of God and the
course of human history, it is enough to be conscious of the prejudice
which the historical temper is apt to generate against the recognition
of the eternal in time. Surely it is a significant fact that the New
Testament contains a whole series of books--the Johannine books--which
have as their very burden the eternal significance of the historical:
eternal life in Jesus Christ, come in flesh, the propitiation for the
whole world. Surely also it is a significant fact of a different and
even an ominous kind that we have at present in the Church a whole
school of critics which is so far from appreciating the truth in this
that it is hardly an exaggeration to say that it has devoted itself to
a paltry and peddling criticism of these books in which the impression
of the eternal is lost. But whether we are to be indebted to John's
eyes, or to none but our own, if the eternal is not to be seen in
Jesus, He can have no place in our religion; if the historical has no
dogmatic content, it cannot be essential to eternal life. Hence if we
believe and know that we have eternal life in Jesus, we must assert the
truth which is implied in this against any conception of history which
denies it. Nor is it really difficult to do so. With the experience
of nineteen centuries behind us, we have only to confront this
particular historical reality, Jesus Christ, without prejudice; in
evangelising, we have only to confront others with Him; and we shall
find it still possible to see God in Him, the Holy Father who through
the Passion of His Son ministers to sinners the forgiveness of their
sins.

In what has been said thus far by way of explaining the modern mind,
emphasis may seem to have fallen mainly on those characteristics which
make it less accessible than it might be to Christian truth, and
especially to the Atonement. I have tried to point out the assailable
side of its prepossessions, and to indicate the fundamental truths
which must be asserted if our intellectual world is to be one in which
the gospel may find room. But the modern mind has other
characteristics. Some of these may have been exhibited hitherto mainly
in criticising current representations of the Atonement; but in
themselves they are entirely legitimate, and the claims they put
forward are such as we cannot disown. Before proceeding to a further
statement of the Atonement, I shall briefly refer to one or two of
them: a doctrine of Atonement wh