172 that the latter derives its meaning and power. It is in Christ that we meet with the living God as a power of righteousness and love; and only in contact with that love that was separate from sin and yet sought out the sinner, does the divine condemnation of sin become a reality to us, and the divine forgiveness a reality. In setting the forensic theory of atonement at the centre of religion, Dr. Denney really replaces the fact by an idea drawn from it. Not Christ Himself is made the object

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... of our faith, but an idea of something great that Christ did for us. It is not, in his account, the love itself in all its richness, as embodied in our Saviour's every word and deed, and reproduced in human lives to-day-it is not that that saves ; but the idea of a love that was so great that it assumed the responsibilities of our sin. We have already admitted that the forensic theory does embody a great deal of what is true of the rcality ; but an idea is never so rich as the reality, it is never, in its form at least, so enduring, and it can never take its place.