relation more evident than it had ever been before, many who received
the Gospel imagine that it discovers to them a means by which the
relation may be suspended or destroyed. This misapprehension we hold to
be more fatal in its moral consequences than any other which human
prejudice has originated. By what appears to us a strange perversion of
Scripture language, and by the gradual increase of some subordinate
errors, it began to be imagined, some centuries ago, that, though misery
is necessarily connected with guilt, yet that the guilt may be
perpetrated by one person, and the consequent misery endured by another;
and this belief has subsisted in almost every Christian church till this
day. It is well that it has been confined to the churches, and that its
application has been limited, by all but Catholics, to one very
peculiar case; for if it had become the common doctrine of our schools,
and colleges, and homes, if it had been enforced by parents and moral
philosophers and professors as a general truth, as it is by divines with
reference to a particular case, the very foundations of virtue would
have been overthrown, and the force of its sanctions not only wasted but
fatally perverted.
Happily the accents of reason and religion have been too distinct and
harmonious to be overpowered by the dictates of error, or very
extensively neglected. Notwithstanding all that religious teachers have
erroneously inculcated of the possible and actual separation of guilt
and its punishment on the principle of vicarious suffering, education
has still proceeded, and moral discipline been enforced as if no such
false principle had ever been advocated. Children are swayed by hope and
fear of the consequences of their actions to themselves; and
self-government is enforced at a riper age by the same motives, though
enlarged and elevated. In religion alone has an error, as absurd in its
nature as injurious in its tendencies, been retained thus long by the
force of prejudice; and that it has not spread further we hold to be
owing to its manifest folly and to its evidently noxious influence when
applied to any case but that to which it is appropriated. There can be
no surer proof that the principle itself is false.
It is difficult to know where to begin in disproving a doctrine which is
repugnant to every other doctrine, inconsistent with every received
truth, and incompatible with every admitted divine and human relation,
with every known attribute of mind, divine or human. It will be
sufficient to state one reason for utterly rejecting as we do the
doctrine of vicarious suffering; that reason being suggested and
confirmed both by our own understandings and by Scripture.
It is clear that no man can sin for another. He may sin at the
instigation of another, or for the supposed benefit of another; but in
the first case, the sin remains with both, and in the last, with the
perpetrator only. Moral disease thus bears an exact analogy to natural
disease. Natural disease may be communicated, or even incurred for the
benefit of another, but it cannot be so transferred as to be annihilated
with respect to the person who was first subject to it. The case is
precisely the same with the pain which is the inseparable consequence of
sin. If endured by any but the sinner, it is actually and completely
disconnected with the sin. It is no longer a punishment, but a
gratuitous infliction. This is so evident that, if proposed in any court
of justice but that from which our purest conceptions of justice are
derived, the reason and conscience of every man would exclaim against
the monstrous notion of a substitution of punishment. If a man had
transgressed the laws of his country by theft, would he not be the most
unjust judge upon earth who would sentence his elder brother, known to
be innocent and virtuous, to imprisonment or death for the offence?
Would the case be altered, except in the way of aggravation, if the
sentence were inflicted at the desire of the innocent man? Would any
purpose of justice be answered by such a process? Would not every
principle of equity--to say nothing of benevolence--be violated? Would
not the sufferer be as foolish and blind in his submission as the judge
arbitrary in the infliction? Is it not utterly impossible that a
transaction, perfectly analogous in principle, though infinitely more
momentous in its influences, should take place between the just Judge,
the tender Father of men, a creature made fallible by Him, and His holy
and beloved Son?
But we are told it is not for us to argue thus on the right and wrong of
a transaction which has taken place, and is continually taking place, by
Divine appointment. It is enough that God has appointed this method of
salvation.
The lawfulness of examining the Divine decrees with intent to understand
them, will be discussed hereafter. Our business now is to declare why we
do not believe this to be the appointed method of salvation, set forth
in the sacred records. Repentance (including not merely shame and sorrow
for sin, but newness of life) appears to us to stand forth on the face
of the sacred records as the grand, the sole, condition of forgiveness
of sins. The faith in Christ, which is so strenuously insisted on as a
requisite, is valuable as inducing sorrow for sin and purity of life.
Our obligations to Christ, which are so vividly described, are due to
him for the benefits he has bestowed on us through his Gospel, and not
for any subsequent arbitrary gift, which we feel it impossible for him
to have offered, for us to avail ourselves of, and for God to accept.
