The Plan of Salvation.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3816, 22 March 1881, Page 2

The Plan of Salvation.

We conclude our report of the Rev. S 3. Neill's lecture on the above :—

Ifc is, however, more wilh the two natures in Christ than with questions concerning eternal generation that we are now concerned. How did Christ die for us ? His nature as the son of man was fiuite, and could avail in a finite manner only ; his nature as Gfod could not die. This brings us into contact with, perhaps, the greatest mystery of all—a mystery which is not confined to the nature of Christ, though it is there exhibited in the highest form—but is also exhibited in our own constitution, in the union of soul and body. We believe that matter has no sensation, and the question then arises, can spirit, or soul, feel the movements of matter ■? We feel pain if a person strikes us on the face or any part of the body. What is it that feels pain ? Not the body, for it has no more sensation than the ground on which we tread. Are we then to suppose that the vibrations of the material substance of muscle and nerve touch the immaterial thinking Ego ? He fleeting a little on the very obvious difficulties which stand before us on the very threshold of consciousness may help to make us less hasty in our decisions concerning the nature of Christ. Now, we maintain that Christ had a true body, and also a human, or reasonable soul, and that the Divine in Him was as really united with the rational soul as- the rational soul in us is united with the body. It was the same person, or ego, or self, which said, " I thirst," and which, on another occasion, said, " Before Abraham was, I am," or, "I and the Father, are one." This, says one of the divines already quoted, is the whole doctrine of the incarnation 'as it lies in the Scriptures, and in the faith of the Church. The way this doctrine is proved from Scripture is by taking, first, those passages which show Him to be really and truly man—which show that He had a material body composed of flesh and blood, like the bodies of, ordinary men; 2nd, those passages which show that He had a rational soul— that He was joyful and sorrowful, increased in wisdom, was ignorant of the day of judgment, reasoned, and felt as men do; 3rd, those passages whioh declare that He was truly God, such as the use of Divine names, titles, attributes, and where He declares that He and tho Father are one, and that those who had seen Him had seen the Father. This is known to you all; but you may not have heard much of the union of tha two natures in Christ—the hypostatical union, as it is called. The natures united are the Divine and the human; the two natures are united, but not mingled or confounded. There is no transfer of the attributes of one nature to the other. To give you an example of the manner in which theologians spealc of Christ, and how they would understand that all must be saved in Him, here is a sentence from Dr Taylor, of New York, "Limitations of Life," in which he says : "The universe itself was a manifestation of Godhead through the Word, for, ' all things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.' Hence, for all of the wisdom, power, and goodness of God, which men in any age have learned from the eternal world, they have been indebted to the " Word." Ifc was he who spake to them through the shining stars of night, and through the matchless splendour of the orb of day. It was his voice they heard in the storm and in the sea. It was his teaching that led them to trace to God the changing of the seasons, and the course of nature generally. Christ, or the "word" he regards as the revealment of God by what men call nature, using that in its widest sense, to inclose .the —what some call—the Supernatural: the voice of nature, and the voice of conscience. The light within man all, he says, comes from Him who is the true light, whioh lighteth ?very man that coraeth into the world. In. short, we have in the Logos, that mysterious presence ot which the poet speaks as— ■

" Something 1 far top deeply interfused Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean, the living air 5 And the blue sky, and in the mind,of man." With such a grand aud exalted view of the *' Word of God," we need fear no objections to the doctrine of Salvation inor through him. And this brings us to the last point to be noticed, the morality of the plan of Salvation. Dr Mosely, .Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, in his article on the atonement lately published, acknowledges that the charge of immorality has been brought against this doctrine. This ho accounts for by the fact that the, poiut on which the objeotor has fixed is the substitution of one man for another to suffer for his sin. He regards the doctrine thus stated — "That one man can be guilty of the crime, and another punished in his stead, that a criminal can suffer penalty" by deputy, and have sentence executed upon him by substitute, as a notion which is barbarous and untenable." Yet it is to be feared j this is the gross way in which many regard the atonement. This notion, he shows, is quite careless whether the sacrifice is voluntary or not, it is like Caiphas, content that some body should be a sacrifice, if so be that a way of escape is made. Canon Mosely showed how the Q-ospel sacrifice is a voluntary one. "It must be remembered," he says " that the supernaturalness of the sphers in which the doctrine of the aton.emant is placed, affects , the agency concerned in the work of atonement. He who is sent is in being with him who sends. His willing submission is not the submission of a mere man to one who

is in a human sense another; but it is the act of one who in submitting to another submits to himself. By virtue of His unity with the Father the Son originates, carries on, and completes the work of the Atonement." It. is also shown that as we regard it as right for one person, if he so choose, to lift the burden from the shoulders ot another and carry it himself," so we should regard Christ's voluntary work. Prof. Mosely also tries to explain the change in the sinner Godward by instancing a criminal for whom some noble suppliant manifests such love„, that he would give up his own life for that of the criminal. Is there any criminal in the world, he says, who would not be consecrated by such love ? Does not such lore shed a halo, a glory round the object of it? Thus it is maintained that all the chief points are defended, against which the objections have been cast. The nature of God, the purposes of God, the nature of the Redeemer, the nature of the -Redemption. It is not to be supposed that anything like justice can be done:to any one of these points when they are all compressed into a single lecture, for any one of them would require as much space as we have devoted to the whole subject. But iv this short space the subject is before you. You have, perhaps, noticed^ now and then that a plan of salvation composed, of so many elements, each of which is confessedly deep and mysterious, requires very much care and thought. You may have felt, also, at times that such wordy warfare'does not tend to bring you very perceptibly nearer God, and that you can rest and grow better by looking to Christ in your own simple way than by all the theologies of the world.