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FUNDAMENTAL CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY -- VOLUME II

A Systematic Theology By Aaron Merritt Hills

Published By G J. Kinne

Pasadena College

Pasadena, California

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Digitized by Warren Haskell

Holiness Data Ministry

Digital Edition 02/06/2003

With The Permission Of Warren Haskell

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CONTENTS

PART IV. -- CHRISTOLOGY

CHAPTER I -- THE PERSON OF CHRIST

I. Christianity the religion of a Divine Person. 1. Testimonies to Jesus.

2 The fullness of lime. 3. Jesus related to all after time.

II. Christ must be accounted for.

1. The four gospels. 2. A miraculous birth. A human life, yet unlike any other. A teacher. A miracle worker. Rose from the dead. III. Personality with both human and divine nature. Council of Chalcedon, 451 A. D. Athanasian Creed.

CHAPTER II -- THE INCARNATION

I. The Incarnation in Scripture. II. Effect on Personality. A new Consciousness. Union of two natures in a personal oneness-a Catholic doctrine. A mystery. III. 1. Christ Theanthropic. 2.

Permanent Duality of Natures, 3. Communion of Attributes. 4. Divine facts ascribed to Christ as human; and human facts to him as Divine. S. A Theanthropic Christ necessary to the Atonement. 6.

Sympathy of Christ.

CHAPTER III -- ERRORS IN CHRISTOLOGY

1. Docetae. 2. Ebionites. 3. Arianism. 4. Apollinarianism. S. Nestorianism. 6. Eutychianism. 7.

Socinianism. 8. Lutheran Christology. 9. Kenotic Christology.

PART V. -- SOTERIOLOGY

CHAPTER I -- FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF MORAL LAW AND GOVERNMENT

I. Atonement a fact. God's problem how to safely forgive sinners. Moral interest of the universe involved. II, Atonement. Definition. III. The fact of Atonement. Christ saves by sacrifice of Himself. IV. Other confirming terms. I. Reconciliation. 2. Propitiation. 3. Redemption.

CHAPTER II -- NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT

1. God an Infinite Moral Governor over moral universe. 2. A race of sinners. 3. Cannot forgive without a substitute for the penalty. 4. Substitute must come from ruler himself. 5. Love of God provided the Atonement. 6. Atonement needed for the glory of God. 7. And happiness of universe.

8. And to furnish motives to repentance and faith. 9. To prevent sin. 10. To confirm people in holiness.

CHAPTER III -- SALVATION WITHOUT ATONEMENT

I. Universalist theory of Salvation through penalty. II. Sovereignty theory. III. Forgiveness on Repentance theory. IV. Other similar theories-Fraternal and Parental forgiveness.

CHAPTER IV -- MORAL INFLUENCE THEORIES

I. Doctrine of the Fathers. II. Moral Influence theory. 1. Christ as teacher. 2. The marturial theory.

3. The future life theory. 4. Self-sacrificing love theory. 5. Manifestation of God theory. Dr.

Bushnell's two views. Comments on moral influence theory. Misses the real truth.

CHAPTER V -- THE SATISFACTION OR PENAL THEORY

The Calvinistic theory, Hodge: "The Atonement of Christ is a satisfaction to the vindictive justice of God." A cardinal feature of Calvinism. Divine justice must be satisfied by the substitutional punishment. Objections: 1. If Christ was punished for all, all penalty has been met. 2. But only the penalty of the elect has been met. 3. Sufficient for all but restricted to the few. 4. Compelled to explain away Scripture. 5. Christ's obedience must be imputed. Imputation irrational. 6.

Misrepresents God. 7. And the true necessity of penalty. 8. Abstract justice or punitive justice can not be satisfied by death of Christ. 9. Suffering of Christ no punishment of sinner. 10. To escape difficulty they divide sinner's ill-desert into guilt and blameworthiness. A theological scheme to escape difficulty I 11. Abstract justice requires the punishment of the sinner, not some one else. 12.

Merit of Christ cannot be transferred, or imputed. 13. Would constitute the elect always free from liability to punishment! 14. Elect born with the privilege of impunity in sin! I5. Theory contradicts the testimony of Holy Spirit in convicting. 16. Leads to Antinomianism. 17. Theory stands in the way of seeking holiness.

CHAPTER VI -- THE GOVERNMENTAL THEORY

Difficulty to pardon found in government of God. Theory originated with Grotius. Sin deserves penalty which must not be remitted except on safe rectoral grounds. Definition. 1. This theory gives due place to penalty. 2. Gives most effective moral influence. 3. There is much substitution, but substitution for penalty. 4. Gives a more exalted place to justice. 5. It offers as much and a higher kind of satisfaction. 6. Is in fullest harmony with righteousness of God. 7. Provides for the mighty forces of the Cross. 8. In full accord with terms- reconciliation, propitiation and redemption. 10. Will interpret all texts and contradict none. 11. Agrees with five colossal facts-all against the satisfaction theory.

CHAPTER VII -- THE SUFFICIENCY AND EXTENT OF ATONEMENT

I. Sufficiency of Atonement. II. Extent of the Atonement, for all mankind. Shown by the pleasure of the Father: the pleasure of the Son: and of the Spirit, and the Word. The common voice of Scripture. Calvinists cannot reconcile their theory with Scriptures, and with God's sincerity.

Multiplied evidence for the universality of the Atonement.

CHAPTER VIII -- OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. BENEFITS OF THE ATONEMENT

I. Objections. 1. Makes God unmerciful. 2. Atonement unnecessary. 3. Unjust to punish innocent Christ. 4. It is incredible. 5. Atonement is demoralizing. 6. Christ died only for "His friends,"

"sheep," "His Church." 7. Folly to make a universal atonement. 8. It implies universal salvation. II.

Benefits of the Atonement. 1. Unconditional benefits. 2. The conditional benefits.

CHAPTER IX -- CALVINISM AND ARMINIANISM COMPARED

Theistic Fatalism a proper name for Calvinism. A system of necessity. Arminianism the theology of freedom. Their issue on the following points: 1. Foreordination. 2. Divine Sovereignty. 3.

Imputation of Adam's sin. 4. Reprobation. 5. Philosophical and volitional necessity. 6. Infant damnation. 7. Pagan damnation. 8. Doctrines of grace. 9. Justifying and saving faith. 10. Extent of Atonement and offer of salvation. 11. Basis of morality. The reaction from Calvinism produces Universalism and Unitarism. It stands in the way of holiness.

CHAPTER X -- DOCTRINE OF ELECTION

Calvinistic Teaching-In Chapter III, Confession of Faith. Also Effectual calling, Chapter X-The Methodist Doctrine of Election. I. Three kinds of election. 1. Men to fill offices. 2. Nations to religious privileges. 3. Individuals to salvation. II. Calvinistic election absurd. Reasons why it cannot be true, 1. It insults reason and blasphemes God! 2. Because of its evil influence. 3. Its variance with gospel invitations. 4. Special objections to "the fixed number of the saved." III.

Texts which Calvinists use examined.-There is a perfect reason what God does.-Paul's argument concludes with "Whosoever gospel for all mankind," who will comply with conditions of election.

CHAPTER XI -- REPENTANCE

I. What precedes and induces repentance. II. What is the nature of repentance. III. The necessity of repentance. IV. The fruits of repentance.

CHAPTER XII -- SAVING FAITH

I What is evangelical faith? II. Is faith the gift of God or the act of men. III. Are there degrees of faith? IV. Contrast faith and unbelief.

CHAPTER XIII -- JUSTIFICATION

I. The nature of justification. H. What justification is not. III. The conditions of justification. Five different theories or schemes. IV. Results of justification, and how preserved.

CHAPTER XIV -- CONVERSION OR REGENERATION

I. Calvinistic notion that conversion is man's work and regeneration is God's work. Untenable.

Sinners not morally helpless and passive in regeneration. II. What they are not. 1. No change of substance. 2. No new faculties. III What they are. Definitions. IV. Why regeneration is necessary.

V. The agencies employed in regeneration. I. Holy Spirit. 2. The sinner. 3. Christians. I Truth.

Providences. VI. Evidences of regeneration.

CHAPTER XV -- ADOPTION AND WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT

I Nature of Adoption. II. The witness of the Spirit. III. Witness of our own spirit. IV. Benefits of Adoption.

CHAPTER XVI -- SANCTIFICATION

I. God commands us to be sanctified. Definitions. II. Evidences that holiness is atainable. 1.

Probability. 2. The Bible as a whole. 3. Bible description of possible experience of believers. 4.

Purpose of life and death of Christ. 5. Continuous mediatorial work of Christ. 6. Holy Spirit as Sanctifier. 7. Commands to be holy. 8. Promises of God. 9. Prayers for sanctification. 10. What God is able to do for us. 11. Various assurances and exhortations. 12. Words of Jesus and Apostles to believers, 13. Testimony of God's word. 14. Witness of Spirit. Conclusion.

CHAPTER XVII -- SANCTICATION, CONTINUED

I. Christians under obligation to be sanctified. II. Conditions of receiving the blessing. 1.

Conviction of want. 2. Repentance for not having received the blessing. 3. Feel its importance. 4.

Believe it is for you. 5. Hunger and thirst for it. 6. Obedience. 7. Consecration. 8. Faith.

CHAPTER XVIII -- OBJECTIONS TO SANCTIFICATION CONSIDERED

I. Doctrinal and Philosophical objections. 1. Dr. Hodge's "It is impossible." 2. The Oberlin Philosophy. 1. Locates all sin of every kind in the will. 2. Each one is as good or bad as he can be.

3. Stands in the way of getting or teaching others sanctification. 4. Confounds consecration and sanctification. 5. Makes sanctification a matter of growth. 6. Rejects the idea of purification. 7.

Rejects the idea of immediateness in sanctification. 8. Denies the second work of grace. 9. It is only development. 10. Denies that there are two works of grace. Effects. II. Perverted texts examined. III. Keswick and kindred teaching.

CHAPTER XIX -- PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS

I. Eight arguments of Wesley. II. Bible continually warns saints, not against imaginary danger. III.

Conditional sentences which inferentially teach possibility of fatal apostasy. IV. Scriptural cases of fatal apostasy.

CHAPTER XX -- THE CHURCH AND ITS SACRAMENTS

I. Of what the Church consists. 1. Fellowship and duty. 2. Church government. 3. How governed.

Three polities. 4. Ordination of ministers. 5. Admission of members. 6. The ends of Church government. II. The Sacraments. Roman Catholic view. Protestant view. Essential elements.

CHAPTER XXI -- BAPTISM

I. Nature of Baptism. Obligatory. II. The mode. 1. Meaning of word. Testimony of Lexicons. 2. Old Testament. 3. New Testament. All cases examined. III. The import of Baptism. 1. Initiatory. 2.

Mode of profession. 3. A sign. 4. A seal. IV. The subjects of Baptism.-1. Arguments in favor of infant baptism. 2. Scripture testimony. 3. Apostolic practice. 4. History of the Church.

CHAPTER XXII -- THE LORD'S SUPPER

I. The institution of the ordinance. II. Its perpetual obligation. III. Nature of Lord's Supper. IV. The proper communicants.

PART VI. -- ESCHATOLOGY

CHAPTER I -- THE SECOND ADVENT AND THE MILLENNIUM

Note (The Pre-millennial statement is presented by Rev. James B. Chapman, D. D., and the Post-millennial statement is by the author.) I. The second coming of Jesus pre-millennial. 1. The Scriptures teach that Jesus Christ is coming back to earth. 2. Believers mainly divided into two groups. 3. Jesus and the apostles described conditions to be found at the time of His coming. 4.

Jesus a prophet, priest, and king, 5, The hope of His coming an encouragement to the church. 6.

The pre-millennial coming of Christ brings it happy ending to bad conditions. II. The Post-millennial theory. 1. Definition of the theory. 2. Laws of interpretation. 3. Millennial texts examined. 4. Not two gospel dispensations. 5. Jesus spoke of His coming in four different senses.

6. How the millennium is to be brought about.

CHAPTER II -- THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL

I. Teaching of Analogy. II. Argument from instinct of man. III. The voice of reason. IV. The voice of Scripture. - Teaching of Annihilationists.

CHAPTER III -- THE INTERMEDIATE STATE

I. Is there an intermediate place? II. Characteristics of the intermediate state.

CHAPTER IV -- THE RESURRECTION

1. The doctrine. II. Denied by several classes. III. Bible teaches it. IV. We do not know in what the identity of the resurrection body will consist. V The resurrection body.

CHAPTER V -- THE JUDGMENT

Opposed and rejected by different classes. I. The certainty of a general judgment. II. The solemn attendants of the judgment. The time, place, persons, principles. The Judge. The decision. The sequel.

CHAPTER VI -- ETERNAL BLESSEDNESS OF THE RIGHTEOUS

I. What the Scripture reveals. II. Heaven is a place. III. The location of heaven uncertain. IV. Its transcendent glory. V. The nature of its blessedness.

CHAPTER VII -- ETERNAL PUNISHMENT

I. Will there be future punishment at all? II. Scripture unmistakable. III What shall be the nature of this punishment? Awful figures of speech. IV punishment of the wicked endless. 1. Arguments of Universalism. Answers, Fairchild, Noah Porter, Joseph Cook, Randles. Whately. Dr. Austin Phelps. Wood. "Question not settled by reason."-Fairchild and Miley. Scripture Revelation must decide. Its voice clear and certain. "What else could God do with sins.

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PART IV -- CHRISTOLOGY

Christology has Christ for its subject. It means the doctrine about Christ. This will include a discussion of his nature, his person, his incarnation and the leading errors that developed on this subject during the centuries.

We have already discussed the nature of the Son of God as the Second Person of the Adorable Trinity, one with God, and eternally self-existent. This subject has to do with the Christ as He appeared on this planet, as He crossed the threshold of this world in the stable at Bethlehem, and toiled in the carpenter's shop in Nazareth, and stilled the waves of Galilee, and hung on the cross of Calvary and ascended to heaven on a stairway of clouds. What kind of a being was He? Was He truly a man? Was He very God? Was He God-man? Such questions crowd upon us for solution. It is one of the most vital questions of theology. The atonement, if I here be any, the manner of salvation, justification, regeneration, sanctification-all fall into line behind this subject like soldiers following their leader.

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CHAPTER I -- THE PERSON OF CHRIST

I. Christianity differs from all other religions in this-that it has a peculiar Person as its center and life. It derives all its significance from One who could say to a troubled and sin-cursed humanity:

"I and my Father are One." "Come unto me." "Believe in me'." "I am the way, the truth, and the life." "No man cometh unto the Father but by me." "I, if I be lifted up will draw all men unto me."

No religion is so related to its founder as Christianity is related to Christ. Any other man teaching what Buddha taught and living us he lived, among the same people at the same age of the world, would have had the same influence. Buddhism derives no intrinsic worth from him. The same is true of Confucianism and Mohammedanism. Any lecherous wretch with the same audacity and cunning could have taken the place of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism. But what other being that ever appeared on the planet could take the place of Jesus Christ? Who like Him was "the Son of God" and "the Son of Man"? "The Son of God," implying oneness of nature with the Father, used about thirty times in the Gospels; as in Matt. 14: 33: "The Son of Man," not son of a man, or the man, but MAN the generic, race man, showing his universal relation to all mankind, applied to Himself only by Himself, except once, (Acts 7: 56) and used about eighty times in the Gospels!

(John 1: 51.)

Gladstone says: "Christ's religion is summed up in His OWN PERSON. CHRISTIANITY IS

CHRIST." That great statesman wrote to an inquiring young man, "All I write, all I think, all I hope, is based upon the divinity (deity) of our Lord the one central hope of our poor wayward race." People never did and never could talk so about the founders of other religions. It would have been conscious folly, and self-stultification. "The inner life of Christianity consists not in a body of moral precepts, or of dogmas, or in a ritual, or a system of philosophy, but in a personal history. To this the entire history of man presents nothing parallel." (Row.) "In Him culminate all the previous revelations of God to the Jews and Gentiles. He is the ripe fruit of the religious growth of humanity. In Him is solved the problem of religion, the reconciliation and fellowship of man with God" (Schaff).

Similar tributes have been paid to Jesus even from those who did not profess to be his followers.

Even Voltaire stood in awe of Christ. Rousseau wrote: "I will confess to you that the majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with admiration, as the purity of the Gospel has its influence on my heart.

Peruse the works of our philosophers, with all their pomp of diction, how mean, how contemptible are they compared with the Scriptures! Is it possible that a book at once so simple and so sublime should be merely the work of man? Is it possible that the sacred personage whose history it contains should be himself a mere man? Do we find that He assumed the tone of an enthusiast, or ambitious sectary? What sweetness, what purity in His manner! What an affecting gracefulness in his instructions! What sublimity in his maxims! What profound wisdom in His discourses! What presence of mind, what subtlety, what fitness, in His replies. How great the command over His passions! Where is the man, where is the philosopher who could so live and so die, without weakness, and without ostentation? When Plato describes His imaginary righteous man, loaded with all the punishments of guilt, yet meriting the highest rewards of virtue, He describes exactly the character of Jesus Christ. Socrates, indeed, in receiving the cup of poison blessed the weeping executioner who administered it; but Jesus amidst excruciating tortures, prayed for His merciless tormentors. Yes, if the life and death of Socrates were those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of a God." Strauss spoke of Him as "the highest object we can possibly imagine with respect to religion." Spinoza saw in Him "the best and truest symbol of heavenly wisdom"; Kant,

"of ideal perfection", Hegel, "of the union between the human and the divine."

One day Napoleon had a conversation with General Bertrand about Jesus. The latter praised Christ but pronounced Him a mere man. Napoleon replied: "I know men; and I tell you that Jesus Christ is not a man. Superficial minds see a resemblance between Christ and the founders of empires, and the gods of other religions. That resemblance does not exist. There is between Christianity and whatever other religions the distance of infinity. Everything in Jesus astonishes me. His Spirit over-awes me, and His will confounds me. Between Him and whoever else in the world there is no possible term of comparison. He is truly a being by Himself. His birth and the history of His life; the profundity of His doctrine, His gospel, His apparition, His empire, His march across the ages and the realms,-everything is for me a prodigy and: mystery which I can neither deny nor explain. Here I see nothing human."

William Ellery Channing, the brightest light among the Unitarians wrote: "The Gospels must be true; they were drawn from a living original; they were founded on reality. The character of Jesus was not a fiction; He was what He claimed to be, and what His followers attested. Nor is this all, Jesus not only was, He is still, the Son of God, the Savior of the world. I believe Jesus Christ to be more than a human being."

Theodore Parker declared, "It would take more than a Jesus to forge a Jesus." J. S. Mill affirmed, that the skeptic would do will to imitate Him and scouted the notion that His perfections were due to the inventions of his followers.

Ernest, Renan wrote: "Repose now in thy glory noble founder! Thy work is finished; thy divinity is established. A thousand times more alive, a thousand times more beloved since Thy death, than during Thy passage here below, thou shalt become the corner-stone of humanity so entirely, that to tear thy name from this world would be to rend it to its foundations. Between Thee and God there will be no longer any distinction" ("The Person of Christ," Schaff, pp. 293-356).

The knights of old," says Farrar, "saw in Him the mirror of all chivalry, the monks, the pattern of all asceticism; the philosophers, the enlightener in all truth. To a Fenelon He has seemed the most rapt of mystics; to a Vincent De Paul, the most practical of philanthropists; to an English poet (Decker) 'The first true gentleman that ever lived'." Von Muller says, "Christ is the key to the history of the world. Not only does all harmonize with the mission of Christ; all is subordinated to it" (Von Muller).

Scholars and historians never weary of telling us of Jesus as the central event and personage of history. The subtle infidel Gibbon, quite willing to rob Christ of His glory, attributes the spread of Christianity to five causes: 1. The zeal of the early Christians; 2. The doctrine of a future life of rewards and punishments; 3. The power of working miracles, ascribed to the early Church; 4. The pure and austere morals of the Christians; 5. The union and discipline of the ecclesiastical community. "But," says my revered teacher, Dr. George P. Fisher, "he leaves out what was the life and soul of the Christian religion, and the secret of its power, the thought of Christ, the image of Christ, the great object of faith and hope, and the source of all inspiration." Sure enough! What was the mainspring of the early Christian zeal but their loyal devotion to Jesus? "Where did they get their doctrine of a future life and a sure immortality, but from the empty sepulcher of Jesus? Where did they get their power to work miracles but by faith in the miracle-worker, Jesus? Where did they get their purity of morals but by the purifying influence of Jesus, and the cleansing of His blood? And what bound those early Christians together, when wave after wave of persecution swept over the infant Church, but heart devotion to that Jesus, for whom they were willing to suffer or to die?

Yes, Jesus is the central personality of human history.

1. Previous ages looked forward to Him and prepared for His coming. He was connected with the past by fulfilling the Messianic hope of the Hebrew race. To that people God had long been manifesting Himself, and he had promised them a future deliverer. Types and sacrifices foreshadowed Him. Psalmists sang of Him. Law-givers and prophets foretold Him. Even heathen sages and philosophers were expecting Him, and watching for the herald of His coming. The long-deferred hopes of ages of night and sorrow could be realized only in Him.

2. Paul says (Gal. 4: 4): "When the fullness of the time was come. God sent forth His Son." "By the political unity of the part of the world to which He came, by the stage of its intelligence, by the decay of its religions, by the combined hope and despair that affected its people, the age was prepared to receive and transmit His influence." The right time for His advent had come (Christian Theology, by Clarke, p. 261).

3. Jesus was related to all after time, as the founder of the one only universal religion the world has ever had. All events date from His birth. His cross is the fount of a holier life among men; the magnet that draws all men toward God; the source of light that shines to every darkened land. His face has been the inspiration of art, His name the fragrance of literature; His life the pattern for morals, His teaching the basis of our laws. From the leaven of His holy influence come all moral reforms, all social improvement, all political progress, and all human betterment. He is the one uplifting spiritual force that is sufficient to counteract the downward trend of humanity that would engulf us all in hopeless ruin. He fulfills the clearest hopes of coming good that earlier times had cherished; He was so great a character that the world had to be providentially prepared for Him.

He has been the source and inspiration of all the best that has come after Him, and His name and life are inwrought into the life of mankind.

II. Now the personality of a being that has such a vital place in history must be accounted for. The subject early engaged the deepest minds. Pious souls studied the question with earnest and even anxious hearts. They felt that everything depended on a correct solution of the problem. They were clearly right. A mere human Christ could not make atonement for sin. He could not be a real Savior of men. Without His Deity and incarnation, without His theanthropic personality, He is another Christ, and Christianity is robbed of its true glory as the religion of the Only Begotten Son of God.

From the very beginning, Christ was the great theme of Christian thought, and the life of Christian experience and hope. In the deepest Christian consciousness Christ was the Savior for whose sake all sins were forgiven, and in whose fellowship came all the blessings of the Christian life. For such a consciousness He could not be a mere man. But how much more was He? And wherein was He more? How did the divine and the human unite? Were there two persons, or were there two natures united in one personality, with one consciousness? Such questions as these stirred reflective minds for centuries. They were the nature and instinctive reaching out of human thought for a definite doctrine about Christ in which the intellect and heart of men could rest.

1. The early Christians went primarily to the Four Gospels for the material for their faith. "The first three portray Christ as He lived among men; the fourth is a special study of Christ in the mystery and glory of His person. The three sprang directly from companionship with Jesus; the Fourth sprang from like companionship, but transfigured by the light of what He is, viewed in adorning reflection. The three minister to acquaintance with Christ; the fourth to spiritual knowledge of Him and high faith concerning Him as the very son of God" (Christian Theology, p.

262).

2. They found in those gospels:

(1) A MIRACULOUS BIRTH. This is found in the first and third Gospels. The second omits it and begins with the public ministry. The Fourth omits it, but gives the pre-existence of Christ, that accords well with a miraculous birth. In Luke "the story is exquisitely beautiful, full of a heavenly purity and sweetness that has captivated the heart of Christendom." Luke was a physician, and to Him the holy mother might have told the truth, as she would not have done to other men.

The truth of the virgin-birth is of course rejected by all the infidel critics, who reject everything else that is supernatural. But those of us, who believe in the living God, can accept the story of such a birth of Christ (and of no other) feeling that it perfectly comports with the majesty and glory of His person. If God ever did really unite himself to humanity, (which we gladly believe with all our heart) how could He have done it in a more appropriate way? It is the Deity which He manifested that warrants faith in His miraculous conception. While the critics sneer, we will join with the angels who sang over His cradle the gladness of heaven.

(2) A HUMAN LIFE. The life that followed was a human life. He grew up in the home like any other baby boy. He ate and drank and slept and played and toiled, and was weary and hungry and thirsty, just like any human being. He was a son, a neighbor, a citizen, a toiler, a friend, a companion, a member of his nation. He was subject to His parents and obedient to the religious and civil laws of His time, as any holy young man might be. In other words, He was thoroughly human.

(3) YET UNLIKE OTHER MEN. The wisest and best men since His day have found in Him the ideal of all goodness. He claimed to be sinless (John 8: 29, 46 and 16: 30). He could look His angry foes in the face and say, which one of you convinceth me of sin? His disciples fell at His feet in adoring awe. The Roman officer exclaimed, "Truly this was the Son of God." Neander said: "In all other men we see opposing elements. In Christ, the ideal and the phenomenal never contradict each other." Frequently when walking the streets of European cities, strangers have asked us if we were not an American. Like every other man, we bore the stamp "of our nation. But Jesus did not.

"Though a Jew, he was not the product of Judaism, but such a Messiah as shocked Jewish prejudices, abolished Jewish privileges, resembled no prevailing Jewish sect. Only in part can His ideal be found in the old Jewish saints. He was above the Messianic ideas of the period, above the good and holy of every age. He not only surpassed, but reversed the heathen ideals.

Plato was great as a Greek, Caesar as a Roman, Paul as a Jew" (Hyde). But Jesus was the race man, perfect by the highest and latest standards of any people. Stanley well says: "The greatest of all miracles is the character of Christ." Wace affirms that "In the person of our Lord Jesus Christ we recognize the ideal perfection of man." Fairbairn points out the dissimilarity between Jesus and other men as follows: "Jesus was born a Jew, lived and worked as a Jewish peasant, without culture or travel, or the opportunities of intercourse that would have lifted Hun above the narrowness, the illiberal passions and prejudices of such a peasant's lot; but He was the least local, the most universal person of history; of all men least the product of His age, and most the child of eternity." It is perfectly evident from the Gospels that His own mother did not understand Him, and He was a perpetual puzzle to His brothers and sisters and neighbors around Him. They could easily have understood a mere man; but Jesus wais more than man.

(4) HE WAS A TEACHER. But He taught not like other men. They reasoned and speculated. He spake with infallible certainty, as if the fountain of all truth was in His own infinite being. God had spoken to the world before, by angels and prophets, who humbly and faithfully brought their message, "thus saith the Lord"; but at last "God spake by His Son," whose language was:

"VERILY, VERILY, I SAY UNTO YOU." Men listened and wondered, because "He spake as one having authority, and not as the scribes." And He differed from others in His message as truly as in His method. He forgave sin in His own name, and said, "I and my Father are one." As much as to say, "What He does, I can do; I, too, carry the key "I heaven, and authoritatively grant eternal life."

"He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father."

Pouring out what was in His heart to bless men, He proclaimed the Fatherhood of God. "Prophets had touched upon this truth, but He proclaimed it with unparalleled breadth, freshness and power, as the heart of His message; and He uttered it with special reference to the needs of men in their sinfulness. Prophets had spoken of God, as the Father of Israel, His people, but with Jesus, God was Father to the individual soul; and in the assertion of this personal fatherhood lay the exceptional power of his doctrine. He kindly received Publicans and Sinners and declared that He came to save them. People clamored at it; but He justified it by the Parable of the Prodigal Son-or rather of the True Father. He specially sought to make men feel that His own yearning and eager care for sinful men was a true expression of the paternal heart of God. As He welcomed the greatest sinners to Himself, so, He taught, did God welcome home his prodigals; and his seeking for the lost was at the same time God's own seeking of men whom He had created for Himself. He revealed God's fatherly heart seeking to save sinners" (Clarke, "Theology," pp. 267, 268).

Jesus in His teaching, also unfolded to men the realities of the future world, the resurrection, the judgment, the future destinies of the righteous and the wicked, as if He Himself were to be the Lord of eternity, assigning to the countless millions their everlasting destiny. He told the world about THE HOLY SPIRIT, the Third Person of the Trinity, as if He had been on terms of intimacy with Him for infinite ages.

(5) HE WROUGHT MIRACLES. His marvelous claims were backed by equally marvelous power. Without any jugglery, without Himself touching either the water or the water pots, he turned the water into wine, as if the Lord of all grapes and all vintage was there. He took a few loaves and fishes in his hands and multiplied them so as to abundantly feed the hungry thousands, as if the Lord of all harvests and the fish of the sea was there. He stood before the deaf and the blind, and with an omnipotent word gave them hearing and sight, as if the Creator of all auditory and optic nerves was there. He spake a few words on storm-tossed Galilee and the infuriated winds stopped their moaning, and the roaring billows hushed their noise, as if the God of all winds, and seas was there. He stood before the bier and the sepulcher and called the dead to life, as if the Lord of all life was there. He stood before the demon-possessed and the fallen spirits knew that the Lord of angels and the spirit realm was there. They recognized him us One whom they had known in glory ages before, and they cried out: We know who thou art-the Holy One of God."

He foretold His approaching death with circumstantial accuracy; all of which proved His Divine foreknowledge. The crowning miracle was His own resurrection which "rang the great bell of the universe," and got a hearing for His Gospel. Nobody saw it; but the witnesses to it were the witnesses to His subsequent appearances. Their testimony is absolutely credible. They knew Him well. They saw Him crucified. They took Him down from the cross and placed Him in the tomb.

They saw it sealed and watched by a Roman guard. Three days afterward they saw Him on several occasions. They met Him repeatedly for forty days, even five hundred of them at once. They were so familiar with Him before and after death that they could identify Him with certainty. They were not looking for His death and resurrection and were not predisposed to believe in it. They were so honest and so convinced, that they afterward sealed their testimony with their blood, and won a martyr's crown. "The message of the resurrection," says Westcott "sums up in one fact the teaching of the Gospel. It is the one central link between the seen and the unseen. To preach the facts the resurrection was the first function of the evangelist; to embody the doctrine of the resurrection is the great office of the Church; to learn the meaning of the resurrection is the task not of one age only, but of all." "When faith is a matter of life and death," observes Rawlinson, "men do not lightly take up with the first creed which happens to hit their fancy, nor do they place themselves openly in the ranks of a persecuted sect, unless they have well weighed the claims of the religion which it professes." But Ewald declares: "Nothing is historically more certain than that Christ rose from the dead, and appeared to His own and that this their vision was the beginning of their new higher faith and of all their Christian labors." The apostles staked the entire truth of the Gospel upon it, conquered the world by preaching it, and commemorated it in the Lord's Day. Dr. Lyman Abbott well says: There is just as strong a reason for believing that before the end of the first century, the resurrection of Christ was universally accepted in the rapidly growing Christian church, as there is for believing that it is now universally supposed that the Declaration of Independence was agreed upon on the Fourth of July, 1776."

Now when it was all over, when Jesus had ascended to the skies and had baptized His disciples with the Holy Ghost, they looked back upon the marvels that had been crowded into the three and a half previous years. The great truth of the incarnation rose upon their souls like the sun in unclouded splendor after a night of darkness and storm. Jesus at once became to them their life, their joy, their hope, their inspiration, their ideal, their Savior, their Lord, their all in all. He was the altar on which they offered the sacrifice of their lives. His love was their solace in sorrow. His presence was their inspiration in toil. His indwelling was their hope of glory. His approving smile was their supreme reward.

No wonder that the early disciples talked about Him; that when the Gospels were written, the stories of His deeds and sayings were read over and over, and He began to grow in their estimation, and was the theme of their conversation, and the subject of their study, and the object of their devotion. As those early disciples and apostles passed away, one by one, those coming after them and filled with their spirit and faith and devotion, reflected deeply upon the nature of this wonderful personality who had made such a mark upon the world of thought and life. So there grew up a doctrine about Christ-a Christology.

III. There were Two Elements in the Personality. There was, as we have seen, the real HUMAN

NATURE of Christ. And there was, also, the DIVINE NATURE of Christ. In and through His human nature He had the necessities, appetites, desires and passions which are common to men.

Without them He could not have been our Elder Brother; could not have borne our temptations, could not have been our Perfect High Priest, "touched with a feeling of our infirmities"; could not have been the Captain of our salvation made "perfect through suffering." "The sympathy of Christ, through the law of common suffering with us, as set forth in the Scriptures, is possible only with His possession of a mental nature like our own" (Miley). "It behooved Him in all things to be made like unto His brethren, that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He himself hath suffered, being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted" (Heb. 2: 17, 18).

By the DIVINE NATURE all the suffering of Christ for us had an infinite worth. It was possible for a Divine Savior to make an atonement for us, to make amends for the broken law and dishonored government of God in our behalf.

But there was a THIRD FACT of supreme importance, viz., the PERSONAL ONENESS of Christ.

Oneness of personality is intrinsic to personality itself. "By the presence of personal facts in the life, und the absence of all facts expressive of duality, we know the Oneness s of His personality, just as we know that of any man of historic eminence. He appears among men as one person, talks and acts as one" (Miley, Vol. II, p. 12).

After centuries of discussion and general agreement with, of course, some heretical disagreement, which will be discussed hereafter, the Council of Chalcedon gave the following noble deliverance in 451 A. D.:

"We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in Manhood; truly God and truly Man, of a reasonable (rational) soul and body; consubstantial (coessential) with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the manhood in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the mother of God, according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being, preserved, and concurring in ONE PERSON and ONE SUBSISTENCE, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten. God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ; as the prophets from the beginning (have declared) concerning Him and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself hath taught us, and the creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us."

The Athanasian Creed, that came later was in full accord with the creed of Chalcedon: "For the right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man; perfect God, and perfect man, of reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting, who, although He be God and man, yet He is not two, but one Christ. One not by the conversion of the Godhead into flesh, by the taking of the manhood into God; one altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is One Christ"( Schaff "Creeds of Christendom," Vol. II, pp. 62, 63, 68, 69).

