W. Lindsay Alexander’s (1808–1884) Criticism of Owenism

While I don't agree with everything Alexander says in his chapter (XVI) dealing with the atonement, I think he is on the right path in his following criticisms of Owenism:

If Owen is right in restricting the atonement to the idea of purchase, his reasoning appears to me quite unanswerable. It is here, however, that he and his party err. Whilst it is true that the salvation of believers is a redemption, a purchasing of them from sin and misery that they may be restored to God, it is not in accordance with the representations of Scripture or the facts of the case to make this the only or even the essential idea of the atonement. The objections to this are many, and apparently conclusive. You will find them stated by Dr. Wardlaw in his Theology, vol. ii. Lect. xxiv., and by Dr. Payne in his Lectures on Divine Sovereignty, Atonement, etc., Lect. ix. The weightiest are — (a) that this view is really incompatible with a belief in the infinite value of the Saviour's propitiatory work, seeing it necessarily limits that to an equivalency with the guilt of the elect. (b) That on this view it is impossible to take, in their fair and proper sense, those passages of Scripture which state that Christ was a propitiation for the sins of the world, and that He was sent "that whosoever believeth in Him might not perish." (c) That on this view the salvation of the non-elect becomes a natural impossibility, just as much so as it is for those to see for whom no eyes have been provided, or those to understand from whom God has withheld the gifts of intellect. (d) On this supposition the general invitations and promises of the gospel are without an adequate basis, and seem like a mere mockery, an offer, in short, of what has not been provided.

It will not do to say, in reply to this, that as these invitations are actually given we are entitled on the authority of God's word to urge them and justified in accepting them; for this is mere evasion. The question is not as to whether they are to be regarded as sincere and valid, but on what ground can they be so regarded? Had God merely placed in Scripture these invitations and promises without making known to us anything regarding the work of Christ on which they are based, our wisdom would have been to accept the invitation and rely on the promise without further inquiry. But seeing it is not so; seeing God has rested His invitation and His promise on the work of Christ as made known to us in His word, we are not only entitled, but bound to inquire into the relation in which the two stand to each other, that we may see how the superstructure really rests on the basis. If a skilled architect tells me that a certain building is secure I may take his word for it and inquire no further; but if he insists on showing me the foundation, and how, resting on such a foundation, the building is secure, I am bound to examine and satisfy myself that it is really so. When, therefore, God is pleased not only to give us gracious invitations and promises, but to show us the foundation on which these rest, we are bound to examine this and see whether it is broad enough to sustain the superstructure that is erected upon it. And if on inquiry we find that the basis, according to our view of it, is not broad enough for what is erected on it, the fair conclusion seems to be that we have made a mistake in our survey, and that the basis is not such as we assumed it to be, but must be broader. Accordingly, when we find that the doctrine of a limited atonement, an atonement on the principle of a quid pro quo, does not afford a basis broad enough to sustain the unlimited offers of the gospel, it is surely a perfectly fair conclusion that the doctrine is erroneous, and cannot be the doctrine of Scripture. Finally, on this view the actual salvation of the elect ceases to be of grace, and becomes as much a matter of right on their part and of simple equity on the part of God as the release of a debtor whose debt has been paid by another is a matter of right and equity. If I am unable to satisfy the law, and the sovereign remits the penalty on some grounds of general jurisprudence or governmental righteousness which left Him free to give or withhold the blessing according to his sovereign good pleasure, then the reception of the benefit by me is purely of grace, and I am made thereby a debtor to grace. But if the debt which I owed has been paid, if every special claim which the law had on me has been met and satisfied, then my release is a simple matter of justice, the ruler is bound in equity to set me free, and no room is left for grace to enter.

W. Lindsay Alexander, A System of Biblical Theology, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1888), 2:110–112.

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Wardlaw on the Extent of the Atonement

Ralph Wardlaw's book Discourses on the Nature and the Extent of the Atonement of Christ (click) is now on Google books.

