ARTICLE II.

DR. COCHRAN AND OTHER RECENT WRITERS ON THE ATONEMENT.

[Continued from Vol. XLVI. p. 498.]

BY THE REV. George F. MAGOUN, D. D., IOWA COLLEGE, GRINNELL, IOWA.

IN the July number of this Review for 1889, one of the ablest of recent treatises on the atonement was examined as to its theories and logic, leaving the "Scriptural Relations of Christ and His Atonement to Mankind" for later consideration. To this we now proceed, along with an examination of other volumes-now multiplying, it is hopeful to see-on the same subject. Dr. Cochran's is, for American students and masters of theology, the most important, from its American origin and its strength of thought; and though such works are not easy to read, it is not the most difficult among them.

The first to claim attention, on the score of the earlier date of its production, is Dr. Lewis Edwards's "The Doctrine of the Atonement," first issued in Welsh in 1860, translated into English by Rev. David Charles Edwards, Bala, 1886.' The translator is of Balliol College, Oxford University, England; the author was president of the Welsh Presbyterian College at Bala. The recent appearance of the book in English is owing to the high regard in which it is held in Wales. It was written a quarter of a century ago from a conviction also independently expressed in his own way by Dr. Cochran. "Both sides" in the controversy on atonement, says Dr. Lewis Edwards,

'London: Hodder & Stoughton. 1886. pp. 246.

"failed to touch the soul of the question, and even forgot that it had a soul, which is, whether the justice of God's nature demands an atonement in order to pardon sin. Instead of keeping to this point, where their real strength lay, the defenders of the old doctrine set up a sort of commercial atonement, and, by so doing, simply overthrew their own system. Their opponents contended for the theory of a governmental atonement-an atonement rendered merely to the divine government. But this did not touch the point at issue. . . . . . Andrew Fuller and Dr. Williams were good Calvinists; but they erred by separating the justice of God's government from the justice of His nature. If they, however, regarded God too exclusively as governor, without reference to His justice,' the tendency of our days is to think of God as Father only. Both errors spring from disregard of justice as an attribute in the Godhead."

Dr. Edwards adopts the literary form of dialogue-between teacher and disciple--and manages it with naturalness and flexibility. But he has an order of topics of conversation, which is this: The Atonement in Relation to God (chaps. ii., iii., iv.); In Relation to Christ (v., vi.); In Relation to Man (vii., viii.); In Relation to Church History (ix.). As would be inevitable in dialogue, the theory, argument, and Scripture proof are blended. The first contact with the subject (p. 40) raises the question of a divine system for man, and whether power ever acts without rule or order.

"The power manifested in man's salvation is love; this power acts in accordance with the order of divine justice," "the principles of moral law," "inasmuch as the Lawgiver was made [?] under the same law as His creature." 'The love of God acts within certain limits,' 'the limits of justice and law" (p. 42). 'There is no tenable position midway between the doctrine, that God's justice rendered the atonement necessary, and the Socinian view, that Christ died only as a martyr." "His death for us was the purpose of His incarnation." "The essence of the atonement is merit." This view does not admit repentance as part of the merit, and differs as much from the commercial theory as gaining high office by merit differs from procuring it by purchase. And it admits

"Sin

"the doctrine of suretyship without the commercial principle." requires infinite merit in our Surety; which is not transferred, as a debt 1 Cf. Bibliotheca Sacra, July 1889, p. 479. The coincidence of thought is striking. See Dr. Cochran's book, passim. Perhaps Andrew Fuller and Dr. Williams would object to Dr. Edwards's statement, along with New England divines.

2 Preface, p. 6.

is to him who pays it for another; it does not consist in a definite sum of sufferings; so we are still liable to punishment till we repent. And if Christ was the Son of God, He must have died as a Surety and Substitute for lost men." "If we had a true insight into the depth of evil there is in sin, perhaps we should then believe that it was no light and easy thing for the Son of God to merit forgiveness for sinners." "If you observe how He carried Himself in Gethsemane and on the cross, you must feel that there were certain sufferings in His cup beyond the power of men or devils to inflict, and beyond their power to understand." "Two things are necessary to constitute greatness of moral merit, viz. the greatness of the person and the greatness of the act." "He could not in all the greatness of His Person be an atonement without giving Himself for us in an act of infinite worth. . . . . It is equally true that no act would have been an atonement apart from the Person" (pp. 201, 203). "If the act was an atonement apart from the Person, then righteousness would have no more to say to the person of the transgressor, after receiving satisfaction for the sinful act; moreover, the atonement would of necessity have been finite, since an act of the Son of God Himself would not have been infinite unless His Person had been in the act." 'Man had fallen into such an attitude of unbelief in relation to God, that no act was great enough to produce faith in his mind, but the act of dying for him" (pp. 128, 135).