Both these creeds teach the UNION OF TWO NATURES WITH A ONENESS OF

PERSONALITY.

* * * * * * *

CHAPTER II -- THE INCARNATION

This remarkable personality of Christ which we have been considering refers not to His nature during the eternal ages before the world was, but to Christ as he appeared among men and was known to His early disciples that unique personality which arises from the union of the divine nature with the human. Only in this union could there be such a person as the historic Christ. Hence the incarnation, of Deity in humanity is the necessary ground of such a. personality. The necessary union of the two natures is possible only by an incarnation. The divine nature is eternal; the human nature originated in time. Hence the union of the two must come about by the Eternal nature incarnating Himself in human nature. In other words, the Divine Son of God must take the nature of man into personal union with Himself.

I. This is exactly the Truth of Scripture. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God; and the Word was God, The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him; and without Him was not anything made that hath been made" (John 1: 1, 2). This Word" had eternal pre-existence. To make all things, infinite wisdom and power were necessary.

And so it is declared, "the word was God." "And this Word, became flesh and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the Only Begotten from the Father) full of grace and truth"

(John 1: 14). Christ was made flesh-"not by transmutation of His nature into a body of flesh, but by the incarnation of Himself in the nature of man." St Paul gives us a great text on this subject, Phil.

2: 6-8, "Christ Jesus, who existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, yea, the death of the Cross." Here are three facts: (1) Christ in the form of God. Lightfoot says it means, not the eternal accidents, but the essential attributes of God.

(2) Christ in equality -with God. Equal in estate, in honor and rank and glory as the Son of God, and one with Him in power and dominion over the finite universe.

(3) Christ in the likeness of men. In form, and physical organization, and human conditions. He was like man. In other words the Being "who was of old, even from everlasting," "who inhabiteth eternity," had joined Himself to human nature, and was a true man, as well as the Infinite Son of God.

In Col. 1: 13-18, we have another remarkable passage. It teaches, (1) That Jesus Christ is peculiarly "the Son of God's love; (2) "In Him we have our redemption" through His atoning death, which involves His humanity; (3) He is the image of the invisible God; (4) "He created all things,"

which involves infinite power; (5) "By him all things consist," that is, he sustains the universe-another divine work. Such a passage involves the union of the human and Divine nature.

In 1 Tim. 3: 16, we have "God (or He who) was manifested in the flesh." Whichever be the correct reading, the meaning is the same, that Jesus Christ, the pre-existent Son of God was, at a certain time, manifest in the flesh, by a definite incarnation. Heb. 2: 14, is not less explicit and to the point. "Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same; that through death He might bring to naught Him that had the power of death that is the Devil." Here again this same wonderful Being is said to have partaken "of flesh and blood." This can mean nothing less than the Son of God uniting Himself to our human nature.

The subject of the incarnation was not a mere nature, but a PERSON, the Second Person of the Trinity, the Divine Son of God. The Father did not have any such part in the incarnation; nor did the Holy Spirit, but the personal Son of God only. "Christ could not be a wholly new personality, because the personality of the Son could not be suspended or neutralized by the incarnation. His true and essential divinity forbids the notion of any such result. The personality of the Son as verified to Himself in the facts of His own consciousness, must forever abide. The immutability of the Son in His essential being and in His personal attributes affirms this truth." Therein lies the ground of the immutability of Christ, "the same yesterday, today and forever." With all His mutations of estate, He is eternally the same. The personality of the Son must forever abide"

(Miley, Vol. II, pp. 17, 18).

II. What, then, is the result of the incarnation on the personality of the Son?

1. It must be not a new personality, but a modified personality --modified by the possession of new facts of consciousness. Jesus could pray: "Glorify Thou Me, with thine own self, with the glory

`that I had with Thee before the world was." This prayer shows that Christ had the consciousness of personal identity that carried Him over to a time before the world was, and yet along with it was a consciousness that He was in a changed state. New facts of consciousness had come to him through the human nature assumed in the incarnation. How could there be an incarnation without such a result? "Not else could there be a union of two natures in a personal oneness; not else the unique personality of the Christ; not else the God-man."

The Apostle Paul said (Gal. 4: 4), "When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law." Here again you have the two facts-the divine Son forever with God in a past eternity, and that Son sent forth to be born of a woman, and so be clothed with human nature, and the result was that mighty Savior whom the great Apostle loved and revered-a ONE PERSONAL CHRIST IN THE UNION OF TWO NATURES. "The Incarnation to which we find the New Testament bearing witness is that entrance of God into humanity in the person of Jesus Christ, by virtue of which Jesus Christ was a divine and a human being. This is the conception of Christ that underlies and unifies the statements of the New Testament concerning Him, both in history and in doctrine" (Clarke's Theology, p. 290).

2. If it still be asked in what direction and to what extent was the consciousness of Christ modified by the Incarnation? Perhaps without undue speculation we may at least answer that, (1) There was added to Christ the new consciousness of all experiences purely human. The experience of weakness, weariness, need of sleep, pain, hunger and thirst, and the like. As the eternal Son of God He could have felt no such experiences.

(2) He could not have laid aside the radiance of His eternal glory, to become a "root out of dry ground," "marred more than the sons of men," having "no form nor comeliness" and "no beauty that men should desire him," without being conscious of a strange humiliation-an experience wholly different from anything He had ever known.

(3) There must have been a new consciousness of LIMITATION -"the consciousness of Deity within human limits; it could be nothing more. It was such divine consciousness as would be possible within humanity. In respect to some things, and we do not know just how much that covers, "he was made like unto His brethren, instead of remaining like unto His Father." There may have been some- self-imposed limitation of knowledge, which would explain that remarkable verse, Matt. 24: 36, "But of that day and hour, knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only."

3. It may further be asked, how there could be such a relation between the divine and human nature? We may suggest:

(1) God and man have natures essentially alike. Our faculties are like God's-intellect, sensibility and free will. Converse in spirit between God and man is possible. God is ever seeking unity between Himself and man. Man is constantly invited to call God Father, and when he finds his true place it is that of a child in the Father's household.

(2) "This relation between God and man is not such that man by growing can become God. Limits are set to man above, in the very constitution of his nature, and he cannot pass them, he may become a perfect man, but he cannot transcend his nature and become infinite like God. Human nature is essentially finite; limitations are a part of it. But it does not follow that God cannot become man, for,

(3) "Man cannot transcend the limits and become God, but God may conceivably enter them and become man. The infinite does not need to go outside of itself to find the finite; it has free entrance to the finite, which it embraces. All God's active relations with His creation probably take place through some kind of self-limitation; and no reason appears why He may not so limit Himself as to enter into that humanity which He created in His own likeness. Humanity is created capable of receiving God. Thus the incarnation which is possible from above, if God chooses to descend to it, is possible below, in the humanity which He created with powers like His own. God in man would be the perfect man" (Clarke's Theology, pp. 292-294).

We have seen that such a union of the two natures was possible, and how it might come about by the purpose and action of God. The result of the union is a Christ who is God-man, PERSONALLY

ONE, but possessing the nature 0f God and of man. Only with such a result can the incarnation be a reality, satisfactory to the deepest religious consciousness, and sufficient to interpret Scripture and meet the necessities of the atonement.

THIS UNION OF THE TWO NATURES IN THE PERSONAL ONENESS of Christ is the Catholic doctrine. All the great divisions of the universal church have held this faith. It has come down to us from the Council of Chalcedon in an unbroken line. Here the Protestant churches-Lutheran, Reformed, Church of England, Presbyterians, Baptists, Congregationalists, Methodists, are united.

5. Mystery of the Doctrine. Some persons of a peculiar temperament may be inclined to reject this truth as mysterious. We grant that it must be ranked with the eternal Self-existence of God, Omnipotence, Omniscience, Omnipresence, and Trinity-all of them mysteries too deep for us. But that is no valid reason for rejecting a truth. The universe is full of mysteries which are yet true and within the grasp of rational faith. "Personality itself is a profound mystery. How obscure the notion of an unbodied spirit, endowed with personal faculties, and active in modes of personal agency!

We have no perfect analogy for this union of two natures in one personality, in ourselves and no way to illustrate it. "The mystery deepens in the fact that in this personality of Christ, the finite blends with the infinite." Yet mystery is not the limit of truth. The doctrine does not contradict reason, and the heart may find rest where the intellect cannot fully know.

One thought may be helpful to us. It was not a developed person that the Son of God assumed in the incarnation, but only human nature. Hooker well observes: "If the Son of God had taken to Himself a man already made and perfected, it would of necessity follow that there are in Christ two persons, the one assuming, and the other assumed; whereas the Son of God did not assume a man's person into His own; but a man's nature to His own person, the very first original element of our nature, before it was come to have any personal subsistence, by taking only the nature of man. He still continueth one person, and changeth but the manner of His subsisting, which was before in the mere glory of the Son of God, and is now in the habit of our flesh" (Ecclesiastical Polity, Bk. V, 52). "Of course, this fact requires that the assumed human nature should in itself ever remain in an impersonal form; for any subsequent change into a personal mode would result in personal duality.

While, therefore, we may deny to the human nature assumed in the incarnation, a distinct personal subsistence, in Christ, we must still allow it such forms of activity as will account for the human facts of His incarnate life. The other fact is that the ground of the personality of Christ is in His divine nature, not in His human nature" (Miley, Vol. II, p. 21).

III. CHRIST Is THE-ANTHROPIC. From the previous discussion it is evident, 1. That Christ is Theanthropic. There is a sense in which He is God--Theos. There is a sense in which he is man anthropos. There is a deeper sense in which He is God-Man, theanthropos. The union of the two natures in one personality makes Him a theanthropic Person. What Christ thus became, so far as we know, He will remain forever in glory. The union of the two natures is forever inseparable. Our Elder Brother, made so dear to us by assuming, our nature, will be eternally dear to our hearts. "We shall know Him; we shall know Him, by the print of the nails in His hands."

2. There is a permanent duality of natures. As the Fathers stated it: "There is neither change nor mixture of the natures." "The divine is not transmuted into the human; the human is not transmuted into the divine. There is no mixing of the natures, with a resultant third nature, or indefinable tertium quid-something neither human nor divine" (Miley). The two natures, without change in either, were united in the personal oneness of the Christ.

3. This involves a communion of attributes; that is, the attributes of both natures are common to His personality. This is necessary to account for and explain the paradoxical language of Scripture, and the ascription to Jesus Christ of the most opposite extremes. He is an infant in the arms of Mary, and "over all, God blessed forever," Rom. 9:5. He is weary from his journey, and upholds all things by His power; He grows in knowledge and stature like other children, and yet is "the same, yesterday, today, and forever," Heb. 13: 8. He has a need of prayer that argues finite-ness; and yet he can say, "I and my Father are One." "The Son can do nothing of himself but what he seeth the Father do"; and yet "all things were made through Him and without Him was not anything made that hath been made." "As the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself." "I can of mine own self do nothing; my Father is greater than I." Such expressions mean dependence and limitation, yet he claimed equality with God (John 10: 33), and He allowed Himself to be worshiped (Matt. 8: 2, 3 and 14: 33, also John 9: 35-38 and John 20: 28).

President Fairchild well says: "Our theory of His nature must embody all the facts; and what shall it be? If we would make him simply a man, His mighty works and words and claims all stand in the way. Every attempt to explain the character of Christ by any standard of mere humanity will prove a shocking failure. We encounter the same difficulties in making Jesus superhuman, in the sense of an angelic or other exalted finite being. An angel can no more assume the prerogatives of God, or accept worship, than can a human being. "When He bringeth in the first begotten into the world, He saith, and let all the angels of God worship Him" Heb. 1:6). All finite beings worship the Infinite.

If, on the other hand, we account Jesus simply divine, we overlook a wide class of facts pertaining to His nature and experience- the facts which imply some finiteness or limitation in His consciousness. We are left then to accept the simple statement of the Gospel. John 1: 1-14, "The Word which was in the beginning, the Word which was with God and was God, by whom also the world was made that Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth." A similar statement we find in Romans 1: 3, 4, "Concerning his Son, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh; who was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection of the dead." This is, and has been through the ages, the essential doctrine of the church, that God became incarnate in the human body, with a reasonable, human soul; that Jesus Christ is therefore human and divine; and that from this combined personality arise the mingled phenomena of His life and character" (Theology, pp. 181, 182).

4. We have already noticed how facts of Deity are ascribed to Christ, and facts of humanity are ascribed to Him. But we may further add:

(1) That Divine facts are ascribed to Christ as human. "No man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man, who is in heaven" (John 3: 13). Two facts are stated, viz., that Christ came down from heaven and that when here on earth He was in heaven.

Both facts were affirmed by Christ of Himself as the Son of Man. Also supreme worship was rendered to Christ as the Lamb that was slain (Rev. 5: 12, 13). The "Lamb slain" means Christ in his human nature.

(2) Human facts are ascribed to Christ as Divine. He was to be virgin born-and yet be

"Immanuel-God with us" (Matt. 1: 23). "Feed the Church of God, which he purchased with his own blood" (Acts 20: 28). "They crucified the Lord of Glory" (1 Cor. 2: 8).

All these seemingly conflicting utterances about Christ can only be understood in the light of His theanthropic personality. "Thus in the Scriptures, Christ is distinguished from all men, and from all finite beings. A few of the passages often quoted to prove the fact may be liable to unfavorable criticism; we may drop all such doubtful passages, and the doctrine still remains so inwrought into the very substance of the Gospels and the Scriptures generally that it cannot be eliminated without destroying the entire structure.

By a similar course of argument the humanity of Jesus Christ may be established, and thus we should be brought to the same result which we had already reached, that Jesus Christ is the

'WORD MADE FLESH'" (Fairchild's Theology, p. 188).

5. SUCH A THEANTHROPIC CHRIST A NECESSITY TO THE ATONEMENT. By any other union of the divine nature with the human than that in a personal oneness, would leave the human in a complete and separate personality. This would make the Atonement an impossibility. The human nature alone was capable of being crucified. And if somehow it was not united with the divine nature to give the death of Christ infinite significance, then the death of Christ would be of no avail. A human Christ might champion righteousness and die for the truth as did Socrates, or any Christian martyr; but that would not avail to put away human sin. As the paschal lamb whose blood was shed for atonement was only a lamb, typical of something more but in itself unable to make the conscience clean, so the blood of Christ shed for our redemption, if He were only a man, would be equally unavailing. All the fundamental truths of Christianity would pronounce a merely human sacrifice insufficient to restore us to the divine favor and secure our peace with God. Christ, in the greatness of His personality did a complete work. He was at once the High Priest, the victim and the altar; He offered up Himself on the altar of His own Deity; "Who needeth not daily, as those high-priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for His own sins, and then for the people's; for this He did once, when He offered up Himself" (Heb. 7:27). "For then must He often have suffered since the foundation of the world; but now once at the end of the ages hath He been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself" (Heb. 9:26). "In the hour of our redemption, the Christ does not fall asunder into two persons, the one divine and the other human, while the divine in the office of high-priest offers up the human in atonement for sin; but the divine, incarnate, offers up HIMSELF.

Thus we have the truth and reality of the atonement. The possibility of such an atonement lies in the theanthropic personality of Christ" (Miley, Vol II, pp. 26, 27).

6 The Sympathy of Christ. Sympathy is fellow-feeling; suffering with another; the quality of being affected by the affection of another; with feelings correspondent in kind if not in degree, Sympathy is literally a fellow-feeling with another in his joy or grief, or suffering.

The thought of the sympathy of Christ in all our experiences has been of untold comfort to Christians in all generations. When in dark hours they could get help nowhere else "they went and told Jesus." The Scriptures make much of the divine sympathy and especially of that of Christ. We read in Heb. 2: 18, "For in that He himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted," and in Heb. 4: 15, "For we have not a high-priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all points tempted like as (we are, yet) without sin."

The teaching of these passages clearly is that Jesus has special sympathy with us because He, the Son of God, joined Himself to our nature, and suffered and was tempted as man suffers and is tempted, and He can, therefore, from His own experience, sympathize with us. This seems to have been one of the underlying thoughts of the incarnation. "For it became Him, for whom are all things and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory; to make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering" (Heb. 2: 10).

If any poor Christian is despised and rejected of men, let him tell it to Jesus for "He was despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" (Isa. 53: 3). Is any one confronting the hostile opposition of the wicked? Let him "consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds" (Heb. 12: 3).

Has any one turned his back on the world and become poor for Christ's sake? He can appreciate it, who said, "The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head."

Christ's sufferings were all the more intense because of His spotless character, and exalted nature and infinite sensibilities. His very greatness and goodness made Him more sensitive to hatred and ingratitude and contempt of men. The very perfection of His being made His sufferings more keen.

Now "in the incarnation the divine Son so took the nature of man into personal union with himself as to enter into the consciousness of trials like our own. The self-incarnating Son was Himself complete in personality, but the human nature which He assumed, while complete as a nature, was without personality" (Miley). So this infinite being can have infinite appreciation of the sufferings of the human nature with which He is united. Thus He is fitted to sympathize with us, having suffered in like manner Himself.

It follows that God is not a cold abstraction, the Absolute of Speculative agnosticism, impersonal, without knowledge or sensitivity. Even speculative theologians have too often removed God so far away from mankind as to deny to us His real compassion. They have invested God with an ABSOLUTENESS OF BLESSEDNESS WHICH could not be affected by either the joys or the woes of men. Henry Ward Beecher declared, "It made God no more than a heathen Jove." There is no such God revealed in Scripture. He is our Father in heaven. He is infinite love; and love is full of sympathy and compassion, and suffers in the sufferings of others, and rejoices in their good.

God was not unfeeling, and without sympathetic suffering and pity, when He "so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son." The gift cost Him something more than mortals can ever know. It was sympathetic, suffering, self-sacrificing love. Jesus was not without sympathetic suffering when He bore the crushing burden of the world's sin, sweating blood in the agony of His soul, and dying with a broken heart. This truth is expressed in the Old Testament most fully "So He was their Savior. In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them; in His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bare them and carried them all the days of old" (Isa. 63: 8, 9). Theologians often speculate till they lose both their sense and their Bible.

In the theanthropic consciousness of Christ we have the ground for an infinite sympathy. It is free from all the limitations of a merely human sympathy. Time cannot diminish it, or cause it to fade out. Human sympathy must often consume itself in kindly yearnings, and conscious inability to help.

But the sympathy of the divine Christ could both weep with Martha and Mary, and raise their dead.

Thus Christ needed to be a theanthropic person, in order in be a perfect Savior, "touched with the feeling of our infirmities" and "able to succor them that are tempted." He unites a human with a divine nature, and through the human enters into the consciousness of trial and suffering like our own.

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CHAPTER III -- ERRORS IN CHRISTOI.OGY

Of course in a carnal world, every great truth is counterfeited this one with the rest. Many errors during the ages have appeared in the discussions of this doctrine.

1. The Docetae, from the Greek word dokeo-to seem, to appear. This was an heretical sect-a form of gnosticism which arose in the first Century. They denied the incarnation of God in Christ. The body of Christ was a mere deceptive appearance. Christ only appeared to be a human being. He only appeared to die on the cross. His blood was only phantom blood. Other features of their teaching led directly to vile living, and threatened the very life of Christianity. Peter and Jude and John wrote against them. This explains the remarkable beginning of the first chapter of the First Epistle of John: "That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes that which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life." In other words, "We have seen Jesus and heard him and handled him with our hands, and know he was no phantom man, but a real human being."

2. The Ebionites. Authorities differ as to whether they appeared at the close of the first or the beginning of the second century. They denied the deity of Christ. They affirmed: (1) That the Christ of the New Testament was contrary to the representations of the Messiah of the Old.

(2) That the Christ of the Church was contradict6ry to the Old Testament conception of God. The divinity of Christ was incompatible with the Monotheism of the Jewish Scriptures.

(3) That the annulling of the Old Testament law was in conflict with its divine origin. This Jewish sect held that Jesus was born a man, the Son of Joseph and Mary by ordinary generation; that at His baptism he received the Spirit of God, and became conscious of His call as the Messiah. They were humanitarians like the Socinians of a later age. They repudiated the teaching of St. Paul. The Deity of Christ and the divine incarnation were both denied.

3. ARIANISM. This heresy originated with Arius born A. D. 250, died 336. He denied that the Son was co-essential and co-eternal with God; but He was the greatest created Spirit.

Dr. Shedd says in "History of Christian Doctrine": "Four factors are necessary in order to the complete conception of Christ's Person: 1. True and proper deity; 2. True and proper humanity; 3.

The union of deity and humanity in one Person; 4. The distinction of deity from humanity in the One Person, so that there be no mixture of natures. If either of these is wanting, the dogmatic statement is an erroneous one. The heresies which originated in the Ancient Church, took their rise, in the failure to combine all these elements in the doctrinal statement. Some one or more of these integral parts of the subject were adopted, while the others were rejected.

The Arians would not concede the existence of a truly and properly divine nature in the Person of Jesus Christ. Even the Semi-Arians, who allowed that the Son of God, or the Logos, was of a nature similar to that of God, yet not identical with it, could not attribute absolute divinity to the Redeemer of the world. That exalted and pre-existent being who became incarnate in Christ, even upon the Semi-Arian theory could not be called God-man with technical accuracy. But the Arian Christ was confessedly lacking in a divine nature in every sense of the term. Though the Son of God was united with human nature in the birth of Jesus, yet that Son of God was a creation. He indeed existed long before that birth, but not from eternity. The only element, consequently, in the Arian construction of Christ's Person, that was preserved intact and pure, was the humanity.

In the same class fall the earlier Nominal Trinitarians who held that the Son is not a subsistence in the essence, but only an effluence or energy issuing from it. They could not logically assert the union of the divine nature, with the humanity of Jesus" (Christian Doctrine, Vol. I, pp. 392, 393).

4. Apollinarianism. This Christology was so named from Apollinaris, Bishop of Laodicea, in 362

A. D. He was an opponent of Arianism, but went to the other extreme and denied the human mind in Christ, the place of which was supplied by the Logos. On the supposition that man was composed of body, soul and spirit, or rational and moral nature, it was assumed by Apollinaris that the Son of God united himself to the physical and psychic natures of man and omitted the pneuma, the moral and spiritual nature. This meant an imperfect human nature in Christ. The disproof of the theory is its inconsistency with the human facts in the life of Christ, and with the fact of the incarnation in the undivided nature of man. The mind or Spirit is so much of man that without it, there is no true human nature. In opposition to this heresy, the orthodox doctrine affirmed a reasonable human soul, an expression still retained.

5. Nestorianism. This heresy takes its name from Nestorius, a Presbyter of Antioch and later Patriarch of Constantinople (428-431). He was the most eminent exponent of the doctrine which really originated with his teacher Theodorus of Mopsuestia. The doctrine held to two natures in Christ--so distinct, apparently as to involve a double personality, united only in a moral union.

While it has been the special aim of the Apollinarian doctrine to make sure of the oneness of the person of Christ, it was equally the aim of the Nestorian doctrine to make sure of the integrity of His two natures, particularly of His human nature.

It is true the leaders of the movement claimed to hold the personal oneness of Christ, and denied the dualism with which Cyril of Alexandria charged them. But, in spite of their disavowals, their language went so far that it ultimately divided the Church. The Nestorian Church of Persia formally separated from the Church of the Roman empire, and put forth as their doctrinal basis the assertion that Christ consists of two substances, two natures, and of two persons or hypostases, the natures continuing to subsist unchanged and the persons also. Of course such a doctrine left no place for the reality of the divine incarnation, and must be false to the Christology of the Scriptures.

6. Eutychianism. This error is coupled with the name of Eutyches "a monk with a notable lack of culture, an intense love of debate and an extreme doggedness, and great zeal." He was condemned by the Council of Constantinople in 448 A. D. and the decision was reversed by the Council of Ephesus in 449 and again his doctrines were condemned by the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A. D.

The Eutychians were often called Monophysites.

This is the opposite error to Nestorianism. It asserts the unity of self-consciousness in the Person of Christ, but loses the duality of the natures. Eutyches taught that in the incarnation, the human nature was transmuted into the divine; so that the resultant was ONE PERSON AND ONE

NATURE.

For this reason, the Eutychians held that it was accurate and proper to say that "God suffered"-meaning thereby that He suffered in God's nature. When the Catholics employed this phrase, it was with the meaning that God suffered in man's nature.

This view contradicted the Chalcedonian symbol, which declared that in Christ there were two complete, unmixed, and unchanged natures, the human and the divine. They did not plainly teach

"whether the divine was humanized, or the human deified, or the two so mixed and compounded as to constitute a nature neither human nor divine, though the stronger tendency was toward the view of the deification of the human nature" (Miley). In this view Christ was wholly divine. The doctrine is openly contradicted by the daily facts of His life. The Incarnation would lose its deep meaning. The grounds of the atonement and the sympathy of Christ through the common suffering with us would be swept away.

The Chalcedon symbol is an attempt by Council to straighten out these conflicting partial views. "It teaches:

1. That the uniting of the two natures in one personality does not so confuse or mix them that their distinctive properties are destroyed.

2. It prohibits the division of Christ into two selves or persons." He is one divine-human personality.

7. Socinianism. Laelius Socinus, born in Siena, Italy, in 1525 died in Zurich, 1562, and his nephew Faustus Socinus (b. 1539, d. 1604) are the authors and first propagators of this system of thought which is the origin of modern Unitarianism. It begins with holding that the Scriptures contain, rather than are a divine revelation. It adopts strong rationalistic principles of biblical exegesis and interpretation, finding therein liberty to "wrest Scriptures from the proof of the orthodox faith and maintain its own opposing views." "With all their rationalism the earlier Socinianism admitted the supernatural in Christianity, and held to the miraculous conception of Christ. But it denied the doctrine of the Trinity and the Deity of Christ.

The early Unitarians in 1566 all concurred in maintaining the supremacy of the Father; but with respect to Jesus Christ. (1) Some thought Him to be a God of inferior nature; (2) Others held with Arius, that He was the first Created Spirit who became incarnate with a view to effecting the salvation of mankind; (3) A third party believed Him to be merely a human being. This is the prevalent view now. The Christ of modern Socinianism is a man, nothing more.

Of course, such a system is untrue to the Christology of the Scriptures. It denies the Deity of Christ; the reality of the Incarnation; the union of two natures, in the personal oneness of Christ; and the need of an atonement.

8. The Lutheran- Christology. The error lies in the ascription of divine attributes, particularly of omnipresence to the human nature of Christ. Only by the omnipresence of His human nature could the Lutheran Christology answer to the doctrine of consubstantiation -- the doctrine of the presence and communion of the body and blood of Christ in the sacrament of the supper. If the communicants really partake of the body and blood of Christ, then in some real sense, he must be present in His human nature. Con-substantiation means that the body and blood of Christ are truly present with the bread and wine, and are communicated to those who partake of the supper. "The statement of such a doctrine seems entirely sufficient for its refutation. The human nature assumed by the Logos in the incarnation remained human, with the attributes of the human. In itself it possessed the capacity for only such knowledge, power, and presence as are possible to the human. How then could it become omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent? They answer, through the divine nature with which it was united. But if this union answers for such results, either it must give to the finite attributes of the human nature the plenitude of the infinite, or invest that nature with the attributes of the infinite. Omnipresence such as the Lutheran Christology affirms of the human nature of Christ is possible only with an infinite extension of being. It is at this point that the doctrine encounters insuperable difficulties, even absolute impossibilities. There is no possibility that the human nature of Christ should possess the attributes of omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence which the Lutheran Christology ascribes to it (Miley, Vol. II, pp. 58, 59).

9. The Kenotic Christology. The seed-thought of this doctrine is ascribed to Zinzendorf.

"Kenoticism is the doctrine that in the incarnation the Logos emptied Himself of His divine attributes, or compressed them into the measure and cast of the human; that He parted with His omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence, and subjected Himself to the limitations of a merely human life." The doctrine is based on a forced interpretation of Phil. 2:6, 7, "Who, being in the form of God, counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God, but emptied Himself, etc." But of what? Surely not of His divine nature, nor of His divine perfections which are essential to and inseparable from Himself. He could and did lay aside His glory, which was His rightful estate as one with the Father. It means a self-emptying or self-divestment of that eternally radiant glory, which made Christ the central attraction of heaven. This idea accords with Jesus' prayer. "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." That glory He once possessed, but had laid aside. This was the act of Kenosis of which St. Paul speaks. He took upon Himself the form of a servant to accomplish the ends of the incarnation. But this differs entirely from emptying Himself of His divine attributes.

"If the Son of God could part with His attributes or humanize Himself, then Deity itself must be mutable. Christ's Deity is conceded in the very idea of His self-divestment of His divine attributes.

The theory is subversive of the divine Trinity. The humanized Son, self-emptied of His divine attributes, could no longer be a divine subsistence in the trinity. Furthermore, no ground for an atonement by the blood of Christ could remain. If self-reduced to the measure of a man, His death could be no more saving than the death of a man" (Miley, Vol. II, p. 62). Thus it is that good men have speculated concerning the nature of Christ, without perceiving the logical consequences of their views until often unconsciously, they have given up the very foundations of their Christian faith. All such views are out of harmony with the word of God.

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PART V -- SOTERIOLOGY

The term Soteriology is from two Greek words-Soteria and Logos, and means the doctrine of salvation.

The doctrine involves two great facts--an atonement for sin, and a salvation from sin. All this comes through the Savior, Jesus Christ, whose nature, personality and incarnation we have discussed in previous chapters.

The unfolding of this subject involves the extended discussion of conflicting systems of theology.

For we must not only consider the fact of an atonement, but also the nature of it, and why it was needed, and what were its effects and for whom it availed. In any logical system of theology doctrine must accord with doctrine. Its doctrine of atonement must be vitally related with all cognate doctrines, and all must be harmonious. And, moreover, all true Christian doctrines and systems of doctrine must be Scriptural. As other leading doctrines of a system of theology are true or false, so must the doctrine of the atonement be true or false.

Now we are confronted with three great systems of theology all purporting to be biblical. If the leading doctrines of the Socinian or Unitarian theology be true and Scriptural, then so is also its moral influence theory of atonement. If its doctrine of man and Christ be true, then it needs and will admit of no other theory of Atonement.

Again if the cardinal doctrines of Calvinism be true, its satisfaction theory of Atonement is true. It is an integral part of the system, and dovetails perfectly into the other doctrines. They all stand or fall together.

And, again, if the cardinal doctrines of the Arminian system, wherein it differs from Calvinism, be true, then its doctrine of Universal Atonement, sufficient for all, but provisory in its efficacy, and conditional in its benefits, must be true also. The two systems of thought are mutually exclusive.

Only one can be either Scriptural or true in their distinctive doctrines or their theory of Atonement.

Therefore we cannot, if we would, avoid examining critically these conflicting systems of theology.

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CHAPTER I -- FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF MORAL 1AW AND GOVERNMENT--

ATONEMENT A FACT

1. Moral law is not founded in the mere arbitrary will of God or any other being. These essential distinctions of duty and obligation, right and wrong, are primary truths of the Divine Mind, and of all other minds whom He had made in His image. They are entirely independent of God's will.

These moral laws have their foundation in the nature and relation of moral beings.

2. As the, will of no being can create moral law, so the will of no being can annul it. It is as eternal and as necessary as the nature of God Himself. It will necessarily last as long as moral beings last.

It is simply that rule of action -which is most conducive to the well-being of the moral universe. It could not be other than it is.

3. God, by His essential and infinite pre-eminence, is the rightful and necessary ruler of the moral universe. In the necessity of the case He must rule, and no other can take His place.

4. In administering His government, the infinite executive, is essentially committed to administer the laws in support of public order, and for the promotion of public morals, to reward the innocent with His favor and protection, and to punish the disobedient.

5. All the subjects of the divine government are interested in its administration. Wherever the law is violated, every subject is injured and his rights are invaded; and each and all rightly expect the government to execute the penalties of law as the public good demands.

6. "There is an important distinction between retributive and public justice. Retributive justice consists in treating every subject of government according to his character. It respects the intrinsic merit or demerit of each individual, and deals with him accordingly. PUBLIC JUSTICE, in its exercise, consists in the promotion and protection of the public interests, by such an administration of law, as is demanded by the highest good of the public. It implies the execution of the penalties of the law where the precept is violated; unless something else is done that will as effectually secure the public interests. When this is done, public justice demands, that the execution of the penalty shall be dispensed with, by extending pardon to the criminal. Retributive justice makes no exceptions, but punishes without mercy in every instance of crime. Public justice makes exceptions, as often as this is permitted, or required by the public good. Public justice is identical with the spirit of the moral law, and in its exercise, regards only the good of being. Retributive justice cleaves to the letter, and makes no exception to the rule, "the soul that sinneth it shall die."

7. It is a fact well established by the experience of all ages and nations, that the exercise of mercy, in setting aside the execution of penalties, is a matter of extreme delicacy and danger. The influence of law is found to depend very much upon the certainty felt by the subjects that it will be duly executed. It is found, in experience, to be true, that the exercise of mercy in every government, where no atonement is made, weakens government, by begetting and fostering a hope of impunity in the minds of those who are tempted to violate law" (Finney's Theology, pp. 259, 260). From January, 1907 till April, 1910, Governor Pattison of Tennessee pardoned 856 criminals, 152 of them being murderers. So crimes flourish, the government is dishonored, law is broken down, and the governor is covered with lasting disgrace before the civilized world. It would be the same with God if he should govern the universe in the same way. "Ma Ferguson," Governor of Texas, pardoned three thousand criminals and so cursed Texas, and disgraced herself for all time.

8. "Hence, "If God would dispense with, the execution of penalties, public justice requires that He shall see that a substitute for the execution of law is provided, or that something is done that shall as effectually secure the influence of law, as the execution of the penalty would do. He cannot make exceptions to the spirit of the law. Either the soul that sinneth must die, according to the letter of the law, or a substitute must be provided in accordance with the spirit of the law."

9. "So, if mercy is to be exercised, it should be on a condition that is not to be repeated.

