Morning journal and courier., 1885-10-21

and God diminishing fancy that
 Satan was tricked into acceptance of this
 ransom by our Lords incarnation, though to
 us it seems little short of blasphemus, is re-
 peated over by such writers as St. Ambrose
 and down even to the sentences of Peter
 Lombard, were the one chief theological
 manual of the middle ages. The genius of
 one man of the great St. Anselm destroyed
 this deeply rooted theory at single blow by
 showing that it involved nothing short of
 pure Munchauserism. He substituted for it
 the forensic theory of rigid equivalent satis-
 faction. This theory has had it's day and
 has fallen into neglect so complete that it
 is seldom ever alluded to. Then came the reformation theories of substitution, of i'm pulation, of vicarious punishment. Then came the juristic scheme of the legist Gro tius. Now, none of these theories have ever l been stamped with approval by the church of God. They have at the utmost been left as permissible opinions in the region of un- l fathomable mysteries. They all abound in l terms which are but inferential, not scriptu 1 ral. Even the phrase "God for Christ's sake forgave" is misinterpretation of our aa- 1 thorized version for the infinitely deeper and | diviner expression of St. Paul, "God in Christ forgave."
 Such language is in fragrant discord with the numberless revelations which tell us that | the atonement was the immediate outcome of l the Fathers love. In popular apprehension at any rate all such theories are dangerously | tainted with the heresies of sheer Lutherism; | of most unscriptural contrast between the sons tenderness and the fathers wrath, i'm T1Iv inO aiy 1yTyor fr hat fha attributes of justice and mercy in the char | acter of God. And the cause of all these errors is obvious. They spring from ignor- l ing the fact that it has not pleased God to give us the plan of salvation either in details or in dialectia; from the bad tendency to | torture isolated expression into the ever-wid- | ening spire ergo of unlimited consequences l from tesselating, varied metaphors
 into formal systems; from trying to con- | struct the whole when God has only given us
 knowledge of part; from bad rule of ec- clesiastical opinion worship.
 1 This is what the church clearly teaches us | alike by what she does say, and by which she carefully abstains from, It
 has been the ultimate conclusion, arrived
 at by many of the greatest modern scholars
 both dead and living, of men SO. entirely | different as Canon Moseley and Professor
 Maurice, and it is also the direct teaching of | the great divine who of all others the English l church has most delighted to honor Scripture" says Bishop Butler, "has left | this matter of the satisfaction of Christ mys- | terious; left something in it unrevealed; so ! that all conjecture about it must be if not
 evidently absurd, at least uncertain TO-DAY.
 Following is the programme for to-day. Wednesday, October 21st. 10aO a. m., Carlls Op- era House-Second topic: Grounds of Church Unity"
 Writers-The Rt. Rev. A. Cleveland Coxe, D. D., ILL. D., Bishop of western New York; the Ven
 Arehdeacon Farrari Bishop Randolph. Speakers Rev. Prof. Thomas Richey, D. D., Gen, Theological seminary, New York; the Rev William W. Newton, Pittsfeld, Mass the Rev Da- wis Sessums, Memphis, Tennessee; Rev. Julius H, Ward, Boston Mass,
 Wednesday, October Fist, 7:ao p. m, Carll's op- ton.''
 Writers: General Henry E. Tremaine, New York city; Rev Francis A; Henry, Ridgefeld, Conn; Speakers-The Rt. Rev. T. U. Dudley, D. D. Bishop of Kentucky.
 The reception by President Porter to the 1 members of the congress takes place at 4 p.
 m. to-day at the Yale Art school.