God will not be obliged to punish us forever. It sets aside the chief element of saving faith, that grace whereby, renouncing all dependence on ourselves, we receive and rest upon Christ alone for salvation, putting on Christ, being in Christ, having a vital union with him as our life; and gives us in the place of all this, repentance as a prevention of crime in ourselves, laying aside our rebellion, submitting ourselves to God, and trusting that the Great Ruler will not be obliged, by governmental necessity, to execute the penalty of sin upon us, on the ground of Christ's having done what will avail equally well for the prevention of crime in others, and for the upholding and honoring of the law and government for the public good.

Semi-Arminianism was first most clearly drawn out as a system by Hugo Grotius in the former part of the sixteenth century. Grotius was ranked among the Arminians of his time, but was possessed of such an acute intellect that he could not avoid seeing the heretical tendencies of Arminianism, and yet his heart seemed not prepared to receive its only Scriptural and logical alternative. And so, to clear himself from the charge of Socinianism, he labored to open a via media, and prepared his "Defensio Fidei Catholicæ de Satisfactione Christi." He undertook to make a subtle distinction between satisfactio and solutio, carrying the idea that God, by inflicting death upon Christ, thus giving an example of punishment, had arbitrarily set aside the necessity of a real satisfaction to divine justice. He, like Socinius, "attached principal importance to the moral impression which the death of Christ is calculated to produce;" and this impression "consists in the exhibition of the punishment due to sin." "It was based upon political rather than jural premises," and "could not satisfy either the feelings or the reason of Christians." Some of his followers went a step farther and affirmed "that the death of Christ was a solemn declaration that God will be merciful to sinners," and, of course, hold the demands of justice, if there be any such, in eternal abeyance. (Hag. vol. ii. pp. 355, 360, 361, and 498.) (Bib. Sac. vol. ix. p. 259. The Grotian Theory, a translation from Baur, by Dr. L. Swain.)

Various attempts have been made in different ages to devise or revive something like this midway Grotian theory, which

we have called semi-Arminianism; something which shall satisfy the Socinian reasoning and yet, in a general way, conform to the language of Scripture and the Christian feelings. Our space will allow us only briefly to refer to two recent instances of tendency downward in this direction under the lead of authors of almost Grotian skill in dialectic subtleties. The first of these may be seen in a small volume published in 1845, by Dr. N. S. S. Beman, in review of a pamphlet entitled, "Christ the only sacrifice, or the Atonement in its relations to God and man." On pp. 131, 133, 135, 142, Dr. Beman says, justice, in its "common, appropriate sense, was not satisfied by the Atonement of Jesus Christ." "The law, or justice, that is, distributive justice, as expressed in the law, has received no satisfaction at all." It is "a symbolical and substantive expression of God's regard to the moral law." "To fix indelibly this impression on the heart of the sinner is the object of the Atonement." Dr. Beman makes this the design of penalty “to operate as a powerful motive to obedience;" and this the necessity of the Atonement, "to secure the order and prosperity of the universe," pp. 127-8. See Review of Beman, in Essays and Reviews, by Charles Hodge, D. D., p. 129.

The other of these recent attempts to revive the Grotian theory may be gleaned from the Introductory Essay to a volume entitled "The Atonement," by Edwards A. Park, D.D. The aim of the Introductory Essay, and of the volume, seems to be to draw from the writings of the great New England divines, the author's "New" or "Edwardean Theory" of the Atonement. On page 10, "the main principles" of this theory are stated in nine propositions, four of which read as follows:

"Secondly, The sufferings of our Lord satisfied the general justice of God, but did not satisfy his distributive justice."

"Thirdly, 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."

"Fifthly, 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."

"Ninthly, 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."

In the word "Ruler," in this last proposition, the Governmental theory is fully avowed; and here is the germ of Universalism, as we have before seen. The Atonement is necessary, not on account of God's own nature and attributes, but to enable him as a Ruler, to pardon. It was not necessary that God might be just in pardoning, but it was necessary for public ends. Atonement takes the place of punishment. Therefore God threatens to punish, not from any promptings in his own nature and attributes, but for public, governmental ends. Says the Universalist, therefore sin is only a governmental evil; there is nothing in God's nature and attributes that constrains him to punish; and the ends of government may be met by punishment that is not eternal, but circumstantial and limited, as sin is circumstantial and limited.

