No two of the writers above mentioned agree in all points. They differ, however, only in the length to which they carry their com- mon principles in modifying or overthrowing the faith of the Church. Ebrard, one of the best, because one of the most moderate and least infected of the class, says in the preface to his " Dogmatik," that he goes hand in hand with the old Reformed theology in all points, and that for that reason he is more true to the principles of his Church, as a church of pi'ogress. He professes to have carried that theology forward by a process of " organic development; " and this Professor Harbaugh of Mercersbui'g, in his late inaugural address, claims to have been the service, and still to be the office of the German Re- formed Church in this country. It is true that the leading theolo- gians of that Church, as was perhaps to be expected, have given themselves up to the guidance of the German mind. All they have done has been to incorporate the modern German philosophy with theology. Their advances, therefore, have no more worth than be- longs to any other form of human speculation. They do not pretend to get their peculiar doctrines from the Bible ; they only labour to make the Bible agree with their doctrines. But this is just as impos- sible as that the Scriptures should teach the principles of modern chemistry, astronomy, or geology. These philosophical principles had no existence in the minds of men when the Bible was written, and they have no authority now but what they get from their hu- man authors. If they survive for a generation, it will be more than similar speculations have in general been able to accomplish.^ It is, however, lamentable to see how even good men allow themselves to explain away the most catholic, and plainly revealed doctrines of the Bible, in obedience to the dictates of the modern transcen- dental philosophy. What however we have here immediately in view is, the objections which this class of writers make to the Church form of the doctrine of satisfaction, in obedience to the assumed moral axiom above mentioned, namely, that the innocent cannot by God be regarded and treated as guilty, or the guilty regarded and treated as righteous. It is indeed true that God can- not but regard every person as he reallv is. His judgments are according to truth. But this is not inconsistent with his regarding (Jhrist, although personally innocent, as having voluntarily assumed our place and undertaken to satisfy the demands of justice in our })lace ; nor with his regarding the beHever, although personally
1 Indeed, already the philosophy of Schelling, Hegel, and Schleiermacher seems to be for the rising men of Germany as much a thing of the past, as that of the Hindus or the Cabala. The German mind has swung round from making spirit everything, to making it nothing.
534 PART m. Ch. ^TI. — satisfaction of CHRIST.
undeserving, as righteous, in the sense of being free from just ex- posure to condemnation, on the ground of the vicarious satisfaction of Christ. This is precisely what the Scriptures affirm to be true, and that which believers in all ages have made the ground of their hope toward God. This is almost the identical proposition affirmed by the Apostle, when he declares that on the ground of the propi- tiation of Christ, God " can justify the ungodly," *'• «., declare the unrighteous to be righteous ; unrighteous personally, but righteous in that the demands of justice in regard to him are satisfied. This also is precisely what the writers referred to (not Ebrard who does not go so far as those with whom he is classed) deny. If God, say they, regards Christ as sinful, He must be really sinful ; if He pro- nounces the believer righteous, he must be truly, personally, and subjectively righteous. As most of these writers admit the sinless- ness of Christ, and yet maintain that only sinners can be treated as sinners, and only the personally righteous treated as righteous; and as they hold that imputation implies the real possession of the quality, act, or relation which is imputed, they are forced to teach that Christ in assuming our nature as guilty and fallen, ipso facto^ assumed all the responsibilities of men, and was bound to answer to the justice of God for all the sins which humanity had com- mitted. The doctrine of one class of these writers is, that the Logos in assuming our nature did not become an individual, but the universal man ; He did not take to Himself "a true body and a reasonable soul," but the whole of humanity, or humanity as an organic whole or law of life ; the individual dying for the sins of other individuals, does not satisfy justice. When He was nailed to the cross, not an individual merely, but humanity itself, was crucified ; and, therefore, his sufferings were the sufferings not of an individual man, but of that which underlies all human individ- ualities, and consequently avails for all in wliom humanity is indi- vidualized. As Christ becomes pei'sonally responsible for the guilt which attaches to the humanity which He assumed, so we become personally righteous and entitled, on the ground of what we are or become, to eternal life, because, by our union with Him, we partake of his humanity as well as of his divinity. His thean- thropic nature is conveyed to us with all its merits, excellence, and glories, as the nature of Adam with its guilt, pollution, and weak- nesses, has been transmitted to his posterity. It is in favour of thi« theory that the church doctrine of the substitution of Christ, the innocent for the guilty ; of his bearing the guilt not of his own nature, but of sinners ; of his suffering the penalty of the law in