Then we come to the Reformation, and we find that Calvin felt that retributive justice was an essential part of the character of God, and that Christ was actually bearing punishment which was due to man—that every sin had to be punished, and that Christ (and these were the words he used) “bore the weight of the Divine anger, was smitten and afflicted, and experienced all the signs of an angry and avenging God.” These views were modified by the Arminians and Socinians and Hugo Grotius in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and have given place gradually to more ethical and spiritual views
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