The wholly artificial structure of this scheme, which is its greatest condemnation, has been its chief security. It is by approaching within conducting-distance of reality, that a doctrine elicits resistance and meets the stroke of natural objection; and if it only keeps far enough aloft in the metaphysic atmosphere, it may float along unarrested from zone to zone of time. Men know not what to make of propositions so much out of their sphere, so evasive of any real encounter with their consciousness, and are apt to let them pass for their very strangeness' sake. But surely we are bound to demand for them some "response of conscience," and, with Mr. Campbell, to demur to such of them as will not bear this test. Limiting ourselves to the mediatorial part of the theory, we will assume the problem of moral evil to be correctly stated, and only ask whether, from the supposed case of despair, the offered solution affords any real exit of relief. Nor do we assume this for argument's sake alone. We can perfectly understand any remorseful sense, however deep, of human unworthiness; any appreciative reverence, however intense, of Christ's self-sacrifice. Set the one under the shadow of the Father's infinite disapproval, the other in the light of His infinite complacency; so far we go; there let them lie. But what next? Here, on the left hand, is Sin with its need of punishment; there, on the right, a perfect Holiness with its merits. While they are thus spread beneath the Father's eye, they break up their inviolable alliances; each moral cause crosses over and takes the opposite effect. If such change took place, the seat of the fact must be sought partly in the consciousness of Christ, partly in the Father's view of things. In reference to the first, must we say that the Crucified felt himself under Divine wrath and punishment, and esteemed that wrath to be just,—the fitting expression of his own inward remorse? If so, can we affirm that his consciousness was veracious? or did he not feel, in regard to others' sins, sentiments and experiences that are false except in relation to one's own? And, ascending to the other point of view, shall we affirm that the Father saw sin in the Son and was angry with him; so that, in the hour of sublimest obedience, the words ceased to be true, "Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased"? And on the other hand, what is meant when it is said that beneath the Divine eye men in their guilt are seen "clothed with" a perfect righteousness? Is such an aspect of them true? or is it akin to an ocular deception? We seem to be reduced to this dilemma;—the change of apparent moral place implied in "imputation" is either a faithful representation, or a quasi-representation, of the reality of things. If the latter, then the Divine consciousness is illusory, and the world is administered on a fiction; if the former, then the moral law, in assuring us of the personal and inalienable nature of sin, gives a false report, and there is nothing to prevent a circulating medium of merit from passing current through the universe. Mr. Campbell's deference for the great advocates of this marvellous doctrine does not obstruct his perception of its difficulties.
"I freely confess," he says, "that to my own mind it is a relief, not only intellectually, but also morally and spiritually, to see that there is no foundation for the conceptions that when Christ suffered for us, the just for the unjust, he suffered either 'as by imputation unjust,' or 'as if he were unjust.' I admit that intellectually it is a relief not to be called to conceive to myself a double consciousness, both in the Father and in the Son, such as seems implied in the Father's seeing the Son at one and the same time, though it were but for a moment, as the well-beloved Son, to whom infinite favor should go forth, and also as worthy, in respect of the imputation of our sins to him, of being the object of infinite wrath, he being the object of such wrath accordingly; and in the Son's knowing himself the well-beloved of the Father, and yet having the consciousness of being personally, through imputation of our sin, the object of the Father's wrath. I feel it intellectually a relief neither to be called to conceive this, nor to assume it as an unconceived mystery. Still more do I feel it morally and spiritually a relief, not to be required to recognize legal fictions as having a place in this high region, in which the awful realities of sin and holiness, spiritual death and spiritual life, are the objects of a transaction between the Father and the Son in the Eternal Spirit."—p. 310.