Our obligations to him are boundless and eternal;--for having devoted
and sacrificed his life to furnish us with the conditions of
salvation,--to teach us repentance, and incite us to holiness. He was
truly a sacrifice for men; he suffered and died because they were
sinners, and in order to bring them salvation. This the Scripture
teaches, and this we readily admit; finding, however, no intimation that
any sin has ever been forgiven on any other condition than that of
repentance; that repentance has ever failed to procure forgiveness; that
any being whatever has at any time exercised or possessed the power of
separating sin and suffering by taking either upon himself, or of
transferring both from the consciousness of another to his own; that if
the endurance of suffering by substitution were possible, it could not
be righteous; or that if it were not unrighteous, it could be available
to any beneficent purpose. Finding none of these suppositions, but all
their opposites in the spirit and detail of the sacred records, we
absolutely reject the popular doctrine of the atonement by Christ, while
we regard his sacrifices for us with reverential gratitude, and our
obligations to him with awe and rejoicing.
The more attentively we ponder his instructions and the more amply we
estimate the benefits he brought us, the more conscious do we become of
the impiety of withholding from the Supreme Author of our salvation the
gratitude and praise which are due to his free, unpurchased grace. It is
given through Christ, but it originates in God. It comes through a
mediator; but that mediator was appointed, informed, guided by God. To
him Christ ascribed, not only the acceptance of his sacrifice and
mediation; but the design in which it originated, the means by which it
was wrought, and the end which it should ultimately accomplish; and the
more we contemplate the design, become acquainted with the means, and
joyfully anticipate the end, the more eagerly do we join with Christ in
ascribing to Jehovah the glory and the praise.
We will now explain our meaning in saying that the Catholics alone, of
all Christians who have admitted the doctrine of satisfaction for sin,
have not restricted its application to one very peculiar case. They have
been perfectly consistent in not so restricting it; and they would have
been more extensively consistent if they had gone as much beyond the
point they have reached, as they have beyond the Church of England and
the disciples of Calvin. If the principle be sound, it will bear a
boundless application; if it be unsound, it can be no part of
revelation, and should be instantly relinquished. If atonement for sin
by a transferrence of punishment be possible in any case, it cannot be
pronounced impossible in any similar case. If spiritual guilt can be
atoned for by ritual sacrifices, in any instance, no one knows that it
may not in any other instance. Therefore if the Church of England holds
that the Jewish sacrifices were in strict analogy with that of Christ,
they cannot reasonably condemn the offering of the mass, and pious gifts
offered by the innocent on behalf of the sinner. Neither can the
Calvinists, who regard the Mosaic offerings as atonements for spiritual
sin, consistently object to the practice of penance, or the principle of
granting indulgences. It appears to us that there is no tenable ground
between the ultimate extension of the principle and its absolute
rejection,--between dissolving to each individual the connection between
guilt and punishment, and asserting that connection to be absolutely
indissoluble: thereby maintaining the genuine Scripture doctrine that
repentance alone can obtain remission of sins.
The lawfulness of the practice of penance and the enjoyment of
indulgences is, we perceive, defended by Catholics as being established
on the same ground as the Jewish sacrifices. They expressly state that
the _eternal_ pain due to guilt cannot be removed by indulgences, or
averted by penance, but only the temporal pain over which the death of
Christ has no power of remission. This bears a strong analogy to the
case of the Mosaic sacrifices, which were ceremonial atonements for
breaches of the ceremonial law, and were not of themselves, as is
universally allowed, intended to avert the penalties of spiritual guilt.
But this analogy yields no countenance to the Catholic practices we are
considering, unless it can be proved that two distinct species of
punishment were divinely ordained, and two distinct methods of atonement
prescribed. And even if this were proved, the case would not be
complete: for though we should suppose two kinds of punishment, and two
methods of reconciliation appointed, it is further necessary that the
offender should be liable to two distinct species of offence; a position
in which none but an ancient Jew was ever placed.
The Divine sanctions were altogether so different under the Jewish from
what they are declared to be under the Christian dispensation, that no
analogy which can be instituted between them will hold with any
completeness. A future state of retribution formed no part of the
revelation made to the Jews. To them, the ultimate punishment which they
could anticipate was national adversity, which was the infallible
consequence of moral guilt (unless averted by repentance), as ritual
penalties were the necessary atonement for breaches of the external law.
Of Christians, a higher obedience is required,--a more spiritual
devotion to the will of God; and this higher obedience is enforced by
more elevated sanctions. Christians are free from the Divine imposition
of external observances, and therefore from all divinely appointed
external penalties. They are to worship in spirit and in truth; to yield
the obedience of the heart; and all their outward manifestations of
devotion are of human appointment;--salutary, no doubt, and even
necessary to the maintenance of piety, but still optional, possessing
only a derived value, and in their very nature incapable of being made
atonement for sin. Spiritual atonement, _i. e._ repentance, is the only
atonement which the Gospel prescribes or supposes possible for
spiritual guilt. Reparation indeed is to be made by the guilty to the
injured person, when the case admits of it; but this reparation does not
constitute the atonement, nor does it partake of the nature of penance.
