METHODIST

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

OCTOBER, 1877.

ART. I.-THE ATONEMENT,

IN ITS RELATIONS TO THE MORAL UNIVERSE.

THE Atonement is the central transaction of eternity.

The Infinite Mind, let us suppose, is primarily engaged with the problem of CREATION; not the creation of mere matter, nor yet of irresponsible being-that involved no difficulty— but of moral, spiritual, accountable beings, capable of knowing, loving, and enjoying himself. The Creator would not dwell alone. Infinite Love would bestow being and happiness. God could fill space with matter wrought into all forms of beauty, or combine with matter countless myriads of the lower orders of life, destitute of reason and moral perception. But what delight could he take in such creatures? They could not know or love him; he could not have fellowship or communion with them. He would have beings made like unto himself in spirit, in essence, in moral qualities, with understanding, affections, will; beings to whom he could make himself known, and who, as he revealed himself in the attributes of the divine and loving All-Father, could apprehend, love, and adore him, and thus find the happiness he designed them to enjoy.

But this happiness of the creature would depend upon continued harmony with God's nature and will. Further, this harmony would depend upon the free choice of the creature, otherwise it would be worthless. Constraint would destroy. FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XXIX.-37

Services rendered to us, in order to be valued, must be freely given. Can we for a moment suppose that God would not spurn any other than a perfectly free and willing service? To be thus it must be the choice of a free, a positively free, agent. Now, the very essence of freedom is the power of choice, the power to accept or reject, to choose a thing, or its opposite.

But God knew that this essential freedom of choice involved the risk of apostasy; knew that possibility of defection was indissolubly joined with moral freedom. He has so constituted us, mentally, that the opposite of this statement is, to us, a contradiction. Here, then, is the supreme difficulty of the whole problem of the intellectual and moral creation. So far as we can see, the question was reduced to this: either creation, with possible sin and consequent suffering, or noncreation.

God knew that some would exercise the power of choice to choose evil; knew this when and before he breathed spiritual and moral life into the first rational, responsible being. In his infinite wisdom and infinite love, and in the face of the known fact that some would sin and suffer, he determined to create. But all whom he created he made morally pure, and freely bestowed upon them all needful power; made them abundantly "sufficient to stand, though free to fall." We say that God knew that sin would enter his dominion and mar his work. May we not, also, assert that, foreseeing the evil, he provided for its correction; provided for it and settled all things according to the counsels of his will, before a single spark of intelligent life flashed into being; that, before the eldest-born of "the morning stars and the sons of God" awoke to conscious blessedness, the All good and All wise God had seen the end from the beginning, and, looking upon his work as already finished, "saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good?"

Let us, with profound reverence, for we are treading on holy ground, inquire what he saw; or, rather, let us, from the standpoint we have chosen and with the light we have, look down the vista of the eternity to come, and note what we shall see. Withdrawing our eyes from the magnificence and beauty of the material universe, we fix them upon the universe of created spirit, and scan the processes and the products of the moral

government of God. In the beginning there arise, rank upon rank, ten thousand times ten thousand pure spiritual beings, radiant with the beauty of God, glowing with the holy fervor of love and worship, endowed with powers of perception and comprehension, of wisdom and knowledge, capable of eternal expansion, and stamped with the seal of immortality. We behold these beings assigned to their respective spheres and charged with their several responsibilities; placed under law and required to measure up to its perfect standard; placed, as Adam was, and as we are, on probation. We look, and as cycle upon cycle of the eternal ages multiplies, we find them joyfully and perfectly fulfilling all duty through the allotted period of their probation, and as they accomplish that period and approve themselves worthy of reward, we find them entering into that unchangeable state of holiness and happiness which is to be the portion of all who fulfill its conditions.

