salvation could not possibly have been wrought
in any other way than by the incarnation and satisfaction of the Son of
God.[246] A Christian reasoner may well concede that he can form no
conjecture in what variety of modes redeeming love might have been
manifested. He has no need to build theories upon what alone is
possible, when the far nobler argument is set before him, to trace the
wisdom and the fitness of the mode which God's providence actually has
chosen. Tillotson raised no question whatever as to the manner in which
redemption was effected, but stated it in exactly such terms as might
have been used by any preacher of the day. For example: 'From these and
many other texts it seems to be very plain and evident, that Christ died
for our sins, and suffered in our stead, and by the sacrifice of Himself
hath made an atonement for us and reconciled us to God, and hath paid a
price and ransom for us, and by the merits of his death hath purchased
for us forgiveness of sins.'[247]

Nevertheless the charge was brought against him, as it was in a less
degree against Burnet and other Low Churchmen of this time, of
'disputing openly against the satisfaction of Christ.' This deserves
some explanation. For though in the mere personal question there can be
little historical interest, it is instructive, as illustrating an
important phase of religious thought. The charge rested on three or four
different grounds. There was the broad general objection, as it seemed
to some, that Tillotson was always searching out ways of bringing reason
to bear even on Divine mysteries, where they held its application to be
impertinent and almost sacrilegious. His refusal, already mentioned, to
allow that the sacrifice of Christ's death was the only conceivable way
in which, consistently with the Divine attributes, sin could be
forgiven, was a further cause for displeasure. It did not at all fall in
with a habit which, both in pulpit and in argumentative divinity, had
become far too customary, of speaking of the Atonement with a kind of
legal, or even mathematical exactness, as of a debt which nothing but
full payment can cancel, or of a problem in proportion which admits only
of one solution. Then, although Tillotson defended the propriety of the
term 'satisfaction,' he had observed that the word was nowhere found in
Scripture, and would apparently have not regretted its disuse. It was a
graver proof of doctrinal laxity, if not of heresy, in the