It is only an external atonement for an external injury, and is an
evidence that the spiritual atonement,--repentance, has been already
made. It bears a relation to that class of offences only which
immediately respects our fellow-men, and is impracticable in cases where
the offence is against God and ourselves. In such cases, external
penance bears no other relation to the offence than such as the weak
will of man has originated;--a relation arbitrary, unsanctioned by God,
and therefore perilous to man.
This relation, being thus arbitrary, fails of the object for which it
was established. Their belief in the efficacy of penance is thus stated
by Catholics. (We copy from the universally accredited work, entitled
'Roman Catholic Principles in reference to God and the King,' first
published in 1680, and ever since acknowledged as a faithful
exposition.) 'Though no creature whatsoever can make condign
satisfaction, either for the guilt of sin, or the pain eternal due to
it, this satisfaction being proper to Christ our Saviour only, yet
penitent sinners, redeemed by Christ, may, as members of Christ, in some
measure satisfy by prayer, fasting, alms-deeds, and other works of
piety, for the temporal pain which, in the order of Divine justice
sometimes remains due, after the guilt of sin and pains eternal have
been remitted. Such penitential works are, notwithstanding, no otherwise
satisfactory than as joined and applied to that satisfaction which Jesus
made upon the cross, in virtue of which alone all our good works find a
grateful acceptance in the sight of God.'
As we have already stated our opinion respecting the nature of the
sacrifice of Christ, we have only to inquire, in our examination of this
passage, into the meaning of the words _temporal pain_. If they be
intended to signify the natural evil consequences of sin in this world,
it is clear that no penance of human institution can avert them; since
the very efficacy of this penance would prove these consequences not to
be natural but arbitrary. A man who has defrauded his neighbor cannot
preserve or recover his character for honesty, or secure the confidence
of those around him 'by prayer, fasting, alms-deeds, or other works of
piety.' The means are not adapted to the end. The method he must pursue,
and the only one which can be used with effect, is to restore that which
he had unjustly obtained, and to persevere in a course of integrity till
the rectitude of his motives becomes unquestionable. If in the meanwhile
he employs prayer, fasting, and alms-deeds as means of rousing his
highest affections and confirming his virtuous resolutions, he may find
them so far efficacious; but the removal of the _temporal pain_, the
stain upon his reputation, is not ascribable to them, but is the
consequence of his well attested repentance.
But it appears doubtful whether we have rightly interpreted the words
_temporal pain_; since the being obnoxious to this pain is one of the
qualifications for the discipline of purgatory. We wish that an exact
account could be obtained of its real nature: though, be it what it may,
it is clear to us that no natural penalty can be averted by so arbitrary
an institution as that of penance. The clause on indulgences is as
follows. We quote the doctrinal part of it, that we may avoid the
danger, of which it warns us, of charging on the Church such abuses or
mistakes as have been sometimes committed in point of granting and
gaining indulgences, through the remissness or ignorance of individuals.
'The guilt of sin, or pain eternal due to it, is never remitted by what
Catholics call indulgences; but only such temporal punishments as remain
due after the guilt is remitted: these indulgences being nothing else
than a mitigation or relaxation, upon just causes, of canonical
penances, enjoined by the pastors of the Church on penitent sinners,
according to their several degrees of demerit.'
Our conviction of the absolute inefficacy of canonical penances to
obtain the end for which they are practised having been stated, we
proceed to consider the legitimacy of the power by which such acts are
imposed, and a remission from them granted. We shall ground our
arguments on some of the subordinate principles, which are clearly
deducible from the primary principles of doctrine and morals which we
have already stated and arranged.
One of these principles, whose claim to admission is seldom
unequivocally denied in theory, though too often practically disallowed,
is Christian Liberty,--the indefeasible right of every man to freedom
from all human control in spiritual concerns. This comprehends the
right of entire privacy of conscience, of exemption from all inquiry and
interference in spiritual matters, of examining, interpreting, comparing
and understanding the sacred records under a responsibility to none but
God; and of forming, changing, and announcing opinions without
hinderance or molestation. We are aware that this principle is seldom
carried out to its utmost length, even in speculation; and as seldom is
it absolutely rejected. But, as we have said with respect to another
principle, and as we would say of all, let it be put to the test of
reason and experience; and if sound, let it be fully admitted with all
its consequences; if unsound, let it be discarded. The process of
attestation which we have instituted obliges us to receive it
unhesitatingly, and to act on it unreservedly.
