point
of view about some aspects of it, but if we are both in earnest and
faithful to what we have seen, we shall arrive in the end at the same
goal. Religious thinkers and teachers are never really so far apart as
seems to be the case. It is in the expression of the truth that they
differ, not in the truth itself. Language is never more than
approximately convenient expression of the reality it is meant to
declare. The man of the future will realise this better than the man
of the present or the past. He will replace all external authority by
the principle of spiritual autonomy. He will no longer be afraid of
trusting the human spirit to recognise and respond to truth from
whatsoever source it may come, for he will know that that spirit is one
with the universal Spirit of all Truth, and needs not to look beyond
itself for anything stronger or more divine. He will know that the
Spirit of Truth in himself is the Spirit of Truth in all men, and that
therefore in the end all men must know, and be, and do the Truth.

+The New Testament and the Atonement.+--Now let us apply this principle
to the New Testament writings about the redeeming work of Jesus. The
same principle, of course, would apply to anything that the New
Testament has to say about the gospel of Jesus, but perhaps the failure
to recognise it has done more mischief in connection with the doctrine
of Atonement than in anything else. At present Paul's opinion on this
great subject is by many people supposed to be decisive: Paul says
this, and Paul says that, and when Paul has spoken, there is no more to
be said. But why should it be so? Paul's opinion is simply Paul's
opinion, and not necessarily a complete and adequate statement of
truth. It is entitled to be considered weighty because it is the
utterance of a great man, and a great seer of truth, as well as being
the earliest writing on the subject which we possess. Any man of the
moral and intellectual eminence of Paul is entitled to reverence when
he speaks, whether his views are in the Bible or not. It is one of the
ironies of history that the words of this Paul who strove so hard
against literalism and legalism in his day have since come to be
regarded as a sort of fixed and final authority for Christian thought.
He would be the first to denounce it. To him the Spirit of Christ
operating within the individual soul was the true guide in matters of
faith. He even made a point of the fact that