Others  displace  the  Atonement  for  what  may  be
called  a  dogmatic  reason. It  is  a  fixed  point
with  them  that  so  great  a  thing  as  the  Incarna-
tion could  not  be  in  any  proper  sense  contingent ;
the  presence  of  the  Son  of  God  in  the  world
cannot  be  an  'after-thought'  or  an  'accident';
the  whole  intent  of  it  cannot  be  given  in  such
an  expression  as  'remedial.'  The  universe  must
have  been  constituted  from  the  first  with  a  view
to  it,  and  it  would  have  taken  place  all  the  same
even  though  there  had  been  no  sin  and  no  need
for  redemption. When  it  did  take  place,  indeed,
it  could  not  be  exactly  as  had  been  intended ;
under  the  conditions  of  the  fall,  the  Incarnation
entailed  a  career  which  meant  Atonement ;  it
was  Incarnation  into  a  sinful  race,  and  the  Atone-
ment was  made  when  the  Son  of  God  accepted
the  conditions  which  sin  had  determined,  and
fulfilled  man's  destiny  under  them. Perhaps
the  truth  might  be  put  within  the  four  corners


ATONEMENT  AND  INCARNATION      323

of  such  a  formula,  but  the  tendency  in  those  who
adopt  this  point  of  view  is  to  minimise  all  that
is  said  in  the  New  Testament  about  the  death  of
Christ  in  relation  to  sin. The  specific  assertions
and  definitions  of  the  apostolic  writings  are
evaded. They  are  interpreted  emotionally  but
not  logically,  as  if  the  men  who  say  the  strong
things  on  this  subject  in  the  New  Testament  had
said  them  without  thinking,  or  would  have  been
afraid  of  their  own  thoughts. The  most  dis-
tinguished representative  of  this  tendency  in  our
own  country  was  Bishop  Westcott. Not  that
what  has  just  been  said  is  applicable  in  its
entirety  to  him  ;  but  the  assumption  that  the
Incarnation  is  something  which  we  can  estimate
apart  from  the  Atonement,  something  which  has
a  significance  and  a  function  of  its  own,  inde-
pendent of  man's  redemption  from  sin,  underlies
much  of  his  writing,  and  tends  to  keep  him  from
doing  full  justice  to  apostolic  ideas  on  this  sub-
ject. The  logic  of  the  position  becomes  apparent
in  a  writer  like  Archdeacon  Wilson,  who  frankly
merges  the  Atonement  in  the  Incarnation,  assures
us  that  in  making  a  distinct  problem  of  the
former  we  have  been  asking  meaningless  ques-
tions, getting  meaningless  answers,  and  repelling
men  from  the  gospel. 