The writing and correspondence of Hastings Rashdall: 1915 to 1924	HastingsRashdall.org.uk
Fragment of sermon on the Atonement, preached at Lancaster Parish Church, December 15th 1918.
In the Ripon Hall Rashdall Archive [Box 111] at the Bodleian Library there are two pages of a sermon, on the back of the second of which is the note: "Lancaster Parish Church Dec 15 1918". The text of the fragment reads: . . .importance that we should not suppose that the death of Christ will do anything for us unless it calls forth in us some measure of that same love which inspired Christ Himself with the desire to live and die for His fellows. The whole essence of the matter is expressed by those simple words of St John: “he laid down his life for us and (therefore it is implied) we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” [Let us carry that thought into all our contemplation of the death of Christ in the next two weeks.]     Among the Christian Fathers who most completely grasped the principle that all punishment was remedial, that God’s punishment and God’s forgivenesses are alike the expression of love was the great thinker Origen: and he was not to see the important bearing of the principle upon the doctrine of the Atonement through Christ.
Original typescript reads: Let me conclude by quoting one or two of his pithy words on the subject:     “In this way Christ also slew the enmity in his own flesh, since by undergoing death he gave an example to men of resistance to sin, and this at length reconciled men to God by his own blood.” And again:     “Whence because from this exhibition of so great goodness he himself is shown to be good, for this good one perchance some one may even dare to die. For when each one has recognised the so great love of Christ, and has had his love poured out in his heart, he will not only be ready, but even boldly be ready to die for this good one.”     Or, as it is summed up more succinctly by a much later disciple of Origen, the famous schoolman who was known in the Middle Ages as the Master of the Sentences:	Hand-written amended version reads:  And Origen has had disciples in much later ages of the Church. Let me conclude by quoting the words of one of the most famous - Peter the Lombard, Bishop of Paris in the 12th century, known in the Middle Ages as the Master of the Sentences:
And both versions of the sermon conclude: “So great a pledge of love have been given is in the death of Christ, we are both moved and kindled to love God who did such great things for us; and by this we are justified, that is, being loosened from our sins, we are made just. The death of Christ therefore justifies us, inasmuch as through it charity is stirred up in our hearts.” (hand-written addition to quotation illegible)	Back to the writing and correspondence of Rashdall, 1915 - 1924.