We say again--all that enshrines Jesus in our hearts, all that gives its redemptive power to His love-prompted death, and its significance to Calvary, rests upon the fact of His moral freedom. He had _power_ to lay down His life; therein lay the glory of His self-surrender. He was, indeed, God's instrument in effecting the reconciliation of sinners to the Divine Love, but it rested with Him to decide whether He would be that instrument or no, and the course He chose was not that of {170} mechanical necessity, nor was the decision to which He came a following in the line of least resistance. In accepting the pain and shame of the Cross, Jesus worked His Father's will; but that will was not imposed upon Him from without, but freely responded to from within. As the author of the _Theologia Germanica_ has it, a man should strive "to be to the Eternal Goodness what his hand is to a man": but all the ultimate splendour of the achievement is bound up with the initial possibility of the striving. Not only the yearning love of God, but the conquering freedom of Man is finally attested by that blood-red seal which bears the impressure of a Cross. [1] So _e.g._, _In The Theology of Civilisation_, by Charles F. Dole, p. 49. [2] _The Coming People_, by the same author, p. 49. [3] _The Over-Emphasis of Sin_, by the Rev. Alexander Brown, in the _Hibbert Journal_, April, 1909, p. 616. [4] _The Theology of Civilisation_, p. 61. It would, of course, have been easy to give references from other authors; but there is an extraordinary family-likeness between the writers of this School, extending down to the very phrasing of their ideas. [5] _A Study of Religion_, vol. ii., pp. 166, 179. [6] _Theology of Civilisation_, p. 129. [7] The Rev. Alexander Brown, _loc. cit._, p. 619; italics ours. [8] Dole, _op. cit._, p. 101.