This catena of quotations exhibits the pith of the Welsh theologian's views. Language in which the more commonly affirmed aspects of the subject are recognized, hardly need be quoted. Nor the use made of Scripture to support the citations above. Nor the distinction made between atonement and justification in Dr. Edwards's views. What the latter is actually in salvation, the former is meritoriously. Both are indispensable to remove condemnation. Our views of the two must correspond. There is sufficient characterization, by summary, of erroneous representations. Augustine's taking justification as the rendering a man "righteous in principle" is noted. Atonement "in its true meaning and essential character, is altogether lost." So in some American and English books of our time.

"It is difficult to preserve the spirit of the Bible when the letter is lost. The old terms, inspiration, atonement, etc., are used, but are emptied of all real meaning. By contempt of the letter, these writers have turned the spirit into mere letter. It is not merely in her dress, but in her voice and countenance, that Duessa is able to imitate Una."

The moral influence of the atonement is as heartily recognized here as in Dr. Cochran's work, while it is not reduced to a moral influence.

"We must believe that God could not forgive without the death of Christ, or else the fact that Christ's death can have no impression upon us. The inward truth influencing our minds must rest upon some corresponding truths in the nature of God." "More than a moral impression is necessary to effect a change in the heart of man. We ought to be careful not to exclude the work of the Third Person in the Trinity. The Spirit must have some truths to reveal. The work of the Spirit in us is founded upon the work of the Son for us."

The Spirit works also in Christ. "Every system that does not acknowledge a relation between the atonement and justice tends to destroy the nature of forgiveness, and, in the same degree, sacrifices every incentive to holiness."

The "Atonement and Law" of the Rev. John M. Armour, an American writer, was written in 1885, and issued in 1886. It is fashioned as a formal treatise in two parts: I. Law, Moral and Natural; II. Atonement. The title is not only thus reversed in the order of topics; but under the first topic, the order is reversed again, Natural Law coming before Moral. This discloses the startingpoint, which is neither the moral system, nor justice or love, or any other attribute of divine character, but the law of God. One chapter (twenty pages) is given to

This exclusion, however, occurs on pp. 211, 212. In our judgment, there is now no more serious error, not only in popular religious language, but in professed theological writing, than the confounding of the work of the Son and that of the Spirit, which occurs every day. It works an utter prevention as to distinguishing reconciliation and the new birth from each other in Christian knowledge and in Christian experience. Cardinal Newman said, in his "Lectures on Justification" (1838), that up to the Resurrection "God the Son and God the Holy Ghost so acted together in their separate Persons, as to make it difficult for us creatures to discriminate what belongs to each respectively." Difficult, but not impossible, in the light of Scripture distinctions between them, and far less so, since the work of the Son was completed on earth, to distinguish that of the Spirit, yet unfinished, and constantly exhibiting itself.

"Or, Redemption in Harmony with Law as revealed in Nature." Philadelphia: Christian Statesman Publishing Co. pp. 235.

showing that everything called law comes from the will of the Lawgiver-even self-evident axioms. "Space and duration are what they are because God is what He is." Suppose space to be, as Clarke calls it, an attribute of God, its necessary existence by no means implies its independent existence." "The Nature of Things" is "the Latest Idol." The nature of God is recognized as the first source of being, fact, and truth; but " there is nothing determined by the nature of God which is not determined by the will of God." Two plus two equal to four is in no sense independent of his will. Natural and moral law rest upon it alike.

It is therefore the peculiarity of this book, that it denies the atonement to be in any way exceptional. It “conforms to, obeys, and satisfies law." "Its origin is of the mere sovereignty of God. Sovereignty characterizes all beginnings." Treating plan and law as identical, the writer maintains that "the work of redemption, as well as the course of nature, proceeds in accordance with a predetermined plan, and under absolute and invariable law, law quite as exact as that which governs the material universe." "Turretin's idea of relaxation of the law," Symington's of "dispensing in some respect with the law," and even Dr. Hodge's of “substituting person for person" are negatived. Absolute satisfaction of law by the blood of Christ is asserted, and the longest, freshest, and most peculiar chapter (seventy-six pages) is entitled "Substitution Normal in Law." Two positions logically precede and prepare for this, viz. "No salvation without atonement," "No atonement by the violation of law." Nonexecution of the penalty would not protect the sinner from fearful natural consequences of sin. But he can have no assurance under law of its non-execution. "Law which may be relaxed could not have been holy, just, and good." "The authority of the Lawgiver is in every precept." The offender meets him face to face in the simplest. In his own person he can never expiate any offence