To establish such an "Edwardean theory," or gain countenance for it from the writings of the New England divines, is a manifest impossibility to all who are familiar with their writings. It is like the attempt to prove Swedenborgianism, Universalism, or any other ism from the Bible. A few passages and expressions standing out of their connection and scope may always be found pliable. Least of all is it possible to show any leanings towards the Grotian theory in the works of the elder Edwards and Dr. Hopkins, the greatest of the New England theologians. Who can doubt that they were familiar with every such abortive effort in the previous history of the church to find a safe middle ground between such logical and theological antipodes? In this discussion, on pages 16 and 17 of this volume, we have made quotations from the elder Edwards, showing his unequivocal belief in the sufferings of Christ as making full satisfaction to divine justice, by answering the full penalty of the divine law, for "the sin that was imputed to him, or offered that to God that was fully and completely equivalent to what we owed to divine justice for our

sins." We could quote many pages from the writings of both Edwards and Hopkins to the same positive purport ;-one from the latter must suffice.

"Here (Rom. iii. 25, 26,) the design of the Redeemer is expressed, and the great thing he is to accomplish is to maintain and declare the righteousness, the rectitude, and unchangeable truth and perfection of God, in opening a way by his blood, his sufferings unto death, for the free pardon of sinful man, consistent with his rectoral justice and truth, and doing that which is right and just, both with respect to himself, his law and government, and all the subjects of his kingdom.

"The work of the Redeemer, therefore, has a primary respect to the law of God, to maintain and honor that, so that sinners may be pardoned and saved consistent with that, without setting that aside, or showing the least disregard to it, in the requirements and threatenings of it; but that it may be perfectly fulfilled, and especially that the threatening might be properly and completely executed, without which God could not be true or just in pardoning or saving the sinner. It was, therefore, predicted that he should magnify the law, and make it honorable.' (Is. xlii. 21.) And Christ himself declares that he came into the world to fulfil the law. Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets; I am not come to destroy but to fulfil. For verily, I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one title shall in nowise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.' (Matt. v. 17, 18.) The law could not be fulfilled by Jesus Christ without his suffering the penalty of it, and obeying it perfectly. For to give up the penalty, and not execute the threatening of the law, when it is transgressed, is to dissolve and destroy the law. For a penalty is essential to a law, and where there is no penalty threatened there is no law, as has been shown.

6

"Therefore, had the Redeemer undertaken to save men, without regard to the penalty of the law, and suffering it himself, he would have come to make void the law and destroy it, to all intents and purposes. He could not make reconciliation, and bring in everlasting righteousness,' (Dan. ix. 24,) which it was predicted he should, without suffering the penalty of the law, the everlasting rule of righteousness. In doing this his love of righteousness and hatred of iniquity was exercised and displayed in the most signal manner, and to the highest degree. Therefore, it is with respect to this regard which he paid to the divine law in suffering the penalty and obeying the precepts of it, that it is said to him, Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil

(Heb. i. 9; Ps. xiv. 7.)

... Sin

of gladness above thy fellows.' ful men were under the curse of the law; and in order to redeem them, the Redeemer must take their place under the law, and suffer the penalty, bear the curse for them, and in their room, which is expressed yet more fully, and in the most plain and unequivocal words, in the preceding chapter. 'Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.' By being made a curse for us, can be nothing else but suffering the penalty, the curse of the law, under which we were, and which man must have suffered, had not the Redeemer suffered it for him, as he could not be redeemed in any other way without destroying the law." Hopkins' Works, vol. i. pp. 323-4.

Having dwelt thus particularly upon the first step in what we have termed the Universalist stairway, but few words will be necessary to indicate those which naturally follow. After semi-Arminianism the step to full Arminianism is not distant, and will be taken by their followers, though the leaders should hesitate long. Arminianism proceeds practically to bring down the character of sin, and the nature of human sinfulness, to the same level to which divine justice and atonement have been brought by the former step. That man, by the fall, has become naturally and totally depraved, is denied. Why should it be believed after a governmental expedient which has nothing of a penal nature in it has been deemed sufficient to meet the demands of divine justice, and to make full atonement for sin? Consequently Arminians affirm that the human will is not radically corrupt, nor wholly opposed to God; and that one man is saved and another not, is owing, not to the grace of God, but to the free will of man. The necessity of grace is not denied, but made alike universal in every case and in every sense. The necessity of grace is not denied, but its efficacy is made to depend on the human will. They affirm that the death and sufferings of Christ are applied alike to every individual of mankind. Or in other words, that redemption differs in no way from atonement, but is a mere common provision, made in every sense conditional, thus substantially denying gratuitous election, decrees, foreknowledge, perseverance, &c.

At this point the way is prepared for the third step downward, which is the substantial rejection of Regeneration as an