The thing required by public justice is, that nothing shall be done to undermine or disturb the influences of law. Hence it cannot consent to have the execution of penalties dispensed with, upon any condition that shall encourage the hope of impunity in crime. Therefore, public justice cannot consent to the pardon of sin but upon condition of an atonement, and also upon the assumption that atonement is not to be repeated, nor to extend its benefits beyond the limits of the race for whom it was made, and that only for a limited time. If an atonement were to extend its benefits to all the worlds, and to all eternity, it would nullify its own influence, and encourage the universal hope of impunity, in case the precepts of the law were violated. This would be infinitely worse than no atonement; and public justice might as well consent to have mercy exercised, without any regard to securing the authority and influence of law" (Finney's Theology, pp. 260, 261).

The foregoing principles which we have laid down seem to be of unquestionable validity. They lay a basis for the unfolding of the great doctrine of the atonement. They make it plain what a problem God had on his hands, if He would gratify His love by an expression of mercy to a race of sinners.

The profoundest interests of the whole moral universe were involved.

(1) There was the honor of God himself as the infinite moral ruler. He must act with infinite wisdom. There must be no stain upon His honor, no spot upon the sun of His glory, no just reflection upon His moral integrity.

(2) His authority as a moral ruler must be preserved. The whole moral realm would go to wreck if once the authority of God was broken down by unconquered and unpunished rebels against His government.

(3) The most sacred rights and the highest welfare of all holy moral beings were involved. Where are they to find protection and security if their Ruler is defied with impunity, His majesty is insulted, and His holy laws trampled in the dust?

(4) Sin would gather increased strength and virulence, let it once be known that it would be surely pardoned by a weakly indulgent God, who held His scepter with a nerveless hand.

(5) Righteousness would be humiliated and disgraced, and the good and virtuous would be covered with derision, if it were certainly known that God looked upon the good and evil alike with aimless, weak-minded, indulgent good-nature, and would require no atonement to express his abhorrence of sin, and his respect for his law and government.

II. ATONEMENT. To atone means to make reparation, compensation, amends or satisfaction for an offense or a crime.

An atonement means expiation, satisfaction or reparation made by giving an equivalent for an injury, or by doing or suffering that which is received in satisfaction for an offense or injury. In theology it means the expiation of sin made by the vicarious sufferings of Christ.

In the Old Testament, the verb is Kaphar-to cover, to make a covering (Num. 5:8; Ex. 29: 36, 37).

There are fifty other passages in which this verb is found. The noun from this verb was the name of the lid or cover of the Ark of the Covenant, and constituted what was called the mercy-seat.

Beneath this were the Tables of the Law. On this cover or mercy-seat, the blood of atonement was sprinkled, as if thus to cover the honor of the broken law of God, and the honor of God himself.

In the New Testament, the Greek word is Katallage (Rom. S: 11 and 2 Cor. 5: 18, 19). It is translated in the new version, "reconciliation." It means "restoration to favor." The verb is Katallasso, meaning "to change, or exchange," then to reconcile. It conveys the idea of substitution, something being exchanged or substituted for something else that brings reconciliation.

Now this atonement was something arranged for and appointed by God, and by its various uses we arrive at the following definition.

"THE ATONEMENT IS THE GOVERNMENTAL SUBSTITUTION OF THE VICARIOUS

SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST FOR THE PUNISHMENT OF SINNERS."

It is a covering of human sins from avenging wrath, and of God's character and law and government from dishonor by the suffering of Jesus Christ-"the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world" (Finney).

Miley's briefest definition is the following: "The atonement consists in the sufferings of Christ as a provisory substitute for penalty in the interest of moral government."

In another passage he states it a little more fully thus: "The vicarious sufferings of Christ are an atonement for sin as a conditional substitute for penalty, fulfilling, on the forgiveness of sin, the obligation of justice and the office of penalty in moral government."

(1) Notice the sufferings of Christ are vicarious. A vicar is one who acts for another. Vicarious, means performed or suffered in the place of another. And so here it means that Jesus voluntarily suffered for sinners under condemnation for sin that they might be saved.

(2) Notice, further, they are a substitute FOR PENALTY; not in penalty-Christ's punishment substituted for ours. The holy Christ could not be punished, and His voluntarily assumed suffering, were in no sense a penalty. As both definitions declare, "the vicarious sufferings of Christ were a substitute FOR penalty."

(3) Once more notice, Christ's sufferings were a conditional substitute. Christ died for our sins: but whether His death really becomes a substitute for our punishment is conditioned upon our repentance and faith. We may madly cling to our sins and then the penalty will take its course just as if Jesus had not died.

(4) And so the atonement was a provisory measure of government, making it possible for God to offer to forgive sinners with honor to Himself and His law, on proper conditions. But the atonement, in itself alone, does not save anybody. It simply makes it possible for God to offer to save everybody. Therefore it was only a provisory expedient.

III. THE FACT OF AN ATONEMENT.

This is purely a matter of revelation. And so we safely appeal to the infallible Word. The whole Jewish Scriptures in their laws and prophecies, and ceremonies were full of this idea of Atonement. The New Testament -holds up Christ as the fulfillment of all law, the realization of all prophecy, the explanation of all sacrifices.

Isaiah declared, "Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief; when thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in His hands. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by the knowledge of Himself shall my righteous servant justify many; and He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong: because He poured out His soul unto death, and was numbered with transgressors; yet He bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors" (Isaiah 53: 10-12).

"Even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many" (Matt. 20: 28). "This is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins" (Matt. 26: 28). "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that, whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3: 14, 15). "This is the bread that cometh down out of heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down out of heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: yea, and the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world" (John 6: SO, 51). "While we were yet sinners Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8). "Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in His blood to show His righteousness because of the passing over of the sins done afore time in the forbearance of God . . . that He might himself be just and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus" (Rom. 3: 24-26). "For our Passover also hath been sacrificed even Christ" (1 Cor. 5: 7). "Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Cor. 5: 21). "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us; for it is written cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree" (Gal. 3: 13).

"How much more shall the blood of Christ who through the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot unto God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? . . . Apart from the shedding of blood there is no remission. It was necessary therefore that the copy of the things in the heavens should be cleansed with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these" (Heb. 9: 14, 23). "Knowing that ye were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold . . . but with precious blood, as of a lamb without spot, even the blood of Christ" (1 Pet. 1: 18, 19). "Because Christ suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous that He might bring us to God" (1 Pet. 3: 18). "Who His own self bare our sins in His body upon the tree, that we having died unto sins might live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed" (1 Pet. 2: 24). "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin" (1

John 1:7). "And He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world" (1 John 2:2). "God sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4: 10). "Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many" (Heb. 9: 28).

Thus in every possible form of statement the death of Christ is set forth in Scriptures as the vicarious sacrifice, as an atonement for our sins. It is remarkable in how many ways the doctrine is taught. It is emphatically the great central theme of the Bible.

1. And it is well to notice how it is stated. There is salvation only through Christ. He is not only a way to be saved; but he is the way, and THE ONLY "WAY by which any one can be saved."And in none other is there salvation; for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, wherein we must be saved" (Acts 4: 12).

2. It is salvation through a suffering Christ. "Christ also hath once suffered for our sins" (1 Pet. 3: 18). "Unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood" (Rev. 1:5). There are those who sneer at what they call "the gory theory of the atonement," and "slaughter-house theology"; but this is the Bible kind and the only -way to heaven which God has ever revealed. We are not writing a theology to please the infidel critics. We care nothing for their opinions or their sneers. We are writing a theology to please the LORD OF GLORY who died that we might not die.

His redeeming death was declared to be necessary. "Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations" (Luke 24:46, 47). It was a salvation for the people of all nations, bought by the precious blood of Christ.

3. It is the only real explanation of the sufferings of Christ. Why should the holy one suffer till He sweat blood? And pray in almost death agony, "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me"? But it could not pass, if sinners were saved. There must be an atonement in awful suffering made by the Holy One or the world is lost.

4. The saving faith that brings salvation witnesses to the atonement. We are saved by faith in Christ. And it is not faith in His goodness, nor in His obedience, nor in His example, nor in His wisdom, nor in His unique personality--though all these were appropriate and essential to Jesus.

IT IS FAITH IN THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST THAT SAVES. "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, THROUGH FAITH IN HIS BLOOD" (Rom. 3: 25). "Here the forgiveness of sin in through the propitiatory blood of Christ as its GROUND, and on faith therein as its CONDITION. Faith could not be so required were not the blood of Christ a true and necessary atonement for sin" (Miley, Vol. II, p. 73). Right here we learn what saving faith really is.

JUSTIFYING FAITH APPREHENDS THE BLOOD OF CHRIST AS A PROPITIATION FOR

SIN, TRUSTS DIRECTLY THEREIN, AND RECEIVES FORGIVENESS AS THE IMMEDIATE

GIFT OF GRACE.

5. We see the peculiar feature of Christ's religion. He differed from all other founders of religion in His unique personality as God-man. He put His soul and life into His religion so completely, that WHAT HE is, His RELIGION is. So Christianity differs from all other religions just as He differs from all other founders of religion.

The Christian religion is unique because it saves from sin and sinning and brings peace WITH God and likeness TO God. The sinner is saved by Christ because through faith in the Atoning Savior, sin is taken away, peace with God is secured, and the regenerating and sanctifying power of Christ comes into the life."

"Most of all is Christ a unique Savior, in that He saves us by the sacrifice of Himself. The salvation is not in His divinity, nor, in His humanity, nor in His unique personality as the God-man, nor in the lessons of religion which He taught, nor in the perfect life which He lived and gave to the world as an example, nor in the love wherewith He loved us, nor in all the moral force of life, and lesson, and love combined, but IN His CROSS-IN THE BLOOD OF HIS CROSS AS AN

ATONEMENT FOR SIN.

The voice of revelation is one voice, ever distinct, unvarying, and emphatic in the utterance of this truth . . . Christ is a Savior through an atonement in His blood" (Miley, Vol. II, p. 78). "No other one ever put His own life and blood into the efficiency of His religion. No other is or can be such a Savior as Christ."

IV. Other Confirming Terms. The fact of the atonement is witnessed to by other terms of kindred signification. For instance,

1. Reconciliation. "For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son" (Rom.5: 10). This refers to persons under God's displeasure and judicial condemnation. The reconciliation is brought about "by the death of his Son." The assurance of salvation lies in the fact of such reconciliation.

There was a difficulty in the way of peace between the holy Governor of the universe and a rebel race. It was primarily on the divine side. The difficulty arose from God's character and law and government. So "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not reckoning unto them their trespasses" (2 Cor. 5: 19) If God does not reckon our sins against us and duly punish them, then He must in some other way express His abhorrence of our sins, and by some other method protect His law and government. This He did by the gift of His son. There was then a rectoral ground for forgiveness. Wherefore the reconciliation received through Christ, is God's placing all mankind, ever since the fall, under grace, procured for them through the atonement of Christ in which the pardon of sin is offered, to them with eternal life, on condition of repentance and faith.

2. Propitiation. "To be propitious is to be disposed to forgiveness and favor. To propitiate is to render an aggrieved or offended party clement and forgiving. A PROPITIATION is that whereby the favorable change is wrought." This idea is conveyed in the Old Testament. "But he being merciful forgave their iniquity and destroyed them not; yea many a time turned he his anger away, and did not stir up all his wrath" (Ps. 78: 38).

"And Jehovah passed by before him and proclaimed Jehovah, Jehovah, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness and truth; keeping loving kindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty"

(Ex. 34: 6, 7). Here are the sinners conscious of their ill-desert in view of their sins, and here is the holy God propitious in a disposition to forgive.

The New Testament gives the reason. "Whom God set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood" (Rom. 3: 25). In other words the atoning death of Christ is the ground of this divine clemency. "He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world"

(1 John 2:2). "He sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4: 10). As a ruler, God could not be lenient toward sinners, until an atonement made it possible.

3. Redemption. To redeem is to purchase back, to ransom, to liberate from slavery, captivity, or death by the payment of a price. Lutron is the price paid, a ransom. Lutroo-to release, deliver, liberate, redeem. Lutrosis-the redemption, liberation, deliverance. Christ buys us not from Satan, as used to be supposed, for he never had any rightful ownership of us, but from the claim of the broken law, from the demands of offended justice, from the penalty of disobedience-from sin and death. We are sinners under divine condemnation. The redemption through Christ, and in His blood, is in order to our justification, or the forgiveness of our sins. It is the satisfaction to public law and public justice upon which God consents to remit the sentence. The redemption is from the penalty of sin-from the curse of the law.

The Scripture is very plain and striking. "The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Matt. 20: 28). "Who gave himself a ransom for all" (1 Tim. 2:6). "For ye were bought with a price" (1 Cor. 6: 2O). "Ye were redeemed . . . with precious blood" (1 Pet. 1: 18, 19). "Who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity" (Titus 2: 14). "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us" (Gal. 3: 13). "That He might redeem them that were under the law" (Gal. 4: 5). "In whom we have redemption through His blood-the forgiveness of sins" (Rom. 3: 24).

In these passages there is the element of substitution. The vicarious sufferings of Christ are substituted for the penalty of sin as having an equal or superior rectoral value. This is the reality of the atonement, by substitution in suffering.

The moving cause of redemption is the love of God. (John 3: 16).

The procuring cause is the substitutional death of Christ (Matt. 2O: 28; 2 Cor. 5: 21).

The end of redemption is to keep sinners out of hell, and restore in them the image of God.

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CHAPTER II -- NECESSITY FOR ATONEMENT

People often ask why it was necessary for Christ to be offered up for our salvation. Socinian theologians have made the objection that it was cruel in God to require such a sacrifice from His Son to appease His wrath against sinners. The objection is irrelevant and involves a total misconception of the Atonement. The great scheme of salvation was not an outgrowth of wrath and revenge, forced upon Jesus by his angry Father. The Father and the Son were blessedly united in the whole transaction. "God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son" (John 3: 16.) And we might add, in completes harmony with all Scripture-"The Son of God so loved the world that He consented to be given." He willingly emptied Himself of His supernal glory to become "the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." He exchanged the adoration of angles for the contemptuous cruelty of sinners, the crown of heaven for the crown of thorns, the throne for the cross. "The infinite sacrifice of this concurring love of Father and Son affirms the deepest necessity for an atonement as the ground of forgiveness" (Miley, V. II, p. 89).

Some of the reasons for the Atonement we may conjecture in harmony with reason, and others are plainly revealed in the Word. In the previous chapter we showed in a general way that the Atonement was grounded in the necessities of moral law and moral government. At the hazard of repeating, in a measure, what has already been said we observe: 1. God is an Infinite Moral being, having in his own nature the principles of moral law which cannot be abrogated, altered or set aside. He has created a race of moral beings in his own image with this immutable moral law written in all their hearts.

2. Moral beings involve the necessity of a moral government with moral laws braced by the sanctions of rewards and penalties. Laws with no sanctions of rewards for obedience, and penalties for disobedience, would not be laws at all, but only advice, which the subjects could accept or reject as they liked.

4, Such a moral government, with moral subjects, and moral laws, implies a moral governor. God, the only all-wise and omnipotent and eternal being in the Universe must of necessity be that Governor. He cannot dispense with the sanctions of those immutable laws that are eternal in Himself, and will be forever in His creatures. The repeal of the sanctions would be a virtual repeal of the laws themselves. It would mean to ignore all distinctions between right and wrong, and permit vice and crime to be rampant throughout the entire universe. God cannot, therefore, set aside the execution of the penalty, when the precept has been violated, without something else being done, that shall meet the demands of the true spirit of the unrepealed law.

4. But we are a race of sinners. An awful necessity, therefore, confronted God. Either, a. He must inflict retributive, punitive justice upon all, which would mean to send us all to an eternal doom. "For," as Finney observed, "when law is once violated the sinner can make no satisfaction. He can never cease to be guilty, or to deserve punishment, and no possible amount of suffering renders him the less guilty, or the less deserving of punishment; therefore to satisfy retributive justice is impossible." Or,

b. God can give expression to His pitying love and offer pardon on proper conditions. But public justice that dwells in the heart of God and all his creatures forbids the exercise of such love, unless a substitute can be found for the penalty that will answer the ends of government as well and be as helpful to moral beings.

5. This substitute must come from the Ruler himself. The sacrifice of no man would suffice for all men have sinned and alike need to be atoned for. The voluntary self-sacrifice of no angel would be sufficient for the redemption of countless billions of immortal beings from eternal death is a work too vast and too costly for any finite being to achieve. Besides, if the Supreme Executive elects to set aside the penalty he must himself provide the substitute for it. The suffering could not be imposed upon any one else. If the Head of the Government, for any purpose of his own, dispenses with the execution of penalties, public justice requires that He himself shall provide a substitute that shall as effectually secure the influence of law, as the execution of the penalty would do. God, therefore, could not be just to His own intelligence, just to His character as a holy moral Ruler, just to the interests of all His subjects in his vast moral realm in setting aside the penalty of divine law, except upon the condition of providing, at His own expense, a substitute of such a nature as to reveal as fully, and impress as deeply, the lessons that would be taught by the penalty, as the execution of the penalty would do.

Fortunately for our discussion, this is no far-fetched theory of human invention. God himself has set his seal of approval upon this argument. In Rom. 3: 24-26, He has stated the truth Himself:

"Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom God set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to show His righteousness because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime in the forbearance of God; for the showing (I say) of His righteousness at this present season; that He might himself be just and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus." Three things are affirmed in this remarkable passage which Martin Luther called

"the article of a standing or falling church." (1) That God's own righteousness was at stake in this matter of pardoning sin-His righteousness as a moral ruler. If He pardons at all, it must be done righteously. (2) The sense of public justice that is abroad in the universe cannot be ignored or offended. If the penalty of broken law is set aside, justice sternly demands that God shall furnish a substitute for the penalty that shall answer the ends of government as well. God's justice is at stake in the matter. (3) God had to SHOW that in the matter of forgiving sin He was, and ever would be, just and righteous. So it would not have sufficed for God to have gone off to some unknown world and suffered for a time in secret to make atonement. No, as the Ruler of the Universe, He is a public character, and the eyes of all His subjects are upon Him continually. If He does any thing so surprising and startling as to offer to forgive the sins of a race of countless moral beings, He must

"SHOW" to all concerned that He does it in righteousness and justice by way of Atonement. So Jesus died-God's Only Son, His other self. One with himself-not in secret, but on Calvary, in sight of some millions of people. Earth and heaven and hell were gathered there to witness, while God was "showing" His "righteousness and justice." And it was a "SHOW" that will never be forgotten.

6. The love of God made the atonement necessary. The only measure of love is sacrifice. Dr.

Joseph Parker of London said: "If love were represented by a straight line, sacrifice would be the last point in the line." The loving heart of God went out in pity and compassion toward sinners. But the fallen race of man sustained to the government of God the relation of rebels and outlaws. And before God, as the great Executive Magistrate of the universe, could manifest his benevolence toward them, an atonement must be decided upon, and made known, as the ground upon which His loving favor was conditioned. It was manifest to all how difficult and dangerous was to offer mercy to the guilty while in the very state of rebellion against God, without satisfaction being made to public justice.

Now the benevolence of God would not allow Him on the one hand to pardon sin at the expense of the public good, nor on the other, to execute the penalty of the law and send all sinners to hell, if it could be wisely and consistently avoided. It might have been expected that a God of love would devise and execute some expedient that would both protect the interests of the government and at the same time render the forgiveness of sin possible.

Love wills the good even of the undeserving, and seeks to prevent the suffering and woe of others when it wisely can. "The suffering of Christ in the place of the eternal damnation of sinners would result in preventing an infinite amount of suffering. The relation of Christ to the universe, and His infinite dignity was such that it rendered His sufferings so infinitely valuable and influential, as an expression of God's abhorrence of sin on the one hand, and His great love to His subjects, on the other, that an infinitely less amount of suffering in Him than must have been inflicted on sinners, would be equally, and no doubt vastly more, influential in supporting the government of God, than the execution of the law upon them would have been. Be it borne in mind that Christ was the lawgiver, and His suffering in behalf of sinners is to be regarded as the lawgiver and executive magistrate suffering in the behalf and stead of a rebellious province of His Empire. As a governmental expedient it is easy to see the great value of such a substitute; that on the one hand it fully evinced the determination of the Ruler not to yield the authority of His law, and on the other, to evince His great and disinterested love for His rebellious subjects" (Finney's Theology, p. 272).

7. The atonement was needed to promote the highest influence and glory of God in the universe.

Moral beings might have known God's spotless holiness, and His inflexible justice and His burning hatred of sin without it. But what save the atonement could have fully manifested His love?

The sin of man gave God the fullest opportunity to reveal Himself. After the atonement had been made, divine mercy could be shown in all Her ineffable sweetness and gentleness. The patience and forbearance of God could shine forth in all their graciousness. His tender compassion and infinite pity for His weak and erring and suffering children could be manifested in a way to show to all moral beings the many-sided character of God. It was eminently appropriate that God should improve the opportunity which sin afforded to make Himself known to the whole moral universe in all the manifold richness of His moral nature. But the atonement was necessary to do it.

8. The atonement was needed to greatly augment the happiness of the universe. Through its influence, eternal happiness instead of eternal misery becomes the experience of all that are reclaimed from sin. Moreover the sympathetic angels, who never have sinned, have unspeakable joy over the success of the atonement in redeeming men.

9. The atonement was needed to furnish the strongest motives to repentance and faith. The cross draws far more than fear of doom drives to flee from the wrath to come. Hearts that are impervious to every other influence, and dead to every other appeal, are melted and subdued by the story of atoning love. This is the one truth that prompts a hopeless, helpless, hell-deserving sinner to venture on God for mercy and grace.

10. The atonement was necessary to supplement the influence of punitive justice in preventing sin.

The history of the moral universe proves that fear of punishment was not adequate to deter moral beings from the commission of sin. Sin spread in heaven till it was despoiled of a third of its inhabitants. Sin has spread in the earth despite every signal judgment of God. The execution of penalty, however severe, has been powerless to stop it. Even the annihilation of the wicked would not cause the holy purposes of God to be realized. A full revelation of mercy through atoning love was needed to blend with justice, in the administration of divine government. Finney says: "While the execution of law may have a strong tendency to prevent the beginning of rebellion among loyal subjects, and to restrain rebels themselves; yet penal inflictions do not, in fact, subdue the heart, under any government, whether human or divine" (p. 273).

11. The atonement was necessary to confirm holy beings in their holiness. Nothing is so calculated to bind them to the throne of God in absolute loyalty and devotion, and confirm their confidence and love, as His disinterested manifestation of love in the atonement. And so it becomes a matter of universal interest. As the law of gravitation holds all worlds in its embrace, so moral law, in its deeper principles, is one over man and angels and all intelligences. Thus the atonement in Christ becomes of universal interest, because He has universal lordship, and what He has done in any world is deeply interesting to all worlds.

"The atonement affords the greatest moral manifestation of God the universe will ever know: (1) In His holiness and justice and love; (2) In His invincible hostility to sin; (3) In His immutable purpose to maintain His own honor and authority; (4) In His determination to sacredly guard the rights and interests of His subjects. The atonement takes its place in the universal moral system, and with all the power of practical truth, addresses itself to all minds. . . .

When therefore we assert a necessity for the atonement and set forth its benefits, we must, for any adequate conception, take an infinitely broader view than the present sphere of humanity, or even the eternal destiny of the race. Because the one law of gravitation is universal, the disorder of one world, might, if uncorrected, become a far extended evil; while its correction might be a good, extending far beyond itself, and reaching to all worlds--except to any wandering star lost in the blackness of darkness forever. So the evil of sin in this world might, with the license of impunity, become a far extended evil; while its treatment under the atonement may become a far extended good, reaching to all intelligences-except the incorrigible or finally lost, fitly compared to a wandering and forever lost star. And such treatment of sin, with forgiveness on a true faith in Christ, may be, and no doubt is, an infinitely higher moral good to other intelligences than its unconditional doom under the penalty of justice would be.

Thus all minds receive the great lesson of the atonement with its power of moral truth and pathos of love. And all intelligences, faithful or fallen, must bow the knee at the name of Jesus. In the lesson of His cross, all must learn the profoundest truth of the divine holiness and love; of the evil and hopeless doom of unatoned or unrepented sin; of the obligation and blessedness of obedience and love. All holy intelligences, bound in deeper love and loyalty to the divine throne, by the moral power of the atonement, will forever stand the firmer in their obedience and bliss. And the cross, once the stigma of most heinous crime, and the sign of the deepest abasement of Christ, shall hence-forth symbolize to all intelligences the sublimest moral truth in the universe" (Miley, Vol. II, pp. 215-216).

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CHAPTER III -- SALVATION WITHOUT ATONEMENT

There are those who profess to believe in Salvation; but reject the idea or necessity of atonement.

They hold that sin may be forgiven, and man's fallen nature corrected and heaven ultimately attained without it. Of course such thinkers must have some theory or doctrine or philosophy to set forth the rationality of their view and keep them satisfied in their own minds. The preacher should understand these schemes of thought; for, however absurd they may be, they float about in the public mind, and keep many from Christ and salvation.

I. There is the Universalist theory of salvation through penalty. Calvinism and Universalism differ widely as systems of theology; but they are at one in the cardinal doctrine that all sin must be punished according to its desert. Universalists hold that every soul must inevitably suffer the full consequence of his wrong doing. According to their views sin is comparatively a trifle, not meriting long or severe punishment, and when the punishment has been endured, bliss lies at the end. Logically, such a system offers no salvation at all, and practically has no Savior. It is strange that churches with such a theology should even call themselves "Christian." Such a scheme is false to the clearly revealed facts of forgiveness; false to the Soteriology of Scriptures. If the Bible teaches anything it teaches that Christ is a Savior from the punishment of sin, and the love of sin, and, as we shall see hereafter, from the being of sin, and He is such a Savior through His atonement. But when one has endured the full penalty of transgression, he would thank no one for a pardon; and such a thing as salvation would be utterly impossible. Of course the theory denies endless punishment, and then there could be no subsequent blessedness. The doctrine is without support in Scripture from start to finish. And so we may dismiss it.

II. THE SOVEREIGNTY THEORY. This view draws its ideal from the lowest Oriental despotism. Its abettors tell us that God is an infinite Despot who can do what he pleases with none to hinder. As such a monarch, clothed with absolute power, He can forgive when and whom He will, on what terms He may please, without any concern for the claims of justice or the interests of government. There are fatal objections to such a theory.

1. The Bible reveals no such God, who does what He pleases because He has infinite power. That He arbitrarily forgives sin on His mere sovereignty is the sheerest assumption wholly incapable of proof. We have already seen how the Bible teaches that God is a moral Governor who must have supreme regard for all the laws of the realm, and for all the interests of His Government. The universal history of man, and the signal punishments God has visited upon the race for sin is a standing proof that God does not so administer His laws.

2. God has distinctly declared that He does not, and cannot pardon sin without atonement and that to do so, He must first surrender His justice and righteousness (Rom. 3: 24-26). Penalty itself is a stern requirement of all Government. Its suspension without a substitute would revolutionize God's own plan of Government. It would set God's administration in opposition to His laws. He has solemnly announced the penalties of disobedience; and it is contrary to fact, and utterly improbable that He would set them all aside without a substitute, and launch out into a scheme of universal pardon.

3. No such plan would work in any human government. To cease to punish crime would be to license crime. It would practically say to depraved humanity, "Do as you please," when it would be morally certain that they would please to do evil. Such a course in any civil government that ever existed would open the floodgates of crime and bring an onsweep of ruin. The same would be true, only in a more marked degree, in the divine government. The carnal heart is most of all opposed to God. It resists His claims, tramples upon His commandments, throws off His authority; it often hardens itself against the atoning love of the cross and the wooings of the Spirit of God. To offer arbitrary, universal forgiveness to such beings would be to subvert all government and turn the universe over to become a pandemonium of sin.

III. FORGIVENESS ON REPENTANCE. It is urged by others that repentance is a sufficient ground of forgiveness, and therefore there is no need of an atonement. This is a view common among rationalists who reject the infallible Word and lean to their own understanding. We may say,

1. The importance of repentance can not be overstated. It has a fundamental place in the Gospel method of salvation which will be set forth hereafter. Nobody is saved without it. Hut the Bible never represents repentance as the ground of pardon and salvation. They are always grounded on the atoning work of Christ and the self-sacrificing love of God. Repentance is only a necessary condition of salvation, to be hereafter explained. "Impenitence after sinning is self-justification and the very spirit of rebellion; while penitence is the only self-condemnation, and the only return to obedience. There must therefore be a genuine repentance in order to salvation. There can be neither forgiveness nor any real redemption from sin without it."

2. But the sorrow of the world, the mere natural repentance of the carnal heart-regret for the evils that have overtaken it, and a deploring of the evils and retributions yet in store, coupled with a wish that it might be otherwise, and that the moral harvest might be better than the sins sown-such repentance, the warp and woof of the experience of all sinful hearts, never could be made the ground of forgiveness. For (1), It is inevitable. Sinners can not avoid that kind of sorrow over sin-regret of its doom. And as it is universal, it would make the forgiveness universal, and annul all penalty without a moral change being wrought in one rebel heart. (2) Such repentance is too superficial to lead to any salvation. Sin would not be confessed, and abhorred, and forsaken under any such system of thought. As a matter of fact, it is not abhorred and forsaken by the advocates of this theory. It takes the cross to measure the guilt of sin and fathom the depravity of the heart, and show it up in all its black perfidy of wickedness. Without the atonement a true salvation is not possible. "Forgiveness so easily granted never could bring the turpitude of sin home to the moral consciousness. The intenser the sense of sin, and the profounder the grateful love for the mercy of forgiveness, the more thorough is the moral recovery and salvation." There is therefore, not only a governmental necessity, but a profound moral necessity for the redemptive mediation of Christ in order to the moral recovery and salvation of the soul!

IV. There are some arguments made in defense of the doctrines of salvation without atonement which it would be well to mention.

1. It is argued that we are required to forgive one another without atonement; and if God requires it of us, He ought to do it Himself. That we are required to forgive one another cannot be denied, and our own forgiveness is conditioned on our forgiving others. But there is one point in which the analogy fails. We are private individuals, without any rectoral responsibility. But God is the Official Head of the Universe. Even in the Governments of this world, officials are often compelled to do, what as private citizens they would be only too glad not to do. The judge sentences the murderer to death, and the sheriff officially hangs him, when as private individuals neither of them would end his life. These officials do not consult their pity or their sympathy, but act from a stern sense of duty, and obligation to society. They take cognizance of their duty to the public. When an offense is a crime in the eyes of the law, it has public relations and the Governor has rectoral obligations in the case.

It is precisely so with God. He is the head of all government and law. And as a moral ruler, He must deal with crime only in such a way as will conduce to the best interests of all His subjects.

The history of the divine administration shows just how He has done it, viz., by way of the atonement.

2. These men point to parental forgiveness. They affirm that parents forgive children without an atonement and so may the Heavenly Father. But here again the analogy fails in practically the same way. The head of a university, as is well known, could deal with an erring son or daughter in the privacy of the home as he could not deal with some refractory rebels among two thousand students.

A Governor or king might manage a disobedient son in a family of six as he could not treat determined criminals in a great commonwealth of six or sixty millions. Vast public interests, far-reaching in their consequences, must ever be in his mind, in all his official treatment of wrong-doing. "The economy of the family will not answer for the government of the State, much less for the divine government of the world or the universe. God is a ruler in a universal moral realm, and no propriety of mere parental forgiveness can prove that he may consistently forgive without an atonement" (Miley's Theology, Vol. II, p. 103).

3. They appeal to the Parable of the Prodigal Son. One says, "It is remarkable how perfectly this parable precludes every idea of the necessity of vicarious suffering in order to the pardon of the penitent sinner. Had it been the special purpose to provide an antidote for such a doctrine it is difficult to conceive what could have been devised, better adapted to that end" ("Worcester:

"Atoning Sacrifice," p. 215). An English infidel insists that "by special design it teaches the sufficiency of repentance as the ground of forgiveness."

Dr. Miley makes the keen comment: "It is certainly a queer kind of exegesis which claims a passage of Scripture that is entirely silent upon the atonement, as decisive both its reality and necessity. Besides the freeness of the divine forgiveness which this parable represents is in the fullest consistency with the doctrine of a vicarious atonement" (Miley, Vol. II, p. 104). We may remark further, that the parables of our Lord were usually spoken to rebuke one evil or teach one great truth. Many try to make them teach everything, and especially try to read into them their peculiar fads. As a matter of fact, what called out the parable of the Prodigal Son was this: "All publicans and sinners drew near to hear Jesus, and both the Pharisees and the Scribes murmured saying, 'This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them'." Jesus was doubtless both grieved and indignant, and spake the parables of the fifteenth chapter of Luke to justify His conduct and set forth heaven's interest in the salvation of sinners. He was not teaching a whole system of Theology, not even the doctrine of the atonement.

We may remark again that in scores of passages the Bible elsewhere teaches the doctrine of the atonement, and here nothing is said against it. In this gem of all parables, the Father acts simply as such. Had He been a ruler also, and His son a criminal, then, however; kindly disposed toward His erring child, His obligations as a ruler would have demanded official expression. It is a widespread error, and exceedingly pernicious, that God's sole relation to moral beings is that of a Father. God is a MORAL RULER, as well as a Father, and is compelled to carefully guard the interests of all His subjects, and preserve the integrity of His own character as well. Nothing could be more fatal to the moral universe than to have occasion to doubt God's character, or to suspect His sincerity in announcing His laws and their penalty. As the father in the parable graciously forgave his repenting son, so does God graciously forgive His repenting children. But He does it and is compelled to do it, through the Atonement in Jesus Christ His Son.

Joseph Cook, the famous Boston lecturer, in his "Monday Lectures on the Atonement," tells of a case of discipline in Bronson Alcott's school. He had a very unruly, lawless pupil whom he had often been obliged to punish for disobedience to the regulations of the school. He was grieved to observe that the infliction of punishment in this particular case did no good, and he wanted to save the boy if possible. He resorted to a new expedient. The next time the culprit deserved a punishment, Mr. Alcott told him of his love for him and his wish to save him from punishment. But the discipline of the school must be preserved and he could not allow its government to be broken down. Either the boy must be punished again or Mr. Alcott must receive vicarious chastisement in his place. He asked the offender to chastise him which he proceeded to do. But it soon subdued his heart, and cured him of his evil behavior.