He writes:

"By pleading for the universality of the atonement, we are neither, on the one hand, obliged to grant the universality of pardon and salvation, nor, on the other hand, to deny sovereign electing grace. We can, with perfect consistency, disown the one, and embrace the other.—If the atonement and the remission of sins were necessarily coincident in their extent,—so that atoned or expiated sin must necessarily be pardoned and cancelled sin;—it surely is a remarkable fact, that the same terms of universality are not used alike with regard to both. The force of the following questions ought, I think, to be acknowledged. It will be by every candid mind.—"If, after all, it be true, that by such expressions as these,—'the world,' 'the whole world,' 'all men,' 'every man,'—God means only the elect, how comes it to pass that equally extensive terms" (that is, with those used respecting atonement) "are not employed in speaking of election and justification? If these two and the atonement be really co-extensive, how do we never read that God elected 'the world,' and 'the whole world,' and 'all men,' and 'every man,'—and justified 'the world,' and 'the whole world,' and 'all men,' and 'every man?' Limitarians allow that the one might be said as well as the other:—and how comes it to pass, then, that it is never said?—Not only must this be accounted for, but on the face of the case there appears so plain and palpable a difference between the extent of atonement and the extent of election and justification, and the sudden identification of these is so preposterous, that, unless a solid and decisive demonstration be given of their co-extensiveness, the system of limitation falls to the ground, and the universal atonement comes to be received as a matter of course. There is so vast a difference between the language that describes atonement, and that which describes election and justification, in point of extent; and the general easy unstrained meaning of Scripture teaches so plainly the unlimited propitiation by Christ's blood, that it can never be displaced except by solid and irrefragable proof of direct limitation."*—I confess myself unable to see any possibility of satisfactorily answering such questions as are thus put, on the ground of atonement and justification being necessarily co-extensive.—But by admitting the universality of the atonement, and the sovereign restriction of justification to them who believe, and who are the objects of God's gracious choice,—the difference in the language on the one subject and on the other is at once accounted for. It is precisely what we perceive it must have been, supposing it to have been constructed on this principle. Is not this, then, the truth?—The more restricted terms which are used in regard to actual forgiveness, or justification, are in correspondence with the restrictive character of God's electing love, and of his published determination to justify sinners only through faith. There is a limited purpose to save. The atonement is the ground on which this purpose to save rests. But the purpose to save on the ground of the atonement does not, and cannot, enter into the essence of the atonement itself. The purpose, and that on which the purpose rests, can, in no respect, be the same thing. But still, there existed in the divine mind, both in providing and in making the atonement, this sovereign purpose to save,—this sovereign purpose that, while made for mankind,—made for the indefinite design of glorifying God in the forgiveness of sin and the acceptance and salvation of sinners,—it should take actual effect in the salvation of some, while others remained inexcusably guilty in their rejection of it. And surely the existence of such a purpose gives quite a sufficiency of peculiarity to those texts which use the terms of limitation,—without supposing limitation in the atonement itself; a supposition which gives rise to superlative difficulty, and to every kind of unnaturalness and straining, in the interpretation of those other passages in which the terms are universal, and in which they cannot be understood otherwise than in their universal sense, without rendering them, especially in some of their occurrences, self-contradictory."

*Difficulties connected with the doctrine of a limited atonement.--By Robert Morison, &c.

Ralph Wardlaw, Discourses on the Nature and Extent of the Atonement (Glasgow: James MacLehose, 1843), 221-224.

or in my edition:

Ralph Wardlaw, Discourses on the Nature and Extent of the Atonement (Glasgow: James Maclehose, 1844), 225-228.

For a similar argument, see this post by Edward Polhill.

