implying that the reconciliation, to say the least, was not complete, and that it depended upon men to complete it. Again, that the enmity is conceived as on the side of man is perfectly clear from Colossians i. 20-22. The disciples in time past had been alienated and enemies in their mind1 in their evil works, but had been reconciled by Christ through his death, to present them holy and without blemish and unreprovable before God. I know, indeed, that such words are, through an unnatural exegesis, emptied of all moral signification; but what Paul means by alienated' is made unmistakably evident in Ephesians iv. 17-19: it is vanity of mind, darkness of understanding, alienation from the life of God, the grossest sensuality.

6

Perhaps the most difficult passage, from this point of view, is Romans v. II, through whom now we received the reconciliation'; for it is evident that the reconciliation here spoken of must be a gift. But may not a change in our hearts from enmity to love towards God be a gift? If we have rebelled against our king, and regard him with suspicion, and distrust his laws, although he is perfectly wise and just ; and if he sends his son to us to assure us of his free and full pardon if we will return to our duty; and if this son, while delivering his message in all graciousness, is seized by the baser sort, and murdered; and if these things break our hearts, and make us return to our allegiance, may we not say that we have been reconciled to our king through the death of his son, and through him we have received the reconciliation, and have been brought nigh by his blood? Yet in such a case it is we that are changed; it is our enmity that is overcome; and it is the king who has reconciled us to himself by exposing his son, whom they ought to have reverenced, to the malice and violence of his guilty subjects. The language in I Peter iii. 18 is different, and is even less ambiguous in meaning: Christ suffered that he might bring us to God,' not that he might bring God to us; and even 1 Εχθροὺς τῇ διανοία.

the Epistle to the Hebrews, with all its sacrificial phrases, declares that the final object is to cleanse the conscience from dead works to serve the living God.'1

In accordance with this view God is described as, in his essence, love, as having loved the world, as having proved his love towards us; and this is in complete agreement with the teaching of Christ himself, who invariably represents God as a loving Father, to whom the sinner may at any moment return. In the parable of the prodigal son there is no reconciling of an angry father, who wielded the scourge of a just vengeance; and it is a strange way of showing respect to Christ, to destroy the whole impression of this beautiful parable by affirming that he had all that in his mind, though he did not choose to express it. This is saying in effect that he ought to have had a modern dogmatist at his elbow to prompt him in his teaching. If we are content to listen humbly to him who taught us to love our enemies, we shall know that God is unchangeable love, and that, though our enmity may wound that love, it can never destroy it.

A second objection to the doctrine in question is that it is opposed to the highest spiritual consciousness. It is not right to be implacable. Again and again Christ warns us against this evil disposition, and places it in marked contrast with the forgiving mercy of God; and therefore to represent God as the unforgiving enemy of mankind, till his anger has been bought off, is to ascribe to him a temper which the Christian conscience regards as evil. But admitting that it is right for the supremely holy to be implacable towards the sinner, it cannot be right to become propitious towards him while he remains unchanged in his sin; and it is an essential part of this doctrine that no change whatever takes place in sinful man till after God has been reconciled. Theologians of course endeavour to relieve this difficulty by a doctrine of atonement, which must be considered further But no doctrine of atonement can remove the objection 1 Heb. ix. 14. 2 I John iv. 16. 3 John iii. 16. 4 Romans v. 8.

on.

that, without any change in the object of his regard, God looks upon man at one time with disfavour, and at another time with favour, so that the relation between God and man is altered by a change in God.

We must fall back, then, upon the doctrine of Paul, that the purpose of Christianity is to reconcile the world to God; in other words, to restore the broken harmony between the soul and God by a change, not in God, but in man. The enmity is on the side of man. It is he that chafes against the Divine will, and hews out for himself paths which the Divine righteousness cannot approve. That righteousness remains eternal and unalterable; and man must be brought to take his part with it, to love it, and to yield himself in humble trust to the will of God as the only good. God cannot be reconciled to sin, which is for ever contrary to him. It is the human will that must surrender itself; it is man's pride and stubbornness that must be broken. It is only when the soul has a perfect harmony and communion of spirit with God that our reconciliation is complete; but, in a less exalted sense, we may be said to be reconciled when we have laid aside our enmity, and, turning with a broken and contrite heart to God, commit ourselves humbly to the leading of his will. According to this view God's love is the eternal source of all spiritual blessings, waiting, waiting for the answering love of his wayward children, who must come to it at last as their true and final home.