Now that is a good illustration of God's method of dealing with sinners. He yearns over them and longs to save. But He cannot ignore the distinctions between right and wrong, obedience and disobedience, good-desert and ill-desert. Nor can He ignore His own laws and their penalties.

Nor may He forget His own honor as a moral ruler. If He offers to forgive, there must be in His infinite realm, as in Bronson Alcott's little school, some vicarious suffering on His own part, as a substitute for the penalty. This is the divine method of forgiving sin by way of Atonement.

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CHAPTER IV -- MORAL INFLUENCE THEORIES

In beginning the discussion of the conflicting theories of the Atonement we may say, in a general way that two colossal facts confront us in reference to which all certainly should be agreed.

1. We are all sinful and have a tendency to sin.

2. We can be saved only in a deliverance from sin and a moral harmonization with God. Without these facts there is no need of an atonement, and no call for the redemption which Christ professes to bring. How the salvation is brought about-the explanations or theories about it we will now try to set forth.

The theories are many. Dr. Hodge names: 1. The Doctrine of the Early Fathers; 2. The Moral Theory; 3. Governmental Theory; 4. The Mystical Theory; and 5. The Satisfaction Theory.

Professor Crawford names fifteen theories or modifications of theories.

I. THE DOCTRINE OF THE FATHERS.

It was intended only as a solution of the question how Christ delivers us from the power of Satan.

It contemplated neither the removal of guilt, nor the restoration of divine life; but simply our deliverance from the power of Satan. It was founded on those passages of Scripture which represent man as in bondage to the prince of darkness. The object of redemption was supposed to be to deliver mankind from this bondage. This could be done only by some way overcoming Satan, and destroying his power to hold men as slaves. This Christ has done and so has become the Redeemer of men.

The theory, in the course of time, took three different forms.

1. "The first appealed to the old principle of the rights of war, according to which the conquered became the slaves of the conqueror. Satan conquered Adam and thus became the rightful owner of him and his posterity. Hence he is called the God and prince of this world. Christ offered Himself as a ransom to Satan. Satan accepted the offer, and renounced the right to retain mankind as his slaves. Christ, however, broke the bonds of Satan, whose power was founded upon the sinfulness of his subjects" (Hodge, Theology, Vol. II, p. 564).

2. "The second theory regarded Christ as a conqueror. As Satan conquered mankind and made them his slaves; so Christ became a man, and in our nature, conquered Satan; and thus acquired the right to deliver us from our bondage and to consign Satan himself to chains and darkness" (p. 565).

3. "The third form of the theory was that as the right and power of Satan over man is founded on sin, he exceeded his authority when he brought about the death of Christ, who was sinless; and thus justly forfeited his authority over men altogether." This general theory that Christ's great work, as a Redeemer, was to deliver man from bondage to Satan, and that the ransom was paid to him and not to God; or that the difficulty in the way of our salvation was the right which Satan had acquired to us as slaves, which right Christ, in some way cancelled, was very prevalent for a long time in the Church. It is found in Irenaeus, Origen, Theoderet, Basil, Cyril of Jerusalem, Augustine, Jerome, Hilary, Leo the Great and others (see Hagenbach's History of Doctrine, Vol. I, pp. 345-351).

The Scriptural foundation for such a doctrine was very slight. It is true that men are the captives of Satan, and under his dominion. It is true that Christ gave Himself as a ransom; and that by the payment of that ransom we are free from bondage to the prince of darkness. But it does not follow that the ransom was paid to Satan, or that he had any just claim to his authority over the children of men. We may admit all that the Scripture teaches. But that gives no ground for the doctrine that Satan had any claim in justice to hold mankind as his slaves; or that Christ offered Himself as a ransom to the prince of this world. This doctrine was opposed by Gregory of Nyssa, and has long since passed into oblivion" (Hodge's Theology, Vol. II, p. 565).

II. THE MORAL INFLUENCE THEORY.

This is the dominant theory in many quarters at the present time. It is in great favor with all liberal theologians, and advocates of the so-called New Theology. It is now a fashionable fad to talk flippantly about the "sacrificial theory of Atonement," and the "Gory theory," and the

"slaughter-house theology of blood," and to speak patronizingly of the moral influence of Christ.

Fashionable worldliness in schools and churches is getting too nice to believe that they have been

"redeemed by the precious blood," of the Son of God.

The moral influence theory concerning the work of Christ rejects all idea of expiation, or the satisfaction of any kind of justice by vicarious suffering, and attributes all the efficacy of His work to the moral effect produced on the hearts of men by His character, teachings and life. The assumption is that there is nothing in God's nature or in His government which demands that sin should be punished, unless a substitute for the punishment can be found. If that be the case then there would be no need of an expiation or atonement in order to forgiveness. All that is necessary for the restoration of sinners to the favor of God is that they should cease to sin. All that Christ, as the Savior of men, therefore, came to accomplish was a moral reformation in the character of men.

This dangerous error, like many another, is of course a half truth. It is a fact that God's relation to moral beings and His feelings toward them are determined by their character. It is also a fact that He repels sinners, and holds communion with the holy, and that Christ came to restore men to holiness and thus to favor and fellowship with God. But it is also true that to render the restoration of sinners to holiness possible it was necessary that the guilt of their sins should be expiated by an atonement, as a substitute for penalty, in the interest of moral government.

Some of the advocates of this view of the work of Christ do indeed speak freely of the justice of God, but in a peculiar way. They recognize Him as a just Being who everywhere and always punishes sin. But this is done only by the operation of eternal laws. Holiness from its nature produces happiness; and that is its reward. Sin from its nature, produces misery; and that is its punishment.

This is the view presented by Dr. John Young, in his "Life and Light of Men": "There is no such attribute in God (rectilineal justice). But the inevitable punishment of moral evil always and everywhere is certain nevertheless. The justice of the Universe is a tremendous fact, an eternal and necessary fact which even God could not set aside. There is an irresistible, a real force springing out of its essential constitution whereby sin punishes sin. This is the fixed law of the moral universe, a law in perfect harmony with the eternal will, and which never is and never can be broken. God's mercy in our Lord Jesus Christ does not in the least set aside this justice; what it does is to remove and render non-existent the only ground on which the claim of justice stands.

Instead of arbitrarily withdrawing the criminal from punishment, it destroys in his soul that evil which is the only cause and reason of punishment, and which being removed punishment ceases of itself" (pp. 115, 116).

The same doctrine is taught by Dr. Bushnell, who says of Christ: "His work terminates, not in the release of penalties by due compensation but in the transformation of character, and the rescue, in that manner, of guilty men from the retributive causations provoked by their sins" (Vicarious Sac., etc., p. 449).

This doctrine of Moral Influence Salvation takes many forms:

1. In the first form, the work of Christ in the salvation of men is confined to His office as teacher.

Men were ignorant of the nature of God, and of moral law, and of the results of sin. He introduced a new and higher form of religion by which men were redeemed from the depressing darkness, and degrading superstitions of heathenism.

2. The Marturial Theory. This theory, while it retains the idea that the real benefit comes from the teaching of Christ, yet ascribes His title of Savior principally to His death. But he saves us not as a sacrifice but as a martyr to His prophetic mission. By His death His doctrines were sealed with His blood. Thus He attested His sincerity and gave assurance of the truths which He taught-the love of God. His willingness to forgive sin, the reality of future blessedness in the life to come.

3. The Future Life Theory. According to this view, the death of Christ fulfilled its chief office as pre-requisite to His resurrection, that He might thereby more fully disclose the reality of a future life. Such disclosure is for the sake of its helpful religious influence in the present life. Men are inclined to be secular and worldly and to lose all thought of the future in the charms and cares and ambitions of the present. The certainty of a future life is needed to break the spell, and bring men to a normal life in view of the realities of eternity.

4. Self-sacrificing Love Theory. This view holds that Christ saves, not by His doctrine, nor by His martyr's death, nor by His revelation of a future life, but by the influence of His self-sacrificing love. This they say is the key with which Christ unlocks human hearts. If men cannot be reclaimed by a love which manifests itself by gentle words and deeds of kindness and offers of mercy to the undeserving, all made at the complete sacrifice of self, such as the world had never before seen, then their case must be hopeless. As such self-immolating love as Christ exhibited had never before been seen, and never can be seen again, He is the Savior by way of eminence. Others who become inflamed by His spirit and imitate Him are, in their more limited sphere, and up to the measure of their devotion, saviors too, and are helping to lift up humanity and make the world better. But, Christ is above all, and the pre-eminent Savior! He, more than others, by His matchless self-sacrifice, lends to cure the selfishness of men.

5. The Manifestation of God Theory. According to this theory the mission and work of Christ consisted in revealing God to humanity. By His Incarnation Jesus made a revelation of the nature of God, and His disposition toward the race. His disciples said: Lord, show us the Father and it sufficeth us." He answered, "He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father." In Jesus' tender affection and sympathy they had a revelation of the compassionate love of God. In His merciful kindness to sinners they saw God's willingness to forgive. They saw in Jesus what encouraged them to lay aside their servile fear of God, and cherish in its stead a reverent faith. And so there came to the world through Christ the salutary influence of a moral lesson, and a revelation of the nature of God.

All these popularly named moral influence theories of the atonement are based upon one common idea, viz., that the only difficulty in the salvation of sinners is, to secure their repentance, or, as others say, our own moral disabilities; that nothing is required on God's part as a condition of forgiveness-nothing in the interests of the moral universe, except as provided for in the condition of repentance.

The only necessity is in man. "He is ignorant and needs higher religious truth; of feeble motility to duty, and needs its lessons in a more impressive form; of strong secular tendency, and needs the practical force of a revealed future life; selfish, and needs the helpful example of self-sacrificing love; in a servile fear of God and needs the assurance of His fatherly kindness. So Christ comes in all these forms of needed help." If men will repent they can be forgiven. No antecedent provision is required to make this forgiveness safe and wise. The work of Christ consists then in inducing this repentance, in reconciling sinners to God. "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not reckoning unto them their trespasses" (2 Cor. 5: 19). The repentance of the sinner furnishes all the satisfaction to God and to the universe that is demanded. The idea is not admitted that any danger to God's moral government can arise from the forgiveness of the penitent. "This is the view held by Socinians generally and by all who discard the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is also the view of those who regard the penalty of the law as limited to the natural consequences of the transgression, not involving any positive penalty inflicted by God Himself. This is essentially the view of Dr. Bushnell in his 'Vicarious Sacrifice.' He was no Unitarian or Socinian, but a believer in the Supreme Deity of the Savior. He however, discarded the idea of a positive infliction of evil; and limited the penalty of the law to the reaction of sin, upon the sinner's soul, in accordance with the laws of his being. There could, of course, in this view, be no direct pardon or remission of the penalty. The action of the laws of the sinner's nature is not to be set aside. The sinner must put away his sin, and thus escape the evil of present sin; and the manifestation of the love of God in Christ will gradually lift him out of the evil of his past sin. He outgrows it under the grace of God; and this is forgiveness" (Fairchild's Theology, pp. 211, 212).

Such is the view. elaborately presented, by Dr. Bushnell in his work "On Vicarious Sacrifice."

Then as Dr. Hodge observes, "toward the end of the book he virtually takes it all back, and lays down his weapons, conquered by the instincts of his own religious nature, and by the authority of the Word of God" (Hodge, Vol. II, pp. 569, 570). He says: "In the facts (of our Lord's passion) outwardly regarded, there is no sacrifice, or oblation, or atonement, or propitiation, but simply a living and dying thus and thus. The facts are impressive; the person is clad in a wonderful dignity and beauty; the agony is eloquent of love; and the cross a very shocking murder triumphantly met.

And if then the question arises, how we are to use such a history so as to be reconciled by it, we hardly know in what way to begin. How shall we come unto God by help of this martyrdom? How shall we turn it, or turn ourselves under it, so as to be justified and set in peace with God? Plainly there is a want here, and this want is met by giving a thought-form to the facts themselves. They are put directly in the moulds of the altar, and we are called to accept the crucified God-man as our sacrifice, an offering or oblation for us, our propitiation; so as to be sprinkled from our evil conscience, washed, purged, purified, and cleansed from our sin. Instead of leaving the matter of the facts just as they occurred, there is a reverting to familiar forms of thought, made familiar partly for this purpose; and we are told, in brief, to use the facts just as we would the sin offerings of the altar, and make an altar grace of them, only a grace complete and perfect, an offering once for all. ... So much is there in this, that, without these forms of the altar, we should be utterly at a loss in making any use of the Christian facts, that would set us in a condition of practical reconciliation with God. Christ is good, beautiful, and wonderful. His disinterested love is a picture by itself. His forgiving patience melts into my feelings. His passion rends open my heart, but what is He for, and how shall He be made unto me the salvation I want? One word -HE IS MY

SACRIFICE, opens all to me, and beholding Him, with all my sin upon Him, I count my offering. I come unto God by Him and enter into the holiest by his blood" (pp. 534, 535, 537, 545). In spite of his theory, dear Dr. Bushnell's heart craved a Savior who made an expiatory and propitiatory sacrifice for his sins. His heart was sounder than his head, when he wrote from its compulsion-"HE IS MY SACRIFICE."

Comments on Moral Influence Theory.

1. All that gives this theory any worth is the truth in it that tits the correct theory even better than it does this. The positive part of it is true and of vast importance. We gladly admit that the Son of God did exert, and does exert a great influence on us all.

By His doctrines He brought us needed light; by His death He taught us fidelity at any cost; by His resurrection He brought life and immortality to light; by His self-sacrificing love He revealed the divinity of unselfishness; by His whole life He revealed the seeking love of God. We needed it all.

It is also true that one of the great difficulties in the way of our salvation is our own obdurate impenitence and insensibility to divine influences. It is also blessedly true that the work of Christ is the most potential uplifting influence the earth has ever felt, and without it men will not repent.

In this view, the work of Christ is absolutely essential. But all these gain increased force under a more complete and more Scriptural theory of atonement yet to be stated.

2. The theory is incomplete and inadequate. It does not provide for the necessities of the divine government. "God has a moral government in the world; and one of the forces in this government is the penalty announced against the transgression. To offer pardon simply on the ground of penitence, would tend to subvert the government. Human government would break down under such conditions; why not the divine government? The subjects of the two governments are the same beings. It is a moral government; a government of motives, not of power; and penalty is one of these essential motives. These motives must greatly fail, if nothing is required for the remission of sin but simple repentance. It is sometimes said that such an arrangement would be safe in a human government, if there were certain knowledge on the part of the government that repentance were sincere. This is a misapprehension. The danger is that men would commit crime under the impression that they could repent at will. If the Governor of the State had omniscience, we should not think it safe for him to pardon every penitent criminal. The danger arises, not chiefly from the one that is pardoned, but from the influence upon others who are propense to crime. This necessity of penalty to government is overlooked, or underestimated, in the Moral Influence Theory. The doctrine that natural consequences constitute the entire penalty of the law does not seem to be well sustained. God's positive disapprobation of sin must in some way be expressed" (Fairchild's Theology, p. 213).

3. This theory leaves out entirely the main idea in the Scriptural doctrine of atonement. The Bible represents Christ as a priest, as offering up Himself as a sacrifice for the expiation for our sins, as bearing our sins in His own body on the tree, as having been made a curse for us, as giving Himself a ransom for our redemption, as redeeming us by his precious blood. All this is represented as essential before the soul can even be approached with an offer of pardon. Before this atonement is made, souls are judicially dead, under the penalty of the law. While thus under the curse of the law, all the moral influences in the world would be as unavailing as a doctor's prescription to heal the dead.

4. Neither does this theory meet the demands of the human reason and the conscience. If we know anything, we know that we are the subjects of a moral government, and that we have broken its laws, and that we deserve to be punished for it. Yea, the soul of every heathen on the globe anticipates that punishment. This consciousness of our desert of punishment under the government of God is as real and as indestructible as our consciousness of pollution. We know that something must make due amends to the government as an expiation, or we must face the penalty. Dr. Hodge well observes: "No form of religion, therefore, which excludes the idea of expiation, or which fails to provide for the removal of guilt in a way which satisfies the reason and the conscience, can be suited to our necessities. St. Paul declared that the old Jewish sacrifices could "never take away sins," or "as touching the conscience, make the worshiper perfect" (Heb. 9: 9 and 10: 11).

But, in order to any soul rest in this world or any world, the burden of those "sins must be taken away," and "having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience" (Heb. 10: 22).

No such religion of moral influence has ever been successful among men to give rest to burdened hearts. It is because Jesus has been a propitiation for our sins and for the whole world, that a sorrowing, sin-cursed humanity can come to Him and find rest.

5. The idea that there is no forgiveness with God, and no remission of penalty for past sins, and no salvation until the sinner works himself around into God-likeness and holy living is something appalling. It might do for very nice people to entertain themselves temporarily with such a theory; but it is not the Gospel for the slums. The people there and in heathendom, want an immediate and potential salvation that can bring peace to their conscience, and lift the burden, from their hearts before they take another step toward eternity.

Dr. Hodge well says: "We should be now and always in hell, if the doctrine of Dr. Young were true, that justice by an inexorable law always takes effect, and that sin is always punished wherever it exists, as soon as it is manifested, and as long as it continues. God can and does render sinners happy, in spite of their sin, for Christ's sake, remitting to them its penalty, while its power is only partially broken; fostering them and rejoicing over them until their restoration to spiritual health be completed. Anything that turns the sinner's inward regard on himself as a ground of hope, instead of bidding him look to Christ, must plunge him into despair, and despair is the portal of eternal death. . . . The moral theory of the atonement presents no rational, because no Scriptural, ground of a sinner's hope toward God. He must have a better righteousness than his own. He must have some one to appear before God in his stead, to make expiation for sin, and to secure for him, independently of his own subjective state, the full pardon of all his offences, and the gift of the Holy Ghost" (Hodge's Theology, Vol. II, p. 572).

6. This Moral Influence Theory changes the whole plan of salvation. The ground of our acceptance with God is not our own goodness as the result of Christ's influence over us, but it is "the Lamb of God Who taketh away the sin of the world." Christianity is one thing if Christ is a sacrifice for our sins, our High Priest and atoning Savior; but it is a very different thing if He is only a moral reformer, a great teacher, or even a martyr for truth. We must have a divine Savior, great enough to bear our iniquities, and provide a substitute for the penalty of our sins, and make us right with God.

Bushnell's Later View

Dr. Bushnell grew dissatisfied with his two volume exposition of the Atonement, and began to feel that there might be something in God after all that demanded an Atonement. So he wrote, as a supplement, another work. "Forgiveness and Law," he says: "I now propose to substitute for the latter half of my former treatise a different exposition, composing thus a whole of doctrine that comprises both the reconciliation of men to God and God to men" (p.33).

The new theory alleges that God's nature is man's. We have retributive sentiments, disgust and resentment against the turpitude and wrong of sin. This feeling is useful and must not be extirpated.

In order to forgive, it must be mastered and yet must somehow remain. We acquire a forgiving spirit toward the wicked by sacrificing for them.

So God must have a keen sense of the sinner's ill-desert; of the wrong he has done. There can be no proper forgiveness; he maintains, that is, restoration to the favor of God, without an abatement, on God's part, of this hard, stern, condemnatory feeling. So God must propitiate himself in cost and suffering for our good. This He did in the sacrifice of the cross. God lays Himself out for the sinner's salvation; comes into the world in the incarnation, and suffers and dies in the work of the redemption of men. Thus His feelings soften toward them; His tenderness goes out with His sacrifice for sinners, as we feel tender toward those for whom we have toiled, and suffered.

Comments.

1. How utterly unlike John 3: 16 this astounding theory sounds. It puts the cart before the horse.

There the forgiving love of God inspires and originates an atonement; but here an atonement, self-inflicted, overcomes a revengeful indisposition to forgive. The forgiving love was the CAUSE

of the atonement, not the RESULT of it.

2. We do not properly think of God as struggling with His own feelings, as having a difficulty to obtain His own consent to do what he judges is best to do. Such a struggle belongs to human imperfection and limitation, not to the divine perfection. In a perfect and holy being, the feelings are always subordinate and submissive to the moral reason. That God has any such struggle to do right and behave Himself is unthinkable. It is a dream of speculative theology.

3. It is not true, even of all human natures, that they must work themselves into a state of willingness to forgive. "There are gracious loving natures ever ready with a spirit of forgiveness, without any self-atonement in charities to the offender. Self-propitiation in a sacrificing charity to the offender is not 'with all natures the necessary correlate of forgiveness,' and with error in the premise the conclusion is fallacious" (Miley II, p. 117).

4. Remember, too, that Dr. Bushnell's theory has no reference whatever either to retributive justice, or public justice. He does not admit the necessity of atonement on the ground of either. His theory simply is that God has some unfortunate feelings of resentment toward sinners that He must work off, before He can bring Himself to forgive! It contradicts the Scriptures, Old and New. They reveal a God of transcendent love-"A God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness and truth; keeping loving kindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin" (Ex. 34: 6, 7). Divine love, in the absence of all other hindrance, will wait for no placation of personal wrath, to go forth in mercy to the wrong doer in freest, fullest forgiveness. The theory therefore does not touch the real difficulty that calls for the atoning sacrifice of Christ.

The necessity of the atonement concerns the profoundest interests of moral government, and hence arises in the very perfections of God as a moral ruler, not in His personal resentment against sin.

And the sacrifice of Christ exactly meets the necessity, making it now safe and honorable and just for God as the Infinite Moral ruler, to offer to forgive sin.

Dr. Bushnell's theory admits of no such exalted necessity commensurate with the greatness of the atonement. It is a view belittling and degrading to God, making Him in His resentments toward sin more human than divine. It is simply another form of the Moral Influence Theory, ruling out every form of God's justice, whether retributive or rectoral and that is a fatal fault.

III. The Mystical Theory. This agrees with the moral view- to which it is related in this respect, it represents the design of Christ's work to be a subjective effect in the sinner. It produces a change in him. It overcomes the evil of his nature and restores him to a state of holiness.

The two systems differ as to the means by which the inner change is effected. According to the Moral Influence Theory, it is by the exhibition of truth, and the exertion of moral influence upon the mind of man. According to the mystical theory, it is brought about by the mysterious union of God and man, of divinity and humanity. Some have held that Christ was the typical or ideal man with some kind of mysterious relation existing between us and Him by which we receive a redemptive influence working our renovation. Others, after the doctrine of Realism, make Christ the generic man, of which we are personal forms, and so we are affected by Him. Still others hold to a mystical union of Christ with the human soul such that it brings to us redeeming and saving efficiency. It makes little of justification, and objective reconciliation to God but makes everything of His subjective work in the heart. It holds up the results of the atonement without the atonement itself. "While the Reformers/' says Hodge, "held to the great objective truths of the Bible, to a historical Christ, to the reality and necessity of His obedience, and satisfaction as something done for us and in our place, i.e., to an objective redemption and justification, a class of writers soon appeared who insisted on what they called the Christ within us, and merged the objective work of Christ into a subjective operation in the souls of His people. . . . The real value of the blessing received from Christ, was the change effected in the soul itself; and that change was not referred to the work of the Holy Spirit, so much as to the union of the divine nature with our nature, in view of the incarnation" (Vol. II, p. 585).

Of course, there is a moral and spiritual union between believers and Christ effected by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, taught abundantly in the New Testament (John 17: 22, 23). But this was run by philosophic speculation, into a realistic oneness which sometimes became pantheistic, entirely beyond the teaching of the Word. It still remains a blessed truth of Scriptures and of all evangelical theology that in our salvation there is a LIVING VITAL UNION WITTI CHRIST.

In conclusion we may say that whatever form of the Moral Influence Theory is adopted, it is but a partial truth, and breaks down in the vital facts of Scripture, and in the supreme necessities of the soul. It is, in scientific accuracy, no theory of atonement at all. It lacks the very essentials of a true doctrine of atonement. It simply cannot explain multitudes of passages of Scripture. According to it, Jesus saves only as others do, by exerting a good influence. His Deity is not an essential necessity. The Doctrine of the Trinity may be consistently rejected by its adherents, who really reject the reality of the atonement and the necessity of it.

Of course such a theory saps the spiritual vitality of the churches and ministers who adopt it. It cannot be preached with soul-winning power. "The doctrine of a real atonement for sin gives the fullest recognition to the moral influence of Christ, and represents its greatest possible force.

Indeed such an influence is the very life and power of all evangelistic work. And the real moral power of the cross is with the churches to which it is a real atonement for sin. Through all the Christian Centuries such an atonement has been the persuasive power of the Gospel. It is the living impulsion of all the great evangelistic enterprises of today. And, as the history of the past throws its light upon the future, the persuasive power of the Gospel in winning the coming generations to Christ must be in the moral pathos of a real atonement in His blood (Miley, Vol. II, p. 128).

* * * * * * *

CHAPTER V -- THE SATISFACTION OR PENAL THEORY

This theory is based upon a different conception of the difficulties in the way of the sinner's salvation. As the moral theory holds that the difficulty is in the nature of man, the satisfaction theory holds that the difficulty is in the Nature of God. "These difficulties are held to arise from the just indignation or wrath of God, aroused by the sinner's ill-desert, which requires His punishment.

If the sinner is not to be punished, then some other satisfaction, or propitiation, must be provided for God's just indignation. The indignation is not conceived as a selfish passion, or a vindictive spirit; but a righteous condemnation, and an impulse to inflict deserved punishment. Thus the atonement is regarded as a satisfaction to the ethical nature of God.

Another statement of this view by older Calvinists (this is the Calvinistic Theory) puts justice in the place of the wrath of God; justice as the abstract principle of righteousness and justice as an attribute of the divine nature. They do not ordinarily discriminate between these relations of injustice. When sin has been committed, it is just that the sinner should be punished-inherently just in the nature of things, and God's justice, too, requires it; He cannot, by reason of His justice, permit sin to go unpunished. He never does; He often spares the sinner, but He punishes sin. The justice of God requires that the ill-desert of the sinner should, in some way, be met or cancelled, if not by the punishment of the sinner, then by some substitution which will serve the same purpose; that is, cancel the ill-desert and satisfy the justice of God. The Atonement provides for the emergency. Christ comes forward and takes the sinner's place and receives the sinner's punishment in His own person. The guilt of the sinner is imputed to Him; guilt, as some would say, not in the sense of unworthiness, blameworthiness, and criminality; but in the sense of liability to punishment. The Savior takes the sinner's place in law, in the sense of becoming obnoxious to its penalty. God is pledged to punish sin by virtue of His justice; He is merciful as well as just and thus accepts the punishment in His own person, or rather in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ, who voluntarily takes the sinner's place. Christ thus really suffers the penalty. He is punished, and law and justice have no further claim upon the sinner" (Fairchild's Theology, pp. 214, 215).

We will let Dr. Hodge state this theory, for it is His own. He calls it the "Orthodox doctrine," and

"the Catholic doctrine." It has had wide acceptance throughout the bounds of Calvinism but there has been a wide dissent from it for centuries so that it is not Catholic. There has been even a dissent among Calvinists; and the number is rapidly growing. The wonder is that any thoughtful, reflective mind can accept it, but we will let Dr. Hodge state his views: "According to this doctrine the work of Christ is a real satisfaction, of infinite merit, to the vindicatory justice of God; so that He saves His people by doing for them, and in their stead, what they were unable to do for themselves, satisfying the demands of the law in their behalf, and bearing its penalty in their stead; whereby they are reconciled to God, receive the Holy Ghost, and are made partakers of the life of Christ to their present sanctification and eternal salvation" (Vol. II, p. 563).

He uses the words "vindicatory justice"; but his whole discussion shows that he means punitive justice-the justice that demands the execution of penalty for all sin, either upon the sinner or upon somebody else-viz., Christ. The phrase-"satisfying the demands of the law in their behalf" implies as their discussions show both the demand of the law for penalty and the demand of the law for obedience. The law is no more absolute in its demands for punishment, than in the requirement of obedience. And in this system Christ must take the place of the elect under the law in both facts. He must answer for their sin in a vicarious punishment and for their duty of personal righteousness in a vicarious obedience.

Thus this doctrine is a legitimate and necessary feature of "Federal Theology," which holds that Christ is our Federal head as Adam once was. "Christ's atonement was thus the fulfillment of the federal conditions. The Father, who was the lawgiver and fountain of the Covenant, insisted on the full performance of the law, and yet provided the surety" (Smeaton). "Thus in the completed doctrine there are two elements or factors: 1. substituted punishment and 2. Substituted obedience.

Nothing less, it is claimed could satisfy the absolute requirement of justice and law. Sin must be punished; but its punishment neither supersedes nor satisfies the requirement of perfect obedience.

The elect have failed in this obedience, and never can fulfill its obligation by their own personal conduct. Hence they need a substitute in obedience, as much as in penalty. Christ answers for them in both" (Miley, Vol. II, p. 134).

Let us state now very specifically some more elements that are essential to the theory, beside the two above named.

3. The satisfaction of justice in its punitive demand is a cardinal fact of the theory. Its advocates make it so essential that such satisfaction enters into the very nature of the atonement. There must be satisfaction of divine justice satisfaction in the punishment of sin according to its demerit, and solely for that

4. In this doctrine, the satisfaction is by substitutional punishment. Christ was literally punished, in the sinner's stead. This idea has taken in the course of centuries three forms.

(1) That Christ suffered the identical penalty of all sinners whom He redeemed. Then the holy Christ must have felt guilty like a sinner is compelled to feel and eternally, and this multiplied by the number of the saved. This was absolutely impossible.

(2) Christ endured penal sufferings equal in amount to the merited penal sufferings of all the sinners redeemed. This theory is now generally discarded. It is strange that it ever had an advocate and needs no refutation.

(3) It is now held that Jesus suffered an equivalent penalty --of equal value for the satisfaction of justice. "Justice," they say, 'must have penal satisfaction, either in the full punishment of the actual offender, or in an equivalent punishment of its substitute."

5. Its principles are:

(1) Sin has intrinsic demerit. It deserves the retribution of Divine justice, irrespective of all salutary results of the punishment.

(2) There is a punitive justice in God that must be satisfied.

(3) Sin ought to be punished. But this means that there is an obligation lying on God to punish it.

Such is the inevitable logic of their propositions. God must discharge this obligation on the simple ground of the demerit of sin, and apart from all the interests of moral government! The sinner or his substitute must be punished according to the demerit of sin. Dr. Hodge tells us in Vol. II, p. 488,

"Justice belongs to the nature of God. It demands the punishment of sin. If sin be pardoned, it can be pardoned in consistency with the divine justice only on the ground of a forensic penal satisfaction." On page 492, he says: "The plan of salvation which the Bible reveals supposes that the justice which renders the punishment of sin necessary has been satisfied. Men can be pardoned and restored to the favor of God, because Christ "was set forth as an expiation for their sins . . .

and because the penalty due to us was laid on Him." Thus they say in endless repetition, that Justice is a form of God's moral excellent, e. It must he satisfied before sin ran be pardoned.

Satisfaction requires absolute penalty. Owen declares: "Justice is an essential attribute of the divine nature and He must exercise it, because it supposes him in a constant and immutable will to punish sin, so that while He acts consistently He cannot do otherwise than to punish and avenge it."

A. A. Hodge says: "God is determined, by the immutable holiness of His nature, to punish all sin, because of its intrinsic guilt or demerit; the effect produced on the universe being incidental as an end" ("The Atonement," p. 53). Dr. Shedd says: "Law has no option. Justice has but one function. .

. . The law itself is under law; that is, it is under the necessity of its own nature; and, therefore, the only possible way whereby a transgressor can escape the penalty of law is for a substitute to endure it for him" (Theological Essays, p. 287).

We have quoted enough to show the absolute undeniable principles and elements of this Calvinistic theory of Satisfaction. "It has mechanical simplicity to commend it. It is as luminous as a mathematical problem; so much ill-desert to be cancelled; so much penalty to be suffered; so much obedience to be rendered, and the problem of salvation is solved. This apparent simplicity gives a popular acceptance to the theory. It is easy to apprehend and state. When we say Christ paid the debt for every man, if we do not go beyond the figure of speech, it all seems plain. If we pause to consider, we must go beyond the figure; we need something more to satisfy us"

(Fairchild).

Fatal Objections to this theory.

1. If Christ thus suffered the punishment due to all, then all punishment has been inflicted, all penalty has been met, all law is satisfied, and the universal salvation of the race naturally follows.

Dr. Hodge admits: "If the claims of justice are satisfied, they cannot again be enforced" (Vol. II, p.

472). Dr. Dick says: "Will God punish sin twice, first in the person of his surety, and then in the persons themselves, in whose place he stood? God forbid; the Judge of all the earth will do right.

This would be a manifest injustice" (Theology, Vol. II, p. 556).

Dr. Symington says: "The death of Christ being a legal satisfaction for sin, all for whom He died, must enjoy the remission of their offenses. It is as much at variance with strict justice or equity that any for whom Christ has given satisfaction should continue under condemnation, as that they should have been delivered from guilt, without any satisfaction being given for them at all" (Atonement and Intercession, p. 190).

Turretin says: "For if, in consequence of his suretyship, the debt has been transferred to Christ and by him discharged, every one must see that it has been taken away from the primary debtors, so that payment cannot be demanded of them. They must forever afterward remain free, absolved from all obligation to punishment" (The Atonement of Christ, p. 146).

These Calvinistic writers could not, in reason, say otherwise. Such an atonement, by its very nature, cancels all punitive claim against all for whom Christ died, and by immediate result, forever frees them from all liability to the penalty of sin. This very view of the atonement became the fountain-head of Universalism. The Scriptures declare that Jesus "tasted death for every man"

and "gave himself a ransom for all" (Heb. 2: 9 and 1 Tim. 2: 6). So, if this satisfaction theory is true, it follows undeniably that all will be saved. But the doctrine of universal salvation is not in accord with the Scriptures, which represent that some souls will, in the end, be lost. Therefore this doctrine, of satisfaction -which begets Universalism, is contrary to Scriptures.

