The Catholic Faith not a series of isolated propositions, but a body of perfectly har

Catholic Faith is not a series of theological propositions strung together without any necessary and intimate relation to each other, but a great body of truth, built up into such perfect unity that one part cannot conflict with another part, but that all cohere in perfect monious truth. proportion and absolute harmony. From this it follows that the exaggeration or distortion of any truth is most easily exposed by showing that such a view does not fit in with the whole body of truth, but conflicts with some recognized doctrine.

At the Reformation the Atonement

At the Reformation, as we have already observed, the doctrine of the Atonement was so isolated from the rest of the Christian Faith, and so developed as the sole foundation-doctrine of Christianity, as practically to obscure the dogma of the Incarnation and its conseNow the oppo- quences in the Sacramental system of the Church. In

isolated from the Incarnation.

site tendency:

the Atone

our own day the tendency is in the opposite direction. ment obscured, The Atonement in popular theology is relegated to the background. Its vicarious character is denied. Its sufficiency and completeness are, to say the least, called in question by a modern theory of a celestial Sacrifice without which the Sacrifice of the Cross would be incomplete; while some even go so far as to teach that since our LORD'S Priesthood did not begin until after His Ascension into Heaven, the oblation of our LORD on the Cross was, strictly speaking, not a Sacrifice at all, the true Sacrifice being made when our Great High Priest entered into the Holy of Holies and offered Himself upon the heavenly Altar.

and humani

tarian distor

tions of the Incarnation introduced.

On the other hand, the doctrine of the Incarnation has been brought into deserved prominence as the foundation-doctrine of the Christian Faith; but in some quarters there has been a tendency to exaggerate it, from what might be called an humanitarian point of

view, by a Kenotic theory, which, in order to make our LORD more Human, makes Him less Divine.

theories must be tested by

In the subject which we are to treat in this volume, In this work we must continually strive to avoid overstatement on either side, and to correct, by comparison of one truth with another, any tendency in this direction into which doctrines. we may have inadvertently fallen.

other

ciple illustrated from Dr. Milligan's

It may be well at this point to illustrate the operation The violation and the importance of this principle by a somewhat of this prinlengthy reference to a work by the late Rev. William Milligan, D.D., the well-known Presbyterian divine, which has deservedly attracted much attention in the Church, and is probably responsible for some of the ill-balanced views of later writers.

Lectures

Heavenly

Priesthood of our LORD."

In 1891 Dr. Milligan chose for the subject of his on "The AsBaird Lecture, The Ascension and Heavenly Priesthood cension and of Our LORD. This work, while not directly touching on the Eucharist, deals with the kindred questions of priesthood and sacrifice, and especially with the interpretation of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The treatment of the subject is most devout, and shows remarkable freedom from the bias of Presbyterian theology, especially in the discussion of sacramental and sacrificial questions.

On the other hand, we must call attention to two typical characteristics. First: The neglect of any reference to the writings and views of the Fathers and theologians of the Church. Almost the only works with which Dr. Milligan seems familiar, or at least which he cares to quote as authorities, are those of writers of our own times, and while a few of these are divines of the Anglican Communion the great majority belong to schismatical bodies. It is true, as we shall see later, that before the sixteenth century no authority

Two characteristics observed

in his work:

(1) The neglect of the writings

of the Fathers

and theologians of the

Church,

and the weight given to mod

ern schismat

ics.

(2.) His treat

ment of the Sacrifice of the Cross

as a question still open for discussion.

Dr. M. denies that our

can be found for the main contention of Dr. Milligan's treatise, and this may account for his entire neglect of patristic authority. And we, as members of a Church which bases its doctrine on the appeal to antiquity, especially to the primitive Church and to the Fathers, certainly ought to look askance at arguments which ignore this appeal entirely.

