ART. VI.-THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. THE late John Miley, D.D., whose writings now constitute probably the most prominent and accepted authority in Methodist circles upon the atonement and related subjects, almost, if not definitely, proclaims the unsatisfactoriness of the statements of the past and present, including his own, when he disclaims identity of doctrine and fact. He assumes, or affirms, that the fact is that the vicarious sufferings of Jesus Christ are the grounds of forgiveness and salvation, thus putting a doctrine for a fact and making the benefits of that affirmed fact available, although the explanations may differ, which explanations he calls doctrines. The doctrine of the atonement must be a statement of the facts, or it is false. The three formulated explanations-the satisfaction, moral influence, and governmental-have each by skilled hands been held up to, if not against, the Scriptures and Methodist or Arminian discoveries in revealed religion. In Methodism they have been tried, and at least the two former have been found wanting. They have each successively permeated the thought of the Church. Watson was the elaborator of the satisfaction explanation, and his Institutes were the authorized study of the ministry for a long time. Bushnell and Raymond had the attention of a later generation, with the moral influence theory in systematic statement and writings. Now Miley has the right of way and the tacit consent of the Church, with his governmental idea. Will it stand the test?

But a still more important question is, Why should the world have been, or now be, perplexed with statements that are exclusive of each other, and which upon test need to be substituted for some other? Is the doctrine of the atonement so obscure? The satisfaction theory was manifestly a legal reason for continued abounding sin, and Antinomianism was, and is, thereby logically inevitable. The moral influence explanation was inoperative, for the subjects to be influenced were too bad to be affected, except perhaps to be hardened. The governmental is as certainly lacking in comprehensiveness of the great theme and of satisfactory results.

Its stock illustrative incident has very few, if indeed any, facts that are like the real facts. The story of a monarch whose son was the only criminal and who, for his own transgression, lost only one eye, but did lose one-the sovereign father losing one eye instead of the son's other eye-does not match the universal sinfulness of the world, the only sinless one being the Son, and he slain because they, the criminals, hated him for being from above, while they were from beneath. An illustrative incident true to the facts would be the story of a monarch every one of whose subjects were in revolt, his own son being the only loyal one, who, being sent to recover the withheld rights of the sovereign, was killed. Such is the story of the parable of the vineyard, and it must not be narrowed to apply only to the Jews. It was as comprehensive as the incident of Cain and Abel. That was world-wide, and so was the later conflict between righteousness and unrighteousness-Jesus Christ instead of Abel, the whole world instead of Cain, the different dispensations only making the difference as to effects. The blood of Abel cried for vengeance; the blood of Jesus speaks of pardon, as each is authoritatively interpreted by God himself.

The

Now, if there can be no satisfactory statement, even by skilled thinkers, from a given standpoint, is it not proof that the standpoint is wrong? The effort has been to formulate the unscriptural idea of a plan to reconcile God to man. scriptural statement always is the reconciliation of man-who against instruction, warning, and prohibition sinned and thereby became estranged or separated from God-to God. There was a time when God and man were at one, and conversed as friend to friend. Sin entered by disobedience, and immediately man, not God, was estranged. His death was immediately assured. Not physical death, for that was always his portion except for the tree of life, from the fruit of which he was excluded, after sin entered, "lest he put forth his hand . . . and live forever;" the death was separateness from God. The problem has always been how to reestablish that severed relationship, and that is atonement. The Scripture statement is, "That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in

us;" for the restored privilege is, when it is fulfilled which the Master taught, "I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: for the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me." The general import of the records makes a plain story and true to all the facts. God created man in his own image, which is a large image. He charged him that to know good and evil was instant death. Man committed, if not the unpardonable sin, the fatal one. His seed by nature separated from God must wage a pitiful contest with the adversary. The triumph of evil was soon so manifestly appalling that Jehovah affirmed, "It repenteth me that I have made them." He found one man and his family through whom there was promise, and sent a deluge of waters and drowned all the rest, which was the most far-reaching and not-to-be-repeated method of the extermination of evil to make way for good that characterized the old dispensation. It was a failure, for the spared ones and their descendants were not one with God. The blunder with the best of them was that they always excused themselves from participating in the privileges and responsibilities of the reinstatement, though God over and over again proclaimed his power and willingness to forgive and make a new heart and life.

