not primarily in law, but in the essential nature of the Lawgiver. Under the economy of redemption the promise, yea, the expectation, is that we shall be "changed into the same image from glory to glory." This seems to be the Scripture viewpoint of holiness. What, then, if the vision of the believer be in any degree diverted from God himself to some governmental adjustment? Alienation, in the Pauline sense, means something more than being out of harmony with environment, law being included in environment. It is alienation from the life of God, for under redemption everything points Godward. This brings us to the pivotal point of so preaching the atonement as to fix the vision of the inquirer on God himself. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself "-not simply to his law, but to himself. Are we not warranted in cherishing apprehension lest the governmental theory shall be found to divert faith from its true objective?

Another objection to Dr. Miley's work is its inadequate recognition of Old Testament typology. If Christ is indeed "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," and if the Bible contains the gradual unfolding of God's chosen method of redemption, strange would it have been had there been no Old Testament symbolism of the supreme fact of history. If the ceremonial law was replete with shadows of good things to come, then any theory which is adequate to cover all the revealed elements of redemption must be tested by the elements of Old Testament symbolism, as well as by New Testament revelation. One of the palpable features of Dr. Miley's book is its scanty treatment of the typology of redemption; and this feature, so manifest, seems to confirm the justice of the language of a recent author that, while the governmental theory ❝contains a valuable element of truth, namely, that the sufferings and death of Christ secure the interests of God's government, it is false by defect in substituting for the chief aim of the atonement one which is only subordinate and incidental.”* A single quotation from the Atonement in Christ will show that we have not mistaken the tenor of Dr. Miley's theory:

With these facts, the atonement of satisfaction must be excluded from her system of doctrines [referring to Methodism], and the rectoral theory maintained as the only doctrine of a real atonement agreeing with them.†

*A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology, p. 403.

+ Page 215.

Take the very title of Dr. Miley's work, Atonement in Christ; as if a single proposition could tell the whole story of Christ's mediatorial work-a translation of a Greek particle by one preposition of restricted sense-a particle which has such varied significations as in, at, on, upon, by, through, with, among, on account of, concerning, toward, against, before, near, all these significations put into a philological compress and reduced to the dimensions of an English particle. This may be a convenience in constructing a theory, but it is open to the criticism of unjust restriction, or putting a part for the whole; and it is precisely this objection which must stand against the rectoral theory. We object to its principle of exclusion; it practically excludes, by retiring to the background, the primary truth of the immanent holiness of God. Dr. Miley's book is consistent with his theory, but cannot be reconciled with the doctrinal basis of original Methodism. He has evidently been more industrious in setting forth a philosophical adjustment of the facts of atonement as recognized by himself than in pressing the inquiry as to the possibility of the omission of any revealed element in this matter of adjustment.

Again, what must be the result of denying that there was any penal element in the sufferings of Christ? Does not such denial require a theory of accommodation unwarranted by Scripture? If he suffered only a substitute for a penalty, then his sufferings had no penal significance. Then we must read in Isaiah that the Lord laid upon him a substitute for the iniquity of us all. Isaiah represents the Messiah as "stricken," "smitten of God," as undergoing "chastisement," and that “it pleased the Lord to bruise him." He was "cut off," but not for himself. Can we see nothing retributive in such language? Did he, indeed, bear "the sin of many," or only bear a substitute for their sins? From what passage of Holy Writ is such a conclusion reached? We read that Jesus Christ "by the grace of God" tasted death "for every man." Death is the original penalty for sin-a penalty which has not been annulled. Aside from its penal relationship, death is an insoluble mystery. Where do we learn from prophet or apostle that in Christ's case the penal relationship was detached and a substitute for a penalty projected? When "in the days of his flesh" the Son of God "offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying

and tears unto him that was able to save him from death." Is there anything on record to show that those tearful supplications were moderated by any assurance in the heart of Jesus that the death which confronted him had all the penal element eliminated? If philosophy is what we are after how shall we understand those awful symptoms of soul distress when Christ felt such a sense of abandonment that it extorted from him a loud lament? Truly, we cannot understand how the penalty which was our due could in any form touch his immaculate personality? No more can we understand how he could suffer a substitute for a penalty. Dr. Miley is not alone in modern Methodist authorship in advocating this theory. All the greater, therefore, is the reason for careful circumspection of doctrinal trend. One thing is evident, namely, that no great Church organization can permanently and without unrest continne to teach one thing in creed and ritual and another and contrary doctrine in a text-book of its course of ministerial study.

