Transcribed from the 1908 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition byDavid Price,
addressesdelivered in lichfield cathedral
holy week and good friday, 1907
by
THE REV. J. H. BEIBITZ, M.A.
vice-principal of the theologicalcollege, lichfield
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
1908
All rights reserved
MATRI
These addresses, delivered in Lichfield Cathedral [0] in Holy Week, 1907, are published at therequest of some who heard them. It has only been possibleto endeavour to reproduce them in substance.
The writer desires to express his obligations to various worksfrom which he has derived much assistance, such as, above all, DuBose’s Gospel in the Gospels, Askwith’sConception of Christian Holiness, Tennant’sOrigin of Sin, and Jevons’ Introduction to theHistory of Religion.
To the first and the last of these he is especially indebtedin regard to the view here taken of the Atonement.
It seems to him that no view of that great and central truthcan possibly be true, which (i) represents it as the result of atransaction between the Father and the Son, which is ditheismpure and simple; or which (ii) regards it as intended to relieveus of the penalty of our sins, instead of having as its onemotive, meaning, and purpose the “cure ofsinning.”
So far as we can see, the results of sin, seen and p. xunseen,in this world and beyond it, must follow naturally andnecessarily from that constitution of the universe (includinghuman nature) which is the expression of the Divine Mind. If this is true, and if that Mind is the Mind of Him Who is Love,then all punishment must be remedial, must have, for its objectand intention at least, the conversion of the sinner. And,therefore, the desire to escape from punishment, if natural andinstinctive, is also non-moral, for it is the desire to shirkGod’s remedy for sin, and doomed never to realise its hope,for it is the desire to reverse the laws of that InfiniteHoliness and Love which governs the world.
Yet this must be understood with one all-importantreservation. For the worst punishment of sin, is sinitself, the alienation of the soul from God, with its consequentweakening of the will, dulling of the reason, and corrupting ofthe affections. And it was from this punishment, from this“hardest hell,” which is sin, or the characterspoiled and ruined by sin, that Christ died to deliver us.
It follows that it is high time to dismiss all those theoriesof the Atonement which ultimately trace their origin to theenduring influence of Roman law. There is no remission ofpenalty offered to us in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Theoffer which is there held out to us, is that which answers to ourdeepest need, to the inmost longings of the human soul,“the remission of our sins.”
p.xiThe idea of a penalty owing to the “justice”of God is a thoroughly legalistic one, the offspring of an agewhich thought in terms of law. It deals throughout withabstractions. The very word “justice” is ageneral notion, a concept, the work of the mind abstracting fromparticulars. Justice and mercy are used like count