credit the whole doctrine in the eye both of reason and of religion."1 Calvin retained the new ideas of a substituted obedience and punishment, and he expressly asserted that our obligation of suffering for our sins and the curse entailed were transferred to the Son of God; and, as the pangs of death on the Cross did not seem to him sufficient, he added, with Quenstadt and Gerhard, that He expiated the requisite tortures in the flames of Hell. Some theologians have attempted to justify this vicarious suffering by instancing the law observable in the world of penalty for misdeeds not always falling on the doers of evil. Louis XIV. sacrificed five thousand lives in the marshes of Maintenon to convey water to his fountains at Versailles, and the penalty fell on the widows and orphans. Louis XV. ruined the exchequer, and Louis XVI. lost his head for the misdeeds of his ancestor. Such being the law, the penalty fell on Christ instead of us. But surely this is not law, but the violation of law through the disorganization of society. What sort of justice would that be which because A had stolen a sheep hanged Z? It would be the acme of injustice. To make the disorder of justice the rule for God, is to subordinate Him to the evil in the world. When Grotius put the question whether it was unjust that Christ should be punished for our sins, he answered it in the negative; because, as he said, it generally happens that there is malversation of justice in the world, and because, as a fact, God did visit His most innocent Son with the bitterest torments and death, and God cannot 1 Oxenham, p. 216. 2 See for the argument in favour of vicarious suffering, "The Philosophy of Evangelicism," 1867. be unjust. That is, what is unjust in man is just in God. But it is begging the whole question to say that it was not unjust because He did so punish the just for the unjust. If the inequalities of the earth are the law of God's dealings, alas! for the new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness, when righteousness is equivalent to injustice. Both the Protestant doctrines of original sin and vicarious sacrifice have no positive element in them, they are mere negations, upon which a horrible system has been erected, repugnant to the essence of Christianity and to the moral sense. The Protestant doctrine of original sin is the negation of all trace of good in man. The doctrine of vicarious sacrifice is the negation of divine justice. To sum up in few words the Catholic doctrine as deduced from the premises already laid down : The Incarnation being the perfect manifestation of Divine Love, Christ must exhibit the most perfect self-sacrifice. The object of the Incarnation being the restoration of man's disorganized nature, Christ must descend to the depths of this disorganization in order to reconcile what is opposed. As all the faculties of man are positively good and only negatively evil by their being disordered and opposed, Justification is the restoration of these faculties to their proper order. But this can only be effected by man recognizing and loving God. Therefore Christ in His infinite love condescends to seek man in every phase of life, and even in death, to obtain his love, and thus lead him into the way of reconciliation. The Atonement is the perfect reconciliation of man in himself, and man with man, and man with God. CHAPTER XVIII THE CHRISTIAN SACRIFICE "Quid retribuam Domino, pro omnibus quæ retribuit mihi? The Holy Communion the application of the Atonement The Resurrection of the body one result of the Atonement-The Eucharist not a commemoration of the death of Christ only-The necessity man feels of offering Sacrifice-As the link between man and God is love, of which sacrifice is the expression, the restoration of love is the restoration of sacrifice-Love the motive of asceticism-Love the motive of action in the material order-also in the spiritual order-The love of man to God necessitates the Eucharistic sacrifice-That sacrifice identical with the sacrifice on Calvary-Christ, as head of humanity, combined in His Passion the idea of sacrifice to God with that of sacrifice to man-The idea of sacrifice an enigma to those who do not love-The idea of compensation creates ritual splendour-The love of the Church for Christ overflows in rite and symbol. WE E have seen the Sacrifice of Christ under one aspect alone, that of an atonement, and we have seen that by atonement is not meant the payment of so much suffering to the Almighty as expiation for the sins of men, but the sacrifice to man of everything, as a complete epiphany of the love of God; the descent of God into the anarchy of human nature to restore to that nature its lost principle of cohesion and order, by which alone it can reach its perfection. The coherence of the sacramental system with this dogma is obvious. If Christ came to restore to man what was lost by the fall, by placing him in a true relation to God, by means of which all his other relations will fall into place, it is evident that the introduction of this new principle into man is a first necessity; and that this new principle can be nothing other than Christ Himself, perpetually present in His Church for this purpose. The law of the Incarnation is the indissoluble union of the material and the spiritual in all Christ's operations upon man. The material is nothing without the spiritual, and the spiritual has accepted the condition of acting through the material. The Holy Communion therefore, in the Christian system, is the application to men of the atonement of Christ. Let me place the argument syllogistically. Christ is God and man, the spiritual and the material united. In Him this union was effected for the restoration of man, in whom the spiritual and the material are at variance. To reconcile the spiritual and the material Christ must touch both. Therefore His atonement must be applied sacramentally. Also, Christ came to restore the harmony between man's opposed spiritual faculties. Therefore Christ must enter spiritually into man. Christ came to restore the harmony between man's opposed physical and material natures, i.e., to give life, by restoring the equipoise between the renovation and the waste of his body. Therefore Christ must enter materially into man. But it is impossible to separate the spiritual froin the material in Christ, for they are indissolubly united. Therefore again the application of the atonement must be sacramental. It will be objected to this that Christ came, not to save men's bodies, but their souls. This is a contravention of the whole system. Is there, or is there not, an opposition in men's bodies? In another word-Do they die? This cannot be doubted. Then there is antinomy in their bodies. If Christ took a human body, it must have been to restore the equilibrium between the opposing forces in the human body. For He came to be the universal Conciliator. Death is a phase of opposition. He came to destroy all opposition. Therefore He came to destroy death. But He could not destroy death without taking upon Himself a body. And He could not infuse into us the principle of conciliation between the opposing forces except by contact with our material bodies. Therefore He must be present with His Church in some material fashion by means of which He can effect the regeneration of our bodies. The renovation of our moral life is the effect of the conciliation wrought by Christ acting spiritually on our spiritual natures. The restoration of our bodies, i.e. the resurrection of the dead, is the effect of the conciliation wrought by Christ acting materially on our material bodies. The dogma of the Resurrection depends necessarily on the dogma of the Incarnation, and sacramental communion is the logical link and efficient cause, the link uniting the body of man with the body of Christ, and the cause of the resurrection of man by union with Christ. As Christ is double, His action on men must be double. |