Ralph Wardlaw (1779–1853): Atonement not Commercial

There is a great deal too much, it is to be feared, in the conceptions of many regarding the atonement, of the principles of commutative or commercial justice,--of the literal notion of debt and its payment. It is a grievous mistake. That sins are called debts, is true. But they are debts, rather in a figurative than in a literal and proper sense. We owe obedience to God; and all our failure to render that due obedience, may be regarded as an accumulation of unpaid debt. But it is debt of which, when once contracted, the payment is impossible. Even the sinless perfection of obedience for the future cannot cancel it; any more than a man can discharge the bond for his past debts by punctual payments in time to come. We can never pay up obedience which we have failed to render, as a debtor may pay up principal and interest of what he owes, and defy thereafter demand or prosecution.--And, as we owe obedience, we owe satisfaction for disobedience. That satisfaction we can never render. It can, in our case, consist in nothing else save the endurance of the punishment, which, in consequence of our failing in what was due from us to God, has become due from God to us. "The wages of sin"--that which we have earned,--that which is, in justice, our due,—"is death."—Let it be remembered, that there is a material difference between the cancelling of a debt on payment of it by a surety, and the forgiveness of sin on account of a propitiation. The forgiveness of sin is simply the free remission of its punishment. The sinner who is pardoned, does not cease to be guilty, and to deserve the penalty. A debt of property may be paid by another; a debt of obedience never can. It is, in its very nature, intransferable. The sinner, in himself considered, can never cease to be guilty. A sinful creature may become a sinless creature. There may be an entire change in his nature. But a guilty creature can never become an innocent creature. That which has been done can never be undone; and that which has been deserved by the doing of it, can never cease to be deserved. No substitution, no atonement, can in this respect, alter the nature of things.--In these and other respects, the parallel between debtor, creditor, and surety in pecuniary transactions, and the sinner, the lawgiver, and the mediatorial substitute in the scheme of redemption, has by many been pressed too closely, to the injury of truth.—The atonement of Christ, then, we are satisfied, out not to be considered as at all proceeding on the principles of commutative or commercial justice; inasmuch as the payment of debt, according to this description of justice, strictly and properly cancels claim, and leaves no room for the exercise of grace.

Ralph Wardlaw, Discourses on the Nature and Extent of the Atonement of Christ (Glasgow: James Maclehose, 1844), 58–59.

Ralph Wardlaw's Two Essays

Google books has a downloadable version of Ralph Wardlaw's Two Essays: I. On the Assurance of Faith II. On the Extent of the Atonement, and Universal Pardon (New York: Jonathan Leavitt, 1830). I have read and cited the latter essay a couple of times on my blog:

Wardlaw on Watering Down the Gospel

Wardlaw on Sufficiency, Equivalentism and Commercialism

Wardlaw (1779-1853) on Humility and Interpretation

"An humble docility of spirit is one of the first requisites to the discernment of divine truth. Under the divine teaching promised to believing prayer, a babe may comprehend, what a philosopher, who scorns to ask the promised illumination, may misconceive and pervert to his destruction."

Ralph Wardlaw, Two Essays (Glasgow, 1830), p. 294.

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Ralph Wardlaw (1779–1853) on Watering Down the Gospel

There is imminent danger of divesting the gospel of some attribute as essential to it as its grace, in order to lessen the aversion of the carnal mind to its provisions; and, by soft and specious sentimentalism, stripping the Almighty of the awful in his character, to give effect to the more attractive; hiding his justice, to recommend his grace; instead of employing the “terrors of the Lord” to persuade men, keeping them out of sight; dwelling much on the love, and little on the light, of God’s moral nature; and by—I know not what to call it—a kind of ultra tenderness, that would fain be more compassionate than He whose compassions are infinite—urging and almost cajoling poor sinners to the belief that God has already pardoned them, when the Bible testimony is, that “God is angry with them every day.”

Ralph Wardlaw, Two Essays (Glasgow: Blackie, Fullarton, & Co. and Wardlaw & Co., 1830), 204.