The second form of mediatorial doctrine, to which we have referred as the modern type of Calvinism, has arisen from the endeavor to evade some of these perplexities. The riddle that haunts its teachers is still the same,—how it can become possible to show mercy to sinners; but the difficulty in the way is differently conceived, and therefore met by a different expedient. It is not an obstacle in God, arising from his personal sentiment of equity, which must be satisfied; but springs out of the necessity of consistent rectitude, and adherence to law in his administrative government. The Father himself, it is intimated, would be quite willing to forgive, were there nothing to consult except his own disposition. But it would never do to play fast and loose with the criminal law of the universe, and, notwithstanding the most solemn enactments, let off delinquents on mere repentance, as if nothing were the matter beyond a personal affront. Something more is due to Public Justice. If the due course of retribution is to be turned aside, it must be in such a way and at such a cost as to proclaim aloud the awfulness of the guilt remitted. This, we are told, is accomplished by the sufferings and death of the Son of God, which were substituted for our threatened punishment, not as its quantitative equal paid to the Father, but as a moral equivalent in the eyes of men. Their validity is thus conceived to depend by no means on their particular measure, but on the meritorious obedience of love which was their sustaining and animating soul, and which, being on the scale of a Divine nature, gave infinite value to the smallest sorrow. Within the casket of his grief was held such a priceless righteousness, that, on beholding it, the Father might regard it as an adequate plea for acts of mercy to sinners. He does not indeed impute to them the actual moral perfectness of Christ, so as to see them invested with it, any more than he imputed to Christ their guilt, and frowned on Calvary. It is the effects only of that holiness which he imputes; he offers to men the benefits of it, without reckoning it as really theirs, and giving them the legal standing which its possession would bestow.
No doubt this scheme gets rid of the penal mensuration and moral conveyancing of the older Calvinism. It shifts also the bar to free mercy away from the inner personality of God, and sets it in his outer government. But when we again attempt to seize the mediatorial expedient, what is it? It is said to be a display of the enormity of that guilt which needs to be redeemed at such a cost. But is that need real? Have we not been told that it has no place in God? Does he then hang out a profession that is not true to the kernel of things, but only a show-off for impression's sake? If Eternal Justice in its inner essence does not require the expiation provided, why in its outer manifestation pretend that it does? As nothing can become right for "the sake of good example" that is not right in itself, so is "Public Justice," unsustained by the sincere heart of reality, a mere dramatic imposture. Mr. Campbell has supplied us with a forcible statement of this truth:—
"Surely rectoral or public justice, if it is to have any moral basis,—any basis other than expediency,—must rest upon, and refer to, distributive or absolute justice. In other words, unless there be a rightness in connecting sin with misery, and righteousness with blessedness, looking at individual cases simply in themselves, I cannot see that there is a rightness in connecting them as a rule of moral government. 'An English judge once said to a criminal before him: You are condemned to be transported, not because you have stolen these goods, but that goods may not be stolen.' (Jenkyns, 175, 176.) This is quoted in illustration of the position, that 'the death of Christ is an honorable ground for remitting punishment,' because 'his sufferings answer the same ends as the punishment of the sinner.' I do not recognize any harmony between this sentiment of the English judge and the voice of an awakened conscience on the subject of sin. It is just because he has sinned and deserves punishment, and not because he says to himself that God is a moral governor, and must punish him to deter others, that the wrath of God against sin seems so terrible,—and as just as terrible."—p. 79.
Even were the expression backed up by reality, we cannot but ask about the fitness of the medium for the thought to be conveyed. God's horror at guilt is publicly proclaimed by the most awful crime in human history! To explain the difficulty of letting off the offender, he exhibits the anguish of the innocent! The spectacle would seem in danger of suggesting the wrong lesson to the terrified observer,—of raising to intensity the doubt whether, in a world that gives its silver to a Judas, its judgment-seat to a Pilate, and the cross to the Son of God, any Providence can care for rectitude at all. Even when the death of Christ is contemplated exclusively as a self-sacrifice, without remembering the guilt which compassed it, we are at a loss to understand how it could be "an honorable ground for remitting punishment." What difference did it make in the previous reasons of the Divine government, so that penalties right before should be less right afterwards? If Catiline were undergoing his just retribution at the date of the Last Supper, what plea was there for releasing him at or before the date of the resurrection? That obedience rendered and suffering endured by one soul should dispense with the liabilities of another, is a supposition at variance with the personal and inalienable nature of all sin; and to say that God "imputes the effects" of Christ's holiness to those who are not partakers in the cause, is to accuse the Divine government of total disregard to character and evasion of moral reality. The old Calvinism represents the Father as having an illusory perception of men, as if they were clad in a divine righteousness. The new Calvinism represents him as having indeed a true perception of their unrighteousness, but, notwithstanding this, falsifying the truth in action, and proceeding as if the facts were quite other than they are. Inasmuch as unveracious vision is intellectual, while unveracious practice is moral, the younger doctrine appears to us a positive degradation of the elder, not only in logical completeness, but in religious worth. Both of them make the redeeming economy proceed upon a fiction; but there is all the difference between unconscious and conscious fiction; between an inner "satisfaction" brought about by an optical displacement of merit, and an outward "exhibition" set up for the sake of impression. The theory of Owen, stern as it is, bears the stamp of resolute meaning consistently carried through into the inmost recess of the Divine nature. The newer doctrine is the production of a platform age, which obtrudes considerations of effect even into its thoughts of God and his government, and can scarce refrain from turning the universe itself into a theatre for rhetorical pathos and ad captandum display.
