1. As  to  the  first. Repulsion  is  a  hard  word  to  use
where  investigation  into  the  meaning  of  the  death  of
Christ  is  concerned. Its  awfulness  arrests  attention,  its
unspeakable  condescension  constrains  to  worship  and
thanksgiving,  and  faith  instinctively  rests  upon  it  as
the  ground  of  confidence    towards  God,  in   the  case  of


2        The  Spiritual  Principle  of  the  Atonement

multitudes  who  yet  refuse  to  enter  into  its  precise  nature
and  its  reasons. But  none  the  less,  repulsion  from  the
theological  inquiry  is  as  real  as  the  homage  of  worship
and  faith  in  presence  of  the  redemptive  fact. And  the
reasons  for  this  attitude  are  not  far  to  seek. In  part  this
aversion  may  be  due  to  the  shallowness  of  an  age  which  is
supposed  to  have  lost  its  interest  in  theology. But  far
more  is  it  caused  by  the  fact  that  those  who  have  pene-
trated into  the  subject,  as  it  has  ordinarily  been  presented,
have  immediately  been  confronted  by  considerations  drawn
from  the  sphere  of  human  jurisprudence  or  of  govern-
mental interests. And  these  considerations  are  not  only
remote  from,  but  distasteful  to  the  common  mind,  carrying
us  into  a  sphere  which  is  felt  to  be  foreign  and  even
antagonistic  to  both  the  simple  life  of  faith  and  the
graciousness  of  the  gospel. If  these  difl&culties  are  over-
come, others  remain  to  be  encountered. The  dogmatic
schemes  which  have  been  propounded  seem  to  satisfy
every  relationship  between  God  and  men  except  those
which  the  Christian  man,  at  any  rate  in  these  days,  feels
to  be  most  precious  and  most  real  To  explain  the
Atonement  from  every  standpoint  save  that  of  these
relationships  is  for  him  either  to  leave  it  unexplained,  or
to  give  an  explanation  from  which  he  would  gladly  turn
his  mind. And  this  all  the  more  when  he  finds,  further,
that  the  explanations  offered  to  him  often  offend  either
his  heart  by  not  only  ignoring,  but  even  running  counter
to  its  most  cherished  experiences  of  the  loving  tender-
ness of  God,  or  his  reverence  by  their  vulgar  use  of  com-
mercial analogies,  or  his  reason  by  their  artificiality. 