{"product_id":"2940012701619","title":"GLORIA CRUCIS ADDRESSES DELIVERED IN LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL HOLY WEEK AND GOOD FRIDAY, 1907","description":"Sermon for Holy Week.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eINTRODUCTION\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThese addresses, delivered in Lichfield Cathedral {0} in Holy Week, 1907,\u003cbr\u003eare published at the request of some who heard them.  It has only been\u003cbr\u003epossible to endeavour to reproduce them in substance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe writer desires to express his obligations to various works from which\u003cbr\u003ehe has derived much assistance, such as, above all, Du Bose's _Gospel in\u003cbr\u003ethe Gospels_, Askwith's _Conception of Christian Holiness_, Tennant's\u003cbr\u003e_Origin of Sin_, and Jevons' _Introduction to the History of Religion_.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo the first and the last of these he is especially indebted in regard to\u003cbr\u003ethe view here taken of the Atonement.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt seems to him that no view of that great and central truth can possibly\u003cbr\u003ebe true, which (i) represents it as the result of a transaction between\u003cbr\u003ethe Father and the Son, which is ditheism pure and simple; or which (ii)\u003cbr\u003eregards it as intended to relieve us of the penalty of our sins, instead\u003cbr\u003eof having as its one motive, meaning, and purpose the \"cure of sinning.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo far as we can see, the results of sin, seen and unseen, in this world\u003cbr\u003eand beyond it, must follow naturally and necessarily from that\u003cbr\u003econstitution of the universe (including human nature) which is the\u003cbr\u003eexpression of the Divine Mind.  If this is true, and if that Mind is the\u003cbr\u003eMind of Him Who is Love, then all punishment must be remedial, must have,\u003cbr\u003efor its object and intention at least, the conversion of the sinner.  And,\u003cbr\u003etherefore, the desire to escape from punishment, if natural and\u003cbr\u003einstinctive, is also non-moral, for it is the desire to shirk God's\u003cbr\u003eremedy for sin, and doomed never to realise its hope, for it is the\u003cbr\u003edesire to reverse the laws of that Infinite Holiness and Love which\u003cbr\u003egoverns the world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYet this must be understood with one all-important reservation.  For the\u003cbr\u003eworst punishment of sin, is sin itself, the alienation of the soul from\u003cbr\u003eGod, with its consequent weakening of the will, dulling of the reason,\u003cbr\u003eand corrupting of the affections.  And it was from this punishment, from\u003cbr\u003ethis \"hardest hell,\" which is sin, or the character spoiled and ruined by\u003cbr\u003esin, that Christ died to deliver us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt follows that it is high time to dismiss all those theories of the\u003cbr\u003eAtonement which ultimately trace their origin to the enduring influence\u003cbr\u003eof Roman law.  There is no remission of penalty offered to us in the\u003cbr\u003eGospel of Jesus Christ.  The offer which is there held out to us, is that\u003cbr\u003ewhich answers to our deepest need, to the inmost longings of the human\u003cbr\u003esoul, \"the remission of our _sins_.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe idea of a penalty owing to the \"justice\" of God is a thoroughly\u003cbr\u003elegalistic one, the offspring of an age which thought in terms of law.  It\u003cbr\u003edeals throughout with abstractions.  The very word \"justice\" is a general\u003cbr\u003enotion, a concept, the work of the mind abstracting from particulars.\u003cbr\u003eJustice and mercy are used like counters in some theological game at\u003cbr\u003ewhich we are invited to play.  \"Penalty,\" again, is a term which serves\u003cbr\u003eto obscure the one important fact that God, as a Moral Person or, rather,\u003cbr\u003eas the One Self-Existent Being, of Whose nature and essence morality is\u003cbr\u003ethe expression, can only have one motive in dealing with sinners, and\u003cbr\u003ethat is, to reconcile them to Himself, to restore them to that true ideal\u003cbr\u003eof their nature, which is the Image of Himself in the heart of every man.\u003cbr\u003eWho can measure the pain and anguish which that restoration must cost, to\u003cbr\u003ethe sinner himself, and (such is the wonderful teaching of the Cross) to\u003cbr\u003eGod, the All-Holy One, Who comes into a world of sin in order to restore\u003cbr\u003ehim?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere is no room here, at all events, for light and trivial thoughts of\u003cbr\u003esin.  That charge might be levelled, with more excuse, at the view that\u003cbr\u003esin only incurs an external penalty, from which we can be cheaply\u003cbr\u003edelivered by the sufferings of another.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd theories of the Atonement which centre in the conception of penalty\u003cbr\u003eare often only modifications of the crude and glaring injustice of the\u003cbr\u003eCalvinistic view.  The doctrine of a kind of bargain between the Father\u003cbr\u003eand the Son, while it revolts our moral instincts, at the same time\u003cbr\u003elogically leads to the purely heathen notion of two gods.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are two main principles which are essential to a right\u003cbr\u003eunderstanding of the Atonement: (1) The oneness of Christ both with God\u003cbr\u003eand with humanity.  In regard to neither is He, nor can He be, \"Another\";\u003cbr\u003e(2) the death of Christ was the representation in space and time of a\u003cbr\u003emoral fact.  It happened as an \"event\" in history, in order that that\u003cbr\u003emoral fact, of which it was the embodiment and symbol, might become a\u003cbr\u003efact in the spiritual experience of mankind.  That death was more than a\u003cbr\u003esymbol, because it was the actual means by which that","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47158437282032,"sku":"2940012701619","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012701619_p0.jpg?v=1763571904","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012701619","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}