TFiE CIIKISTIAN DOCTKINK OF ATONEMENT. 



57 



work of priesthood. And in keeping with this, IX/ktico/luh is used 

 in Heb. ii, 17, with reference to the Lord's present and continuing 

 work for His people, as High Priest. 



Now, however, the word has come to be accepted as equivalent to 

 " propitiatory sacrifice." And in this sense, not only is atonement, 

 as Mr. Marston says, older than Christianity, it is older than 

 Judaism. For Abel offered a propitiatory sacrifice. And the 

 record gives proof that he did so in pursuance of a preceding 

 revelation; for it was not by higher intelligence, but by faith that 

 he offered a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain. The universality of 

 sacrifice (and it is found among all the savage races of the world) 

 can only be accounted for by a tradition based on a primeval 

 revelation. For no rational being could evolve from his own brain 

 the idea that by killing a fellow creature he would appease God. 

 Its universality, moreover, gives proof that human nature 

 instinctively responds to the Divine demand for a propitiatory 

 sacrifice. And the infidel must account for this before we can giA^e 

 a hearing to his attacks on the Scriptural truth of the Atonement. 



The Rev. Chancellor Lias : The Christian Creed is a collection, 

 not of dogmas, but of fads. It does not, in the first instance, 

 that is, consist of propositions drawn up on paper and accepted by 

 the mind (though these may result from it), but of fundamental 

 facts believed by the heart, and realized by the conscience. The 

 controversies which for centuries have desolated Christianity have 

 not been on the facts of the Divine Order, presented in the Creed, 

 but on the explanations of those facts which various schools of 

 theology have given of such questions, as the Presence in the 

 Eucharist ; the fact of Inspiration ; the necessity of an Episcopal 

 goverimient of local churches. So on the question of Atonement, 

 explanations have found acceptance which had the merit of 

 simplicity, rather than that of duly estimating all the various 

 conditions of a very complex problem. The great Father Origen has 

 been credited with the theory that the price of our redemption was 

 paid to the Devil ; it is a matter of fact that he did deliver himself 

 of such an obiter dictum, as of many other like suggestions. But his 

 reasoned conclusion was that the mode of Christ's Atonement 

 involved a host of considerations, some lying on the very surface, 

 but some of immense complexity and difficulty. There can be no 

 harm whatever in endeavouring to find reasonable explanations of a 



