The-papacy-its-history-dogmas-genius-and-prospects-wylie

THE FALL VIRTUALLY DENIED. 281necessarily affect the whole of the theology of that Church.It must necessarily alter the complexion of her views on thosubject both of the work of the Son and the work of theSpirit. Firsts If man has not fallen in the Scripture sense,neither has he been redeemed in the Scripture sense.redemption is necessarily the counterpart of our loss ;Ourand inthe proportion in which we diminish the one do we also diminishthe other. Our natures have escaped uninjured, theRomish divines teach. We can still do all which we couldhave done in 2yuris naturallbus, had we been created in thatstate. Man, if he but give himself to the work in earnest,may almost, if not altogether, save himself. He needs onlydivine gi\ace to help him over its more difficult parts. Theatonement, then, was no such great work after all.Insteadof presenting that character of unity and completeness whichthe Scriptures attribute to it,—instead of being the redemptionof lost souls from hopeless and irremediable bondage,by the endurance in their room of infinite vengeance due totheir sins,—the work of Christ wears altogether the characterof a supplementary performance. Instead of being adisplay of unbounded and eternal love, and of power alsounbounded and eternal, it dwindles into a very ordinarymanifestation of pity and good-will. Nay, it would not bedifficult to show that it might have been dispensed with,with some not inconsiderable advantages ; that it has stoodmuch in man"'s way, and prevented the exercise of his ownpowers, knowing that he had this to fall back upon. Maynot this help us to understand why Romanists can so easilyassociateMary with the Son of God in the act of redemption,and can speak of her sufferings as if they had been thebetter half of the work ? May it not account, too, for theease with which the Church of Rome can findthe materialof satisfaction for sin in the works of those whom she callssaints ? May it not account also for the thoroughly sceniccharacter which thedeath of Christ bears, as exhibited inthe Church of Rome ? And may it not likewise accountfor the extent to which that Church has undervalued Christ