destroyed, but partially indulged. Wisdom and Love may require many sacrifices of self, to save us from Justice and substitution. One sacrifice, however great, is insufficient to pay the debt of sin. The atonement requires constant self-immolation on the sinner's part. That God's wrath should be vented upon His beloved Son is divinely unnatural. Such a theory is man-made. The atonement is a hard problem in theology; but its more reasonable explanation is, that suffering is an error of sinful sense, which Truth destroys, and that eventually both sin and suffering will fall at the feet of everlasting Love.
Rabbinical lore said: “He that taketh one doctrine, firm in faith, has the Holy Ghost dwelling in him.” Doctrines and faith. This preaching receives a strong rebuke in the Scripture, “Faith without works is dead.” Faith, if it be mere belief, is as a pendulum, swinging between nothing and something, having no fixity. Faith, advanced to spiritual understanding, is the evidence gained from Spirit, which rebukes material beliefs, and establishes the claims of God.
In Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and English, faith, and the words corresponding thereto, have these two definitions, Self-reliance and confidence. trustfulness and trustworthiness. One kind of faith trusts our welfare to another being. The other kind of faith understands how to work out one's “own salvation, with fear and trembling.” “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief!” expresses the helplessness of a blind faith; whereas the injunction, “Believe, and thou shalt be saved!” demands self-reliant trustworthiness, which includes the understanding, and confides all to God.