How sacrifices came to be instituted as a transaction between God and man there is no information in Holy Writ. That it was a method of worship is historical. When they became a substitute for obedience it was an offense to God, and he forbade them. "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;" the "conclusion of the whole matter" is, "Fear God and keep his commandments." Jesus Christ was a necessity, if indeed by him could come the atonement. “The darkness comprehended it not." He explained that all divine ideas were presented in him, not of go-betweens or sacrifices -these were human ideas-but of life. He demanded repentance and a new birth. He reaffirmed redemption by the compassion and power of God, the Father Almighty-he, Jesus Christ, being set forth as the embodiment of that compassion and power. He did not, for he could not, bring in the kingdom by machinery. It was at hand, but could only come in as there was the radical change to righteousness from

unrighteousness. It all depended upon the still alienated and unreconciled man. The aggregate alien man made a revolted world which was not of God's kingdom. Why talk of God. being the Sovereign and Governor of the world, whose condition was the exclusion of his kingdom and whose inhabitants, instead of loving the heavenly visitor, rallied the best elements to choose a murderer in his stead, and in the savageness of depravity killed him? Why talk of redemption by machinery, when he who came from the Father and in oneness with him raised the question whether, when he should come again, he would find faith in the earth? It is and ever will be an open question, Will man be one with God?

Unitarians have seemed to desire to answer, but their faith has not been so much in God as in man, who is not altogether bad and only needs to be properly cultivated to be right and in such rightness appropriately and acceptably to worship God. They have no recognized need of being born again, and hence their rightness is not wise, being of the order that results from comparing man with man. They have no way to climb to the perfectness that is possible, because, being really born of God, one is like him in that practical law that like begets like and in which reborn man is even as his Father which is in heaven; in which life, and only in which, can there be oneness with God. If the communion was when man was in the likeness of God, and the separation was when that image was lost, the communion can be again, and when that likeness has been regained. That is possible. God makes, and he only can make, it possible. He who created has the power, and offers upon conditions, to recreate after himself, as a pattern to work to, "in righteousness and true holiness." In such recreated life only is the cause of estrangement removed. It is a matter of common knowledge, and a part of the simple story that "whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin." We have a right to be shy of Unitarians, Socinians, Pelagians, and Universalists, chiefly because they deny the facts, first, as to man's condition by nature—that is, in sin-and, second, as to man's possibilities in grace, which last involves the great doctrine of atonement.

Other men have seemed earnestly to desire to answer the

question by teaching a trinity of persons in the oneness and unity of the Godhead. Among these have been the contentions regarding sin, redemption, and regeneration with which we are more or less familiar—which contentions have always centered in theories of the atonement. The larger numbers of parties have practically accepted the doctrine of one person of the Trinity demanding, and all the persons of the Trinity consenting to, the foreordained death of another person of the Trinity, in order that the other might thereby be appeased. Now, no true doctrine of the atonement can be founded upon the theory of God reconciling God. He was "in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself," not himself unto himself. The adjustment was and is not needed within the divine life. It was and is needed between God and man, and the necessitated adjustment is a readjustment of man. How?

First, man must be convinced of his sinfulness. The darkness does not comprehend the darkness. He does not realize how depraved he is. There was no necessity for the death of Christ on the divine side. It was necessary to prove to mankind how bad sin made them. His death was the deliberate murder that Peter charged them with, and the men who did it were no worse than every other sinner. They could not fasten the guilt upon their children by their proposed brutal covenant. But, alas! their children by nature would be as bad as they, and so as guilty. Repentance is the inevitable result of recognizing the exceeding sinfulness of sin. If men will know how bad they are they cannot help repenting. It is a great privilege granted to men. John, the forerunner, preached it. Jesus Christ's first recorded preaching is, "Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." His closing instruction is that "repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." The death of Jesus Christ is related to the atonement only as it is the indisputable evidence of the depravity of the race. It was permitted to convict men, not to appease God. The manifested hateful rage of the world was impotent, for-though he was not taken out of their hands, or they were not destroyed, and in that sense they were permitted to go to the length of their impulses and put to death