in the history of her people. Hence it has both literary and historical value, and is a commendable addition to the list of works written for the entertainment and instruction of young people.

MISCELLANEOUS.

The Wonder Clock; or, Four-and-twenty Marvelous Tales, being one for each hour of the day. Written and Illustrated by HOWARD PYLE. Embellished with Verses by KATHARINE PYLE. Quarto, pp. 318. New York: Harper & Brothers. The Messrs. Harper have sent out many good things for the entertainment of the young folk, but it may well be doubted whether they have ever provided a feast better adapted to meet their demand for "the evening hour" reading than this stately volume. Mr. Pyle is both a fabulist and a teller of fairy-stories. He uses natural objects, animals, and imaginary personalities as instruments to afford amusement and to teach moral lessons without moralizing. His humorous pictorial illustrations add not a little to the charm of the book, as do also the playful verses which precede each story. As a holiday gift-book it must be popular. Lads and misses will devour it, and the little ones too young to read it themselves will clamor to have it read to them.

Animal Life in the Sea and Land. A Zoology for Young People. By SARAH COOPER. Illustrated. 12mo, pp. 413. New York: Harper & Brothers.

To lure young people to a habit of observing, and to the formation of a taste for studying natural history, is to do them substantial and lasting good. To this end the volume before us is judiciously adapted. Eschewing formal scientific descriptions of the objects of animated nature, it is nevertheless based on scientific classification. Beginning with sponges, the lowest forms of animal life, it proceeds upward to man, the crown of the animal kingdom, describing not the minute parts of living objects, but those which are readily found by the unassisted eye, and such of their habits as can be most easily observed. This is done in clear, well-chosen language, which is made still more intelligible by two hundred and seventy-eight illustrations most admirably engraved and finely printed. It belongs to that class of useful and entertaining books of which it may be said that too many of them cannot be put into the hands of young people.

Young Knights of the Cross. A Hand-book of Principles, Facts, and Illustrations for Young People who are Seeking to Win the Golden Crown of Pure and Noble Character. By DANIEL WISE, D.D. 12mo, pp. 270. New York: Phillips & Hunt. Cincinnati: Cranston & Stowe.

Dr. Wise intends this book to be a vade mecum for youth just entering their teens a work to guide their conduct and teach them what is the right thing to do in the play-ground, the school, the home, the place of business, and wherever else they may be called to act.

METHODIST REVIEW.

MARCH, 1888.

ART. I.-ARMINIAN THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. THE separation of the Arminians from the Calvinists involved no essential difference between the parties in respect to the atonement except in the important particular of its extent. The great conflict was on the doctrine of predestination-the absolute election of certain souls to eternal life and the absolute reprobation of other souls to eternal death. Arminius denied this doctrine, and held that the redemption of Christ was available for all men, and that they all had power to accept or reject it, and that their salvation was conditional upon their exercising the former power.

The view of the atonement prevailing among the more pronounced Calvinists of the time referred to was a considerably intensified form of Anselm's theory, which had been in substance the Church doctrine for five hundred years. This theory was, briefly stated, as follows. I quote from Knapp:

Man owes reverence to the character of God and obedience to his laws. Whoever withholds this... robs God of what belongs to him, and must not only restore that which he withheld, but pay an additional amount as amends for the dishonor brought upon God. Thus it stands with sinners. The payment of this debt is the satisfaction which every sinner must make to God according to the nature of his offense. For God cannot in justice remit the debt (or punishment) unless satisfaction is made. This man could never do, nor indeed any other than God himself. And yet to him as judge must this satisfaction be made. The expedient was then devised for the Son of God, as God-man, by his death to make this satisfaction. He was able to make this satis11-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. IV.

faction only as God; but as man he was able also to be surety for men, and then himself actually to pay the debt or make satisfaction for them.*

As we shall see presently, it is probable that Anselm himself held a rather mild form of the theory which takes its name from him. It was subsequently developed, modified, and intensified in various ways. The more extreme form of it at the end of the sixteenth century implied that, in order to make the satisfaction required, Christ must have undergone all the sufferings which would, but for his substitution, have come upon all those for whom he suffered, and that all their sins were imputed unto him, that he assumed all their guilt, and was thus regarded as guilty before God. † It is not necessary to suppose that all who were regarded as orthodox Calvinists held to this extreme view. As matter of fact, there were many who variously modified it, and in whose minds it took on a milder tone. Particularly was this true as to the amount of suffering which was thought requisite to render a complete satisfaction. To the general doctrine of satisfaction rendered, and of the imputation of man's guilt to Christ and of Christ's righteousness to man, Arminius himself, so far as I can learn, did not object, except, as before stated, as to the extent of availability.