The primary spiritual relation of men is to God; their highest
subordinate relation is to each other. Their conduct in the subordinate
relation is to be regulated by a regard to the primary; but the primary
relation is not to be invaded by any influences from below. The
relations between man and man are established by God and guided by Him
to the fulfilment of purposes known only to Him, except in so far as it
has pleased Him to reveal them. The relation of the mind of man to its
Maker is, on the contrary, so intimate as to admit of no intervention;
and of a nature which cannot be affected by any influence whatever. This
relation may be unperceived; (though there is perhaps no instance on
record of its being so) it may be heedlessly forgotten; it may be, as
alas! it too often is, obscured by the shades of vice or the influences
of spiritual tyranny; but it can never be usurped or changed; and the
time must come when this indissoluble relation shall be recognized and
claimed as comprehending all the manifold privileges of existence. The
course of nature seems designed to lead men to its perception, and the
grand object of revelation is to blazon it forth; while every intimation
of its nature describes it as sacred from all invasion. Every
manifestation of the Divine will must, therefore, be made to each
individual mind as exclusively as if no other mind existed. The religion
of nature, though adopted in various countries, and amidst its different
aspects among different nations, embraced by myriads under every form,
is yet a bond between God and every individual man as complete as if
that man alone had been created. In like manner the Gospel is a covenant
between God and the human race only as it is a covenant between God and
every individual of that race who shall embrace it: and there can be two
parties only to the transaction,--he who offers the conditions, and he
who accepts or rejects them. To no one has the Author of this covenant
deputed the power of imposing the conditions, or of judging how far they
have been fulfilled, or of passing; sentence accordingly. To none could
he depute this power without making him, in fact, the only person with
whom the inferior party has to do, _i. e._ the God of the inferior
party. It may be objected that we argue upon a metaphor; but, let the
Gospel be regarded under every possible aspect, the same truth will
still be demonstrable,--that between the Creator and the created no
created power can, without the Divine concurrence, interfere; and that
in the spiritual creation, the powers requisite for interference being
above those of humanity, such concurrence never can have been, and never
can be granted.
If the nature of Christian obedience had been different,--if it had been
ritual instead of spiritual, it may be conceived possible that God
might have committed to man the power of judging and sentencing; but the
things of the heart, the desires, the struggles with temptation, the
silent conflicts, the unapparent defeats and victories of conscience,
are known and can be known by none but God. Through the medium of
confession alone can one man gain any insight into the spiritual state
of another; and no medium can be more deceptive. It is perhaps
impossible for the most conscientious mind to communicate to the most
congenial fellow-mind a faithful detail of the thoughts, wishes, hopes,
and fears of any single hour; and if it were possible, the fellow-mind
would still be incapable of forming an estimate of the spiritual state,
or of directing the necessary discipline; because the apparent results
of operations which he does not understand are all the materials that he
has to judge from; whereas the object of discipline is to rectify the
operations themselves. If a man confesses to his bosom friend that his
devotional feelings have been for some time past sensibly weakening;
that he looks on the beautiful world of nature with apathy, and thinks
on the perpetual presence of God without awe or delight; that his spirit
is dead in the public offices of devotion, and roving when it ought to
be fixed in prayer; his friend may mourn with him over so painful an
experience, and suggest, more or less wisely, methods of arousing the
sleeping faculties, and kindling anew the failing fires of devotion. But
he does this as an adviser, and not as a judge; for the power of judging
is not given to him. He knows not whether the origin of the distemper be
bodily or mental: he knows nothing of the thousand influences, from
within and from without, which have of late modified the delicate
processes of the intellect and the soul. He cannot therefore know what
restorative influences are most needed; whether mute converse with
nature or busy intercourse with men; whether the terrifying or the
alluring appeals of the Gospel; whether the awful claims of the Divine
holiness, or the mild persuasions of the Divine compassion; whether any
or all of these, or of the manifold influences besides which are
perpetually dispensed by Him who knoweth our frame, but have never been
confided to the empirical disposal of man.
If, as is evidently the case, all human judgment of sin and holiness is
comparative instead of positive, and therefore ever changing as the
means of comparison become more ample and the faculty stronger, it is
manifestly impossible for any one mind to form an exact estimate of the
qualities of another by any but its own imperfect and varying measure:
and since to God alone are the principles of morals present in their
complete development, to Him alone can their infallible application
belong. The agency of men on each other is appointed accordingly. They
may confess their sins one to another for their mutual relief and
guidance; but such confession must be strictly voluntary, and carefully
disconnected with all inclination towards spiritual usurpation on the
one hand and subservience on the other.