LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

THE ETHICS OF FORGIVENESS.

[To THE EDITOR OF TH11 "SPECTATOR."]

Sia,—Yon will, I am sure, with your usual kindness, allow me a few words of explanation of my sermon on "The Ethics of Forgiveness," in reply to your thoughtful criticism of it in the Spectator of last week.

You have, quite correctly, stated the drift of the sermon to be, "that a moral miracle (the Atonement) is required to enable God to forgive even those sins which are truly and earnestly repented of." That is to say, I hold that there is an obstacle in the way of the forgiveness of the penitent which it needs a miracle to remove. I am, however, as far as possible from holding that this obstacle consists in "the reluctance of God to restore the penitent to His love and favour."

This is a doctrine which I repudiate with my whole heart. I hold, as strongly as you can do, that there is nothing in the disposition of God towards the penitent which in any way hinders His full and free forgiveness of him. What I do hold is, that there is an obstacle in the constitution of things—in that system of moral government under which we live—in the way of His doing this, and that this obstacle was removed by the "moral miracle" of the Atonement—which atonement God has devised, not because He is "averse to," but because He is desirous of, forgiving the penitent sinner.

I thought that I had expressed this in my sermon, both in the concluding sentences in which I speak of the revelation of the Atonement as "assuring us that, spite of all demonstration

to the contrary, there is a compassionate heart in Him who has fashioned us after His image," and as bidding us, therefore, "arise, and go to our Father ;" and also in the opening state- ment, in which I admit and maintain "that God forgives as freely and fully as man can do."

Let me, at any rate, now say that I hold this belief with the most entire conviction ; but that it appears to me not only not to conflict with, but to be the ground—in part, at least—of my argument for the Atonement, which is briefly this :—Granting that God forgives as fully as man can forgive, there are diffi- culties in the way of human forgiveness and the like difficulties exist as regards ]livine forgiveness ; only these latter are so much greater that, logically and intellectually, His forgiveness seems impossible, unless by means of a miracle ; and further, that God has, of His loving compassion for us, wrought this miracle in the atonement He has effected, by the death and resurrection of His Incarnate Son. Or, in other words, I hold that "God so loved the world "—the sinful, impenitent world— that he wrought a miracle in order to enable Him to forgive its sins.

Now this theory may be true or false. But bow does it—whether true or false—conflict with the belief that God, "as a good Being, rejoices to forgive the penitent who has put away evil from him " ? or how does it con- tradict, as you think it does, the statement of St. John, that "if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." St. John is stating here the result of the Atonement, not the grounds and conditions of it. He is telling believers in that atonement, who hold with him that "Christ the righteous "is, as he says in the following verses, "the propitiation (imiffp.oc) for our sins "—that God will forgive us if we confess them. But of the antecedent facts which made this " propitiation " necessary, as the condition of the possibility of forgiveness, he is not treating and does not directly speak. Nevertheless, there is an implied and even more than implied, reference to thia in his use, in this context, of the word "pro- pitiation," for why speak of propitiation for sin by Christ, if there is nothing in the case but simply free forgiveness of the penitent ?

For a full statement, however, of the difficulties in the way of forgiveness of sinners and of the way in which these are removed by the Atonement, we must go, not to the pastorals of St. John, but to the dogmatic treatises of St. Paul, who deals in more than one of these at length with the question how God can be at once "just and the justifier of him that believeth ;" and who does this in language which, if it does not imply that there are other difficulties in the way of man's forgiveness by God than man's impenitence, is simply a solemn and elaborate trifling with words.

The difference, however, on this point between yourself and me is, I hope, only a difference in definition. "Forgiveness" may mean one of two things which (pace tad) I do not think I have "confused in my sermon." It may mean the feeling which induces us to regard the offender as if he had not offended ; or it may mean the act of dealing with the offender as if he had not offended.

As regards the former of these two meanings, I entirely agree with you that God feels towards the penitent offender—exactly as we ought to feel towards him—only a sentiment of pity and forgiveness ; and that, too, quite independent of the fact or condition of any atonement. But, as regards the second of these meanings, I maintain that, consistently with the main- tenance of those laws of moral government, of which He is the author, He cannot deal with the offender as if he had never offended, i.e., cannot remit to him his debt, and make him as if he had never incurred it, without a miracle ; or (if the word miracle be objected to) without transferring him from the king- dom of merely natural law of sin and death into the super- natural kingdom of forgiveness and life.

Now, whether this " difficulty " in the way of forgiveness really exists; or whether, if it does, it has been removed in the way I have supposed by the "moral miracle" of the Atonement is, of course, matter for argument,—and I have tried to argue it in my sermon. But to say that there is such a diffi- culty is surely something very different from saying that it consists in the "aversion of God" to forgive the penitent, and that this aversion needs to be removed by the Atonement.

As regards the other, and far deeper, question raised in your article, namely, whether there is any "propitiation," in the true and proper sense of the word, in the Atone- ment—i.e., whether there is any removal by it of obstacles on the part of God in the way of our forgiveness, or only, as you seem to maintain, a removal of the one obstacle of impeni- tence on the part of man, I am not so unreasonable as to ask you for space for the discussion of it. I am only desirous of showing in this letter that the assertion of the existence of difficulties on the Divine side in the way of the forgiveness of sin is in no way inconsistent with (in my mind it confirms and strengthens) a belief in the great truth on which all true religion rests—that "God is love."—I am, Sir, ttc ,

W. C. PETERBOROUGH. The Palace, Peterborough, June 24th.

[Very possibly, from some want of intelligence on our own part, we certainly had failed to gather from the sermon, care- fully and repeatedly as we had read it, that the feeling and sentiment of forgiveness would be felt by God towards the truly penitent, "independent of the fact or condition of any atone- ment," and we are very glad to have extracted this express declaration from the Bishop. Beyond this, comment on so deep a theme in a mere note would be impertinent.—En. Spectator.]