2. To escape this dilemma the Calvinists (who are logical) hold that "Christ endures the punishment only of the elect." And so here is another error-"limited atonement" to help out the satisfaction theory. They are twin errors, perfectly consistent, that must go together. In God's sovereign grace, a certain portion of the race are chosen to salvation; the punishment of these Christ bears in his own person, and they cannot rightfully suffer the penalty of the law. They are regenerated and saved, by the irresistible grace of God; and the atonement is limited to these.

Christ died only for the elect. Such a limitation is an essential element of the system, a logical necessity.

3. Some Calvinists who hold to the satisfaction theory of Atonement, and "limited atonement" to get out of their multiplying difficulties, maintain that, in its inherent value, it is sufficient for all men; but it is restricted by God's sovereign and righteous will to the elect, and is effective only in their case. There is no salvation within the reach of others or available for them. But here, again, these unfortunate Calvinists come up flatly against the infallible Word, which declares that "God our Savior would have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth," and is "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (1 Tim. 2: 4 and 2 Pet. 3: 9).

4. They have to explain away the great passages like, "He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2: 2), and "God so loved the world that He gave his Only His Only begotten Son" (John ,3:16) They suppose these texts simply mean, that the inherent value of the Atonement is sufficient for the salvation of the world; but that, as a matter of fact, the application of the Atonement, is restricted by the will of God to only a portion of mankind-the elect. We are sorry for them that they have to suppose so much that is contrary to the truth, to uphold their satisfaction theory. Jesus said: "Even so it is not the will of your Father, who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish." Probably Jesus knew.

5. Another trouble of their doctrine is this: the punishment of Christ only provides for the remission of the penalty; it does away with punishment, but in order to the enjoyment of the favor of God and the blessedness of heaven, sinners must have some merit; they must somehow be made worthy. Thus it is represented that the obedience of Christ is imputed to them, and they are accounted worthy of eternal life through the merits of Christ. A double imputation; the guilt of sinners is imputed to Christ, and the worthiness of Christ is imputed to sinners, and thus redemption is complete.

But this involves all those unscriptural absurdities covered by that theological fiction called

"Imputation" which we have discussed in a previous chapter. We there showed the mass of foolish errors that are involved in the doctrine, and make it incredible. We showed that there was not one certain passage in the Bible which taught that any one's character, good or bad, was ever imputed to another. Character is a personal, private thing and cannot by any possibility be transferred.

Moreover, no being in the universe has any superfluous goodness to give away or transfer to anybody else. There is no such thing as supererogatory goodness or holiness. No one can be more holy or good than he ought to be. Doubtless Jesus had infinite holiness; but he was an infinite Being and needed it all to be a perfect Redeemer. He had none to spare. And even if He had, character is one of the things that can neither be given away nor received. But this whole doctrine of Satisfaction depends on this impossible scheme of imputation, and can not work without it.

6. It is a misrepresentation of God's nature and character to say that his wrath stands in the way of the sinner's salvation or requires his punishment. It is precisely this that gives rise to the old Unitarian fling at orthodox theology. They say we teach that God was furiously angry at sin; He let fly a thunderbolt of wrath at it. The bolt hit His Son; but God felt better for it."

It is a coarse and awful way of putting it; but if we accept the satisfaction theory of atonement, we can have precious little to say to reply. It would, however, be only a cheap caricature of the true doctrine of Atonement which we will hereafter give.

Now we gladly admit the fact of God's righteous indignation against sin and sinners. "He is a moral being, and must look upon sin as it is; as unreasonable, inexcusable, ill-deserving and worthy of punishment; thus the Scriptures represent God. But this sentiment in view of sin is not a reason for its punishment. The sinner is not punished to relieve or propitiate God's feeling or sense of his ill desert. (Indignation at sin is not God's only feeling.) He has, also, the feeling of compassion and pity, the desire to save the sinner from the ruin he deserves. Why shall he not indulge the sentiment of mercy, and save the sinner? We are told that He delights in mercy and judgment is His strange work. If it is a question of divine impulse or feeling, mercy will triumph, and the sinner will escape punishment. But here, it is said, the principle of justice comes in. It is just that the sinner should be punished, because he deserves it, and God must be just. "We can say, God MAY be merciful or not, as He pleases: we cannot say, God may be just or not, as He pleases." This means that because the sinner deserves punishment he must be punished. Then the sinner never can be otherwise than ill-deserving" (Fairchild's Theology, p. 217). The argument, therefore, which satisfactionists make for the necessity of punishment, would make all mercy and forgiveness forever impossible. Their theory is that "divine justice must have absolute penal satisfaction. It is a necessity of judicial rectitude in God." This irremissibility of the penalty is the determining principle of the theory. They hold that merited penalty is absolutely irremissible on all grounds whatsoever. We deny this principle, and cite God's own conduct as proof against it, every time he forgives a sinner. Such satisfaction of retributive justice by a substitute is impossible.

Absolute justice would demand the punishment of the criminal himself, and not the punishment of some holy person.

7. But this, as we have seen, is not the true idea of the necessity of the sinner's punishment. "His ill-desert is not the reason of his punishment. It is a condition of his punishment-that without which he cannot be punished; but unless there be other reasons for the punishment, he will not be punished. God is under no obligation to punish sin because of its ill-desert. (He punishes sin either for the good of the sinner or for the good of other beings-the moral government, or moral universe.) We will consider later what the true reason for the punishment of sin is, and what the necessity for its punishment.

God's justice consists in fidelity to all interests, regard for all well-being. In punishment, as in all other things, He is governed by this respect for all interests. Abstract justice is not an interest; it has no force (value) apart from sentient being; it grows out of the interests and welfare of moral beings. Justice has no demand upon God, or men, but that which the good, the welfare of all, requires. This is the only justice which can be a principle of action. If there is an abstract righteousness, or justice, which constitutes an end in itself, apart from the well-being of the universe, a justice which must be respected, and conformed to, on its own account, then sin must be punished, because it deserves it; and desert of punishment is obligation to punishment, an obligation resting on the being who holds the rightful authority.

But this is not properly the force and meaning of ill-desert. The desert of punishment does not make the punishment obligatory; it makes it permissible, provided there is a necessity in the welfare of the universe for the punishment" (Fairchild's Theology, pp. 217, 218).

8. But, there is another fallacy in the theory, already hinted at. Granting all that the Satisfaction theory requires in respect to ill-desert as a demand for punishment, and final reason for it-that which makes it necessary and just, still, the theory breaks down when we come to the provision made in the Atonement to meet this necessity. "Neither the wrath of God, nor the justice of God, in the sense they define it, nor abstract justice, nor the sinner's ill-desert, can be satisfied in the death of Christ. There is no provision in it for such satisfaction. God's wrath burns against the sinner, because of his sin and ill-desert, and Christ dies for him. But God's moral indignation is against the SINNER HIMSELF, not toward His well-beloved Son; and how can it be satisfied with the suffering of One perfect in goodness?"

"We must remember, too, that these same sinners crucified that dear Son; and is this to relieve or propitiate God's indignation? . . . It is inconceivable that the Atonement should thus bring a satisfaction to God's moral indignation, or that the sinner's ill-desert should thus be cancelled. The sinner is still ill-deserving, and God pardons him at last in his ill-desert," and in spite of it (Ibid., pp. 218, 219).

9. "If we put God's justice in the sense satisfactionists imply it, in the place of his wrath, the difficulty is just as great. They say, God's justice requires the punishment of the sinner. According to the theory it is his ill-desert that makes the punishment necessary; then HIS punishment, and not the punishment of another, is required-least of all the punishment of an innocent being absolutely perfect in goodness. The very thing that makes the punishment just is the sinner's ill-desert, the suffering of Christ is no punishment of the sinner; it is not a punishment of sin. The object of punishment according to the satisfaction view is to meet the ill-desert of sin; a work which the Atonement can by no possibility accomplish. We may impute the guilt of the sinner to Christ, but the imputation does not make Him a sinner, or afford God or man any satisfaction in His suffering as the punishment of sin" (Ibid., p. 219).

10. Dr. Hodge and other Calvinistic writers are conscious of this difficulty and they try to escape it as follows. They divide the ill-desert of sin into two parts: first its legal liability to punishment which they call "guilt," and second, its blameworthiness, its wickedness. The legal liability, it is said, is transferred by imputation to Christ, while the wickedness and unworthiness of the sin are left with the sinner. This is what they say they mean by the imputation of sin to Christ: Christ so identifies himself with the ELECT that He assumes their liability to punishment, while the real wickedness is personal; it belongs to moral character and cannot thus be imputed or transferred.

Now this is nothing but a theological scheme to get rid of insurmountable difficulties that abound in this imputation theory. For, (1) Nothing could be punished in Christ which was not in a real sense His. If He was punished He must have been a guilty Christ. But guilty of what? Not of sin because, according lo the supposition, that could not be transferred. Then He was guilty of guilt-an imaginary, fictitious theological kind of guilt. But (2): Guilt apart from sin is only an abstract notion, floating around in the imagination of Calvinists. There is no such thing in reality. But is not guilt a reality? Certainly it is, and a terrible reality, but only as a concrete fact, of personal sin. But with the imputation of only an abstract guilt to Christ, while sin, the real thing, with all its turpitude and demerit, with all that is punishable, and all that deserves to be punished, left behind, how could the redemptive suffering of Christ be any punishment of sin? There is no guilt apart from sin; any more than there is redness apart from an object that is red, or extension without substance, or dimension without space. (3) Nothing but sin can render any one guilty. Then Christ could not be guilty unless he became a sinner. (4) Sin itself is a punishable reality only as a personal fact. In the last analysis, ONLY A SINFUL PERSON is PUNISHABLE. It is not any impersonal sin, or sin in generalized conception, but only a SINFUL PERSON that is answerable to justice in penalty. Sin has no real existence apart from the agent who sins. The guilt of sin lies upon him, and can no more be put upon a substitute as a punitive desert than his sinful act can cease to be his, and be made the sinful act of such substitute" (Miley, Vol. II, p. 147). It is therefore, a misuse of language to say that Christ was punished. (5) The theory is self-destructive. It runs thus: a. The absolute punishment of sin is necessary, b. Sin is not transferable, c. It must be punished by the transference of guilt which is not sin at all, and punished in Christ where there was no sin. It is impossible to punish the guilt, in the person of another, and leave the sinner unpunished. He is a sinner still with all the demerit of his sin upon him.

11. The difficulty still remains if we substitute Abstract justice for the retributive justice of God.

Even this can not be satisfied by Christ's suffering. The language of justice, as of the law is: "The soul that sinneth it shall die." Abstract justice, requires the punishment, of the sinner, not somebody else, because of his ill-desert, that is, because of his sin; there can be no transfer, no substitution.

The Atonement cannot satisfy the sinner's ill-desert, or cancel it in any degree; it stands to the sinner's charge after all that has been done in the atonement; and the sinner must be saved at last, and taken to heaven, with all his ill-desert upon him. If this ill-desert stands in the way of salvation, the sinner never can be saved; no power can alter, or change, or cancel it.

A popular lecturer on the Atonement represents that one of the difficulties in the sinner's salvation is that he "cannot face his record." A man has committed a crime, like murder; he repents and puts away sin; but he cannot live with himself; he cannot look his crime in the face; it must somehow be overcome or cancelled, or set aside." This is an impossible requirement. He can be pardoned and saved in heaven; but that fact of sin can never be obliterated; the guilt can never be cancelled. The Atonement can do everything else for him, but this one thing it cannot do; his unworthiness remains, and must remain while the soul lives. A pardoned sinner, with the favor of God restored to him, can be blest, but he can never deserve his blessedness, or be anything else than ill-deserving. Salvation of the sinner does not involve the canceling of ill-desert."

12. "There is the same difficulty in transferring to sinners the merit of Christ, or His obedience, as in imputing to Christ the guilt of sinners. Obedience and merit are personal facts, and can never be separated from the person to whom they belong. Christ's obedience can never render the sinner worthy of heaven. The pardon of penitent sinners might be accorded to Christ as a reward of His zeal for righteousness, and His obedience unto death; but would not imply the transfer of obedience. The sinner dues not need to deserve heaven in order to share in its blessedness"

(Fairchild's Theology, pp. 220, 221).

13. If this satisfaction theory is true, then the elect for whom the atonement was made in their whole life, and however wicked they may have been, are entirely free from liability to punishment.

Backslide as they may and sin as they please, God can only smile, for all His wrath has been appeased, His justice has been satisfied, and all claims have been met. The elect are, and always were, as immune from the wrath and judicial condemnation of God as vaccinated people are immune from small-pox.

14. Nay, it is even worse; for, in-as-much as the Atonement was made, and the elect were elected before they were born, even from eternity, it follows that they were born into the world with the awful privilege granted them by a holy God, of sinning with perfect impunity. These pets of the Almighty, who were unconditionally elected, "without any foresight of faith or good works or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving Him thereunto," (Confession of Faith) may act as mean and devilish as they please, from the cradle to the grave, without condemnation or danger of divine wrath. "Just as they are, with all their sin, they are accepted in Christ, their peace is certain, their heaven is sure" (From a Sermon of a famous Calvinistic preacher). This is good Calvinism and an irresistible logical conclusion from the Satisfaction Theory. No theological wriggling can escape it.

15. This theory contradicts the testimony of the Holy Spirit in the heart. Read the Holy Word from end to end, and see if God has no controversy with His own people when they sin; see if His justice is satisfied when individual believers backslide and fall away from God; see if His justice in their case is so satisfied by the Atonement that it announces no threats, no punishment., no displeasure, no warning.

The universal experience of men contradicts the theory in the matter of the conviction that precedes repentance. Many a soul on the verge of surrender to God feels the pangs of hell. Who made them feel so? The Holy Spirit, who brings conviction, to the sinner. He made them feel their guilt and exposure to the wrath of God. Now did the Holy Spirit deceive them? Were Augustine, .and Martin Luther and John Newton, and Whitefield and Finney mil Mahan deceived by the Holy Ghost? He brought them to the verge of despair, over their sins and their guilt and the impending wrath of an incensed God. And they certainly were among the number of the elect saints of God, for whom the Atonement was made. But if the Satisfaction Theory is true the Holy Spirit should have acted in harmony with the truth and allayed all their apprehensions, and assured them that their Atoning Savior had first obeyed for them and then had been punished for them, and that they were the special objects of God's love and were not, and never had been, in the slightest danger of His wrath. Now, we ask, did the Holy Spirit work such a deception in the profoundest religious consciousness of these saints, and of all of us? If he did not, then the satisfaction theory is not true.

16. The satisfaction theory leads direct to that fatal antinomian heresy of a "finished work" and "a finished salvation." The lengths to which it has gone in thought, and literature, and preaching, yea, and in living is amazing. We could make pages of quotations. A little will set forth what is meant by a "finished work" and "a finished salvation." "Christ belongs to sinners as sinners; and if there be no worse than sinfulness, rebellion and enmity in thee, He belongs to thee, as well as to the world. Christ does justify a person before he believes; we do not believe that we may be justified but because we are justified. The elect are justified from eternity; at Christ's death: and the latest is before they were born. ... Every elect vessel, from the first instant of his being, is as pure in the eyes of God from the charge of sin, as he shall be in Glory. Though such persons do act rebellion, yet the loathsomeness and hatefulness of this rebellion is laid on the back of Christ; he bears the sin as well as the blame and shame; and God can dwell with persons that act the thing, because all the filthiness of it is translated from them upon the back of Christ. A believer may be assured of pardon as soon as he commits any sin, even adultery and murder. God does no longer stand displeased though a believer does sin often. There is no sin that believers ever commit that can possibly do them any hurt. Therefore as their sins can not hurt them, so there is no cause of fear in their sins committed." John Fletcher comments thus: "If the salvation of the elect was finished on the cross, then was their justification finished; for, justification, sanctification, and glorification finished, are but the various parts of our finished salvation. If our justification be finished, there is no need of mortifying one sin, praying for one grace, taking up one cross, parting with either right eye or right hand in order to perfect holiness" (Fletcher's, pp. 192-195).

"Oh," someone says, "that was long ago. People do not believe that way now." On our first visit to Scotland, a minister's wife told us of an address delivered lately there before a large Sabbath-school. A member of the church had been in the past a useful Christian man, but had backslidden, become a drunkard, and the week before, when drunk had fallen from his horse and broke his neck. The next Sabbath, a Presbyterian evangelist, addressing the school, asked the school where the man's soul had gone. "Now," he said, "before you answer, I will whisper to the superintendent, what your answer will be." The school answered that he had gone to hell. "Now,"

said he to the superintendent "isn't that what I whispered to you?" "Yes." "But you are all wrong; his soul went straight to heaven!" Of course! After a preacher has accepted the satisfaction theory, how could he suppose that a little matter like backsliding, and getting drunk, and falling off a horse and breaking his neck, could keep a man out of heaven, for whom Christ had obeyed and been punished and to whom he had given a "finished salvation"? This satisfaction theory produced its logical fruit in Fletcher's day, and does yet, and will as long as it is believed.

17. Lastly, this theory stands in the way of the highest Christian attainments. When preaching to audiences in the North of England and Scotland the Plymouth Brethren, who are the staunchest Calvinists, rejected our message with one common consent. One of the leaders explained to us thus: "We do not need to seek sanctification. We distinguish between our spiritual standing in Christ, and our spiritual state. We have now a SANCTIFIED STANDING "in Christ" our Surety and Head. He is our sanctification, and we are "in Him." We have not a sanctified state of heart but God sees our "sanctified standing" "in Christ," and accepts it instead. In vain w" quoted to them God's own Word: "Be ye, yourselves, also holy, for I am holy." They pressed this Calvinistic theory to their carnal hearts and went on in carnal living, perfectly satisfied with their fictitious, imaginary, theological "STANDING." Few educated Calvinists seek or enter into the experience of sanctification. Their theology is against it. Now can a theory that naturally produces such fruit be true? We cannot believe it.

* * * * * * *

CHAPTER VI -- THE GOVERNMENTAL THEORY

We have seen that the Moral Influence Theory of the Atonement finds the only difficulty in the way of salvation in the nature of men and the Satisfaction or Penal Theory finds the chief difficulty in the nature of God. "The Governmental or Benevolence Theory finds that, aside from the difficulty of bringing sinners to repentance, there is the danger which arises to the GOVERNMENT OF

GOD, as to any government, in the offer of pardon to every transgressor upon the condition of repentance. Penalty is a moral force to prevent transgression; a necessary motive against sin in the government of God. To offer a free pardon to the penitent, with-out some counteracting force, would break down this motive and encourage transgression. The Atonement is designed to bring such forces into the government of God, to supply such motives, that the penalty can be remitted, in the case of the penitent, without detriment to the government. As it is to furnish the ground on which penalty can be remitted, it must bring equivalent forces to the support of the government; it must furnish such lessons and make such impressions in the government of God, that the pardon of the penitent will do no harm. The Atonement accomplishes just this work (Fairchild's Theology, p.

222).

We have already, in the opening chapters, touched upon the cardinal principles and fundamental elements of this theory. It is now time to unfold the theory more fully, and to answer the objections made against it. This theory of Atonement had its foundations laid by Grotius (b. at Delft, 1583; d, 1645). He was the Father of International Law and was a man of extraordinary ability and learned attainments. The literary achievements of his youth were remarkable; nor did his mature life disappoint the expectations created by his marvelous precocity. He acquired eminence in science, philosophy, statesmanship, law and theology, and was a voluminous author. In theology he was an Arminian, and like other great souls suffered much for Christ's sake. He was arrested tried condemned, imprisoned and banished; and yet was one of the best, most famous and noblest sons his nation has ever produced This theory is often called the Edwardian or New England theory because the younger Edwards began its development and Dr. Parks of Andover and other great minds of Congregationalism, completed the theory. It was also adopted by Finney and his pupil and successor, President Fairchild and contributed greatly to the power of Finney as the "prince of evangelists and soul-winners." One of its ablest expounders and defenders is Miley-the master theologian of Methodism.

Grotius with his astute legal mind as a born statesman reached the following propositions: 1. The right to punish is the right of a ruler only. Hence God must be considered as a ruler, and the right to punish belongs to a ruler as such, since it exists, not for the punisher's sake, but for I the sake of the commonwealth, to maintain its order, and to promote the public good.

2. Sin deserves eternal penalty, and the penalty must not be remitted except on rectorally sufficient grounds. "God has, there-fore, most weighty reasons for punishing, especially if we are permitted to estimate the magnitude and multitude of sins.

3. God was willing, on account of His great love, though He could have justly punished all men with deserved and legitimate punishment, that is, with eternal death-and had reasons for so doing-to spare those who believe in Christ.

4. But since we must be spared, either by setting forth, or not setting forth, some example against so many great sins, in His perfect wisdom God chose that way by which He could manifest more of His attributes at once, namely, both clemency and severity, or His hate of sin, and care for the preservation of his law.

5. Although sin is an intrinsic evil, there is no absolute necessity arising there from for its punishment. The punishment of sin is just, but not in itself an obligation. The intrinsic evil of sin renders its penal retribution just, but not a requirement of judicial rectitude. Threatened penalty, unless marked by irrevocability, is not absolute. A threat differs from a promise. The latter conveys a right and takes on obligation; the former does not.

6. The divine law is positive, and its penalty is remissible. The law, in precept and penalty, is a divine enactment; in execution a divine act. The execution is not a judicial obligation except for rectoral ends.

7. Penalty is profoundly important in the interests of moral government. Forgiveness too freely granted, or too often repeated, and especially on slight grounds, would annul the authority of the law, or render it powerless for its great and imperative rectoral ends. Thus there is a necessity for an Atonement-for some vicarious provision-which, on the remission of penalty-MAY CONSERVE

THE ENDS OF PENALTY. Such a provision is found in the death of Christ. It was a manifestation of the goodness and severity of God and the odiousness of sin, and a deterrent from its commission (Miley's Theology, Vol. II, pp. 160-162).

Any discerning student can see that these were new seed thoughts which were bound to produce a fertile harvest. The completed theory contains all that is good and true in either the Moral Influence Theory or the Satisfaction Theory, while it AVOIDS THEIR

LIMITATIONS AND THEIR SAD ERRORS.

Miley defines thus: "The sufferings of Christ are an atonement for sin by substitution in the sense that they were intentionally endured for sinners under judicial condemnation, and for the sake of their forgiveness. They render forgiveness consistent with the divine justice, in that justice none the less fulfills its rectoral office in the interest of moral government. The honor and authority of the divine Ruler, together with the rights and interests of his subjects, are as fully maintained as they could be by the infliction of merited penalty upon sin" (p. 156). Miley's shorter definition is:

"The atonement consists in the vicarious sufferings of Christ as a provisory substitute for penalty in the interests of moral government" (p. 176).

Our own definition is as follows: THE ATONEMENT IS A GOVERNMENTAL EXPEDIENT

BY WHICH CHRIST VOLUNTARILY SUFFERED VICARIOUSLY FOR US, AND

PRESERVES THE INTEGRITY OF GOD AS A MORAL RULER, PROTECTS THE

INTERESTS OF HIS GOVERNMENT, AND OF HIS SUBJECTS, DISPLAYS HIS HATRED OF

SIN, HIS LOVE FOR THE SINNER, AND HIS REGARD FOR HIS LAW AND JUSTICE, WHILE HE OFFERS PARDON TO ALL WHO REPENT AND BELIEVE. IT IS PROVISORY IN

ITS PURPOSE AND CONDITIONAL IN ITS EFFECT.

As we have already observed, any degree of truth, either in the Moral Influence Theory or the Satisfaction Theory is preserved and greatly strengthened by this theory, while it avoids their pernicious errors, and lines up with Scriptures at every point-a thing which either of the others cannot possibly do. For example:

1. It gives full consideration to the importance of penalty. In considering the bearing of the Atonement to make forgiveness safe in the government of God we mentioned the relation of penalty to government, and the purposes it serves. "The leading impressions of penalty are two: In the first place, it exhibits the fidelity of the ruler to the interests which the government is designed to maintain. When the transgressor is punished, the faithfulness and efficiency of the government are exhibited. The penalty in God's government shows that sin will not be passed by, or treated as a small matter. The evil doer can not go on in his career under the delusive notion that God will regard his course with indifference; under temptation to sin a wholesome fear takes possession of him, Penalty is a restraint upon sin, by the fear of consequences which it induces.

Penalty makes an impression of the danger of sin to the one who commits it; an impression made upon all the subjects of the government.

Now the governmental theory of the Atonement gives full importance to this truth, and claims that the Atonement provides essentially the same lessons, and makes the same impressions that penalty affords; and thus enables God in wisdom to dispense with the penalty in the case of the penitent.

It is a painful necessity of human government to punish the penitent. Even if the murderer on the gallows were as truly penitent as the thief on the cross, and known to be so, the awful exhibition must still be consummated; the risk of pardon would be too great. The reason is, no atonement is made by the governor in a human government. But, in the Gospel system such a necessity is removed; the Atonement meets the case and sets aside the danger of pardon. Even more distinctly than penalty, it begets a sense of the danger of sin-danger to the sinner himself. At first thought we might say that the tendency of the Atonement as it provides pardon is to do away with fear. But this is a hasty view; it makes a profound impression, even beyond that of penalty, of God's fidelity to the interests of His kingdom. He gave His only begotten Son to secure those interests. At such expense to Himself, at such a sacrifice, with such intense personal interest in the end to be attained, has the Atonement been wrought out, that God never can be suspected of carelessly passing by sin, or of regarding it with any easy-going indulgence. By this wonderful coming out before the eyes of men in the incarnation; by encountering sin in His own person, pressing on to the cross itself in the conflict with the powers of darkness, God has so secured to Himself the confidence of the universe that He can exercise His mercy in the pardon of the penitent, without danger of misunderstanding on the part of His creatures. No moral being, in view of this marvelous personal interest and sacrifice on God's part, will imagine that he can go on in sin, and not be looked after and brought to account. The interests of the universe so manifestly rest upon the heart of God, that no sinner can flatter himself that His sin will be treated as a small matter. ... It must be borne in mind that the penalty still stands against the impenitent sinner, and so far the lesson of penalty itself remains.

In the second place, penalty makes an impression of the sinfulness of sin, in that it is God's testimony to its ill-desert. In civil society crime ceases to be regarded as crime, when it ceases to be punished; the public conscience becomes debauched, and the restraint upon crime, which lies in the apprehension of its wickedness, is set aside. Penalty in God's government is a constant reminder of the ill-desert of transgression, a constant enforcement of the obligation of righteousness, an ever present motive to obedience. These are essentially the lessons which penalty in God's government is intended to impress. It is true that in this present life the actual penalty is not exhibited before the eyes of men; its power is in the announcement of a judgment to come. We apprehend God's government as existing over the future world, as well as over the present; its appliances and forces will be necessary, and will continue, while God and his creatures exist.

Now, how does the work of Christ provide this lesson? In two ways; first it is an exhibition of sin, in that no arrangement less significant than the coming of the Immanuel, and His patience and obedience unto death, could be devised to counteract the mischief of sin, and deliver men from its ruin. When the worlds were created, "God spake and it was done." The effort involved no cost or sacrifice to Him. But when a remedy for sin was to be provided, "the eternal Word" emptied Himself, taking on the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and becoming obedient unto death-the cheapest remedy for sin that infinite wisdom could offer. In the presence of the cross there is little opportunity to underestimate sin.

Again, it is to be observed that in the death of Christ sin has made an exhibition of itself. The Savior hangs upon the cross, not by the act of God, but by the act of sinners themselves. We are not to forget that He was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God; but He was taken by sinners, "and by their wicked hands was crucified and slain." The most exalted being that ever stood upon the earth, "the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth," coming to His own to bring them deliverance and salvation, is despised and rejected and slain by the sinners He came to save. Sin never so displayed its malignity and hateful-ness, as in that infamous deed; and the sight of the cross from that day to this, has tended powerfully to make the world ashamed of sin. Thus we gather from the cross the second great lesson which penalty was intended to impress

-- the loathsomeness of sin" (Fairchild's Theology, pp, 223-227).

2. This theory provides for a more effective moral influence upon men, than the Moral Influence Theory itself. Granted the Deity of Christ, one with the Father in nature and essence, the fact that such a being voluntarily came to earth to endure humiliation and shame and death, not merely to reform men, but to remove the difficulties on the divine side, and make it possible for the Infinite Ruler of the universe to offer to pardon all the sins of a guilty race, consistently with His own honor, and the safety of His government-this truth has moved the hearts of men as no other ever did. This is the power of the cross to lift men-the mighty Gospel of Christ of which the Great Apostle was not ashamed.

This is the highest known moral force to bring men to repentance. This great truth of influence must have prominence in any proper theory of the Atonement. But the satisfaction theory makes little or nothing of it; and very naturally, we might almost say necessarily, because regeneration is contemplated as a monergistic work of omnipotence, and not of moral forces. The governmental theory recognizes the need of these mighty moral influences on the wicked human heart and amply provides for them.

3. There is as much substitution in the governmental theory as in the Satisfaction Theory; but it is a nobler kind. In the Satisfaction Theory, it is simply penalty inflicted on the holy Christ substituted for penalty inflicted on sinners-the punishment of the righteous One substituted for the punishment of the guilty ones. But the wrathful demand for punishment is in the forefront of it all-its fundamental idea. But with the governmental theory, it is the SUBSTITUTION of the VOLUNTARY, VICARIOUS SUFFERING of Christ for the infliction of PENALTY on sinners, who are willing to repent and believe. As Dr. Raymond says: "The death of Christ is not a substituted penalty but a substitute for a penalty. The necessity of an Atonement is not found in the fact that the justice of God requires an invariable execution of deserved penalty, but in the fact, that the honor and glory of God, and the welfare of His creatures, require that His essential and rectoral righteousness be adequately declared" (Systematic Theology, Vol. II, p. 257).

We have already observed, that the suffering of Christ, voluntarily endured, can by no strict use of language, be called a punishment. Personal demerit is the only source of guilt, and Christ had none.

Therefore, He could not be punished.

Zalencus, King of the Locrians, a Grecian colony in Southern Italy found that his little realm was being destroyed by the sin of impurity. He made a law against adultery, the penalty of which was the loss of both eyes; The King's own son was the first to break the law. What shall he do? There is a controversy in his heart. His fatherly compassion pleads for mercy to his son. But as a king his judgment urged the execution of the penalty. He knew that after the temporary wave of pity for the son passed by, his subjects would accuse him of partiality and injustice, and infidelity to the interests of the realm. In this exigency of his government and conflict of soul, he devised a half of an atonement, by the substitution of one of his own eyes for one of his son's. Now he is free to offer half of a pardon, and remit half the penalty.

Now this was a provision above law and above retributive justice. Neither law nor retributive justice could inflict any penalty on the father for the sin of his son. It is a misuse of language to say that the father was punished. All the conditions of penal retribution were wanting. This is a good illustration of the divine atonement. Here was a real case of substitution of the suffering of the holy, for the punishment of the sinful. It was the substitution of VICARIOUS SUFFERING, voluntarily endured, for the punishment of the guilty law-breaker.

And what did this substitution-this atonement made by Zalencus, accomplish? Did it appease Zalencus' wrath and simply satisfy a disposition to inflict retribution? Not a bit: (l) The substitution, without being penal, or a punishment, did answer for the rectoral office of penalty. (2) The ruler fully protected his own honor and authority. (3) Law still voiced its behests and sanctions with unabated force. (4) The vicarious sacrifice of the ruler upon the altar of his parental compassion, and the altar of his administration, could but intensify the respect for him of all his people as a just ruler. (5) It gave thereafter to his laws a salutary power over his subjects.

This may well explain to any mind our conception of the Atonement. "The vicarious sufferings of Christ are an atonement for sin as they reveal God in His justice, holiness and love; in His regard for His own honor and law; in His concern for the rights and interests of moral beings; in His reprobation for sin as intrinsically evil, and utterly hostile to His own rights, and to the welfare of His subjects" (Miley, Vol. II, p. 180).

4. The Governmental Theory gives as much consideration and a far more exalted place to justice than the Satisfaction Theory. According to the Satisfaction theory, the only phase or form of justice involved in the Atonement is "punitive" or "retributive justice," that is bent on punishing sin. Owen says: "Justice is an essential attribute of the divine nature; God cannot do otherwise than punish and avenge sin." A. A, Hodge says: "God in determined, by His nature to punish all sin because of its intrinsic guilt or demerit; the effect produced on the moral universe being incidental." Shedd says: "Justice has but one function"-to inflict penalty. Everywhere we have the same doctrine of an immutable obligation of divine justice to punish sin, and none the less, in the absence of every other reason than its own demerit. The theory is that divine justice must punish sin, even in the total absence of all salutary influence of punishment, whether upon the sinner himself or upon the public virtue and welfare. It is a necessity of judicial rectitude in God. "Divine justice must have penal satisfaction"

How different is the Governmental Theory! It does not glorify a "PUNITIVE" JUSTICE "THAT

MUST PUNISH all sin according to its desert"; it exalts a PUBLIC JUSTICE-that principle in God that prompts him to deal with sin in such a way as will bring about the most good to the moral universe- TO PUNISH WHEN HE MUST, AND FORGIVE WHEN HE CAN. PUBLIC JUSTICE

IS DIVINE JUSTICE IN MORAL ADMINISTRATION SECURING THE HIGHEST GOOD OF

ALL MORAL BEINGS, OR THE MORAL UNIVERSE.

There are weighty reasons for punishment besides the demerit of sin. "Penalty has no reformatory purpose respecting the subject of its infliction, no exemplary character, no office as a deterrent from sin," says the Satisfactionist; "RETRIBUTION OF SIN IS ITS SOLE OFFICE." We demur from such a doctrine. A view of justice which holds it to the simple, immutable retribution of sin is most faulty, and wholly unlike God. His justice, as concerned in moral government, must deeply regard all the interests of all moral beings, and bring the greatest good to the moral universe. Place beside the utterances just quoted from the champions of the Satisfaction Theory, the following from President Fairchild and ask yourself, which breathes the most of the Spirit of the Gospel: "The only justice which has any claim upon God or man is A DUE REGARD FOR EVERY

INTEREST." Justice in this sense is satisfied when the well-being of the universe is provided for; it gives to God's government the highest attainable success, and places God in highest honor among his creatures. When these ends are secured, justice can have no other claims upon God or man.