Will it not be admitted just here that, reasoning from analogy, all the subjects of God's moral government must needs stand the test of probation ere they are crowned with final reward? I cannot conceive that the Just and Holy One will use partiality in this respect. Man, we know, is put to the test under the covenant of grace. Why should the angels be relieved from an equal trial by the covenant of works? Could God make one order of beings and seal them at once forever holy and happy, beyond the moral possibility of defection, while he subjected another, having equal claims, as his creatures, to such a state of trial as involved the possibility of failure and final ruin? "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"

We continue to observe the progress of creation and the developments of the divine government. As the centuries of eternity pass we come to the period when that portion of the celestial hosts known to us as Satan and his fellow spirits, the now fallen angels, enter upon the stage of being. Wonderfully endowed and clothed with glory and majesty, this Prince of Powers was assigned a province worthy of his capacities. He ruled with regal dignity myriads of lesser spirits, who, through his extended domain, rendered to him that deference and obedience which befitted the high honor conferred upon him by his Lord and theirs. Invested with this illustrious viceroyalty

he, doubtless, for a season maintained his fealty to his Sovereign, and administered, with all fidelity and acceptableness, the government committed to his charge, conscious of his own personal responsibility as a servant of the Most High.

Surely we may imagine that Satan* was in possession of all that he should desire to satisfy his highest aspirations for honor and blessedness. All the powers of his being were harmoniously employed in work which at once expanded those powers and filled them with the purest delight. His fellowsubjects gladly obeyed his behests and delighted to do him honor. He lived in the full sunlight of the approving smile of his Maker. He rejoiced in conscious purity and integrity, and in the assurance that when his present mission was accomplished he would be exalted to a still higher state, and, sealed forever holy and happy, would spend that "forever" in the ever-increasing enjoyment of all the perfection of being and blessedness that the Infinite One could bestow. But the time came when he began to entertain thoughts of evil, ideas, suggestions, which had from the beginning crossed the field of his mind. They had hovered about his pathway, but hitherto his clear intellect and untainted spirit had comprehended their character and absolutely repelled their influence. Though conscious of their presence, he was equally conscious of utter abhorrence of them. He knew more clearly than we can know the difference between the intellectual perception of the suggestion of evil and the willing entertainment of that suggestion. The line of demarcation between solicitation and consent, between temptation and sin, was distinctly drawn, sharply defined. While within that line, he knew that he was perfectly safe; overstepping it, he knew, involved rebellion against the Holy One, and possible danger and loss to himself. What that danger and loss might be he was uncertain. He had never made the trial. He had never known or heard of any who had. In the history of the universe there was no instance of rebellion, and no illustration of the consequences that would follow it. Should he make the attempt he must dare the unknown. He knew good, but not evil.

*We know no better title by which to designate him. Satan means aaversary, and has, doubtless, been applied to him only since his fall. What name he bore previous to that event has not been revealed.

The high mission and mighty prerogatives with which, I think, Scripture authorizes us to believe Satan was clothed, suggested a higher exaltation and a wider reach of empire. Possession of power, exercise of dominion, the right to command and be obeyed, is, perhaps, the most fascinating of all the gifts that can be intrusted to an intelligent being. The thought that his mighty power could be increased, that, with the means at his command, he could multiply his dominions, and that, with still increasing resources, he might at length rule as an independent sovereign and release himself from even the homage due to Deity, presented itself as a glittering prize. Indulging in these imaginings impaired his spiritual vision, and the perception of his inherent impotence was, for the time, obscured.

Some may ask, How could such rebellious thoughts be entertained by a being in heaven? I beg you to remember that, according to our theory, Satan never was in heaven, that is, the heaven of final reward. Many suppose that Satan was a resident of that holy place before he fell. I think, however, that we are more indebted to Milton than to the Bible for that impression. True, it is written, "There was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon... and his angels;" and that their place was found no more in heaven. But I believe it is conceded that this, like many other passages in the Apocalypse, is highly figurative. That it cannot mean the heaven of God's peculiar residence is evident, for no evil can enter there, and war is an evil. It must, then, refer to exalted positions in governments, to the princes and potentates of earth, or to the mighty powers of the air, who, lifted high above the masses, reigned and ruled in imitation of the heavenly powers.

If Satan and his compeers fell from that complete and final state of reward to which the hopes of righteous men look with such joyful satisfaction, under the assurance that they will never fall, would not that fact suggest painful doubts as to its eternal stability? But to my mind the positive promise of the Lord Jesus that his servants shall be made pillars in the temple to "go no more out," that the righteous shall inherit "life eternal," is conclusive and satisfying. And, in addition to these promises, we may present two philosophical reasons