Welch:

REV. DR. JAMES RICHARDS AND HIS

THEOLOGY.–II.

IN a previous article (PRES. REV., April, 1884) we presented some salient points in the life and character of Dr. James Richards. We, also, traced his Theology in part, as we proposed, along three lines of thought: (I) In reference to God. (2) In reference to Man. (3) In reference to the God-man.

Of these, we considered only the first and second. Under the former came, first in order, Dr. R.’s presentation of primal truth–the truth concerning God,–God as the absolute Being, the personal Jehovah, holy, just, and good, Author of all things-who was before all things and by whom all things consist. This, in the view of Dr. Richards, is the supreme reality, the fundamental truth on which all other truth reposes.

Next in order, came the consideration of the fundamental doctrine, the Plan or Purpose or Decree of God.

In the view of Dr. R., this is a doctrine fundamental not only to all theological doctrines, but preliminary to all finite existence (S. C., 7). It is but a truism to assert, that it depended upon the good pleasure of him who was before all things, that anything should exist or begin to be. Yet, from the theistic stand-point this simple truism involves the demonstrative proof of this fundamental doctrine,–The Divine Plan or Purpose or Decree; it involves also the proof that this doctrine is so comprehensive as to include all things. In the explicit language of Dr. Richards,–” The Divine Decrees are necessarily universal, reaching alike to all beings and events, and through all time. In the order of nature, they precede whatsoever comes to pass through the agency of God, whether that agency be exerted either immediately or remotely.” Dr. R. carefully discriminates the Divine agency in moral government as more immediate or remote–efficacious or permissive–direct or indirect; that promotes and rewards holiness-but permits and punishes sin. (See Conf., Chapts. VI., I, and III., I). This statement does not assert or allow that there are conditions outside the plan or purpose or decree of God; yet it does allow of conditions within the Divine plan or purpose. {Conf. IV., 2). In the Divine plan, the infinite Reason pursuing the rational order makes one thing antecedent or conditional to another. Indeed. it could not otherwise be a plan or purpose, for this implies the choice of a final cause or end, and the choice of means adapted to secure that end.

The transition is easy to the doctrine concerning the Works of God. The Works of God,” says Dr. R., “are, of course, the execution or development of the Divine Decrees” (Conf., IV. and V.). This statement suggests the order of the divine decrees as included in the plan and purpose of God; the manner in which this order is developed or disclosed (that is, in the Works of God); and the way in which we may study this order. This order, when actualized in the Works of God, is, of course, the historic order.

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Smith:

On the distinction between Atonement and Redemption:

1) The Priestly Office of Christ is that office in both natures whereby He makes an atonement. In the same priestly office and in virtue of his atoning work his Intercession is maintained. Intercession belongs to Christ as priest: it includes his constant application of his sacrifice; or, generally, all his agency in redeeming mankind, in his glorified state.¹ Of the two parts of Christ s work as Priest Atonement and Intercession we speak here only of The Atonement.

I. Usage of the word, and of certain terms which cluster about it.

1. Of the terms Redemption and Atonement. Redemption implies the complete deliverance from the penalty, power, and all the consequences of sin: Atonement is used in the sense of the sacrificial work, whereby the redemption from the condemning power of the law was insured.

2. Of the terms Reconciliation and Atonement. Reconciliation sets forth what is to be done: Atonement, in its current theological sense, likewise involves the idea of the way, the mode, in which the reconciliation is effected that is, by a sacrifice for sin.² Henry B. Smith, System of Christian Theology, 2^nd ed., (New York: A.C. Armstrong and Son, 1884), 437. [Some reformatting; italics original; footnote values changed; and underlining mine.]

Sins of the world:

1)

COMPARISON OF THE INCARNATION WITH SOME OTHER FACTS AS GIVING

THE CENTRAL IDEAS OF THE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM.

I.–Comparison of Divine Sovereignty and The Incarnation as central principles.

Calvinistic theology has had unconsciously for the most part two germinant principles: Sovereignty and The Covenants; the former the older, the latter more narrow, but with some advantages. In the Confessions we often see an unconscious union of the two. Sovereignty tends to run into supralapsarianism and the assertion of the exclusive divine efficiency: Will is made to be all; the ethical is obscured. The objections to it are: (i.) It is too abstract; (b.) It is liable to perversion, to the construction that God is all Will; (c.) If it is taken concretely, i. e., if the Sovereignty is understood to stand for Plan, it comes to much the same with our principle: Incarnation in order to Redemption is God’s Plan.