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Ralph Wardlaw (1779–1853) on Sufficiency, Equivalentism and Commercialism

I have stated the general principle of atonement, as being a vindicatory manifestation of the righteousness of God, in order to the free and honourable exercise of his mercy.—In this view, I have no hesitation whatever in holding forth the atonement which has actually been made, and which is revealed in the gospel, as of unlimited sufficiency for all, and as bringing salvation near to all, presenting its blessings for their immediate acceptance. All may not be included in the secret purpose of God as to its ultimate efficaciousness. That is another matter. With such secret purposes we have nothing whatever to do, in addressing to sinners the calls and invitations of the gospel. The atonement is for all in its unbounded sufficiency, and in the unrestricted universality of the invitations and offers which, on the ground of this sufficiency, the message of mercy addresses to every sinner on the face of the earth to whose ear it comes. Such is my impression of its sufficiency, that were all the guilt of all the millions of mankind that have ever lived concentrated in my own person, I should see no reason, relying on that blood which "cleanseth from all sin," to indulge despair.—I profess myself decidedly hostile to every limitation of the atonement in this view—that is, either with regard to its sufficiency for all, or with regard to the warrant which all have, on the ground of it, to look for forgiveness and salvation.—I have ever entertained an irreconcilable aversion to the views of those expositors, who speak of the atonement as being for the elect in such a sense, as to have been an exact equivalent for the punishment due to the sins of the chosen number, and no more; so that if more had been to be saved, more must have been suffered by the Substitute, and if fewer, less. My objections to this view of the doctrine are such as these:

1. It appears to me utterly irreconcilable with any correct and consistent views of the infinite worth of the Redeemer's sacrifice.—The union of the Divine and human natures imparted to it this infinite worth; infinite, because divine. But every system which proceeds upon the principle of its rising or falling in its amount of value, according as the substitute suffers for more or for fewer—for a larger or a smaller aggregate guilt—is altogether at variance with this.—That cannot be unlimited in value, which is capable of increase or diminution.

2. If this pitiful process of commercial reckoning were admitted,—then the perdition or eternal sufferings of all mankind would have been a greater manifestation of the divine righteousness and abhorrence of sin, than the sufferings of the Son of God. For, it is evident, more would have been endured: and if the display of justice is to be calculated upon this principle,—to be estimated by the amount of actual suffering,—how can the inference be evaded? It will not repel it to remind me that Jesus was a divine person. It is most true. But it is also true, that if this consideration is taken into the account, it makes the value of his sacrifice unlimited, and therefore proves too much for the hypothesis of exact equivalent; a hypothesis, of which the principle is, a limited amount of suffering for a limited amount of sin; so that, in truth, the only intelligible use of the connection of the divine nature with the human, must have been, to enable the human to sustain the allotted quantum of suffering.

3. The hypothesis renders the salvation of any besides the elect a natural impossibility. We are accustomed to say, and we say truly and scripturally, to sinners of mankind, that if they are not saved, the fault is entirely their own, lying solely in their own unwillingness to have the salvation offered them, or to accept it on the terms on which it is presented. But on the supposition of limitation in the atonement, this is not the case. There is, indeed, indisposition on their part; and it is their sin. But if the atonement be limited in its sufficiency, it is, in the nature of the thing, absurd and contradictory so much as to imagine any, beyond the number to the amount of whose sins it is restricted, deriving any benefit from it. To call on any others to believe in Christ for salvation, is to call them, in as far as they are concerned, to believe in a non-entity. There would be nothing in the Saviour for them. They are excluded by the limitation of the remedy. For them to seek salvation would be to seek an impossibility. Were they ever so desirous of it, they could not obtain it; for the impossibility would, in this case, arise, not from their own impotence,—(their moral impotence, which is the same thing as their proud and unholy aversion, and constitutes their guilt,)—but from the very nature and constitution of the plan of redemption. If the atonement made has been equivalent to only a limited amount of sin, and if atonement be necessary to forgiveness,—then beyond the limited amount, no sin can possibly be forgiven. There is no provision for it.