Various modifications of this view, however, took place among the followers of Arminius after his death. At first these were not pronounced or definite. They consisted mainly in the softening of its more rigorous features and yielding to a more liberal tendency. This was certainly the case with Episcopius, who was substantially the leader of the party in his day.

Grotius, the eminent civilian, and, though a layman, one of the chiefs of the Arminian party, made the first obvious departure from the satisfaction theory as previously held by Protestants in general. He left on record, in a somewhat elaborate form, his opinions. He made a clear distinction between God as a person and God as a sovereign. He held that it was not competent for God in the former relation, namely, that of

Christian Theology, p. 402.

It was also held that the obedience of Christ would be imputed to the elect for righteousness, instead of their own obedience.

the offended party, as such, to inflict punishment. But as the Governor of the universe it was his duty to punish sinners. Thus the necessity was purely governmental. This distinction, was no doubt philosophical and logical. Personally God not. only could cherish no vindictive feeling toward sinners, but he was perfectly free to exercise that love for them which impelled him to devise, at an infinite cost to himself, a way whereby men could be saved notwithstanding their sins. So far this would appear to accord with the facts implied in the scriptural account of Christ's mission and teaching. But how to meet the demands of just government was another question. This Grotius held to have been accomplished, though not in the rendering of satisfaction in the Anselmian sense. So far as the payment of debts was concerned, God, like any other creditor, was at liberty to remit them without any consideration. But governmental ends could not be compassed by simply remitting the penalty which had been explicitly published as affixed to violations of law. Were this done, it might not only operate disastrously in other ways, but it would especially indicate fatal weakness and imperfectness in the divine character and government.

It is true, Grotius admitted that God might relax his law or the penalty for its violation. But he would say:

God is not in the position of a judge who is simply a minister of the law and bound by its provisions. His position is rather that of a ruler of the moral universe, upon whom rests the office of conserving and promoting its best interests. But while God as ruler may relax the law which affixes penalty to sin, his very position as a wise and perfect ruler is a bar against any relaxation which might imply a light estimate of the claim to obedience. It tends to break down the law when its demands are not

strictly asserted. Were God to proclaim a universal amnesty, and at the same time take no pains to declare his abhorrence of sin or his regard for righteousness, he would open the road to license, and endanger the security of moral government. A penal example must go along with the proclamation of amnesty. In the suffering Son of God the most effective example is provided. The sight of such a Being, of incomparable dignity, paying tribute to a broken law by his passion and death warns men that the love which offers pardon for past sins in no wise excuses from obligation to future obedience. Thus, while the law is in a sense relaxed, a suitable compensation is secured.*

*Quoted from Sheldon's History of Doctrines, vol. ii, p. 143.

In this view the offering of Christ was rather of the nature of a substitution than of a satisfaction. It served to express God's infinite hatred of sin, and at the same time, and in the same act, his infinite love for the sinner. Thus was manifested the divine goodness and the divine severity.

Grotius, though forming no distinct school or party based on this view of the great subject, and though his doctrines were not definitely accepted by the Arminians as a whole, was yet the pioneer in a field of thought the working of which was perhaps the imperceptible, but nevertheless the actual, cause of important doctrinal modifications in the whole theologic world. Episcopius, Curcellæus, Limborch, and other great lights of the Arminian school held largely with Grotius; yet they at the same time clung to the notion of Christ as a sacrifice to God, and as in some sense a satisfaction to the divine justice. The Arminians of the immediately subsequent period maintained a variety of opinions on the subject of the atonement, ranging all the way from the slightly modified views of Anselm to the low and loose notions of Socinus.

After these times the first complete, distinct, and systematic presentation of Arminian theology is found in the writings of Wesley, Fletcher, and Watson; notably in those of the last. But even here the system appears only in a process of development, not yet having cleared itself of much of the scholastic and metaphysical dogma of the party from which it had been. originally a departure. Its anthropology was still substantially that of Augustine. The doctrine of original sin, in its radical form of inherited guilt, though softened, was not discarded. Indeed, the notions involved in and cognate to this theory still linger in writings of prominent British Wesleyans of the present day, though they are not accepted by the great majority of American Methodists.

The soteriology of the early Wesleyan Arminians was not widely different from that of the moderate Calvinists, at least so far as the procuring cause of redemption was concerned. There was a certain gratifying inconsistency between their theoretical theology and its practical application; but this was not such a peculiarity of this party as to occasion surprise to any moderately close observer of human nature elsewhere.