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Lever:

Redeemed souls perishing:

1) As for example of ryche men, loke at the merchauntes of London, and ye shall see, when as by their honest vocacion, and trade of marchandise god hath endowed them with great abundaunce of ryches, then can they not be content with the prosperous welth of that vocacion to satisfye theym selues, and to helpe other, but their riches muste abrode in the countrey to bie fermes [farms] out of the handes of worshypfull gentlemen, honeste yeomen, and pore lahorynge husbandes. Yea nowe also to bye personages, and benefices, where as they do not onelye bye landes and goodes, but also lyues and soules of men, from God and the comen wealth, vnto the deuyll and theim selues. A myscheuouse marte of merchandrie is this, and yet nowe so comenly vsed, that therby shepeheardes be turned to theues, dogges into wolues, and the poore flocke of Christ, redemed wyth his precious bloud, moste miserablye pylled, and spoyled, yea cruelly deuoured. Be thou marchaunt of the citye, or be thou gentleman in the contrey, be thou lawer, be you courtear, or what maner of man soeuer thou be, that can not, yea yf thou be mailer doctor of diuinitie, that wyl not do thy duety, it is not lawfull (or the to haue personage, benefice, or any suche liuyng, excepte thou do fede the flocke spiritually wyth goddes worde, and bodelye wyth honeste hospitalitye. I wyll touch diuerse kyndes of ryche men and rulers, that ye maye se what harme some of theim do wyth theyr ryches and authoritye. And especiallye I wyll begynne wyth. theym that be best learned, for they seme belyke to do moste good wyth ryches and authoritie unto theim committed. If I therefore beynge a yonge simple scholer myghte be so bolde, I wolde alke an auncient, wyse, and well learned doctor of diuinitie, whych cometh not at hys benefice, whether he were bounde to fede hys flocke in teachynge of goddes worde, and kepyng hospitalitie or no? He wold answere and saye: syr my curate supplieth my roume in teachynge, and my farmer in kepynge of house. Yea but master doctor by your leaue, both these more for your vauntage then for the paryshe conforte: and therfore the mo suche seruauntes that ye kepe there, the more harme is it for your paryshe, and the more synne and shame for you. Ye may thynke that I am sumwhat saucye to laye synne and shame to a doctor of diuinitie in thys solemne audience, for some of theim vse to excuse the matter, and saye: Those whych I leaue in myne absence do farre better then I shoulde do, yf I taryed there my selfe. Thomas Lever, Sermons,  (London: Bloomsbury,1871), 29-30. [Original spelling retained;  italics original; some bracketed words inserted; and underlining mine; the archaic font character for “s” substituted with the modern s.]

2) The filthye gredye puttockes, wylde haukes, and rauenyng kytes be fupersticious papistes, carnall gospellers, and sedicious rebelles, which as ye haue seene, by late experience, haue moil cruelly caught, spoyled, and deuoured the lambes, the chekynnes, the chyldren of God, redemed and boughte with Christes bloude. Wherfore as Christ in his owne persone dyd once lament and bewayle Ierusalem, so dothe he nowe many tymes in the persons of his propheticall Preachers, lament and bewayl Englande, saying: O England, howe ofte wolde I haue gathered thy chyldren, as a hen gathereth her chikens vnder her wynges, and thou woldest not. Euen with the same affeccion that the shepherde cryeth, seeyng the wolfe le[e]ryng towardes the shepe, and with the same affeccion that the hen clocketh and calleth, spyeng the kyte houeryng ouer her chekyns: with the same affeccion it behoueth the minister and preacher of God, seeyng vntollerable vengeaunce hangynge ouer Englande, to aye, to call, and to geue warnyng vnto the people, saying as [it] is written In the first of Esay: If ye willyngly wyl heare and obeye, ye shall eate the good comfortable frutes of the earthe: but if ye wyll not, and prouoke me vnto angre, the swoorde shall deuoure you: Quia os Domini locutum.¹ For it is the mouth of the lord that hath spoken.

Now your reuerende maiestie, most gracious kyng, and you honourable wyse godly counsellers, you are the chiefe shepherdes, you are the most reuerende fathers in Christe, hauynge the wynges of power and authoritie, to shadow, saue, and keepe these lambes of god, these [the] chekens of Christ, and these chyldren of the heauenly father, redemed with Christes bloude, and committed vnto your handes, to be saued, kepte, and prouyded for.