4. This being the case, it will be difficult, on such a hypothesis, to vindicate, in any way, the sincerity of those divine addresses by which sinners universally are called upon to believe and be saved. If there do not exist, in the atonement or propitiation made, what has appropriately been termed an objective sufficiency for all—there really exists no ground on which sinners in general can be invited to trust. Such invitation becomes no better than a tantalizing of perishing creatures, with the offer of what has no existence. There is nothing which it is, in the nature of the thing, possible for them to receive, unless a new atonement were to be made. There is no fund from which their debts can be paid. They are invited to a feast; but there is no provision made for them. They are called to the wells of salvation; but to them they are "wells without water." An all-sufficient Saviour, becomes, in addressing sinners indiscriminately, a designation destitute of truth, a mere "great swelling word of vanity."

5. The hypothesis, in the view which it gives of the substitution and work of Christ, takes nothing into the account but the desert of the sinner. It balances a certain proportion of deserved punishment on the part of the transgressor, by a corresponding proportion of vicarious suffering on the part of the atoning substitute,—a proportion, which increases or diminishes, according to the number of sinners, and consequently according to the number and magnitude of sins, for which the substitute endures it. It appears to be entirely forgotten, that there is another party,—a party, whose claims are infinitely superior in importance to any interests of the sinning creature;—it appears to be forgotten, that the glory of God, violated by transgression, requires to be secured, and vindicated, and displayed, irrespectively of the mere numerical amount of sinners and of sins;—that this was, in truth the great end of substitution and atonement;—and that the question is not one of commutative or commercial justice,—what measure of suffering must be undergone, as an equivalent for the measure of sin to be forgiven,—how many drops of expiatory blood for so many trespasses to be remitted;—that it has no such principle in it of wretched mercantile calculation; that the chief part of it is, what was necessary to give such a manifestation of the united glories of the truth and love, the righteousness and mercy, of Jehovah, as that the honour of his character and government might be fully secured in forgiving and saving sinners?

I might, perhaps, have added with truth, that regarding the atonement as proceeding on the principle of commutative or commercial justice, or of the strict and proper payment of debt, can hardly be considered as leaving room for the subsequent exercise of grace, whatever there might be in its original appointment; inasmuch as the payment of a debt by a surety leaves no more claim, on the part of the creditor, than if it had been discharged by the debtor himself. The parallel, indeed, between the relation of a debtor to his creditor and that of a sinner to God, has, in this respect as well as in some others, been pressed too closely.—Forgiveness, according to the uniform statements of the word of God, is connected with atonement. But atonement and grace are not, by any means, incompatible. Many things, indeed, have been said about it, which were they true, would go so far, whether those who say them to be sensible of it or not, to destroy the gracious nature of the pardon bestowed on account of it. I have no objections, for example, to the customary phrase of divine justice being satisfied by the atonement; but still, the phrase requires to be scripturally explained. I fear there are not a few who, when they use this phrase, have in their minds too much of the principle of that particular kind of justice to which I have just alluded;—who regard the justice of God in the light of a rigid and inexorable creditor, demanding to the uttermost farthing the payment of what is due him; and consider the atonement as, literally and strictly, such a payment of debt on our behalf. They are not aware that by such a representation they do, in a great measure, exclude grace. For, on the principles of commercial justice, although there may be grace on the part of the Surety who comes forward to pay the debt, grace proportioned to its amount,—yet on the part of the creditor to whom the payment is made, there is and can be none. The act of payment, by whomsoever made, whether by the debtor himself or by his surety, cancels the obligation, and puts an end to grace.

Ralph Wardlaw, "On the Extent of the Atonement, and Universal Pardon," in Two Essays: I. On the Assurance of Faith: II. On the Extent of the Atonement, and Universal Pardon (Glasgow: Blackie, Fullarton, & Co. and Wardlaw & Co.; A Fullarton & Co. and John Wardlaw, Edinburgh; W. F. Wakeman, Dublin; and Hamilton & Adams, London, 1830), 191–197.

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