without taking full account, and making him take full account, of his sin. Holiness, therefore, says what must be done, and love says what shall be done. Holiness is necessarily loving, to be truly holy; and love is holy, to be truly loving; else neither would be worth the having. The relations of God in Heaven to man are determined by this, and the relations of God in Christ to man were determined by this too, and led to Calvary's cross.

With these general observations we may go to discuss the Atonement of God in Christ.

ii. The Christian View of God and His Relation to the Atonement.

We have seen in our last section that the fundamental difference between the Christian and Muslim idea of God is that the latter shrinks from attributing to God distinctively moral qualities, and tends, therefore, to place His qualities in the physical category; and likewise makes His relation with the spirits of men external, mechanical, physical, non-moral. Whereas the former does not shrink from conceiving God as a completely moral Being, experiencing all the experiences proper to a moral Being, and manifesting all the manifestations proper to such. No such experience, no such manifestation will, according to the Christian view, degrade God or lessen His divine glory, but rather His divine glory will consist largely in such manifestations.

We saw further, and with deepest awe, for we

were there approaching terrible and holy ground, that, when sin affects the relation that exists between such a being and the spiritual beings He has created, then the former, just because He is what He is, cannot remain unaffected. But in what way is He affected? In regard to the prior question of His being affected in any way at all, we have long seen that that need not frighten us, for our studies have made it abundantly clear that Islam itself cannot help attributing a being-affected to the Creator. We have not, therefore, to defend ourselves on this score when we say that the Creator is affected by our sin (for the Qur'an itself makes Him affected by extreme displeasure); but the whole question turns upon the sort of way in which He is affected. We answer unhesitatingly, in every and any way proper to a Being who is moral in Himself and whose relations with those human creations are thoroughly moral, and mutually moral. In just such ways will He be affected. And when we look into the Bible for confirmation of our theory, we find it completely borne out. For we see it written there that God is affected by the sight of His rebellious children with wrath, love, pity, sorrow.

All this is repugnant to the Muslim, though we might fairly ask him why he does not shrink from attributing the emotions of wrath to God, and to a lesser extent love and pity also; but will not allow sorrow to be attributed to Him. Perhaps, driven into a corner, he tries to escape from this assertion by giving his assent to the shocking words put by