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Truman:

1) 5. Though Christ’s death as a satisfaction, expiation, was the cause of no more to us than this, That, if we repent and believe, we shall be justified and saved, Satisfaction and Propitiation being only for sin: yet, considering this suffering of Christ, as a highly pleasing meritorious act, as a worthy voluntary undertaking for the Honor of God we may say, Christ did merit that God should give this Faith, work this Condition, and keep it in the Elect: for all would, notwithstanding this (and the easy reasonable terms made of their interest in it) through their own willful wickedness, have perished; and he deserved that his blood should not thus far be lost, as water spilt on the ground; but that he should have some fruit of the travel of his soul, in seeing a Seed, actually to honor, venerate, and adore their Redeemer. Though I must say, for the honor of our Redeemer in this great affair, He will have some reward in those that perish in that he did a wonderful kindness for them, it being only through their own chosen refusal, that they had no benefit by it. His Goodness and Grace is not therefore no Grace because men reject it. And to do a good and gracious act, is a reward and satisfaction in it self. And you may as well maintain, That, except God be ignorant, and know not that men will reject his mercy, he cannot be righteous and just in punishing them for it: which is contrary to the knowledge of the whole world; as to say, Except God be ignorant, and know not that they will through their wicked willfulness refuse his Mercy, his Grace and Mercy is no Grace and Mercy. If one of you take a long, tedious, and hazardous journey, to dissuade your friend from something you hear he designs to do, which you know will undo him, though he willfully persist, and will not be persuaded by you, and so is undone by it; yet he is bound to thank you all his life after, and your kindness ceases not to be kindness; and you have this satisfaction and reward, You did a kind act, though he reap no benefit. And suppose you might have prevailed with him, if you had there stayed longer with him, and taken more pains; yet your kindness ceases not to be a kindness because you did not greater kindness; since that which you did, would have been enough, had it not been for his willful obstinacy: And his after-ruing of his own folly, bears a loud testimony to, and tends to the honor of your kindness, Oh that I had hearkened to my Friend! How have I hated instruction, and would not incline mine ear to him that instructed me? They in Hell, if they would and could do as befits them, or as Christ hath deserved from them, would spend time as well in admiring the love of God, and the Redeemer, in this wonderful once offered and urged Kindness, as in ruing that they lost it through their own chosen willful madness. Some go on such grounds in speaking of these things, that (holding to their way) they must necessarily deny that sinners in Hell will ever rue, and befool themselves for their loss of salvation by Christ: But if any will hold so much power in man to receive Christ, as that they will rue it as their madness, and folly, and sin, to reject him, and perish by so doing; I can from that demonstrate (as clearly as I can do any thing) that this I now speak in this digression inevitably follows. Let me but ask you this, Was there no cause for Adam (when fallen from the benefit) to thank God for making that promise, Obey and Live; when as God might have annihilated him, notwithstanding his obedience, had it not been for that promise? And do you never thank God for it, though God knew he would fall? But to return: As Christ’s sufferings did not as an expiation or satisfaction, but as a highly meritorious act, deserve or obtain, that God should give greater things to those that believe, than Adam lost, for the honor of the Redeemer, and of this great work of Redemption: so, he did deserve, that God should cause some to believe; and so from eternity his death, foreseen or undertaken, was a cause, a meritorious cause or motive why God would, that is, decreed, to make some, and so, though more remotely, such particular persons, the Elect, to accept offered mercy and Christ, which they would otherwise (as others) have rejected. Some call this, the Covenant of Redemption; but it is an immanent act, and from eternity, and an elicit act of the will; and therefore is properly a Decree, and belongs to the Will of Purpose, and not to his Legislative will, his Rectoral Will. Methinks you may see hence, how it cometh to pass that we sometimes read of Christ’s dying for the world; and in other places that he laid down his life for his sheep; sometime, tasted death for every man, died for all; sometime again, gave himself for the Church; in one place, a Savior of the body; in another, a Savior of the world. He died for the Elect and World both, so far, that whosoever should believe on him, should not perish; but for the Elect, as they which were much in his eye, being those who certainly should believe, and so be actually saved. Though God and Christ did, as one says, æque intend this satisfaction, a propitiation conditionally applicable to every one; yet he did not ex æquo, as fully intend it for to be actually applied to every man. There is much of truth in that frequently cited passage of Ambrose, Christus passus est pro omnibus, pro nobis tamen specialiter passus est. Like that, a Savior of all men, especially of them that believe.

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