What if it be true that the revealed elements of atonement involve facts which are in their essential nature transcendent; is it within the province of mundane philosophy to deal with the "how" or "why?" Whether the philosophy of the plan of salvation has ever been enshrined in earthborn language, oral or written, is a subject which would seem to call for another essay. If Paul the apostle, even after he had been caught up to the third heaven, referred to the fundamental facts of redemption as a great mystery, and if another apostle referred to the same facts as things which the angels desire to look into, and if God has forewarned us that these are secret things which belong to him, then there is room for an appropriate reserve or hesitation before we seize upon fractional knowledge and attempt to compel such knowledge to square itself with the metes and bounds of a preconceived theory.

Me Chancery

18-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. X.

EDITORIAL DEPARTMENTS.

NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS.

ANARCHY is a ferocious folly, a mixture of dense ignorance and murderous insanity. Nothing more stupid or more malicious can be imagined. The anarchist is the enemy of mankind, a species of human mad dog. Vaillant, awaiting the guillotine in the dungeons of La Roquette, refused to see the prison chaplain, saying, "I do not believe in religion; it is all a sham. Let those who profess religion give some evidence of it by extending a helping hand to the deserving poor. This will do more to crush anarchy than all the armies of the world." Such is the brutal libel against godliness and the godly which comes hissing from the livid lips of anarchy, gnashing its teeth in bitter rage. For centuries the followers of Christ have been piling up the very evidence he calls for. In times of distress and destitution it has never been seen that any society or body of men went before the members of the Christian Church in gifts of benevolence and deeds of mercy for the succor of the needy and the relief of the suffering; or, if it has ever in rare instances so been seen, then, by so much, those who bore the Christian name and fell behind were not true to its teachings and obligations nor in any way worthy of it. From the beginning every Christian church was a benevolent association, a humane society. Justin, giving, in his Apology, an account of Christian customs in the second century and a description of Christian worship, with its baptism, its eucharist, its reading of the gospels or of the writings of the prophets, its admonitions and exhortations by "the president of the brethren," says, "And those of us who are wealthy help all that are in want." After relating that every Sunday there is a meeting of all Christians who live in cities or the country, he adds more particularly that, at these assemblies, "of those that are well-to-do and willing everyone gives what he will, according to his own purpose, and the collection is deposited with the president, and he it is that succors orphans and widows and those that are in want through sickness or any other cause, and those that are in bonds, and the strangers that are sojourning; and, in short, he has the care of all that are in need."

In like manner Tertullian, in his Apology, early in the third century writes in vindication of the Christians:

We are made a body by common religious feeling, unity of discipline, and the bond of hope. ... Our presidents are the approved elders, obtaining that honor not for a price, but by elevated character; for, indeed, the things of God are not sold for a price. Even if there is a sort of common fund it is not made up of money paid in fees as for a worship by contract. Each of us puts in a trifle on the monthly day or when he pleases, but only if he pleases and only if he is able, for no man is obliged, but contributes of his own free will. These are, as it were, deposits of piety; for it is not paid out thence for feasts and drinking and thankless eatinghouses, but for feeding and burying the needy, for boys and girls deprived of means and parents, for old folk now confined to the house; also for them that are shipwrecked and for any who are in the mines.

mans,

Likewise we learn from Eusebius, the "father of church history," writing about the beginning of the fourth century, that there was current in his day an Epistle of Dionysius to the Roin which that writer said to the Roman Christians: "For you have from the beginning this custom of doing good in divers ways to all the brethren and sending supplies to many churches in all the cities, in one place refreshing the poverty of them that need, in another helping brethren in the mines with the supplies which you have sent from the beginning." Although Dionysius here speaks only of aid and comfort given to the brethren, there is no room for anyone to suppose that the early Church was merely a mutual benefit association confining its kindness to its own members. No such policy of exclusion ruled. Its benevolence was as universal as the offer of salvation. The whole spirit of the Gospel, as well as the distinct teaching of Christ and his apostles, is in harmony with Paul to the Galatians, "As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men;" nor is that exhortation contracted or curtailed by his adding, "especially unto them who are of the household of faith."

THE mental habits of a scientific age make more vividly absurd some of the unscientific procedures of those thinkers who undertake to decide by a priori determination exactly what is knowable and what is not, what is possible and what is not. Philosophy takes on the tone of dogma and prescription. Spencer, in his First Principles, draws the line of the unknowable, as Hume and others have drawn the line of the impossible. Certain omniscient critics who know more about past events than the eyewitnesses thereof dogmatically affirm that the Bible miracles must be regarded as