Remarks on the Princeton Review [pp. 306-347]

312 Prof. Park's Remarks on thte Princeton Review. [APRIL
the obstacle to its forgiveness is the license which would thereby
be given to transgression. As God governs his rational creatures by motives, the work of Christ is a device to meet both
these difficulties. It presents a powerful motive to man to forsake sin, and it makes such an exhibition of God's displeasure
against sin, as answers in place of its punishment as a means of
moral impression. The work of Christ was not a satisfaction to
law and justice in the proper sense of those terms. Justice in
God is simply "benevolence guided by wisdom." The acceptance of the sinner is the act of a sovereign, dispensing with
the demands of the law. The righteousness of Christ is not
imputed to believers, but as the the sin of Adam was the occasion of certain evils coming on his race, so the righteousness of
Christ is the occasion of good to his people.
From these theoretical views, others of a practical nature
necessarily follow. Conviction of sin must accommodate itself
to the theory that there is no sin but in the voluntary transgression of known law; a sense of helplessness must be modified
by the conviction of ability to repent and believe, to change
our own heart and to keep all God's commands. Faith must
regard Christ's work as a governmental display of certain
divine attributes. Such directions as, receive Christ, come to
him, trust in him, commit the keeping of the soul to him, naturally give place under this system to the exhortation, submit to
God, determine to keep his commands, make choice of him in
preference to the world. The view which this system presents
of the plan of salvation, of the relation of the soul to Christ, of
the nature and office of faith, modifies and determines the
whole character of experimental religion.
The system antagonistic to the one just described has for its
object the vindication of the supremacy of God in the whole
work of man's salvation, both because he is in fact supreme,
and because man being in fact utterly ruined and helpless, no
method of recovery which does not so regard him is suited to
his relation to God, or can be made to satisfy the necessities of
his nature. This system does not exalt a theory of morals or
of liberty over the Scriptures, as a rule by which they are to be
interpreted. It accommodates its philosophy to the facts re vealed in the divine word. As the Bible plainly teaches that