The Philosophy of the Cross. By the Rev. R. M.Cheyne
Edgar, M.A. (Hodder and Stoughton.)—Mr. Edgar states the forensic theory of the Atonement with an unshrinking boldness and a precision which strike one as uncommon, modified as the popular theology has been on this point by the influence of Coleridge, McLeod Campbell, and Maurice. These "sentimental" theologians, to quote a favourite epithet of the preacher, have not influeneed Mr. Edgar. "The entire tragedy," he says, "was the result of a direct compact between the persons of the adorable Trinity." And he uses language about the wrath of the Father which we scarcely like to transfer to our columns. "Love awns-Often into jealousy, and from jealousy it settles down into un- changeable wrath. A lover becomes jealous of the object of his or her affection, and if that jealousy be not removed by a proper devotion upon his or her part, then it is-sure to move into the phase of indigna- tion and settled wrath." "Such considerations," we are told, "are not beneath the dignity of God"! Mr. Edgar is quite right, we hold, in saying that "to declare that all our speculations about God's wrath and justice and love are vain, because he is infinite and we are finite ; to declare that anger and justice and love in man may be different in kind as well as degree from attributes similarly denominated in God, is to cut off the very possibilities of communion between man and his Maker." Very true, but can we recognise anything corresponding to justice, as we conceive of it, in this scheme of penalties borne by the innocent for the guilty? The only way of defending the "forensic theory" is by maintaining that "justice and love in man" are "dif- ferent in kind" from justice and love in God. The theory snits certain expressions of Scripture, and it is easily grasped ; these are its merits, but it cannot be upheld on Mr. Edgar's principles. We are glad to say that the sermons, when they dealswith collateral subjects, are not only able, for that they always are, but also attractive to those who dissent most strongly from their preacher's main theory.
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