With good reason, therefore, does our author feel that this whole subject is in need of reconsideration. His own doctrine diverges from its predecessors at a very early point, and is seen at its source in the following proposition of Edwards, as cited by Mr. Campbell:—
"In contending that sin must be punished with an infinite punishment, President Edwards says, 'that God could not be just to himself without this vindication, unless there could be such a thing as a repentance, humiliation, and sorrow for this (viz. sin) proportionable to the greatness of the Majesty despised,'—for that there must needs be 'either an equivalent punishment, or an equivalent sorrow and repentance'; 'so,' he proceeds, 'sin must be punished with an infinite punishment'; thus assuming that the alternative of 'an equivalent sorrow and repentance' was out of the question. But, upon the assumption of that identification of himself with those whom he came to save, on the part of the Saviour, which is the foundation of Edwards's whole system, it may at the least be said, that the Mediator had the two alternatives open to his choice,—either to endure for sinners an equivalent punishment, or to experience in reference to their sin, and present to God on their behalf, an adequate sorrow and repentance. Either of these courses should be regarded by Edwards as equally securing the vindication of the majesty and justice of God in pardoning sin."—p. 136.
The side of the alternative which Edwards abandoned, our author takes up and follows out. The work of Christ, as a ground of remission, consisted in the offering on behalf of humanity of an adequate repentance. Adequate it could not have been but for his Divine nature; which attaches to his holy sorrow an infinite moral value, to balance the infinite heinousness of the sin deplored. The only reason why human penitence does not in itself avail to restore, lies in its imperfect purity and depth. Through the cloud of evil, and with the eye of self, we are disqualified for true discernment of sin as it is: both the limits of a finite nature, and the delusions of a tempted and fallen one, hinder us from appreciating the measure of our guilt and misery. Even when our better mind reasserts itself, our very compunction carries in it many a speck of ill, and our repentance needs to be repented of. But were it not for this, there would be "more atoning worth in one tear of the true and perfect sorrow which the memory of the past would awaken," "than in endless ages of penal woe." It is not the inefficacy, but the impossibility, of due penitence that constitutes our fatal disability; to be relieved from which we need to be taken out of ourselves, to be identified with a perfect spirit; our humanity must cease to be human, and become one with the Divine nature. This is precisely the condition which realized itself in Christ. As God in humanity, he had perfect sympathy with the holiness of one sphere, and the infirmities of the other; he saw the whole amount of the world's moral estrangement, not only with infinite pity for its misery, but with infinite horror at its guilt. He could both make a plenary confession for us, and respond unreservedly to the Father's righteous judgment; could bear our burden on his heart before heaven, and utter the Miserere of holy sorrow, which our most plaintive cry can never approach. This is the true nature of his sufferings. He "made his soul an offering for sin," yielded it up to be filled with a sense of our real aspect beneath the Omniscient eye, and an Amen to its condemning look. Hence his sorrows had nothing penal in them, any more than the tears of a devout parent over a prodigal child are penal. They are incident to that attitude of soul which a perfect nature cannot but have in the presence of a brother's sin. They are altogether moral and spiritual; and their efficacy as an expiation is that of true repentance; expressing at once our entire confession, acceptance of the Father's just displeasure, and sympathy with his compassionate grieving at our alienation.
At the same time, this mere retrospective confession would not of itself avail, were there no better hope for the future of mankind. But our Mediator's own experience in humanity, his consciousness of intimate peace and communion with the Father, opened to him the other side of our nature, assured him of its secret capacity for good, and filled him with hope in the very moment of contrition. As his sympathy could have fellowship with our temptations, so could ours have fellowship with his righteousness; and the light of Divine love that rested actually on himself was thereby a possibility for the universal human soul, and was already hovering round with longing to descend. It was on the strength of this assurance that his intercession on our behalf was presented; it would never have pleaded for indemnity in relation to the past, but as the prelude to a real righteousness, a true partnership in his life of filial harmony with God. The validity of his transaction on our behalf consisted in its perfect seizure of the whole reality, its entire "response to the mind of the Father in relation to men"; sorrow for their estrangement, conviction of their possible return, and desire to draw them into the spirit of genuine Sonship.