Second: If there be one doctrine which may be claimed as truly Catholic in the sense that it has been held and taught as a fundamental doctrine of Christianity always, everywhere, and by every part of the Catholic Church, it is the doctrine that upon the Cross our LORD JESUS CHRIST made there, by His one oblation of Himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient Sacrifice, Oblation, and Satisfaction for the sins of the whole world." Therefore there can be no other absolute Sacrifice than that of the Cross, and nothing can be wanting to the completeness of that Sacrifice. While it is true that no particular definition of the Atonement has been set forth by the Church, it is also true that the fact of the Atonement is a fundamental doctrine of the Christian Religion. When, therefore, a view is put forth in our own days, which is inconsistent with this fact, or implies that our LORD'S Sacrifice upon the Cross was incomplete, it must certainly be rejected by all Catholics, and especially by all Priests of the Anglican Communion, since, in the most solemn service of the Church, they profess their belief that upon the Cross our LORD "made there, by His one oblation of Himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient Sacrifice, Oblation, and Satisfaction for the sins of the whole world."

Dr. Milligan, discussing the questions, "When did the Priesthood of our LORD begin? Was our LORD at

Priesthood had any connection

with earth,

any period of His earthly life a Priest, or did He only LORD'S
enter on His Priesthood when He entered Heaven?"
answers: "That the teaching . . . of [certain]
passages of the Epistle to the Hebrews is so distinct as
to admit of only one conclusion, that the order of
Melchisedec is the only order of Priesthood to which
our LORD belonged, and that the order has no con-
nection with earth." He then goes on to show that
there are also texts of the "same Epistle which set
before us the sufferings, and especially the death of
CHRIST, as priestly acts, thus leading to the inference
that CHRIST was a Priest when He endured them," and,
therefore, that He offered Sacrifice upon the Cross.
This, as he points out, is inconsistent with the conclu-
sion which he has reached, "that the order of Melchise-
dec is the only order of Priesthood to which our LORD
belonged, and that the order has no connection with
earth."

that "our

various theories offered by

writers

He then takes into consideration various solutions and rejects which have been proposed by modern writers, mostly belonging to schismatical Communions: e. g., that on schismatical earth "our LORD is to be regarded as a destinated, rather than as a consecrated Priest; LORD was indeed in, Himself a High Priest on earth, while learning obedience by the things which He suffered, but that He did not become fully High Priest until through that obedience He had been perfected; "S and, "the idea of fulfilling different orders of the Priesthood . . [rather than] of belonging to them." These solutions Dr. Milligan rejects, and

pro

to bring the Death of the the scope of His priestly

Cross within

work, and so to recognize

it as a Sacrifice.

He considers that the

universal conviction of the Christian

Church is "not

poses a solution of his own, after making the following extraordinary statement: "To all this may be added, as not without force in a controversy of the kind, the conviction of the Christian Church in every land and age, that the death of our LORD upon the Cross was without force. an offering in which He was not merely a Victim, but a Priest, and as a Priest was engaged in carrying out that Mediatorship between GOD and man which always has been, and must be, the leading function of any Priesthood, either in its lowest or its highest form. Must we, then, abandon this idea, as has been done by some?" *

He proposes a theory of his own, based on

Attention is here specially called to Dr. Milligan's opinion that "the conviction of the Christian Church in every land and age" is "not without force in a controversy of the kind." To those who believe that the conviction of the Christian Church in every land and age represents the undoubted teaching of the Church in all matters of dogma, and is the fulfilment of our LORD'S promise that the HOLY GHOST should guide the Church into all truth (cf. S. John xvi. 13), this extraordinarily inadequate statement must surely invalidate Dr. Milligan's opinion as to the basis of Christian doctrine, since it shows that he considers that a fundamental doctrine of the Faith, which rests upon "the conviction of the Christian Church in every land and age," is still unsettled and open to discussion.

He

The solution which Dr. Milligan proposes is based, not merely upon a single text of Holy Scripture, but the interpret upon the rendering of a preposition in that text. says that the text (S. John xii. 32), And I, if I be lifted up on high, out of the earth, will draw all men unto Myself," (his own translation), clearly shows. * Milligan, The Ascension, p. 75. † Ibid., p. 78.

ation of one passage of Scripture.