It may be said with entire propriety, that justice not only permits the Atonement; it even requires it.

Justice is a due regard to all well-being. The salvation of men was possible to God, through the Atonement. He could not satisfy His own sense of what was fit and suitable in the case, without coming to the rescue at great sacrifice and cost. To fail to do this would have been injustice to Himself and to the interests of His creatures.

There is a form of justice sometimes spoken of, called "retributive justice" which consists in treating every being according to his deserts. The Atonement makes no provision for a justice of this kind. It provides for sinners a better treatment than they deserve, and for the Savior a worse treatment than He deserved. It made him "Who knew no sin," "to be sin for us." Retributive justice is not a principle of righteousness; God does not act upon it, and He does not permit His creatures to do so. He does what He can to save the ill-deserving, and requires us to love our enemies, to be kind even to the unthankful and the evil. The term desert often confuses the minds of men. The superficial thought is that a man's desert is what ought to be rendered to him. No, it is what it is right to render to him, provided nothing better can be done. The whole gospel idea is an effort on God's part to treat men better than they deserve; not to set aside justice, but to fulfill justice which is righteousness. God is just when he justifies the believing sinner. Righteousness requires it; it ought to be done. We sometimes hear the expression that it would be just in God to send us all to perdition. No, we deserve to be sent to perdition; but God is able to do something better for us than that, and therefore it is not just or right for Him to send us to perdition (if He can help it).

Retributive justice is not justice; desert is not a guide to duty" (Theology, pp. 230, 231).

Let not this magnificent passage be misunderstood. President Fairchild believed in future and eternal punishment for the incorrigibly impenitent. No sound advocate of the Governmental Theory denies that there is retribution in public justice. This retributive element is never wanting in it.

God's public justice manages the universe, doing the best it can with all moral beings. It saves sinners by way of Atonement when it can, i. e., when they will let Him. It punishes those who reject the Atonement and all overtures of mercy and grace, because it must do it, for the good of others. There is nothing else to be done with such sinners. When they will not glorify God's justice by accepting salvation through an Atoning Savior, they must glorify it by receiving damnation.

Two things are necessary to make just the infliction of penalty called for on the part of public justice. First, it must be deserved. Unmerited punishment never could make a wholesome impression upon moral subjects. Cousin says: "Take away from punishment this foundation of justice and you destroy its utility; you substitute indignation and abhorrence for a salutary lesson and for repentance, both in the condemned and in the public; you put courage, sympathy, all that is noble and great in human nature on the side of the victim; you rouse all energetic souls against society and its artificial laws. Thus even the utility of punishment rests upon its justice" (History of Modern Philosophy, Vol. II, pp. 279, 280). Second, the infliction of penalty must be the best thing that can be done. The infinitely wise and holy God always does the thing that is best, and most conducive to the good of the moral universe. It is unthinkable that He should do anything else.

"While divine penalty falls only upon sin, the supreme reason for its infliction is in the rectoral ends with which moral government is concerned. . . . There is no sufficient reason why sin must be punished solely on the ground of its demerit. The forgiveness of the actual sinner in every instance of justification is proof positive to the contrary" (Miley, Vol. II, p. 175).

But the Satisfaction Theory denies the remissibility of penalty, on any and all grounds. HERE THE

TWO THEORIES ARE AS WIDE APART AS THE POLES. The Governmental theory finds the real necessity of Atonement in the interests of moral government-interests which concern the divine glory and authority, and the welfare of mural beings. This is the great concern of the public justice of God.

5. The Governmental Theory offers as much satisfaction, and of an infinitely higher kind, than the Satisfaction Theory itself. They have adopted the term "satisfaction"; but they have no corner on the fact. With them, God's disposition to inflict deserved punishment is what was satisfied by the Atonement. It is a low and unworthy view of the loving Heavenly Father. There is something in God vastly deeper and higher and holier than a mere punitive disposition which needs to be satisfied. He has compassion for those very sinners whom His justice condemns. His justice is no stronger than his compassion. We may as reasonably conclude that His compassion will find its satisfaction in a gratuitous pardon of all, as that His justice will forbid the pardon of any, except on the equivalent punishment of a substitute.

Fairchild observes: "So far as there is demand for punishment in the mind of God, the Atonement satisfies the demand. God never demands the punishment of sinners, except as a necessity of Government. The Atonement meets this necessity and thus "satisfies the ethical nature of God," in the only sense in which satisfaction is necessary or possible. It satisfies the WISDOM of God, not His WRATH.

"In the same way the Atonement satisfies the demand, in the minds of God's creatures, for the punishment of the penitent. It the interests of God's government against the danger arising from pardon; and in this is the only reasonable ground for a demand for punishment.

"In a similar sense, the Atonement satisfies justice; it meets all the necessities and obligations of the case. The only justice which has any claim upon God or man is a due regard for every interest.

Justice in this sense is satisfied, when the well-being of the universe is provided for. It gives to God's government the highest attainable success" (pp. 229, 230). We submit that this is an inconceivably higher idea, than the satisfaction in God of a mere disposition to punish every sinner according to his desert. This keeps in view the glory of the Ruler and the good of the ruled. Miley well says: "The rectoral ends of moral government are a profounder imperative with justice itself, than the retribution of sin, simply as such. One stands before the law in the demerit of crime. His demerit renders his punishment just (deserved) though not a necessity. But the protection of others, who would suffer wrong through his impunity, makes his punishment an obligation of judicial rectitude, except as that protection can be secured through some other means." Now Jesus' atoning death was that "other means," which furnished a moral equivalent, an equivalent in motive power, for the remitted penalty. So the interests of God and the interests of his subjects were all satisfied.

Does the Satisfaction Theory offer so far-reaching and divine a satisfaction?

We may truthfully claim that the Governmental Theory is, indeed, the only true theory of satisfaction. It admits that God, like all other holy beings, has a burning indignation against sin and sinners. Yet it is not vindictive or revengeful, but co-exists with an infinite, compassionate love. It asserts no dominance in the mind of God, and does not demand to be appeased, or clamor for penal satisfaction. With all His displeasure at sin, He still makes an Atonement, not to satisfy His avenging wrath, but to meet the needs of His moral creatures, and make it possible to save sinners.

6. The Governmental Theory is in the fullest harmony with the righteousness of God, and makes plain what it is. God is not arbitrary in legislation, but legislates wisely with due regard for His subjects. He inflicts no unjust or unnecessary punishments, but by means of just penalty protects all rights and interests which might suffer wrong from the impunity of sin. He rewards His children according to the provisions and promises of grace. Thus He displays judicial righteousness, in all His dealings with men. It makes Him a righteous ruler of the universe, and the interests of all His subjects are safe in His hands.

7. The Governmental Theory provides for all those mighty forces of the cross which are not found in the penalty theory.

First, it exhibits the beauty of holiness, even more impressively than the odiousness of sin. The exalted character and consecration of the Savior is the highest exhibition of goodness and unselfish devotion that the world has seen. It has stood and must always stand as the loftiest ideal of excellence that human thought can reach; and there is power in that great lesson to beget in human souls a longing for some likeness to Christ Himself. As Paul expresses it (2 Cor. 3: 18), "We all, with open face beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." But if "punishment" was forced upon Jesus

"by the wrath of an angry Father," the lesson of the Atonement loses its attraction and power, and becomes revolting to the mind. We do not wonder that Unitarians have sneered at such a theory.

But the true doctrine works in human souls a love of holiness. It is probably safe to say that forty-nine out of every fifty people who believe in sanctification and seek it as a personal experience are Arminians, and accept the Governmental Theory of Atonement.

Second. The Governmental Theory the most effectively sets forth the love of God, in the sense of sympathy and compassion for sinners. The Satisfaction Theory represents God as so wrathful and just at sin that His burning desire to punish it must be "satisfied" by the "punishment of His Son,"

before He can think of offering pardon to a sinner. But the Governmental Theory starts with the COMPASSIONATE LOVE OF GOD which prompted Him to give His Son to die for us, so that the difficulties might be got out of the way, which hindered His mercy from bringing us salvation.

The theories differ by the whole arch of heaven.

"The sovereignty of God is illustrated in penalty"; says Fairchild, "His fidelity in the maintenance of law. But the goodness of God which encourages to repentance, and which is the ground of our confidence in Him as a father and a friend, needs to be set forth. If punishment should always, and instantly, follow sin, and repentance should not avail to turn it aside, a suspicion of God's sternness or vindictiveness might have possessed the hearts of men. That danger is forever set aside. The goodness and severity of God are united in the great lesson of the cross.

"In the presence of these great moral forces which the Atonement brings into the government of God, the forgiveness of sin can occasion no detriment. The government is not weakened thereby, but immeasurably strengthened, because it increases our confidence in the Ruler, The pardon of the penitent is proper and just, when their punishment is no longer required to sustain the government.

In the case of the unrepentant the penalty still remains with all its moral force" (Theology, p. 228).

Thus the Governmental Theory provides for the great moral forces of the Gospel, and is in perfect harmony with them. Undoubtedly the general bearings of the Atonement lie in this direction.

8. The Governmental Theory is in full accord with the terms, atonement, reconciliation, propitiation, redemption. They may all be interpreted by this theory. They are properly rectoral terms, when applied to the results of Christ's work in our behalf. When they imply the personal displeasure of God against sin and sinners, the Atonement of Christ neither appeases the personal displeasure of God, nor conciliates his personal friendship. This is proved by the fact that, although Christ died for sinners, let us say the elect, yet as sinners, we are none the less under the personal displeasure of God, and so continue, until, by repentance and faith, there comes actual reconciliation.

9. Thus it follows, as the Governmental Theory teaches, that the Atonement is only provisory. It enables God to offer salvation, consistently with public justice. It renders it possible for us to be saved if we will, by repentance and faith on our part. But whether we get saved or not, whether the Atonement avails for us, depends on ourselves.

The Satisfaction Theory, on the other hand, teaches that Jesus took the place of some elect ones, was punished in their stead, and secured for them an absolute salvation which they could not miss if they should try. Whether they are willing or unwilling, in God's sovereign time, an "omnipotent, efficacious, irresistible grace" will compel them into the kingdom and corral them into heaven.

The reader may judge which is the Scriptural theory.

10. The Governmental Theory will interpret, in their fullest meaning, all the texts which are always quoted in favor of the Satisfaction Theory. For example: 2 Cor. 5:21, "For he hath made Him to be sin for us." A common rendering is "sin-offering." This has ample warrant, and avoids the insuperable difficulties attending the restriction of the meaning to the ethical sense of sin.

Christ could not so be made sin, and remain our holy Christ. Gal. 3: 13, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." It is absurd to say that the holy Christ is accursed of God, and all the holy martyrs who have been crucified and hanged. The meaning evidently is, that the penalty of sin hanging over us: this is the law's condemnation from which Christ redeems us by His Atonement.

Christ suffered a death for us that was regarded a disgraceful and accursed death.

1 Pet. 2: 24, "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree." That this fully means the fact of an atonement for sin in the vicarious suffering of Christ there is no doubt. But there are insuperable difficulties in the way of reading "penal" substitution into this verse. The doctrine of satisfaction cannot interpret the term "sins" literally, and then appropriate the text. From such a sense the strongest doctrine of penal substitution now turns aside. With the sufferings and death of Christ as the only and necessary ground of salvation, we can most freely and fully use the text in perfect harmony with the Governmental Theory.

11. There are five colossal facts of Scripture and reason that are in fullest agreement with the Governmental Theory, and are all against the Satisfaction Theory, in the face of which it cannot stand.

(1) All sinners are under divine condemnation and guilt. Conscience affirms it. There is no exception made in favor of elect sinners. The divine law condemns all alike; the penalty of justice threatens all alike. But how could this be true according to the Satisfaction Theory? If Christ had suffered their full merited punishment, divine justice would demand their discharge. They should be as free from all answerableness in penalty as though they had not sinned. The substitutional punishment of Christ anticipated their sins, and their guilt was removed before they were born. The penalty of justice once inflicted, the subject is free. And on the theory of Satisfaction, redeemed sinners can no more be answerable in penalty for their sins at any time, than the Atoning Christ can be compelled to be punished (die) a second time for them. They were infallibly saved before they were born.

But the Scriptures, and their reason, and their conscience, aroused by the Holy Spirit, tell them that they are in danger, and in a state of guilt, though redeemed. It proves to a demonstration that the Atonement itself is only a PROVISORY ground of forgiveness. This endorses the governmental theory, and flatly contradicts the Satisfaction Theory.

(2) All the experiences of the soul in justification are in harmony with the Governmental Theory and against the Satisfaction Theory. All those Scriptures threatening punishment upon evil doers, which the Holy Spirit uses to make the sinner uncomfortable in his sins; all the deep sense of guilt which the Spirit intensifies in the heart; all the forebodings of an awakened conscience, which anticipates impending wrath; all the agonizing prayer of the convicted sinner seeking after God; all the deep repentance, putting away sin, and the faith that lays hold of God for forgiveness; and the immediate incoming of peace, and the witness of the Spirit that the sins have, for the first time, been forgiven, and that the cloud of peril which hung over the soul has passed away, and that God smiles upon his newly forgiven child at least; every step and feature of it, from start to finish, is contrary to the Satisfaction Theory. Such experiences never would come to the soul, if the theory were true. Nobody would deny it, or think of questioning it, but some theologian under the exigencies of an unscriptural theology, who is trying to drive his theory through the Book of God.

Let us all beware of "handling the Word of God deceitfully." Amen!

(3) The Governmental Theory magnifies the grace of the Heavenly Father in His forgiveness of sin; but the Satisfaction Theory robs Him of all grace. Forgiveness is in the very nature of it an act of grace, that the divine forgiveness in our justification is an act of grace, the Scriptures abundantly declare, "We are justified freely, through the redemption in Christ Jesus." But anyone can see that a debt that is fully paid, by whomsoever paid, is not forgiven. And the fundamental element of the Satisfaction Theory is the absolute irremissibility of penalty. Therefore the Son had to be

"punished" in our stead, to "satisfy" THE AVENGING WRATH OF THE FATHER. If that is so, then there was no grace in the mind of the Heavenly Father at all, but only a grim punitive disposition, which demanded punishment. So if He forgives at all it is not by grace but by absolutely exacting punishment. There is about as much grace in that, on the Father's part, as there was in old Shy-lock, who "demanded the exact pound of flesh, nearest his heart, according to the strict letter of the bond."

Not so with the Governmental Theory. It holds upon a PROVISORY ATONEMENT in voluntary suffering (not punishment) rendering a loving Heavenly Father free to graciously, freely forgive all His penitent, but guilty children.

(4) The Governmental Theory is in harmony with the Universality of the Atonement. This will be discussed in a subsequent chapter. We only name it here. But the Satisfaction Theory is in harmony with a limited atonement and actually demands it. It can tolerate no other. All for whom Jesus perfectly obeyed and was "punished" thus satisfying every claim of the law of God, have an absolute salvation secured them. They must be saved and by no possibility could be lost. This, as we have said already, would land us all in universalism and sweep the whole race into heaven, To avoid this manifestly unscriptural conclusion, the Satisfaction theory must have a "limited atonement only for the elect" to help it out.

The Governmental Theory, on the other hand, is consistent with a universal atonement, with a conditionality of its saving grace, coupled with that other solemn truth of Scripture, that those for whom Christ died may still, reject his mercy and perish.

(5) The Governmental Theory is in perfect harmony (and the Satisfaction Theory is not) with God's universal offers of salvation. We are all commissioned to herald a "whosoever Gospel" to a dying world, and press it upon every creature, as having a chance of salvation. The Satisfaction Theory is necessarily opposed to this glorious truth of God. The Governmental Theory fully provides for the proclamation of a Gospel of hope to every fallen son and daughter of Adam's race. It fits into all the truths and covers all the facts as no other theory does or can; and it must be the true theory of the Atonement. Amen!

* * * * * * *

CHAPTER VII -- THE SUFFICIENCY AND EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT

We have been discussing a great plan of salvation, originated and being carried out by the infinite God. It is a matter of the most profound importance to the entire moral universe. It is affecting the destinies of heaven, earth and hell. Three worlds are watching its operation with most intense interest. A natural question arises. What is its sufficiency? Who may be benefited by it? This is a point upon which men have widely differed in opinion, and has led to two great opposing schools of theology-the Calvinistic and the Arminian. We will contrast these two great systems in a subsequent chapter. Here we will discuss:

I. The Sufficiency of the Atonement. Fairchild observes, "The Atonement is not exhausted in the salvation of sinners; when one sinner has been saved, it is no less effective for the salvation of others. It is a great moral force, as available for all sinners as for one; and this is the Scripture representation" (p. 221). We may well inquire what elements enter into it that gives it such rich sufficiency. The following have been specially named.

1. The Holiness of Christ. A sinner can not be a mediator or make atonement. Whoever becomes a criminal himself, cannot intercede for another criminal. The Scriptures fully recognize this fact.

Even in the types that foreshadowed the Atonement, it was constantly taught. The lamb or bullock that was brought to the altar must be without spot or blemish. The Scriptures, with this thought in mind, are always extolling the sinlessness of Jesus. He was "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and higher than the heavens" (Heb. 7: 26). "Him who knew no sin He made to be sin (a sin offering) on our behalf" (2 Cor. S: 21). "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish unto God, cleanse your conscience?"

(Heb. 9: 14). The infinite holiness of Christ is as sufficient to bless all the guilty inhabitants of a fallen world as to bless one. The majesty of His holiness gives an immeasurable sufficiency of influence and power to his atoning work.

2. His Greatness. Whoever seeks an intercessor or mediator at the court of a king will want one of the highest possible rank. No finite being would have been of sufficient dignity and station to have stood for a guilty race before the infinite God. Indeed, God could not have permitted a finite being to make an atonement for us; for it would inevitably have led us to worship him and praise him forever as our Savior, and thus rob God of His glory. Moreover the Atonement must come from the Ruler Himself. He is the one to make the sacrifice and undergo the suffering, to save His own honor and His own government. It therefore required the Infinite Son of God, one with the Father, to do what had to be done to make our peace with God. It was the Creator of all things, the Lord of the angels himself, who, came to our rescue and died in our behalf, to shed the cleansing blood.

3. Its Voluntariness. No involuntary sacrifice would have any value in the estimation of God or man. A forced substitution of one person suffering for another by compulsion would be conspicuous only for its rank injustice; and this is the chief impression it would make upon all thinking beings. But when the sacrifice is in the free choice of the substitute, and that substitute is the ruler himself, its voluntariness adds a wealth of power and influence that cannot be estimated.

The Scripture is very plain on this point. We must always keep in mind the essential oneness of the Father and the Son, in the adorable mystery of the Trinity when we quote the divine Word on this theme. Jesus Himself said, "No man taketh my life from me: I have power to lay it down and power to take it again. I lay it down of myself" (John 10: 17, 18).

The Scriptures teach that the Father gave the Son; that the 'Son gave Himself; that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world; that He spared Him not but delivered Him up for us all (Rom. 8: 32): that He prepared for Him a body for His priestly sacrifice for sin; and the Son willingly responded, "Lo, I am come to do thy will, 0 God" (Heb. 10: 5-7). In all this the mind of the Son was one with the mind of the Father; "the Son came not to be ministered unto but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many" (Matt. 20: 28). He freely surrendered it for our salvation. This oneness of mind and purpose to save is carried back of the Incarnation and Atoning suffering to the Son in the bosom of the Father before the world was, planning with him the great salvation.

Thus the voluntariness of the suffering of Christ crowns it with exceeding value in the eyes of the Heavenly Father. And the willingness of God to make such a sacrifice for sinners lifts it into infinite significance and glory in the estimation of all moral beings. Such a sacrifice is sufficient to cancel all peril to the government of God from the forgiveness of sin even of a whole race.

4. Christ's Relation to Man. Jesus joined Himself to humanity, and became a perfect high-priest through suffering. It enabled Him by experience to know our sufferings and temptations and infirmities. As our Elder Brother, He could plead with the voice of sympathy in our behalf and get a hearing from the throne.

Aesachylus, the Greek tragedian, was summoned before an assembly of judges to answer for some serious offense against the state. The case was abundantly proved against him, and they were about to cry together, "Condemn, condemn!" when the door opened, and in came; a brother of Aeschylus, who had lost an arm on the battlefield. Instantly recognizing the state of affairs, and the danger threatening his brother, he stepped toward the judges and without saying a word, raised the stump of an arm which he had sacrificed for his country. The judges looked on Aeschylus and on his brother, and after a moment's conference, cried with one voice, "Acquit! Acquit!" So our Elder Brother-Christ, appears for us in mediation,

"Five bleeding wounds He bears,

Received on Calvary;

They pour effectual prayers,

They strongly plead for me.

'Forgive him, oh, forgive,' they cry,

'Nor let the ransomed sinner die!'"

Our Savior made use of this principle of brotherhood, putting Himself If into the most intimate relation with us, and atoning for us in profoundest sympathy. His compassion and love were voiced in the soul agonies of Gethsemane, in the heart-breaking cries of Calvary, and are still voiced in His intercessory prayers in heaven. Men and angels, in a spontaneous moral judgment, pronounce such a medication, a sufficient ground of forgiveness, and vindicate God in his pardon of sin. No shadow falls on the divine rectitude. The law of God I suffers no dishonor nor loss of ruling power.

5. The whole. "If it be asked what facts and particulars in the work of Christ go to make up the Atonement, the obvious reply must be everything which contributes to the necessary moral impression. The essential fact of the Atonement is the manifestation of God in His true character of a faithful Ruler, a loving Father, ready for any sacrifice to maintain the great moral interests of His universe."

"This manifestation is involved in the incarnation, and in the whole life work of Christ, with His death as the crowning fuel" (Fairchild), "The holiness, greatness, voluntariness, divine Sonship, and human brotherhood of Christ are, in themselves but qualities of fitness for His redemptive mediation and enter as elements of sufficiency into the atonement only as He enters into His sufferings. Without His sufferings and death there is really no Atonement" (Miley). Even as the Scripture says: "Without the shedding of blood there is no remission."

How much the infinite mind and heart of Christ suffered, we may not know. The humiliation of Christ was immeasurable, stooping to earth at all in the form of a servant. "And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross"

(Phil. 2:8). "What scenes are disclosed in Gethsemane and Calvary! Burdens of sorrow, depths of woe, intensities of agony! An awful mystery of suffering! At such a cost the Savior redeems the world." It is such a sufficiency of Atonement as meets all possible needs of the government of God.

II. The Extent of the Atonement.

For whose benefit was the Atonement intended? In a real and proper sense, God is managing the universe for His own glory. He consults His own glory and happiness, as the supreme and most influential reason for all His conduct. This is wise and right in Him because His own glory and happiness are infinitely the greatest good in and to the universe. The Atonement gave God an opportunity to express His love, and so He Himself was benefited by it. His happiness has been augmented in great measure from its contemplation, execution and results.

He made the Atonement, also, for the benefit of all holy beings; they are deeply benefited by it, from its very nature, as it gives them a higher knowledge of God than they ever could have had in any other way. The Atonement is the greatest work that He could have wrought, and the most calculated to display all the attributes of the divine nature, and thus it benefited them by making known to them the nature of God. For this reason, angels are desirous of looking into the Atonement. The inhabitants of heaven are profoundly interested in those displays of the character of God that are made in it. The Atonement is doubtless one of the greatest blessings God ever conferred upon the universe of holy beings.

The Atonement was doubtless designed particularly for the benefit of the inhabitants of this world.

From its very nature It is calculated to bless all of them, It is a most stupendous revelation of God to man, in which every man must be directly interested, All mankind can be blessed by it as truly as any part of it, Many benefits come unconditionally to all, Doubtless, but for the Atonement which was promised in Eden, none of our race, save our first parents would have had an existence.

All the loving ministrations of God's providence that come alike to the evil and the good, are the indirect results of the Atonement, The infinite patience with which God waits upon sinners to woo and win them to accept His love is doubtless, the result of that great scheme of mercy which they so often despise.

But can its saving benefits reach all mankind? The answer to this question locates the theologian.

Here the two great schools of theology are divided into opposing camps.

1. Arminianism, by its moral freedom, its doctrine of sin, and the cardinal facts of its soteriology is determined to the universality of the Atonement. Calvinism, by its doctrine of divine decrees, its unconditional election, its moral inability, and its satisfaction theory of Atonement, must limit its extent to the elect. This question is, therefore, no superficial one. It goes to the heart of all things in theology, and all men are naturally concerned in the issue. Even the Satisfaction Theory itself stands or falls with this question: for if the Atonement is destined for all alike, and is sufficient for all, actually and potentially, then, according to that theory, all will be inevitably saved, For the Atonement of satisfaction absolutely secures the salvation of all for whom it was made; they cannot by any possibility miss heaven. Therefore they must either accept a universal salvation, or a limited Atonement. Calvinists choose the latter.

2. There are modified Calvinists-"New School Presbyterians" who affirm that the Atonement was sufficient for all, and is offered to all, but it avails for only those for whom it was intended. But their theory lands them in the same conclusion at last, that only a few can be saved. Thus they place themselves in the following absurd position: "The Gospel should be preached with sincerity alike to all; but none but the elect can ever possibly be saved by it, because none others will believe and obey it; and this is certain because none can believe unless God by the invincible influence of his Spirit, gives them faith, and this He has decreed from all eternity to withhold from all but the elect." Such was the theory of Baxter and many others. It is a jumbled set of contradictory propositions that cast reflections on the sincerity of God.

Dr. Albert Barnes, of sainted memory, got caught in the meshes of this wretched sophistry. He would preach and write by the hour like an Arminian, proclaiming free and full salvation to all men, and then give it all away by a Calvinistic interpretation of some single term or phrase. Hear him: "This atonement was for all men, It was an offering made for the race, It had not respect to individuals so much an to the law and perfections of God, It was an opening of the way for pardon-a making forgiveness consistent- a preserving of truth-a magnifying of the law; and had no particular reference to any class of men. We judge that He died for all. He tasted death for every man. He is the propitiation for the sins of the world. He came; that whosoever would believe on him should not perish, but have eternal life. The full benefit of this atonement is offered to all men.

In perfect sincerity God makes the offer. He has commissioned His servants to go and preach the Gospel-that is, the good news that salvation is provided for them-to every creature. He that does not this-that goes to offer the Gospel to a part only, or that supposes that God offers the Gospel only to a portion of mankind-violates his commission, practically charges God with insincerity, makes himself 'wise above what is written' and brings great reproach on the holy cause of redemption. The offer of salvation is not made by man, but by God. It is His commission; and it is His solemn charge that the sincere offer of heaven should be made to every creature. I stand as the messenger of God, with the assurance that all that will may be saved; that the Atonement was full and free; and that if any perish, it will be because they choose to die, and not because they are straitened in God. I have no fellow feeling for any other Gospel; I have no right hand of fellowship to extend to any scheme that does not say that God sincerely offers all the bliss of heaven to every guilty, wandering child of Adam."

Now that was the real Gospel of salvation for every creature- Arminian, every word of it. But strange to say, Dr. Barnes still remained in the Calvinistic camp, and endorsed the Westminster Confession of Faith. Some one asks, "How could he?" This is the way: He held to the Calvinistic doctrine of moral INABILITY and juggled with the word "will". All that WILL may be saved." But he believed that nobody could "will" but those who were enabled to do so by God's "efficacious grace" which He sovereignly withheld from all but the elect!! This whole class of theologians hold that the atonement is ample to save all, IF they would but accept it; but they hold that no man will or can accept it, unless God, by invincible sovereign grace gives the WILL and ABILITY to believe and be saved, but that God from all eternity has determined not to impart this ability to accept Christ-this converting grace, to any but the few elect pets of His sovereign mercy, that saves whom it will, and leaves the rest to perish in their sins. This logically throws all the responsibility for the loss of all that perish upon God. It is a wont unjust and wicked reflection upon the loving Father, "who will have all to be saved," and "is not willing that any should perish" (Matt. 18: 14

and 2 Pet, 3:9 and Ezek, 33: 11), A large number of such theologians subscribed to the following and published it: "And the reason that God does not save all, is not that He lacks the power to do it, but that in His wisdom He does not see fit to exert that power farther than He actually does....

The reason why some differ from others is that God has made them to differ" (Bib. Sac., July No.

1863, pp. 585, 586). In other words, God does not want any more to be saved than are saved, and if some accept Christ and become saints, while others despise mercy, cling to their sins and are lost, it is because "God made them differ." Such Calvinistic utterances are a disgrace to the human intellect of which Christian men, with a Bible in their hands, ought to be ashamed, 3. Old Calvinistic Teaching.

"By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life, and others fore-ordained to everlasting death.

These angels and men, thus predestinated and fore-ordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished. "Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to His eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, hath chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory, out of His mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving Him thereunto, and all to the praise of His glorious grace.

"They who are elected, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ by His Spirit, working in due season, are justified, adopted, sanctified and kept by His power through faith unto salvation. Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, or effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only."

"The rest of mankind, God was PLEASED, according to the unsearchable counsel of His own will, whereby he extendeth or with-holdeth mercy as HE PLEASETH, for the GLORY OF HIS

SOVEREIGN POWER OVER HIS CREATURES, TO PASS BY, AND TO ORDAIN THEM TO

DISHONOR AND WRATH for their sin, to the praise of his glorious justice" (Westminster Confession). We think, with Finney, that a worse slander against the holy God of love never came from the bottomless pit, It is doubtful if any heathen ever made a more atrocious reflection against the Almighty.

4. Can these things be true? We say, No! We hold that the Atonement was designed to make salvation possible to all men, for the following reasons:

(1) From its intrinsic sufficiency. It was infinitely sufficient for all. Even Calvinists admit that.

Witsius says: "The obedience and sufferings of Christ considered in themselves, are, on account of the infinite dignity of His person, of that value as to have been sufficient for redeeming, not only all and every man in particular, but many myriads besides, had it so pleased God and Christ."

Turrettin: "It is confessed by all, that since its value is infinite, it would have been sufficient for the redemption of the entire human family, had it appeared good to God to extend it to the whole world" (Atonement, p. 123). A. A. Hodge says: "All Calvinists agree in maintaining earnestly that Christ's obedience and sufferings were of infinite intrinsic value in the eyes of the law, and that there was no need for Him to obey or suffer an iota more nor a moment longer, in order to secure, if God so willed, the salvation of every man, woman and child that ever lived" (The Atonement, p.

356).

Now if the Atonement was so sufficient for all, why should not all get the benefit? If it was so important to make an atonement for any, why not for all? "If the son of a king should interpose in atonement for rebellious subjects, any limitation must be imposed either by the will and purpose of the sovereign atoned, or by the will and purpose of the atoning son. No other has any power in the case. Now the Atonement is made between the Father and the Son. If limited, either the Father would not accept, or the Son would not make, an atonement for all. The question then turns on this-what was the purpose of the Father in giving His Son, and of the Son in dying. Was it for some, or for all?" (Miley).

(2) The Pleasure of the Father,

a. His is a true divine sovereignty. Arbitrariness and partiality are wholly inconsistent with the character of God. He is no respecter of persons (Acts 10: 34). An absolute sovereign, who had no respect for His honor, or regard for the interests of His subjects, might forgive without atonement.

But how could a holy God elect to save some without any reason of character, or conduct in them, and pass by myriads of others as good or better? No reason has ever been given or can be given for such conduct on the part of God, and He distinctly disclaims acting in that way.

b. Moreover, God sustains a common relation to all. As Miley says: "God is the Creator and Father of all men. There is, therefore, no difference of divine relationship which could be a reason for limitation in the Atonement." Numbers 16: 22, "O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and wilt thou be wroth with the whole congregation?" Also 27: 16, "For in Him we live and move and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, for we also are His offspring." Acts 17: 28, "Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of Spirits and live?"

c. The Atonement originated in the Fatherly love of God, and it answers to His yearnings for our good. God loved us all as wretched and perishing, and provided for us for that reason. Hence the very reasons for His redeeming love were common in all. It could not, therefore, have been the common Father's good pleasure to destine the Atonement to bless only a part of His children when His love, in which it originated equally embraced them all" (Miley).

d. And if we look at the human side, we would also be led to believe in a universal atonement.

"There was no difference among men. All had sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Rom.

3: 22, 23). All were facing a common doom of eternal separation from God. Their depravity had a common source: its end was a common destruction.

A common love for all came to the rescue of all. Could such love have any pleasure in limiting infinite mercy, adequate for all, to only a few, when His compassion embraced all?

e. The divine perfections argue for a universal atonement. Divine justice has been honored and satisfied. Forgiveness of a penitent race would, with such an atonement, tarnish no divine glory, nor sacrifice any right or interest of the moral government. The divine holiness of God does not demand a limitation. If, by the Atonement, He can, consistently with His holiness, forgive millions of penitent believers, he can forgive billions as well. If He takes delight in seeing His character reproduced in His children, the more He saves from sin, the greater will be His joy.

His goodness and compassion spend themselves in alleviating sorrow and diminishing woe. He has set Himself to lessen as much as possible the influences of sin-that great gulf-stream of anguish that will flow across the empire of God forever, and to save as many as possible to increase the gladness and glory of an eternal heaven. Why should His goodness be limited in its achievements by a purpose to save only a few of the vast multitude of immortals that he Himself creates leaded with a propensity to sin, and that move on, in endless procession, to an eternity of woe, unless He comes to their help? "God has spoken to this point so directly and in such utterances, as to put the fact of His good pleasure for a universal atonement out of all question."As I live, saith the Lord, Jehovah, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live" (Ezek. 33: 11). "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3: 16). "Who would have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:4). "Not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Pet. 3:9). It is true, as He affirms, under most solemn, self-adjuration, that He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that He turn from His way and live? Is it true that He so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son for its redemption? Is it true that He is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish? Can it be true, then, that in the absence of all hindrance, and with the presence of an infinitely greater good, he preferred a limited atonement, and sovereignly destined one, intrinsically sufficient for all, to the favor of only a part? It cannot be. And the Father placed no narrower limit to the grace (of redemption) than the utmost circle of humanity" (Miley, Vol. II, p.

