. The law and the distributive justice of God, although honored by the life and death of Christ, will yet eternally demand the punishment of every one who has sinned. G. The atonement ren- dered it consistent and desirable for God to save all who exercise evangelical faith, yet it did not render it obligatory in him, in distributive justice, to save them. 7. The atonement was designed for the welfare of all men, to make the eternal salvation of all men possible, to remove 'all the obstacles which the honor of the law and of distributive justice presented against the salvation of the non-elect as well as the elect. 8. The atonement does not constitute the reason why some men are regenerated and others not, but this reason is found only in the sovereign, electing will of God : ' Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.' 9. The atonement is useful on men's account, and in order to furnish new motives to holiness; but it is necessary on God's account, and in order to enable him, as a consistent ruler, to pardon any, even the smallest sin, and therefore to bestow on sinners any, even the smallest favor." That tiiis so-called "Ed- wardean theory" is in substance the Arminian theory, is shown by Dr. Warren in the Methodist Quarterly for July, 18G0. See also Fiske, The New England Theolo- gy {Bibliotheca Sacra, 18G5, p. 577).
As to minor forms of opinion we must be very brief. The orthodox Quakers admit the doctrine of the aton- ing death of Christ, but not the full Anselmic doc- trine of satisfaction ; thus W. Penn : " We cannot say the sufferings and death of Christ were a strict and rigid satisfaction for that eternal death and miserv