It is said, however, that, as alienation is mutual, it makes no difference whether we speak of man as reconciled to God or of God as reconciled to man. This plea is founded on the analogy of human enmity; and though we have already touched upon it, we must notice it more fully. Enemies. generally hate one another, and therefore, if reconciliation take place, there must be a mutual approximation; for so long as one hates the other, the hatred will be returned. But even in mundane affairs it is not always so. He who has seriously and prayerfully tried in any concrete case

to follow Christ's rule of loving our enemies knows that the estrangement need not be mutual. There may be unreasonable suspicion and animosity on one side, while there is nothing but forbearance and love on the other. Then he who, though disapproving of his conduct, nevertheless loves the offender, and whose love is constantly repelled and misrepresented, can only wait in hope of better things. He does not need to be reconciled, or induced to lay aside an enmity which he does not feel; but he remains unchanged, wishing only that the other may be brought to see things truly, and to return love for love. So it is with the heavenly Father, the unchangeable fountain of goodness, who never ceases to love his most erring children, and asks them only to repent, and come to him to be healed. This is the picture which presents itself to the mind when we speak of reconciling man to God. But when we speak of reconciling God to man, we forget for a moment the hostility of the latter, and think only of the offended sovereign, whom his trembling subjects are anxious to propitiate, and whose wrath is bought off by some costly gift.

But then what is meant by the wrath of God,' of which we hear in the New Testament? Before attempting to answer this question we may remark that the expression is absent from a large majority of the books of the New Testament, and is nowhere ascribed to Christ. It may be inferred, however, that Christ sanctioned the idea from his use of the verb 'to be angry '2 in two of his parables, that of the unforgiving servant, and that of the marriage feast,3 and there can be no doubt that he recognized a Divine law of retribution. But it is evident that the wrath of God.

1

1'Opyń, John iii. 36; Rom. i. 18, ii. 5, 8, iii. 5, v. 9, ix. 22; Eph. v. 6 ; Col. iii. 6; I Thess. ii. 16, v. 9; Heb. iii. 11, iv. 3 (both in the same quotation from the Old Testament); Rev. xi. 18, xiv. 10, xvi. 19, xix. 15. Ovμós Rom. ii. 8; Rev. xiv. 10, 19, xv. 1, 7, xvi. 1, 19, xix. 15.

3 Matt. xviii. 34, and xxii. 7 with its parallel in Luke xiv. 21.

was no dominant note in the highest teaching of Christianity; and that, unless we assume the presence of quite inconsistent teaching in the writings of the same author, it must have been regarded as something which is compatible with absolute love, and indeed necessarily springs out of it. It cannot therefore be the anger of personal offence, but must be the displeasure which God, as the Holy One, feels against sin. If we spoke only of God's love, we might think him indifferent to moral distinctions. But when we hear of his 'wrath against all impiety and unrighteousness of men,' we remember that sin is alien to him, that his love is holy, and that he does not, like some weak and foolish parents, endeavour to gratify his children with selfish pleasure, but would draw them up to himself in the communion of holiness, and impart to them the fulness of spiritual life. Accordingly the moral discipline which tends to break the power of sin, the severity which makes the careless heart pause and see whither it is drifting, springs from his changeless love; and wrath is only the aspect which that love wears in the presence of sin, and is so terrible to the conscience because it does not rest on personal offence, but is an expression of judgment founded on the eternal laws of righteousness. It is best symbolized by the wrath which we feel against some distant outrage, in which we have no concern. It is possible to experience such just and holy wrath, and yet so to love the offender as to wish that he would turn from his wickedness, and become reconciled to justice and compassion. This wrath cannot and ought not to be laid aside so long as men persist in their 'hardness and impenitent heart'; and yet all the time the goodness of God may be seeking to lead them to repentance.

It follows, then, that Christianity, as a religion of salvation, does not aim at saving men from an angry God, and making him propitious to them, but at reconciling men to the Father in heaven, by turning their hearts to him, and lifting their souls towards their Divine ideal. This conclusion must necessarily colour our judgment of many points that will come before us.