"Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other
name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be
saved."--Acts iv. 12.
The scene which we have this evening to visit and explore, is separated
from us by the space of eighteen centuries; yet of nothing on this earth
has Providence left, within the shadows of the past, so vivid and divine
an image. Gently rising above the mighty "field of the world," Calvary's
mournful hill appears, covered with silence now, but distinctly showing
the heavenly light that struggled there through the stormiest elements
of guilt. Nor need we only gaze, as on a motionless picture that closes
the vista of Christian ages. Permitting history to take us by the hand,
we may pace back in pilgrimage to the hour, till its groups stand around
us, and pass by us, and its voices of passion and of grief mock and wail
upon our ear. As we mingle with the crowd which, amid noise and dust,
follows the condemned prisoners to the place of execution, and fix our
eye on the faint and panting figure of one that bears his cross, could
we but whisper to the sleek priests close by, how might we startle them,
by telling them the future fate of this brief tragedy,--brief in act, in
blessing everlasting; that this Galilean convict shall be the world's
confessed deliverer, while they that have brought him to this shall be
the scorn and by-word of the nations; that that vile instrument of
torture, now so abject that it makes the dying slave more servile,
shall be made, by this victim and this hour, the symbol of whatever is
holy and sublime; the emblem of hope and love; pressed to the lips of
ages; consecrated by a veneration which makes the sceptre seem trivial
as an infant's toy. Meanwhile, the sacerdotal hypocrites, unconscious of
the part they play, watch to the end the public murder which they have
privately suborned; stealing a phrase from Scripture, that they may mock
with holy lips; and leaving to the plebeian soldiers the mutual jest and
brutal laugh, that serve to beguile the hired but hated work of agony,
and that draw forth from the sufferer that burst of forgiving prayer,
which sunk at least into their centurion's heart. One there is, who
should have been spared the hearing of these scoffs; and perhaps she
heard them not; for before his nature was exhausted more, his eye
detects and his voice addresses her, and twines round her the filial arm
of that disciple, who had been ever the most loving as well as most
beloved. She at least lost the religion of that hour in its humanity,
and beheld not the prophet, but the son:--had not her own hands wrought
that seamless robe for which the soldiers' lot is cast; and her own lips
taught him that strain of sacred poetry, "My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me?" but never had she thought to hear it _thus_. As the cries
become fainter and fainter, scarcely do they reach Peter standing afar
off. The last notice of him had been the rebuking look that sent him to
weep bitterly; and now the voice that alone can tell him his forgiveness
will soon be gone! Broken hardly less, though without remorse, is the
youthful John, to see that head, lately resting on his bosom, drooping
passively in death; and to hear the involuntary shriek of Mary, as the
spear struck upon the lifeless body, moving now only as it is
moved;--whence he alone, on whom she leaned, records the fact. Well
might the Galilean friends stand at a distance gazing; unable to depart,
yet not daring to approach; well might the multitudes that had cried
"Crucify him!" in the morning, shudder at the thought of that clamor ere
night; "beholding the things that had come to pass, they smote their
breasts and returned."
This is the scene of which we have to seek the interpretation. Our
first natural impression is, that it requires no interpretation, but
speaks for itself; that it has no mystery, except that which belongs
to the triumphs of deep guilt, and the sanctities of disinterested
love. To raise our eye to that serene countenance, to listen to that
submissive voice, to note the subjects of its utterance, would give us
no idea of any mystic horror concealed behind the human features of
the scene; of any invisible contortions, as from the lash of demons,
in the soul of that holy victim; of any sympathetic connection of that
cross with the bottomless pit on the one hand, and the highest heaven
on the other; of any moral revolution throughout our portion of the
universe, of which this public execution is but the outward signal.
The historians drop no hint that its sufferings, its affections, its
relations, were other than human,--raised indeed to distinction by
miraculous accompaniments; but intrinsically, however signally, human.
They mention, as if bearing some appreciable proportion to the whole
series of incidents, particulars so slight, as to vanish before any
other than the obvious historical view of the transaction; the thirst,
the sponge, the rent clothes, the mingled drink. They ascribe no
sentiment to the crucified, except such as might be expressed by one
of like nature with ourselves, in the consciousness of a finished work
of duty, and a fidelity never broken under the strain of heaviest
trial. The narrative is clearly the production of minds filled, not
with theological anticipations, but with historical recollections.
With this view of Christ's death, which is such as might be
entertained by any of the primitive churches, having one of the
Gospels only, without any of the Epistles, we are content. I conceive
of it, then, as manifesting the last degree of moral perfection in the
Holy One of God; and believe that, in thus being an expression of
character, it has its primary and everlasting value. I conceive of it
as the needful preliminary to his resurrection and ascension, by which
the severest difficulties in the theory of Providence, life, and duty
are alleviated or solved. I conceive of it as immediately procuring
the universality and spirituality of the Gospel; by dissolving those
corporeal ties which gave nationality to Jesus, and making him, in his
heavenly and immortal form, the Messiah of humanity; blessing,
sanctifying, regenerating, not a people from the centre of Jerusalem,
but a world from his station in the heavens. And these views, under
unimportant modifications, I submit, are the only ones of which
Scripture contains a trace.