224).

(3) The Pleasure of the Son. All that has been said regarding the pleasure of the Father could be repeated concerning the pleasure of the Son. They are essentially one. They had but one plan-to redeem the fallen race of men. They have but one sovereign purpose to bring glory to God and good to the moral universe. They act upon the same principles. They move to the same impulse of love. With the Son, as with the Father, there is the utter absence of all reason or preference for limitation, and delight in universality. Hodge admitted: "All that Christ did and suffered would have been necessary had only one human soul been the object of redemption; and nothing different, and nothing more, would have been required, had every child of Adam been saved through his blood" (Vol. II, p. 545). Why, then, should Christ want the possible number of those blessed by His great salvation limited? Is it because He, who wept over sinners, delights in the sufferings of the lost? Is it enchanting music to His ears to listen to the wails of the damned? Is it a blissful vision for Him to behold the smoke of their torment ascending forever and ever, to whom He might, without another pang, have given at least a chance to enjoy the eternal bliss of Heaven? The moral reason revolts at such a conclusion. The heart of love turns from such a theory with horror and disgust.

(4) The Voice of the Holy Spirit in Scripture. The Third Person of the Trinity is yet to be heard from, and He too, speaks with no uncertain sound. There are some texts quoted as if they limited the Atonement.

Dr. Hodge writes: "There are very numerous passages in which it is expressly declared that Christ gave Himself for His Church (Eph. 5: 25); that He laid down his life for His sheep (John 10: 15); that He laid down His life for His friends (John 15: 13); that He died that he might gather together in one the children of God that are scattered abroad (John 11:52); that it was the Church which He purchased with His blood (Acts 20: 28), When it is said that Christ loved His Church and gave himself for it, that He laid down His life for His sheep, it is clear that something is said of the Church and the sheep, which is not true of those who belong to neither. ... It is difficult, in the light of Eph. 5: 25, where the death of Christ is attributed to His love of His Church, and is said to have been designed for its sanctification and salvation, to believe that He gave himself as much for reprobates as for those whom He intended to save."

"Every assertion, therefore, that Christ died for a people is a denial of the doctrine that He died equally for all men" (Vol. II, p. 549).

In the same-spirit Turrettin says: "The mission and death of Christ are restricted to a limited number-to His people, His sheep, His friends, His Church, His body; and nowhere extended to all men severally and collectively. Thus Christ is called "Jesus, because he shall save His people from their sins." He is called the 'Savior of His body'; 'the good shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep'; and for His friends, 'He is said to die that He might gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.' It is said that Christ hath purchased the Church with His own blood. If Christ died for every one of Adam's posterity, why should the Scriptures so often restrict the object of His death to a few?" (The Atonement, pp. 125, 126).

This is the most these defenders of a limited Atonement can bring forward in support of their theory. It may be said in reply, that in all the texts given there is not one word which limits the atonement to the subjects named. And with vastly more reason, we may ask, if the Atonement is only for a few, why do the Scriptures so often assert that it is for all? If Queen Victoria had delivered a speech, or written a letter to the city of Manchester, in which occurred these expressions: "I have helped to build up Manchester"; "Her Majesty has been a blessing to the citizens of Manchester," would it be a necessary inference that she had not also blessed Glasgow, or loved Liverpool, or helped London?

If the Atonement were necessarily saving, and, as a fact, only a few were saved, then of course, the Atonement would necessarily be limited. But it is only an assumption that the Atonement necessarily saves all for whom it was made. Nothing is more certain concerning it than the conditionally of its saving grace.

"God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son," not that the elect might be saved, or His church, or His friends, or His sheep, or His people; but "that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish." The "friends" and "church" and "people" are a distinct class, only as they become actually saved. There is no such class except as the fruit of the Atonement. "When we were yet sinners Christ died for us" (Rom. 5: 8). Hence, there could be no such a restricted class for which Christ died. The Atonement as the only ground of their peculiar relation to Christ, must precede that relation, and be made for them as lost sinners, ungodly and enemies. They can enter into their peculiarly dear relation to Christ only through the grace of an Atonement previously made for them. That same Atonement, previously made for them as sinners, was so made for all men (Eph. 2: 11-22). "For there is one mediator also between God and men, Himself man, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all" (1 Tim. 2: 5, 6). "We have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of them that believe" (1 Tim. 4: 10). "That by the grace of God, He should taste death for every man" (Heb. 2:9).

The truth becomes plain from these passages that the ATONEMENT is ONLY CONDITIONAL IN

ITS EFFECT. As President Fairchild well says: "The Atonement brings salvation within the reach of every human sinner. It does not secure the salvation of any, but it is sufficient for all.

"Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely" (Rev. 22: 17). This is the Atonement of the Gospel. On God's part, all obstacles are removed, all external or governmental conditions of salvation are supplied; and still, all the motives to repentance and righteousness are furnished. The way is open. The sinner must respond to these offers of mercy and salvation. No salvation can come to him without his own co-operation" (Theology, |i.232).

"It is true, indeed, that Christ died for all the actual sharers in the saving grace of Atonement. And there are special reasons for emphasizing the fact. Thus Christ impresses upon their minds the greatness of his love to them, and the greatness of the benefit received through the grace of his redemption, and so enforces His own claim upon their love. But there is not a text quoted in favor of limitation that is not perfectly consistent with its universality."

THE COMMON VOICE OF SCRIPTURE

The universality of Atonement is taught:

a. By those passages which designate the object of the Atonement by universal terms. When it is said that Christ died "for us," it means that He died in our behalf, and in our stead. And so it means the same when the Scriptures affirm that "He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2:2). "That He by the grace of God should taste death for every man" (Heb. 2:9). "The Father hath sent the Son to be the Savior of the world" (1

John 4: 14). "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish." "For God sent not His Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through Him" (verse 17). "One died for all ... and He died for all that they that live should no longer live unto themselves but unto Him" (2 Cor. 5: 14, 15). "The Savior of all men, especially of them that believe" (1 Tim. 4: 10). "Who would have all men to be saved" (1 Tim. 2:4).

It can only be fairly concluded from such passages, that by the death of Christ the sins of every man are rendered remissible, and that salvation is attainable by all.

When the apostle (in Rom. 5: 18) declares that as "through one trespass, the judgment came unto all men to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness, the free gift came unto all men to justification of life," the force of the comparison would be lost, if the term "all men" were not taken in its widest sense.

No sane interpretation can make "the world" and "all men" and "every man" in so many texts mean

"the elect." To attempt to substitute "the elect" for "the world" in many places leads to gross absurdity, as in John 3: 16 and John IS: 19 and 1 John 5: 19, and John 17: 9. Take the last passage:

"I pray for them; I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me." Do the advocates of a limited atonement interpret "the world" here to be "the elect"? If so they cut off even the elect from the benefits of Christ's prayer. If they say it means the non-elect, then they must allow that one end which our Lord had in view in this prayer was, that this non-elect world might believe (v. 21).

They may choose either of the alternatives and they are vanquished.

b. By those passages which ascribe an equal extent to the benefits of the death of Christ as to the effects of the fall. "Therefore as through one trespass the judgment came unto all men to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness the free gift came unto all men to justification of life" (Rom, 5; 18), Here two things are clearly taught: 1. That the mediation of Jesus Christ is, in its own nature, a complete and sovereign remedy for man's moral disease; 2.

That this remedy, in its applicability, is co-extensive with the consequences of Adam's sin; the language applied to both being precisely the same-"judgment came upon ALL MEN" "the free gift came upon ALL MEN." If the whole human race is meant in the former, the whole human race is meant in the latter clause; and therefore, all men have an interest in the saving benefits of Christ.

c. By passages of Scripture which declare that Christ died for those who may perish. "Destroy not him with thy meat, for whom Christ died (Rom. 14: IS)."For through thy knowledge he that is weak perisheth, the brother for whose sake Christ died" (1 Cor. 8: 11). "Of how much sorer punishment, think ye, shall he be judged worthy, who hath trodden under foot, the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace" (Heb. 10: 29). "False prophets and false teachers, who shall privily bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Master that bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction" (2 Pet. 2:1).

It is painful to note how Calvinistic commentators juggle with these passages, paraphrasing and twisting them just as Unitarians do the passages that teach the deity of Christ. Scott amusingly remarks: "The Apostles did not write in an exact systematical style, otherwise they would scrupulously have avoided such expressions!" What a pity that the Apostles could not have had a committee of Calvinists to edit their writings! Peter says of Christ: "The Lord that bought them,"

viz., "the false prophets and false teachers, whose end is destruction." But if the Lord did not intend to redeem them, He did not buy them at all; but this supposition contradicts the apostle.

These passages teach that Christ's ransom was general, and that all men are interested in it, which agrees exactly with our theory of a Universal atonement, and flatly opposes those who limit the atonement to the elect. These passages are sufficient to show that Christ died for them that may perish; but if He died for them that may perish, it may be presumed that He died for the whole human family.

d. By those passages which require the Gospel to be proclaimed through all the world to every creature. "Go ye therefore find make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matt, 28: I')), "And this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations" (Matt. 24: 14).

Luke 24: 47, "And that repentance, and remission of sins should be preached in His name unto all the nations." "And in thee, and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed" (Gen.

28:14). "Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession" (Ps. 2:9). "Jehovah hath made bare His holy arm, in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God" (Isa. 52: 10).

It follows, therefore, that the Gospel is to be proclaimed to all men; "to them that are afar off and to them that are nigh." The angels sang over the birth of Christ and one announced, "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people" (Luke 2: 10).

Now if the possibility of salvation is confined to a part of the human family, as Calvinism teaches, then the Gospel cannot be "good tidings of great joy to all "people" and God may be charged with deceiving the world. It cannot be good tidings to those for whom Christ made no atonement.

"But," says the Calvinist, "the atonement secures to the non-elect temporal blessings and many gracious privileges." We reply to this, that if God withholds from the non-elect the ability to comply with the terms of the Gospel, and secure the benefits of the atonement, and if their rejection of the overtures of mercy is unavoidable and will "increase their guilt and aggravate their damnation" as they say, then it will be a curse and not a blessing. Of what advantage are existence and mere temporal blessings, if he for whom no salvation was provided, must inherit eternal doom? It were infinitely better for him "if he had never been born."

If, then, we are to regard the Gospel as a candid and honest expression of the divine will concerning the moral recovery of our race; if we would not turn it into a mere mockery, so far as the non-elect are concerned; if we would not make it to them a means of increased torture, a snare and a curse, instead of "good tidings" from God, we must admit that it proclaims a salvation which is, through the Atonement of Christ, made possible to all men.

God commissions preachers to preach the Gospel "to every creature." It is the duty of all men to repent and believe, for "He that believeth on Him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him (John 3: 18 and 36). "These are written that ye might believe and that believing, ye might have life through His name" (John 20: 31). "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved" (Acts 16: 31). "God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent" (Acts 17:30). Such is the preacher's commission, and the Gospel message. The Arminian can preach it with a whole heart and without any misgiving or mental reservation.

What about the Calvinist? When he presents the offer of salvation to all, and declares that God willeth not the damnation of any, in order to reconcile these texts, which imply a real provision and possibility of Salvation for all, with his creed, he resorts to a distinction between what they call the revealed and secret will of God. They say, it is according to the revealed will of God, that all men should repent and believe and be saved; but it is according to the secret will of God that none shall receive the grace to enable them to repent and believe, but the elect; and consequently that salvation is possible to no others! This horrible doctrine reminds us of the remorselessly cruel Duke of Alva. In 1567 he was sent by Philip II of Spain to the Netherlands, to suppress Protestantism. He gave by public proclamation the right of religious liberty, which the Protestants of Holland took advantage of. Alva thus found out who the Protestants were, and he then proceeded to put 18,000 of them to death by martyrdom, as he afterwards boasted. Alva thus had a publicly announced "public will" and "a secret will" Now these Calvinists represent our holy God, as an infinite, juggling, double-healing, hypocritical Duke of Alva, who publicly announces to the world that "He is not willing that any should perish"; and it is "His will that all should be saved," while He determines secretly to withhold every possibility of salvation from the great mass of mankind! Such a doctrine is simply blasphemous.

The most intelligent Calvinists are confronted with this difficulty which they are utterly unable to surmount, how to reconcile the preacher's commission, and the unlimited calls and invitations of the gospel, with the truth and sincerity of God, according to their theory of a limited atonement.

Honest Dr. Dick after stating some of the attempts which have been made to solve this difficulty comes to the following pitiful conclusion: "We may pronounce, I think, these attempts to reconcile, the universal call of the Gospel with the sincerity of God to be a faint struggle to extricate ourselves from the profundities of theology!! They are far, indeed, from removing the difficulty.

We believe, on the authority (?) of Scripture, that God has decreed to give salvation to some and to withhold it from others. We know, at the same time, that He offers salvation to all in the Gospel; and to suppose that He is not sincere would be to deny Him to be God. It may be right to endeavor to reconcile these things, because knowledge is always desirable, and it is our duty to seek it as far as it can be attained. But if we find that beyond a certain limit we cannot go, let us be content to remain in ignorance. Let us reflect, however, that we are ignorant in the present case only of the connection between two truths, and not of the truths themselves, for these are clearly stated in the scriptures (?). We ought, therefore, to believe both although we can not reconcile them. Perhaps the subject is too high for the human intellect in its present state. It may be that, however correct our notions of the divine purposes seem, there is some misapprehension which gives rise to the difficulty" (Dick's Theology, Lecture 65).

We should think so! And the great misapprehension is the Calvinistic notion of a limited atonement. We venture the assertion that no sound theology and no correct interpretation of Scriptures will ever result in any such irreconcilable contradictions. There are several things in this quotation from Dr. Dick deserving notice. 1. He assumes it to be a doctrine of the Bible that

"God has decreed to give salvation to some, and to withhold it from others." It is a pure assumption, with no Scripture to support it. 2. He admits that "God offers salvation to all." It is true. 3. He confesses his inability to reconcile these facts with the sincerity of God, pronounces every attempt to do so, "a faint struggle to extricate ourselves from the profundities of theology."

Ralston suggests that it would be more appropriate to call it "a faint struggle to extricate themselves from the absurdities of Calvinism"! Here is an open and frank admission that this particular doctrine of a limited atonement cannot be reconciled with the Scripture, or with the holiness of God, and the same is true of every other distinctive doctrine of Calvinism. That God offers salvation to all men, is too evident to be denied; but that He has decreed to withhold it from some, never has been, and never can be proved. We conclude that Christ so died for all men, as to make their salvation possible.

e. By all those passages of Scripture which require all men to repent and believe the Gospel. They all imply the universality of the atonement. "Repent ye and believe the Gospel" (Mark 1:15). "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: he that believeth not the Son shall not see life: but the wrath of God abideth on him." "The plain inference from all such passages is that the Gospel is preached to all men in order that they may repent and believe in Christ; that repentance and faith are required of them, in order to their salvation; that they have power to "believe to the saving of the soul," for those who believe not incur the wrath of God; that, having power to believe unto salvation, they must have an interest in the merits of Christ's death; and that consequently, the atonement of Christ, through which alone salvation may be obtained, embraces all mankind"

(Wakefield's Theology, p. 384).

f. The nature of saving faith, leads to the same conclusion. This saving faith is a personal trust in the sacrificial death of Christ as a propitiation for his own personal sin, and receives forgiveness as the immediate gift of God. Now this saving faith is required of all men. Peter preached it to the mob in Jerusalem, both to those who were saved, and those who were not, but it cannot be the duty of any for whom Jesus did not die, consequently for whom there is no salvation. An attainable salvation is the condition of the obligation to believe. No man ever did, or ever can believe in Christ unto salvation without first believing that Christ died for him. If Christ did not die for all, then God requires the great mass of sinners to believe a lie, on penalty of eternal damnation! To this absurdity Calvinism runs.

There is a necessary order of facts and mental process in our faith in Christ; first in believing that He died for us; then in a sure trust of faith in Him for salvation. But if Christ died for only the small part of mankind, then no man has, or can have, previous to his conversion, satisfactory evidence that there is an atonement for him.

The following indubitable facts confront every soul to whom the Gospel is preached. 1. The Gospel is for all. 2. Salvation is the privilege of all to whom the offers of the Gospel are made. 3.

A saving faith in the redemption of Christ, is the duty of all who have the Gospel. These are undeniable facts of Scripture. Any logical mind, not warped and blinded by an unscriptural theology, will take the next step, - therefore, there is salvation for all.

It is simply undeniable that God commands all men to repent mid believe in Christ. He promises salvation to those who repent mid believe; He threatens damnation to them who do not. But according to Calvinism, both salvation the end, and faith the means are absolutely impossible to the non-elect. It would, therefore, have us believe that God will punish men eternally for not obtaining an impossible end (salvation) by an impossible means (faith). Out upon a scheme of thought which involves such wicked reflections against God!

g. From those Scriptures which show that men's failure to salvation is their own fault. "Because I have called, and ye have refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man hath regarded; But ye have set at naught all my counsel, and would none of my reproof; I also will laugh in the day of your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh" (Prov. 1: 24-26). "Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die?" (Ezek. 33: 11). "How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not" (Matt. 23: 37).

"And ye will not come unto me that ye might have life" (John 5: 40). "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved" (Rom. 10: 13). It is needless to multiply quotations. The Scriptures constantly exhort men to obedience, reprove them for their folly, and threaten them with the penal consequences of their evil doings. It everywhere assumes that they have ability to obey. It must therefore be admitted that the sole bar to the salvation of those who are lost is in themselves, and not in any limitation of Christ's redemption that excludes them from mercy. Every Scripture which declares that a man's ruin is his own fault is a proof that the atonement of Christ has made salvation possible to every man. There is no inability, of any kind whatsoever, that makes it impossible for a man to make the choice of Christ and salvation. A man's own consciousness tells him so, and God fully declares it.

h. From those Scriptures which declare the will of God respecting the salvation of all men. "I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye" (Ezek. 18: 32). "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live" (Ezek. 33:11). "For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; who will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:3). "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise as some men count slackness; but is long suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (1 Peter 3:9). The teaching of these Scriptures is so unmistakable that comment is unnecessary.

We have now shown the universality of the atonement.

1. By those Scriptures which designate the objects of redemption by universal terms as "the world," "all men."

2. By those which represent the benefits of Christ to be coextensive with the effects of the fall."

3. By those which declare that Christ died for those who may perish.

4. By those which require the Gospel to be proclaimed through all the world, to every creature.

5. By those which require all men to repent and believe the Gospel.

6. By those which show that men's failure to be saved is their own fault.

7. By those which declare that it is the will of God that all men should be saved.

* * * * * * *

CHAPTER VIII -- OBJECTIONS ANSWERED -- BENEFITS OF ATONEMENT

I. There are those who make objections to the doctrine of the atonement.

1. It is said that it represents God as unmerciful. This objection is made on the supposition that the atonement was forced upon Jesus, and to satisfy retributive justice. This is simply an objection to the satisfaction theory of the atonement. We have objected to it, too, on grounds of Scripture and reason. No such theory of the atonement is capable of being defended rationally and Scripturally.

But the objection does not hold against a Scriptural view of the atonement. It was the exhibition of infinite mercy on the part of God. It was just because God was merciful and longed to save sinners, if he could possibly do it, consistently with the safety of his government and the good of moral beings, that he originated the scheme of the atonement. If God had not been merciful (and we mean the Triune God-Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) He would have let sinners perish without an attempt to save them. But because God was merciful He consented to let His Son die for our redemption, and the blessed Son consented to go to Calvary for our sakes.

As Finney says: "The atonement is infinitely the most illustrious exhibition of mercy ever made in the universe. The mere pardon of sin, as an act of sovereign mercy, had it been possible, could not have been compared with the merciful disposition displayed in the atonement itself (Theology, p.

279). This was mercy that cost something to God Himself.

2. It is objected that the atonement was unnecessary. The history of mankind speaks with one voice against this objection. The whole human race, widely scattered over the earth, has ever been offering sacrifices, in one universal effort to propitiate God, or somehow make amends to His dishonored government for sin. All human history shows that men have been universally conscious of being sinners, and under the government of a sin-hating God. Their spiritual intuitions seemed to teach them that they must be punished for sins, unless a substitute was found to answer to public justice. The whole race somehow had the idea, that there might be a substitute for the penalty of sin. And hence they offered their expiatory sacrifices; and every one of them was a blind, unconscious prophecy of and a mute appeal for, an atoning Christ. Every heathen philosopher would rebuke this objection, and answer it.

3. It is objected that it is unjust to punish an innocent being instead of the guilty. We admit it. But this again is only an objection to the atonement as represented by the satisfaction theory. We are not surprised that men object to it. The irrationality of that theory has created a world of infidelity, and well it might. But let not the objector suppose that, in knocking down that man of straw, he has destroyed the true doctrine of the atonement. Let it be remembered that it is impossible for God to punish any holy being. Punishment implies guilt, and there is no guilt without sin, and sin is personal and belongs only to the sinner himself.

We have said, and repeat it, Christ was not punished. It is a misuse of language to say that He was.

An innocent being may voluntarily suffer for others; but he cannot be punished. Christ voluntarily

"suffered the just for the unjust." He had a right to take upon Himself such vicarious suffering for the good of others. It was not punishment forced upon Him. As it was by His own will and consent, and purpose, no injustice was done to Him, or to any one.

If Jesus had no right to make an atonement then He had no right to consult His own happiness, or the happiness of others; He had no right to seek the good of sinners or the glory of God. So far as we can see or know sinners could not be saved in any cheaper way; and nothing else could bring such a harvest of adoration and praise to Jesus, or such eternal glory to the infinite God.

4. It is objected that the doctrine of the atonement is incredible. It is a natural objection. We do not wonder that men have been overwhelmed at the thought. The greatness of the idea staggers the human mind. It has utterly astonished the great thinkers of the heathen world. It would be absolutely incredible but far one blessed fact: our adorable Father in Heaven is a God of infinite love.

Nothing else could have brought His Son from the skies. Nothing else would have induced Him to exchange the throne of heaven for the cross of Calvary.

"But if God is love, as He Himself declares, it is what might he expected of Him under the circumstances; and the doctrine of I he atonement is the most reasonable doctrine in the universe"

(Kirmey, p. 280). Love loves to give. Love is full of pity and compassion, Love finds its life and breath and being in sacrifice. "And God so loved, that He gave" The infinite love could only be measured and set forth to an admiring and astonished universe by an infinite gift. There is no measure of love but sacrifice.

5. It is objected to the atonement that it is of a demoralizing tendency. Here again, we say, is an objection against a particular theory of the atonement, but not against the atonement itself. We have already said, and are compelled to say again, that the Satisfaction theory of the atonement does lead directly to antinomianism. We have seen it, and heard it openly.

Tell men that Jesus obeyed for them, and they are liable to conclude that they need not obey. Tell them that He was punished in their stead and that law and justice can put no claim upon them, and it will naturally, lift from their minds any fear of the wrath of God, do what they will. Tell them of

"a finished salvation" secured for them before they were born, as many Calvinists do, and if it does not encourage careless living on the part of those who think they are elect, and then a moral cause does not produce its natural moral effect. Tell them that the children of God are always dear to Him, even in their sins, and that they cannot possibly fall fatally from grace, and if it would not incline them to presumptuous sins, nothing could. We do not care how much such a theory is criticized. We will join hands with anybody to point out its errors and evil tendencies.

But the doctrine of the atonement which we have advanced has no such natural tendency. It may be wickedly abused like any other of God's blessings. But its natural tendency is to cause the redeemed soul to hate the sins that caused the loving Savior so much sorrow, and that still

"crucifies Him afresh and puts Him to an open shame." The manifested love of Calvary tends to excite love in return. It may be said, without fear of contradiction, that those who have the most cordially believed in the atonement have exhibited the purest morality that has ever been seen in this world; while the rejecters of the atonement tend to a loose morality. What else could we expect, in view of the moral influence of the atonement?

6. Of course, advocates of a limited atonement object to a general atonement, on the statements of Scripture that Christ died for His "friends," His "sheep," and His "church." Finney makes this answer: "Those who object to the general atonement take substantially the same course to evade the doctrine that Unitarians do to set aside the doctrine of the Trinity and the deity of Christ. They quote those passages that prove the unity of God, and the humanity of Christ, and then take it for granted that they have disproved the Trinity and Christ's Deity. The asserters of limited atonement, in like manner, quote those passages which prove that Christ died for the elect, and for His saints, and then take it for granted that He died for none else. To the Unitarian, we reply. We admit the unity of God and the humanity of Christ and the full meaning of those passages which you quote in proof of these doctrines; but we insist that this is not the whole truth, but that there are still other passages which prove the doctrine of the Trinity and the Deity of Christ. Just so to the asserters of limited atonement, we reply. We believe that Christ laid down His life for His sheep as well as you; but we also believe that He "tasted death for every man" (Heb. 2: 9 and John 3: 16) (Theology, pp. 280, 281).

7. It is objected to a general Atonement that it would be folly in God to provide what He knew would be rejected; and that to suffer Christ to die for those who, He foresaw, would not repent, would be a useless expenditure of the blood and suffering of Christ. We answer: (1) This objection is based upon an utterly erroneous conception of the atonement. Even Dr. Hodge admits:

"All that Christ did and suffered would have been necessary had only one human soul been the object of redemption; and nothing different and nothing more would have been required had every child of Adam been saved through His blood." (2) The Atonement would be of infinite value, if no sinner were saved by it. Every moral being in the universe would be compelled to glorify God forever by admitting that God had done His best to save sinners. The cross would be an eternal monument to the fact that God had so loved His enemies that He had made every possible effort to save them from the doom of their own sins, not halting even at the gift of His beloved Son. If nobody was saved, the atonement would bring eternal glory to God. (3) Moreover, as we have previously shown, the atonement would be an infinite blessing to all holy beings, even if no sinners were saved. The holy would have by it such matchless revelations of the goodness, and grace, and mercy, and pity, and compassion, and love of God as otherwise they never could have known. The great compassion of God, in providing an atonement for sinners and offering them mercy, will forever exalt God, and strengthen His government, and therefore will be a benefit to the whole universe. (4) It would bring infinitely great honor to Jesus. Because He "humbled Himself and became obedient unto death for our sakes, wherefore also God highly exalted Him, and gave unto Him the name which is above every name; that at the name (if Jesus every knee should bow, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Phil, 2:8-11).

8. To the general atonement, it is objected that it implies universal salvation. We answer, this objection, also, grows out of one of the fundamental elements of the Satisfaction theory, which is that the atonement secures the absolute salvation of all for whom it was made. As a matter of fact, it is only provisory in its nature, and, in itself alone, does not secure the salvation of anybody. It only makes it possible for God to offer salvation to everybody, consistently with His justice and the best interests of His government. He makes the offer to all. How many will be saved depends upon man's reception of the offer. If all accept, all will be saved; if half accept, half will be saved; if none accept, hone will be saved; but God is none the less glorious in making an effort to save all. But an innumerable company will be saved. "Christ shall see of the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied" (Isaiah 53: 11). It will take an infinite multitude of the saved to satisfy the infinite heart of Jesus.

II. Benefits of the Atonement.

We have seen that the atonement is in harmony with the nature of God, and demanded by God's honor and the best interests of His government. We have further seen that there are no valid objections against the true theory of the atonement. The question now meets us, how we can possess ourselves of the benefits it procures for us. There are other benefits of the atonement besides an actual salvation. And there are unconditional benefits, as well as conditional benefits.

Unconditional benefits must precede and prepare the way for the conditioned salvation or it could never be possible. "We are not saved in a mere mechanical way, by the operation of omnipotent power, and 'irresistible, efficacious grace; but as free agents, and on our voluntary compliance with offered terms of salvation."

Thus we may divide the benefits of the atonement into two classes: Unconditional and Conditional, and consider afterward how we may reap the blessings purchased for us by the blood of Christ.

Notice then

1. THE UNCONDITIONAL BENEFITS

It is not necessary to discuss all of them at great length. A brief statement will suffice.

(1) Our very existence. It is reasonably certain that, but for the atonement, Adam and Eve would have been cut off at once, on the commission of sin, and the race would have become extinct. It is quite inconceivable that God would have allowed the race to be propagated in depravity and sin, with no provision for our salvation. Such a condition of the race would be awful to contemplate.

But the day our first parents sinned a Savior was promised, and the scheme of atonement was launched. The propagation of the race in helpless moral ruin could not have been reconciled with the goodness of God. It follows that the atonement is the ground of the very existence of the race.

"While existence may become an evil, in itself it may still be a good. Many a blessing of the present life may become an evil; many a blessing does become an evil. It is not therefore an evil in itself; it is still a good. The evil arises from a wrong use of it. Such use is avoidable. We are in a probationary state. The vindication of God in such an existence lies in its possibilities of good within reach of us, and of blessedness forever" (Miley).

(2) The Common Influences of the Holy Spirit. There are two central, universal facts of human nature,-first, a universal corruption of human nature through the Adamic fall; second, the compensating, universal help of the Holy Spirit, that comes through Christ. "This is the light that lighteth every man, coming into the world" (John 1:9). What the moral state of humanity would be, if it had been left to the unrestrained and unalleviated consequences of the fall, can only be conjectured. We do not know what total depravity could bring us to, into what depths of sin and alienation from God we should fall, were there no counteracting grace; for the experiment has never been tried. The race has always had the remedial influence of the Holy Spirit, steadily pulling away at our hearts to draw us back to God.

Who can guess what might be the enormities of evil from the force of habit, with no restraining Spirit; or how dead might be the conscience, with no touch of God to arouse it to life; or how dark might be the mind, with no heavenly beam to bring it light? The very thought of such a condition of universal humanity is appalling! What would the reality be?

It is this helping Holy Spirit that explains the noble characters often found in heathen lands, and the signal virtues of unchristian men. "The compunction for sin, the strong desire to be freed from Its tyranny, such a fear of God as preserves them from many evils, charity, kindness, good neighborhood, general respect for goodness and good men, a lofty sense of honor and justice, and, indeed, as the very command issued to them, to repent and believe the Gospel, in order to their salvation, implies, a power of consideration, prayer, and turning to God, so as to commence that course which, if persevered in, would lead on to forgiveness and regeneration";- all these are not the natural products of the depraved heart, but rather the fruit of that quiet operation of the Spirit, which, like the power of gravitation on the tides, is ever tugging away at man to lift him heavenward, He is ever warring against evil, ever seeking to bring us to such a state of mind that we will welcome the full dominion of Jesus Christ, Or by resisting, grieving, and quenching the Spirit, we may quench the heavenly beam, silence the heavenly voice in the whirl of pleasure and the clamor of passions, and make the conscience deaf to "the still small voice," until He speaks no more, and the heavenly beam shines no more, and the heavenly monitor pleads and warns no more, and the willful soul is left to its own depravity, to be guided by it to outer darkness and a self-inflicted doom.

A probationary economy implies the power necessary to meet the requirements; but it is a natural power plus grace. The natural power is impaired by depravity, and grace compensates for the impairment, and thus brings to every soul a fair probation.

"If," says Miley, "we hold the doctrine of native depravity, we must either admit a universal helping grace of the atonement, or deny that the present life is probationary with respect to our salvation. Such a denial must imply two things; a limited atonement, with a sovereignty of grace in the salvation of an elect part, which for them precludes a probation; and a reprobation of the rest which denies them all probational opportunity for salvation" (p. 247).

(3) If our connection with Adam brought birth in depravity for us all, so the Second Adam-Christ, by His atonement, secured birth in the realm of grace for all. This is more than an equivalent for the awful inheritance of inbred sin.

(4) If the first Adam brought upon all the curse of death, with all its pains and sufferings and horror, so the atoning Savior brought a resurrection from the dead for all. The graves will be opened, and the sea give up its dead, and we shall enter upon a new career that shall never end.

(5) If, through the first Adam, and the fall, we came into the awful possibility of eternal death for all, so through the atoning Savior we inherit the possibility of eternal life for all. This comes to every soul without any choice. It is wholly unconditioned. God meets every soul at the dawn of moral responsibility and accountability, and says, "Behold, I come to thee, with hands laden with opportunities of eternal blessedness. No matter if sin dwelleth within thee, and hell yawns for thy advancing feet, I set before thee, the open door to everlasting bliss which no power can close but thyself."

(6) If the one sin of Adam brought an awful disaster to all, without any choice or consent of ours; so the blessed atonement of Christ brought a provisional salvation from all sin to all. This comes to each one of us even though unsought. It is one of the unconditional benefits of the blessed work of Christ.

(7) All the innumerable gracious providences of God, that bring us all our daily blessings-food and drink, vitalizing air, sunshine and rain, needed rest and refreshing slumber, the joys of health, the beauty that delights the eye, the grateful sounds that salute the ear, the delicious tastes, and fragrant odors that ravish the senses, the thrill of nerve that comes from touch,--all the countless things that, in bewildering combination, make life a joy, and existence sweet, are the purchase of the atonement, the unconditioned gifts that, like God's sunshine come to evil and good, and His rain, that falls upon the just and the unjust. It can hardly be supposed that God would have lavished so many and so constant blessings upon a race of hopeless sinners, committed to eternal hatred and opposition to Him. But in the light of the atonement, and the loving purposes of salvation, which God cherishes for the race, all is plain. We can see why so much of common good comes to us all.

(8) The actual salvation of all who die in infancy seems to be an unconditioned benefit of the atonement. The fact of infant salvation is fast coming to be an accepted truth in all evangelical churches. Miley observes: "It is true that the Scriptures are not explicit on what is thus accepted in a common evangelical faith. They neither affirm the fact of such salvation nor explain its nature.

Yet when we view the question of fact in the light of the divine love, the universal grace of the atonement, and the clear intimations of Scripture, we are not left with any reason to doubt the actual salvation of all who die in infancy. There is profound meaning for (his truth in the words of our Lord: "Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 18: 3). There is like meaning in His other words: "Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me; for of such is the kingdom of heaven" (Matt.

