Consequently, even if it were mentally possible for all of us to believe
in the Atonement, we should have to cry off it, as we evidently have a
right to do. Every man to whom salvation is offered has an inalienable
natural right to say "No, thank you: I prefer to retain my full moral
responsibility: it is not good for me to be able to load a scapegoat
with my sins: I should be less careful how I committed them if I knew
they would cost me nothing." Then, too, there is the attitude of Ibsen:
that iron moralist to whom the whole scheme of salvation was only an
ignoble attempt to cheat God; to get into heaven without paying the
price. To be let off, to beg for and accept eternal life as a present
instead of earning it, would be mean enough even if we accepted the
contempt of the Power on whose pity we were trading; but to bargain for
a crown of glory as well! that was too much for Ibsen: it provoked him
to exclaim, "Your God is an old man whom you cheat," and to lash the
deadened conscience of the XIX century back to life with a whip of
scorpions.