60

May by ambiguous Language still

Persist in metaphysic Skill.

Even the justly-fam'd Cambray

In such a Case could only pray,

That Love Itself would only dart
Some feeling Proof into his Heart.

ON THE SAME SUBJECT.

I.

LOVE my God, and freely too,

With the Same Love that He imparts,

That He to Whom all Love is due

Engraves upon pure, loving Hearts.

Disinterested and Divine

Alone that Fear shall never shake.

V.

Thou, my Redeemer from Above,
Suff'ring to such immense Degree,

Thy Heart has kindled mine to Love,
That burns for Nothing but for Thee;

VI.

Thy Scourge, Thy Thorns, Thy Cross, Thy Wounds—

And ev'ry one of them a Source

From whence the Nourishment abounds

Of Endless Love's Unfading Force.

20

30

27, 28. By the Ensigns of Thy Death Known, I adore the LORD of LIFE. Such I adore the Lord of Life, known by the signs of His Passion (the stigmata).

No Punishment, if 'tis dismissed,

What caus'd It not will not decrease.

X.

Should'st Thou give Nothing for Its Pains,

It claims not anything as due ;
Should'st Thou condemn me, it remains
Unchang'd by any selfish View.

XI.

40

ON THE MEANING OF THE WORD "WRATH," AS APPLIED TO GOD IN SCRIPTURE.

[Law's conception of the Atonement logically forms part of his theory of the Creation, Fall, and Redemption, although accommodating itself less easily than the rest of his scheme to accepted dogmatic formulæ. Nay, if I may venture to use the expression, this conception is the most essential portion of the entire theory, and has proved itself such by means of the effect which has been produced by it, or by the likeness of it, without the imaginatively elaborate substructure presented in the master-pieces of Law's mystic theology. Frederick Denison Maurice, for instance, although he had strong affinities with mysticism in general and with the particular form of it presented in the writings of Law, cannot be supposed to have directly derived from the latter convictions which harmonise perfectly with the ideas here reproduced by Byrom. See, to quote a single passage

only, Maurice's sermon on The Adoration of the Lamb (in the series entitled The Doctrine of Sacrifice deduced from Scriptures, Cambridge, 1854, pp. 186-7): "Jesus Christ, according to St. John, according to Himself, is the faithful witness of His Father. The world had not known Him; it had suspected that in Him there was some darkness, some enmity towards His creatures; but He had known Him, and had come forth to testify that in Him was no darkness at all. Whatever love there was in Christ was first in Him, with whom He dwelt, and from whom He came. Whoso saw Him saw the Father," &c. Law writes in no dissimilar strain in a passage in one of his Letters (Letter v. In Answer to a Scruple), p. 65, in Works, vol. ix.), which may be said to strike the keynote of both the following effusions:

"Thus it was, and to this end, that God was in Christ Jesus in his whole process. Unreasonably, therefore, have our scholastic systems of the gospel separated the sacrifice of Christ's death from the other parts of his process, and considered it as something chiefly done with regard to God, to alter or atone an infinite wrath that was raised in God against fallen man, which infinity of just vengeance, or vindictive justice, must have devoured the sinner, unless an infinite satisfaction had been made to it by the death of Christ.

"All this is in the grossest ignorance of God, of the reason, and ground, and effects of Christ's death, and in full contradiction to the express letter of scripture. For there we are told, that God is love, and that the infinity of his love was that alone which shewed itself towards fallen man, and wanted to have satisfaction done to it; which love-desire could not be fulfilled, could not be satisfied, with anything less than man's full deliverance from all the evil of his fallen state. That love which has the infinity of God, nay, which is God himself, was so immutably great towards man, though fallen from him, that he spared not his only-begotten son: And why did he not spare him? It was, because nothing but the incarnate life of his eternal son, passing through all the miserable states of lost man, could regenerate his first divine life in him. Can you possibly be told this in stronger words than these, God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten son? How did he give him? Why, in his whole process. And to what end did he give him? Why, that all who believe in him might not perish, but have everlasting life.-Away, then, with the superstitious dream of an infinite wrath in God towards poor fallen man, which could never cease till an infinite satisfaction was made to it. All scripture denies it, and the light of nature abhors it.-&c."

For a fuller exposition of Law's doctrine of the "process" of Divine Love, which abhors the notion of the Wrath of God lying at the root of the conception of the Atonement rejected by him, the reader must be referred to The Spirit of Love, and more especially to pp. 73 and 89 seqq.

of Part II. (Works, vol. viii.) Parts of these and of other passages illustrating Byrom's attempts to reproduce his "master's" teachings on the subject are cited in my notes, infra.]

I.

HAT "God is Love," is in the Scripture said;

That He is Wrath, is nowhere to be read ;
From which by literal Expression free
"Fury," He saith Himself, "is not in me."
If Scripture, therefore, must direct our Faith,
Love must be He or in Him, and not Wrath.

II.

And yet the Wrath of God in Scripture Phrase
Is oft express'd, and many diff'rent Ways:
His "Anger," "Fury," "Vengeance," are the Terms
Which the plain Letter of the Text affirms;
And plain, from two of the Apostle's Quire,
That "God is Love," and "a consuming Fire."