ON RECONCILIATION.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THS "SPECTATOR."] SIH,—Suffer me to add a few words of explanation to the letter which I wrote to you on "Reconciliation," as I find that some ,passages in it have been misunderstood. It is difficult to touch any subject connected with the name of Mr. Voysey—more par- 4icalarly as he now seems to wander still farther and farther from all the most received truths and best blessings of Revelation— without being involved in the same condemnation, or the subject having been prejudged. This is no reason, however, if any great Christian truth seems to have been involved in that condemnation, why any lover of its truth should not come forward to its rescue ; but on the contrary, a reason for doing so, lest, in fact, it should be destroyed in the general overthrow. While the guilty cities are righteously condemned, we must not confound the righteous with them, still less make these one of the causes of their overthrow, as I think to have been done in the case of " Reconciliation " the Voysey Judgment.
The misunderstanding I allude to was chiefly, first, as to what I have said of expressions used by some Protestant missionaries as to pagans dying in unbelief ; and then, second, of cries for mercy put up at the foot of the Cross. The expressions alluded to were such as, "We pray that the mercy of God may be extended to them for the merits of Christ, in regions beyond the grave." In finding fault with such expressions, I would explain that my chief reason for doing so is that it appears to me that the use of such language seems to show a non-apprehension by those who use it of the mode in which God has mercy on us in Christ at all ; for it seems to in- fer a possibility of such being reached in some other way than that in which salvation is given to us in Christ at all, —that is, by the Revelation of God in Christ, such revelation producing sympathy with and conformity to him in us. The language I referred to seemed to imply a salvation irrespective of any connection with knowledge ; such a view, in short, and application of the merits of Christ, only taking his for theirs, as is made of the merits of the Saints in Roman Catholic countries where these are supposed to be available, and are applied in a wholly external and artificial manner, to make up for the deficiencies of the individual, and in this shape to pass him into the presence of God.
The other passage in my letter to which objection was taken was that deprecating such language at the foot of the Cross as a repeated using of the words of the Litany, "Lord have mercy upon us, Christ have mercy upon us," or the words of a hymn, which crying for mercy wishes that the drops from the Cross may one by one fall upon those using them. Now, such deprecation by no means was intended to deny the propriety of words of penitence at the foot of the Cross, or such expressions as "Lord have mercy upon me," to the penitent ; nay, such an ex- pression as this would have been most meet in the mouth of St. Peter himself, when after his denial the Lord turned and looked upon him. What was intended was this, that if we realize that which is meant by the Cross, if we apprehend aright that which is meant by Christ's hanging thereon, namely, that there is always offered an infinite pledge of the tiuth and a gauge of the depth of that mercy which God already and ever has for the penitent, our words there would not be a repeated cry for mercy, but a thanks- giving, a praise, an abnegation of merit on our part, an utter self- abasement, but with this a thankful acceptance and recognition of the mercy already offered there, and which had been there for us ere we asked it. Now, apart from the difficulty which there would seem to be inherent in the possibility of stating or getting
a simple reception for a statement of the doctrines of grace, which the writings of St. Paul and of Luther abundantly testify, and a recognition of the imperfection of clearness with which this "open secret" was laid bare in the letter on "Reconciliation," I fear that the root of the evil ever lies in this,—the supposition that some offering must be made on the part of man ; that if God is ready to accept us in Christ, it only means that he has done that in Christ and laid up that in Christ, whatever it be, whioh, if we can so lay hold of as to make ours, or obtain by tears or prayers as to persuade God on this account to accept us, we are safe, and that this is the ground of our safety, not that which is in God himself, not that which in Christ he offered or pledged himself to, by the infinite gauge and proof of the Cross before we were born. That there is risk from the doctrines of grace has ever been alleged ; but, inasmuch as there is no risk by them to the impeni- tent, who do not seek and do. not require them ; and as to the penitent there is no risk at all, it is difficult to see where the risk lies, but something of the feeling of this lies at the bottom, no doubt, of the present adoption of the word "reconciliation" in a senses which gives it the meaning of payment.—I am, Sir, &a, ALEXANDER EWING, Bishop of Argyll and the Isles. Rome, April 27, 1871.
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