I. The Agent and Personal Cause of the Redemption of Mankind is--the co-eternal Word and only begotten Son of the Living God, incarnate, tempted, agonizing (_agonistes_ αγωνιζομενος), crucified, submitting to death, resurgent, communicant of his Spirit, ascendent, and obtaining for his Church the Descent, and Communion of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter.
II. The causative act is--a spiritual and transcendent Mystery, _that passeth all understanding_.
III. The Effect caused is--the being born anew: as before in the _flesh_ to the world, so now born in the _spirit_ to Christ.
IV. The Consequences from the Effect are--Sanctification from Sin, and Liberation from the inherent and penal consequences of Sin in the World to come, with all the means and processes of Sanctification by the Word and the Spirit: these Consequents being the same for the Sinner relatively to God and his own Soul, as the satisfaction of a debt for a debtor relatively to his creditor; as the sacrificial atonement made by the priest for the transgressor of the Mosaic Law; as the reconciliation to an alienated parent for a son who had estranged himself from his father's house and presence; and as a redemptive ransom for a slave or captive.
Now I complain that this metaphorical _naming_ of the transcendent causative act through the _medium_ of its proper effects from actions and causes of familiar occurrence connected with the former by similarity of result, has been mistaken for an intended designation of the essential character of the causative act itself; and that thus divines have interpreted _de omni_ what was spoken _de singulo_, and magnified a _partial equation_ into a _total identity_.
I will merely hint, to my more _learned_ readers, and to the professional students of theology, that the origin of this error is to be sought for in the discussions of the Greek Fathers, and (at a later period) of the Schoolmen, on the obscure and _abysmal_ subject of the divine _A-seity_, and the distinction between the θελημα and the βουλη, that is, the Absolute Will, as the universal _ground_ of _all_ Being, and the election and purpose of God in the personal idea, as the Father. And this view would have allowed me to express what I believe to be the true import and scriptural idea of Redemption in terms much more nearly resembling those used ordinarily by the Calvinistic divines, and with a conciliative _show_ of coincidence. But this motive was outweighed by the reflection, that I could not rationally have expected to be understood by those to whom I most wish to be intelligible: _et si non vis intelligi, cur vis legi?_