All this, however, we are assured, is the mere outside aspect of the
crucifixion; and wholly insignificant compared with the invisible
character and relations of the scene; which, localized only on earth,
has its chief effect in hell; and, though presenting itself among the
occurrences of time, is a repeal of the decretals of Eternity. The being
who hangs upon that cross is not man alone; but also the everlasting
God, who created and upholds all things, even the sun that now darkens
its face upon him, and the murderers who are waiting for his expiring
cry. The anguish he endures is not chiefly that which falls so
poignantly on the eye and ear of the spectator; the injured human
affections, the dreadful momentary doubt; the pulses of physical
torture, doubling on him with full or broken wave, till driven back by
the overwhelming power of love disinterested and divine. But he is
judicially abandoned by the Infinite Father; who expends on him the
immeasurable wrath due to an apostate race, gathers up into an hour the
lightnings of Eternity, and lets them loose upon that bended head. It is
the moment of retributive justice; the expiation of all human guilt:
that open brow hides beneath it the despair of millions of men; and to
the intensity of agony there, no human wail could give expression.
Meanwhile, the future brightens on the elect; the tempests that hung
over their horizon are spent. The vengeance of the lawgiver having had
its way, the sunshine of a Father's grace breaks forth, and lights up,
with hope and beauty, the earth, which had been a desert of despair and
sin. According to this theory, Christ, in his death, was a proper
expiatory sacrifice; he turned aside, by enduring it for them, the
infinite punishment of sin from all past or future believers in this
efficacy of the cross; and transferred to them the natural rewards of
his own righteousness. An acceptance of this doctrine is declared to be
the prime condition of the Divine forgiveness; for no one who does not
_see_ the pardon can _have_ it. And this pardon, again, this clear score
for the past, is a necessary preliminary to all sanctification; to all
practical opening of a disinterested heart towards our Creator and man.
Pardon, and the perception of it, are the needful preludes to that
conforming love to God and men, which is the true Christian salvation.
The evidence in support of this theory is derived partly from natural
appearances, partly from Scriptural announcements. Involving, as it
does, statements respecting the actual condition of human nature, and
the world in which we live, some appeal to experience, and to the
rational interpretation of life and Providence, is inevitable; and hence
certain propositions, affecting to be of a philosophical character, are
laid down as fundamental by the advocates of this system. Yet it is
admitted, that direct revelation only could have acquainted us, either
with our lost condition, or our vicarious recovery; and that all we can
expect to accomplish with nature, is to harmonize what we observe there
with what we read in the written records of God's will; so that the main
stress of the argument rests on the interpretation of Scripture. The
principles deduced from the nature of things, and laid down as a basis
for this doctrine, may be thus represented:--
That man needs a Redeemer; having obviously fallen, by some disaster,
into a state of misery and guilt, from which the worst penal
consequences must be apprehended; and were it not for the probability
of such lapse from the condition in which it was fashioned, it would
be impossible to reconcile the phenomena of the world with the justice
and benevolence of its Creator.
That Deity only can redeem; since, to preserve veracity, the penalty
of sin must be inflicted; and the diversion only, not the annihilation
of it, is possible. To let it fall on angels would fail of the desired
end; because human sin, having been directed against an Infinite
Being, has incurred an infinitude of punishment; which on no created
beings could be exhausted in any period short of eternity. Only a
nature strictly infinite can compress within itself, in the compass of
an hour, the woes distributed over the immortality of mankind. Hence,
were God personally One, like man, no redemption could be effected;
for there would be no Deity to suffer, except the very One who must
punish. But the triplicity of the Godhead relieves all difficulty;
for, while one Infinite inflicts, another Infinite endures; and
resources are furnished for the atonement.
Amid a great variety of forms in which the theory of atonement exists,
I have selected the foregoing; which, if I understand aright, is that
which is vindicated in the present controversy. I am not aware that I
have added anything to the language in which it is stated by its
powerful advocate, unless it be a few phrases, leaving its essential
meaning the same, but needful to render it compact and clear.
The Scriptural evidence is found principally in certain of the
Apostolical Epistles; and this circumstance will render it necessary
to conduct a separate search into the historical writings of the New
Testament, that we may ascertain how they express the corresponding
set of ideas. Taking up successively these two branches of the
subject, the natural and the Biblical, I propose to show, first, that
this doctrine is inconsistent with itself; secondly, that it is
inconsistent with the Christian idea of salvation.