19: 14). When St. Paul sets in comparison or contrast the consequences of the relations of the race to Adam and Christ, his words must mean the actual salvation of all who die in infancy. If it be not so, then there is an infinite depth of evil consequent to the sin of Adam which is never reached by the redeeming grace of Christ, and super abounding fullness, which forms the climax of this great text can no longer be true (Rom. 5: 12-21). While infants are neither guilty of Adam's sin, nor guilty on account of an inherited nature, yet they are born in a state of depravity, which is in itself a moral ruin, and a disqualification for future blessedness. In these facts lies the necessity for their spiritual regeneration. This regeneration is the work of the Holy Spirit; and it is a work provided for by the atonement in Christ, as are all the offices of the Spirit in the economy of salvation.

Thus it pleases God that dying infants shall be saved through the redemptive mediation of Christ; and thus shall the song of salvation through the blood of the Lamb be forever theirs in all the fullness of its gladness and love. Here is an immediate benefit of the atonement through which very many of the race shall come to the blessedness of heaven" (Vol. II, pp. 247, 248).

On this subject, President Fairchild writes, modestly and beautifully, as follows: "The case of infants dying before moral agency begins is not set forth in the Scriptures. Our ideas on the subject must be wholly speculative, inferences from our ethical philosophy. In the first place we can affirm, without misgiving, that such an infant is not a sinner, and cannot need forgiveness; yet he may have a share in the atonement. There would probably have been no race but for this prearranged plan. Perhaps the privilege of translation to a better world, before entering upon a life of sin, is an arrangement dependent upon the atonement. If the race had been propagated without an atonement, it would have been a doomed race. No one could be punished without sin; but all, upon attaining responsibility, would fall into sin, and die without hope. We may conceive that the benefits of the atonement reach the infant in the other world. He passes into that world without an established character of righteousness; he finds himself in the society of the redeemed, of those who in this life have been recovered from sin, and forgiven through the atonement. The character and experience of these saints may be of advantage to him; he may be brought up in righteousness under their care, and thus indirectly become a partaker in the atonement. Then, directly, all the truths of the atonement, and the gift of the Spirit, become his possession; and these may be the essential means of his preservation from sin, and continuance in blessedness.

Without the atonement, heaven might have been to infants what Eden was to the human race; a place where there was no experience, and where the moral influences were feeble; but received into the family of the redeemed in heaven, these infants are surrounded by all the experiences and moral forces which have accumulated in the church below and in the church above. Thus the infant, dying before moral agency begins, may have part in the song of Moses and the Lamb (Theology, pp, 165, 166),

Personally we believe that infants are not sinners in any sense of the word. They have not sinned themselves, as God declares (Rom. 9: 11), nor are they responsible for Adam's sin, nor for the depraved nature which they inherited. But that depraved nature unfits them for a holy heaven.

Those who die in infancy are, by prevenient grace taken out of the world, and in the article of death will be made meet for heaven. Whatever cleansing of heart they need will be sovereignly bestowed as they pass into the next life, precisely as truly justified Christians, who have not rejected sanctification; will in death be made meet for heaven. But this is one of the unconditioned blessings of the atonement, which He who was once a babe, gladly bestows upon the infants whom He thus early adopts into His eternal home.

2. CONDITIONAL BENEFITS

Conditional benefits are those, which are supplied only on condition of the performance of some appropriate action. The blessings we have just been discussing fall to the lot of men without their effort, or wish, as the sunlight falls from heaven. But those we are about to consider, though secured for us as a privilege by the atonement, yet are not realized in actual experience, except as we ourselves comply with certain divinely appointed conditions.

A child may inherit unusual mental gifts, and ample means to secure an education from wealthy and talented parents. All this has come to the child unconditionally, and without effort. But not so the attainment of scholarship. That is conditioned on persevering study through long years on the part of the child. So there are benefits of the atonement, as we have seen, that come to us without action on our part; but the great benefits of actual salvation are conditioned on compliance with the terms of salvation. In other words

(1) The salvation procured by the atonement is conditional. Here again we enter into unavoidable conflict with Calvinism. With their system, salvation is an absolute product of Omnipotence, the result of "irresistible efficacious grace." This would practically nullify probation. But if the present life is probation, then salvation is conditioned on our own voluntary choice. All must admit that our secular life is probationary, and what we sow determines what we shall reap. So, argues Bishop Butler, our moral and religious life is probationary with respect to our future destiny. Our forgiveness and salvation are conditioned on divinely specified acts required of us,

"The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent ye and believe in the Gospel"

(Mark 1: 15). "He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life; but he that believeth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3: 36). "And they went out and preached that men should repent" (Mark 6: 12), "Verily I say unto you, except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 18:3). "Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish" (Luke 13: 3). "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish" (John 3: 16). "He became unto all them that obey Him, the author of eternal salvation" (Heb. 5:9). And so it is, in passage after passage.

Justification is conditioned on faith; destiny hinges on whether we do, or do not, unite ourselves to Jesus by faith. The conditionally of salvation is taught in every possible form of speech. God requires repentance and faith, assuming always that these exercises of the moral being lie within our power.

Calvinists teach that repentance and faith are wrought in us by the omnipotent efficacious grace of God. But this is absurd; for why then should God be continually commanding us to repent and believe, and laying all the responsibility on us? One gets weary of these continual perversions of truth. Finney well said that God gives repentance and faith to any one only as He gives a crop of corn. He gives the seed and soil and sunshine and rain, and commands us to make our harvest or starve. So He gives us the requisite faculties of soul, points out our sins and our peril, offers us an atoning Savior, and then commands us to repent and believe or be damned. In no other conceivable way does He give repentance and faith to men. Were it otherwise, His commands would be infinitely absurd. Saving faith is a personal act of the soul, for which we are held wholly responsible. It is contrary and contradictory to all true ideas of such an act of faith that it should be the product of an absolute divine agency.

Calvinists quote, in support of their inwrought, irresistible gift of faith: "For by grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God" (Eph. 2:8). The text does not support them. "Faith" in the Greek is feminine: "that" of the second clause is neuter gender, and cannot refer to faith. It is the plan of saving by faith in an atoning Savior that is the gift of God, as the Scriptures everywhere show, but the faith is not His gift. That is something for which we are responsible. Otherwise the whole idea of salvation by faith disappears, and we are saved by sheer, arbitrary Omnipotence. "We are saved by faith; but it is only as that faith is a free personal act of the soul."

(2) The same may be said of regeneration, that comes to us by the same condition us justification,

"We are regenerated by the same act of faith by which we are justified. There are texts in which the former must be included with the latter, while only the latter is named. "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 5:1). There could be no such peace with God for an unregenerate heart. Regeneration, therefore, must be a concomitant of justification" (Miley). "But as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name; which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1: 12). "For ye are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3: 26). So it is that this blessing which makes us children of God is conditioned on our faith. It is not something that is absolute and arbitrary on God's part.

It depends on us, co-operating with the Holy Spirit.

(3) In the same way sanctification, though, like regeneration, wrought in us, by the Holy Spirit, yet depends on our complying with certain conditions. "God gives the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him" (Luke 11: 13). He gives the Holy Spirit to them that obey Him" (Acts 5: 32). "We present ourselves unto God for it" (Rom. 6: 13). "We hunger and thirst for it" (Matt. 5: 6). "We believe for it, and are sanctified by faith" (Acts 15: 9 and Acts 26: 18). A multitude of other Scriptures prove that while God's Spirit cleanses our hearts, whether it will be wrought in us, depends on our own compliance with conditions.

(4) Even final perseverance and future blessedness are conditional. Of course this is not Calvinism. That system teaches, "Once in grace always in grace," no matter how disgraceful you are! But with the infallible Word, every step of salvation and every element of it is conditioned on us. "He that endureth to the end shall be saved" (Matt. 10: 22). "Who will render to every man according to his works; to them that by patience in well doing seek for glory, and honor, and incorruption, eternal life" (Rom. 2: 6, 7). This is the voice of the Word everywhere.

And so the atonement is conditional in its result; and whether it avails for us, depends on our compliance with the conditions. If we were compelled to choose between being created as Adam was, innocent and undepraved, but also without experience, and probation decided by a single test, and being born as we now are,-in helpless childhood and cursed by depravity, but blessed with the helpful influences of the atonement of Christ, and a lengthened probation under the patient ministries, without a moment's hesitation, we should choose the latter. The grace of the Second Adam far surpasses the curse of Adam the first. It meets us at birth, follows us through life with brooding helpfulness, offers us pardon for our sins, and deliverance from inbred sin, and is more than sufficient to secure for us all an eternal heaven.

But the grace of the atonement and the Spirit's help are not so forced upon any one that his moral self-sovereignty is destroyed. In spite of the Father's love, and the Savior's atonement, and the Spirit's help, any soul may trample upon all grace, reject life, and press his way down to eternal death. Such is the awful power of self-sovereignty and moral freedom.

* * * * * * *

CHAPTER IX -- CALVINISM AND ARMINIANISM COMPARED

We have seen that Calvinism and Arminianism on many subjects are in perpetual conflict. Perhaps we may as well here as anywhere make a careful comparison between them.

Theistic fatalism would be but another name for Calvinism. "Predestination" says Calvin, "we call the eternal decree of God, by which He has determined in Himself what He would have to become of every individual of mankind. For they are not all created with a similar destiny; but eternal life is foreordained for some, and eternal damnation for others. Every man, therefore, being created for one or the other of these ends, we say is predestinated either to life or to death. . . . "In conformity, therefore, to the clear doctrine of Scripture (?), we assert that, by an eternal and immutable counsel, God has once for all determined both whom He would admit to salvation and whom He would condemn to destruction" (Institutes, Book 3, chapter 21).

Predestination, in other words, consists in the predetermination of the Divine will, which determining alike the volitions of the human will and the succession of physical events reduces both to a like unfreedom. But those who hold predestination, very uniformly hold also to volitional necessity, or the subjection of the will in its action to the control of strongest motive force. And as the divine will is held subject to the same law, so necessity, as master of God, man, and the universe, becomes a universal and absolute fate. The doctrine, installed by Augustine, and developed more sternly by John Calvin, in Christian Theology, is called from them Augustinianism or Calvinism.

In opposition to this system of necessity or fatalism, is Arminianism. It is the theology that tends to freedom, and is resolutely opposed to absolutism. Cicero said: "Those who maintain an eternal series of causes despoil the mind of freewill and bind it in the necessity of fate. Arminians maintain that, in order to true responsibility, guilt, penalty, especially eternal penalty, there must be in the agent a free will; and in a true, responsibly free will, there must be the power, even in the same circumstances, and under the same motives, of choosing either way. No man can be justly, eternally damned, according to Arminianism, for a choice, which he cannot help. If fixed by Divine decree, or volitional necessity to the particular act, he cannot be responsible or justly punished.

Eternal suffering, for which there is no compensation, inflicted as a judicial penalty on the basis of justice, can be justly inflicted, only for avoidable sin. If divine decree or volitional necessity, determine the act, it is irresponsible and judicial penalty is unjust.

Arminianism also holds that none but the person who commits a sin can be guilty of that sin. One person cannot be responsible for another person's sin. A tempter may be guilty of tempting another to sin, but then, one is guilty of the sin, and the other is guilty solely of the sin of temptation. There can be no vicarious guilt; and, as punishment, taken strictly, can be only infliction for guilt upon the guilty, there can literally and strictly be no vicarious punishment. If innocent Damon dies for Pythias, guilty of murder, Damon is not guilty because he takes Pythias' place in dying, and his death is not to him a punishment, but a voluntary suffering which is a substitute for another man's punishment. The doer of sin is solely the sinner, the guilty, or the punished.

1. Foreordination. The old Calvinistic Confession states as follows: "God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass." As Dr. Hodge puts it: "The occurrence of all events is determined with unalterable certainty. Foreknowledge foreknows them as certain. Foreordination determines them, secures their certainty. Providence effects it. God effectually controls the acts of free agents. They are fixed from all eternity!" (Vol. II, p. 300).

Now certain things are involved in such statements: (1) The decrees of God are eternal. (2) They are immutable. (3) They are unconditional. (4) They are absolute. (5) They are without contingency. (6) They are certainly efficacious. That is to say, God from all eternity predetermines not only all physical agents, but all the volitions of responsible agents. To this, Arminianism objects that the predetermination of the agent's volitions, destroys the freedom of His will; that it makes God the responsible predeterminer and wilier, and author of all the sin in the universe; and it enables every sinner to say that his sin is in perfect accord with the divine will, and, therefore, so far as himself is concerned, is right. It makes God first decree the sin, then create the sinner to commit it, then cause the sinner to commit it, then damn him because he has committed it. It logically makes the sinners only helpless instruments in God's hands, and God is the only real sinner in the universe! The Arminian theory is this: God does from all eternity, predetermine the laws of nature, and the succession of physical and necessary events; but as to free moral agents, God, knowing all possible futurities, does choose that plan of His own conduct, which, in view of what each agent will ultimately do in his freedom, will bring out the best results. His system is a system of His own actions, and God's predeterminations of His own acts are so far contingent, as they are based on His pre-recognition of what the agent will freely do; yet, as His omniscience knows the future with perfect accuracy, so He will never be deceived nor frustrated in His plans and providences. Arminians deny, as against the Calvinists, that foreknowledge has any influence upon the future of the act, as predetermination has. Predetermination fixes the act; foreknowledge is fixed by the act. In foreordination, God determines the act as He pleases; in foreknowledge, the agent fixes the prescience as he pleases. In the former case, God alone is responsible for the creature's acts; in the latter case, God holds the creature responsible.

John Calvin wrote: "For since God foresees future events only in consequence of His decree that they shall happen, it is useless to contend about foreknowledge, while it is evident that all things come to pass rather by ordination and decree. ... It is a horrible decree. I confess; but no one can deny that God foreknew the future fate of man before He created; and that He did foreknow it because it was appointed by His own decree." This lurid quotation involves three fundamental errors of Calvinism, and they are all false. (1) That God by decree causes everything, and so is responsible for everything.

(2) That God cannot foreknow anything unless He causes it! This is a baseless assumption. (3) That God unchangeably decreed a universe necessarily so full of wickedness, and involving the unavoidable, eternal, helpless, hopeless doom of so many immortals, that the very thought of it fills any right-thinking soul with horror! The whole idea is a wicked calumny on God. He never made any such "horrible decree" How that great and good man failed to perceive the unreasonableness and monstrosity of such theory we cannot understand.

2. Divine Sovereignty. Calvinism affirms that if man is free, God is not a sovereign. Just so far as man is free to will either way, God's power is limited. Arminians reply that if man is not free, God is not sovereign but sinks to a mere mechanist. If man's will is as fixed as the physical machinery of the universe, then all is machinery, and not a government, and God is only a machinist and not a moral ruler. The higher man's freedom of will is exalted above mechanism so much higher is God exalted as a sovereign. Here, according to Arminianism, Calvinism degrades and destroys God's sovereignty, and Arminianism exalts it. The freedom of man no more limits God's power than the laws of nature which He has established; that in both cases there is a self-limitation by God, of the exercise of His power. Arminianism holds to the absoluteness of God's omnipotence just as truly as Calvinism and to the grandeur of His sovereignty even more exaltedly.

The Calvinists urge against the Arminian system, that it represents that it is the will of God that all men should be saved; and, inasmuch as all are not saved, the will of God is defeated, and this is irreconcilable with the divine sovereignty. Ralston replies as follows: "The primary will of God is that all men should be saved. This He has most solemnly declared, and the benevolence of His holy nature requires it. But He does not thus will absolutely and unconditionally. He only wills it according to certain conditions, and in consistency with the plan of His own devising. He wills their salvation, not as stocks or stones, but as moral agents. He wills their salvation through the use of the prescribed means; but if, in the abuse of their agency, they reject the Gospel, His ultimate will is that they perish for their sins. This is essential to His moral government over His creatures.

Thus we may clearly see how the Almighty can, according to the system of Arminianism, primarily will the salvation of all men, and through the atonement of Christ render it attainable, and yet maintain His absolute sovereignty over the moral universe. But it is not the sovereignty of an arbitrary tyrant, nor yet such a sovereignty, as that by which He rules the physical universe, according to the principles of absolute and fatal necessity. It is the sovereignty of a righteous and benevolent Governor of moral and intelligent agents, according to holy and gracious principles. A sovereignty variant from this would be repugnant to Scripture and derogatory to the divine character" (Theology, pp. 321, 322).

3. Imputation of Adam's Sin. Calvinism holds that Adam's posterity is truly guilty of Adam's sin, so as to be justly and eternally punishable therefore, without a remedy. As guilty of this sin, God might have had the whole race born into existence under a curse without the power of the means of deliverance, and consigned to eternal punishment. Arminians look upon this as a dogma violative of the fundamental principles of eternal justice. They deny that guilt and literal punishment can, in the nature of things, be thus transferred. Their theory is that upon Adam's sin, a Savior was forthwith interposed for the race as a previous condition to the allowance of the propagation of the race by Adam, and a provision for inherited disadvantages. Had not a Redeemer been thus provided, mankind, after Adam, would not have been born. The race inherits the nature of fallen Adam, not by being held guilty of his sin, but by the law of natural descent, just as all posterity inherits the species-quality, physical, mental and moral, of the progenitor. Before his fall, the presence of the Holy Spirit, with Adam in fullness, supernaturally empowered him to holiness,-the tree of life imparted to him a supernatural immortality. Separated from both of these, he sank into a mere nature, subject to appetite and Satan. The race in Adam, without redemption, is totally incapable of salvation; yet under Christ it is placed under a new redemptive probation, is empowered by the quickening Spirit, given to all, and through Christ, by the exercise of free-agency, may obtain eternal life.

4. Reprobation. Calvinism affirms that, of the whole mass of mankind thus involved in guilt and punishment for sin they never actually committed, God has left a large share "passed by," that is without adequate means of recovery, and with no intention to recover them. And this is done from the "good pleasure of His will," and for a display of "His glorious justice." The other portion of mankind God does, "from mere good pleasure" without any superior preferability in them, elect, or choose and confer regeneration upon them, and eternal life, "all to the praise of His glorious grace."

This horrible charge against God they state as follows: "By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life, and others fore-ordained to everlasting death. These angels and men thus predestinated and foreordained are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished.

Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to His eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, hath chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory, out of His mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving Him thereunto, and all to the praise of His glorious grace.

The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of His own will, whereby He extendeth or withholdeth mercy as He pleaseth, for the glory of His sovereign power over His creatures, to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise of His glorious justice."

Arminians pronounce such a proceeding arbitrary, and fail to see in it either "glorious justice" or

"glorious grace" The reprobation seems to them to be injustice, and the "grace" with such an accompaniment, unworthy of the acceptance of free-agents. And to say that the blessed Savior, who wept over sinners and died praying for them, created an infinite number of men and angels, on purpose to damn them, and was "pleased" to do it, just to display His irresistible "power" to the universe, is an inexcusable, wanton, blasphemous slander against the loving Christ!

"Election and reprobation, as Arminians hold them, are conditioned upon the conduct and voluntary character of the subjects. All submitting to God and righteousness, by repentance of sin and true, self-consecrating faith, do meet the conditions of that election. All who persist in sin present the qualities on which reprobation depends. And as this preference for the obedient and holy, and rejection of the disobedient and unholy, lies in the very nature of God, so this election and reprobation, are from before the foundation of the world."

The notion of an eternal election is contrary to reason and Scripture. There is nothing eternal but God. Election is an act of God done in time. The "calling" goes before the "election," and men are elected or chosen through the "belief of the truth," the "sanctification of the Spirit," and the

"sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." We may easily believe that before "the world was," God decided to choose men out of the world and sanctify them in time, on proper conditions.

To affirm that in purpose men were elected from eternity "without foresight of faith or good works" is to say, that from eternity God purposed to constitute His church of persons to whose faith and obedience He had no respect. He eternally purposed to make Peter, James, and John members of His church, without respect to their faith or obedience, or anything else in them. His church is, therefore, constituted on the sole principle of this arbitrary purpose, not on the basis of faith and obedience. How contrary to Scripture such a notion is! Peter, James and John did not become disciples of Christ in unbelief and disobedience. They were chosen, not as men, but as believing men. Men are chosen out of the world, and into the church with respect to their faith. If actual election in time has respect to faith, God's eternal purpose in regard to election must have had respect to faith also. "We are elect according to the foreknowledge of God" (1 Pet. 1:2).

Then God foreknew something as a reason why He "elected." God "chose the Thessalonians from the beginning unto salvation in or through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth" (2

Thess. 2: 13). Sanctification and faith were the means of the election. In other words, there was a choice of obedient believers into the family of God (see Wakefield's Theology, pp. 394-397).

John Wesley, in a letter to Whitefield, paid his respects to unconditional election and reprobation as follows: "Though you use softer words than others, you mean the self-same thing. God's decree concerning the election of grace amounts to what others call his decree of reprobation. Call it by what other name you please, election, preterition, predestination, or reprobation; it comes in the end to the same thing. The sense of all is plainly this: By virtue of an eternal, unchangeable, irresistible decree of God, one part of mankind are infallibly saved, and the rest infallibly damned, it being impossible that any of the former should be damned, or any of the latter saved.

1. It renders all preaching vain and needless to both classes.

2. It tends to destroy holiness by removing motives of hope and fear.

3. It tends to destroy zeal for good works, for they avail nothing.

4. It makes a Christian revelation unnecessary.

5. It makes the Christian revelation contradict itself.

6. It is full of blasphemy; for it represents our blessed Lord as a hypocrite and a dissembler, pretending a love, which he had not. It also represents the blessed God as more false, more cruel, and more unjust than the devil; for, in point of fact, it says that God has condemned millions of souls to everlasting fire for continuing in sin, which, for lack of grace, that He purposely withholds, they are unable to avoid. This is the blasphemy contained in the horrible decree of election. The devil only tempts, but God forces men to sin. You make Him more false, and more wicked than the devil."

Fairchild well says: "The Gospel invitations are such that we feel warranted in offering salvation to every man; nor is there any suggestion of any obstacle in the decree and purpose of God, or in His election. We know, from the terms of the Gospel, that every sinner determines for himself, whether or not he will be saved, and thus determines his own election. The doctrine of sovereign, absolute, unconditional election has grown out of a false application of passages, which set forth the salvation of the sinner as springing from the divine purpose. Passages which represent that salvation as turning on his own acceptance or nonacceptance of the Gospel are explicit and authoritative; and the two classes of passages must be combined to give us a symmetrical and truthful doctrine of election" (Theology, pp. 296, 297).

5. Philosophical and Volitional Necessity. Calvinism maintains the doctrine that all volitions are determined and fixed by the force of the strongest motive, just as the strokes of a clock-hammer are fixed and determined by the strongest force. The will can no more choose otherwise in a given case, than the clock-hammer can strike otherwise. Calvinism often speaks, indeed, of "free agents"

"free will" "self-determining power" and "will's choosing by its own power "-the language of freedom. But bring their theory to analysis, and it will always be found, that it is the freedom of a falling body, or of water running down hill, or of a clock-hammer to strike as it does, and as it must, and not otherwise.

Arminianism answers, that if the agent has no power to will otherwise than motive force determines, any more than a clock can strike otherwise, then there is no justice in requiring a different volition any more than a different clock stroke. It would be requiring an impossibility, and to punish an agent for not performing an impossibility is injustice, and to punish him eternally is infinite injustice.

Our father used to tell us of an intemperate neighbor of his, in his boyhood, who, when drunk, would order his clock to stop ticking, and because it did not obey, would take a club and smash it.

Calvinists would have us believe that the infinite God acts as unreasonably as that drunken fool.

They tell us that we are all paralyzed with moral inability. God commands us all to believe on Christ and be saved. By irresistible grace He creates the ability to do it in the elect; but He purposely withholds it from the non-elect, and determines secretly that they never shall have the ability to believe and be saved; then He damns them because they do not do the impossible!!

Stripped of all useless verbiage, and set forth in its naked enormity, it is a beautiful (?) theology!!

Arminians hold that the Calvinistic theory, by destroying freedom, destroys all just punishment, and all divine government.

6. Infant damnation. Holding that the race is truly guilty and judicially condemnable to endless torment for Adam's sin, Calvinism necessarily maintains, that it is just for God to condemn all infants to eternal punishment, even those who have never performed any moral act of their own.

This was held by Augustine, and wherever Calvinism has spread, this has been a part of the doctrine more or less explicitly taught, Earlier Calvinists maintained that there is actual reprobation-that is, a real sending to hell, as well as particular election of elect infants, Arminianism, denying that the race is judicially guilty or justly damnable for Adam's sin, affirms the salvation of all infants. As Whedon puts it, "The individual man, as born, does irresponsibly possess within his constitution that nature which will, amid the temptations of life, commence to sin when it obtains its full grown strength. He is not, like the unborn Christ, "that holy thing." There is therefore a repugnance, which God and all holy beings have towards him by contrariety of nature, and an irresponsible unfitness for heaven and holy association. If born immortal, with such a nature unchangeable, he must forever be unholy, and forever naturally unhappy, under the divine repugnance.

Under such conditions divine justice would not permit the race after the fall, to be born. But at once the future incarnate Redeemer, interposes, restores the divine complacency, and places the race upon a new probation. Man is, therefore, born in a state of "initial salvation," as Fletcher of Madely called it, and the means of final salvation are amply placed within the reach of his free choice."

7. Pagan Damnation. On its own principle that power to perform is not necessary to obligation to perform, Calvinism easily maintains that Pagans, who never heard of Christ, are rightly damned for want of faith in Christ. They may be damned for original sin, and for their own sin, and for unbelief in Christ, without having heard of him!

"Arminianism, on the contrary, maintains that there are doubtless many in Pagan lands saved by the unknown Redeemer."They not having a law are a law unto themselves." Nay, they may have the Spirit of faith so that', were Christ truly presented, He would be truly accepted. They may have faith in that of which Christ is the embodiment. Like the ancient worthies enumerated in Hebrews 11. There may not be as great differences in the chances of salvation in different lands as Calvinism assumes. Where little is given, much is not required. Arminianism holds that no one of the race is damned who-has not had a full chance for salvation. Missions are none the less important, in order to hasten the day when the mass of men shall be converted. If that millennial age shall come and be of long duration Arminianism hopes that the great majority of the entire race of all ages may finally be saved" (Whedon). .

8. Doctrines of Grace. Calvinism maintains that the death of Christ is an expiation for man's sins; first for the guilt of Adam's sin, so that it is possible for God to forgive and save; and, second, for actual sin, that thereby the influence of the Spirit restores the lapsed moral powers regenerates and saves the man. But these saving benefits are reserved for "the elect only"!

Arminianism, claiming a far richer doctrine of grace, extends it to the very foundations of the existence of Adam's posterity. Grace underlies our very nature and life. We are born and live because Christ became incarnate and died for us. All the institutes of salvation, -the chance of probation, the Spirit, the Word, the pardon, the regeneration, the resurrection, and the life eternal are through Him. And Arminianism, against Calvinism, proclaims that these are for all, Christ died for all, alike; for no one more than for any other man; and sufficient grace and opportunity for salvation is given to every man.

Calvinism also maintains the irresistibility of grace; or, more strongly still, that grace is absolute, like the act of Creation, which is called irresistible with a sort of impropriety, from the fact that resistance in that connection is truly unthinkable.

Against this, Arminians reply that will, aided by prevenient grace; is free, even in accepting pardoning grace; that though this acceptance is no more meritorious than a beggar's acceptance of an offered fortune, yet it is accepted freely, and with full power of rejection, and is none the less grace for that.

9. Justifying and Saving Faith. Faith according to Calvinism, is an acceptance of Christ, wrought absolutely, as an act of creation in the man, whereby it is as impossible for him not savingly to believe as it is for a world to be not created, or an infant to be not born. And so this faith is resistlessly fastened in the man, so it is resistlessly kept there, and the man necessarily perseveres to the end.

Now if this were true, all the commands of God to believe are perfectly superfluous, and quite as needless. The irresistible grace would create the faith in the elect, as well without a command as with it; and the non-elect could not believe anyway, try as much as they please.

To this absurd notion, the Arminians reply, that faith, as a power to believe, is indeed the gift of God; but faith as an exercise is the free, avoidable, yet really performed act of the intellect, heart and: will, by which the man surrenders himself to Christ and all holiness for time and eternity. In consequence of this act, and not for its meritorious value, or in any way compensating for earning salvation, it is accepted for righteousness and the man himself is accepted, pardoned and saved.

And as this faith is free and rejectable in its beginning so through life it continues. The Christian is as obliged, through the grace of God assisting, to freely retain it, as at first to freely exercise it. It is of the very essence of his probationary freedom, that he is as able to renounce his faith and apostatize, as he was able to refuse to believe at first.

10. Extent of Atonement and Offers of Salvation. Earlier Calvinism maintained that Christ died for the elect alone. It was more consistent and logical than the later Calvinism which affirms that He died for one and all, and so offers salvation to one and all on condition of faith.

But Arminianism asks: With what consistency can the atonement be said to be made for all men, when by the eternal decree of God, it is foreordained that a large part of mankind shall be excluded from its benefits? How also can it be for all when none can accept it but by efficacious grace, and that grace is arbitrarily withheld from a large part of mankind? How can it be for all when God has so fastened the will of a large part of mankind, by counter motive force, that they are unable to accept it?

The same arguments show the impossibility of a sincere offer of salvation to all, either by God or the Calvinistic pulpit! How can salvation be rationally offered to those whom God, by an eternal decree, has excluded from salvation? What right has a preacher to exhort the very men to repent whom God determines, by volitional necessity, not to repent? What right have we to exhort men to do otherwise than God has willed, decreed and foreordained they shall do? If God has decreed a thing, is not that thing right? What an awful sinner a preacher is who stands up to oppose and defeat God's decree! If a man is to be damned for fulfilling God's decrees, ought not that imaginary God to be, a fortiori, damned for making such a decree? If a man does as God decrees, ought he not to be by God approved and saved? And, since all men do as God decrees, wills and determines they for "God unchangeably foreordains whatever comes to pass," ought not all men to be saved? The true theory therefore should be Universalism.

How can grace be offered to the man whom God decreed never to have grace? How can faith be preached to those to whom God has made faith impossible? How can conditions of salvation be proposed to those from whom God withholds the power of performing the conditions? The offers of salvation might as well be made lo tombstones, or hitching-posts, or the beasts of the field!

Hence the Arminian affirms that in all public offers of a free or conditional .salvation to all, the Calvinistic preacher contradicts his own creed.

11. Basis of Morality. Calvinism claims that the very severity of its system, its deep view of human guilt, and necessary damnability by birth and nature, its entire subjection to divine absolutism, irrespective of human ideas of justice, tends to produce a profound piety!

Arminianism responds, this is basing Christian morality on fundamental immorality. For God to will and predetermine the sin, and then damn the sinner for it, -for Him to impute sin to the innocent, and so eternally damn the innocent as guilty-are procedures that appear fundamentally unrighteous, so far as the deepest intuitions of our nature can decide. Thus, first to make God in the facts intrinsically and absolutely bad, and then require us to ascribe holiness and goodness to His character and conduct, perverts the moral sense. It is to make God in our theology, what we are in duty bound to hate, and then require us to love and adore Him. Such adoration, secured by the abdication, not only of the reason, but of the moral sense, and the prostration of the soul to pure naked absolutism, naturally results in the somber piety of fear; just as children are frightened into factitious goodness and obedience, by images of terror.

Arminianism, on the other hand, holds up to the admiring gaze of men, a God of infinite love, impartial in the offer of His blood-bought mercies, and just to all His children. In order to a true and rational piety, it exalts the ideal of rectitude in the divine character and conduct, not by mere ascriptions contradicted by facts, but both in the facts and the ascriptions. A harmony of facts in God's conduct and our intuitive reason is produced. Love to the Divine Being becomes a rational sentiment, and a cheerful, hopeful and merciful piety, and glad obedience to God becomes realized."

In this comparison of the two system's of theology, we have made free use of an article in Johnson's Cyclopaedia on "Arminianism" by Dr. D. D. Whedon, which the reader can there find more at length. It was too keen, and just and valuable not to be used.

Such is Calvinism, the most unreasonable, incongruous, self-contradictory, man-belittling and God-dishonoring scheme of theology that ever appeared in Christian thought. No one can accept its contradictory, mutually exclusive propositions without intellectual self-debasement. For a theologian to flounder about in the morass of its opposing doctrines and assumptions, in a vain attempt to make them harmonize, and then admit that "these are only feeble attempts to extricate ourselves from the profundities of theology," is nothing but self-stultification. It holds up a self-centered, selfish, heartless, remorseless tyrant for God, and bids us worship Him, King Theebau of Burmah, some years ago, ordered seven hundred young men and women to be buried alive that his majesty might have better health! But such a pitiless human autocrat is as gentle as a ray of early morning sunshine compared with the God of Calvinism, -who is represented as creating countless billions of men and angels on purpose to send them to a hell of eternal torment,

"as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures!" He sits on His throne and, "according to the good-pleasure of His will" causes them to pour like a niagara tide of life, into the yawning abyss of hell, with as little compunction as we would kill a few flies, which we have not even created!

We do not wonder that this wicked caricature of God was called by Henry Ward Beecher "a horrid nightmare of. human reason!" The sentiment of the missionary, Bishop Wm. Taylor, of holy memory, was infinitely more Scriptural when he wrote: "At the funeral of every lost soul the procession of mourners will be headed by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."

It is a historic fact that Calvinism has been a fruitful mother of infidelity. In its womb were born Universalism and Unitarianism, the twin sisters of unbelief. By the natural reaction of the mind they arose, as a mental protest against the monstrosities of the reigning theology. One extreme follows another. Nothing is needed but Calvinism and Carnality as parents, with evolution for a wet nurse to produce the modern drivel of New Theology.

Its doctrines are an impediment to revivals. The churches of America were paralyzed by the doctrine of "moral inability" and sinners were either plunging into universalism and infidelity, or sleeping on the brink of hell, supinely waiting for the "irresistible grace" to force salvation into them, when Finney, with his mighty eloquence, like the hammer of Thor, smashed their Calvinism, and aroused the multitudes to use their powers and seek salvation. He spent nearly a year in the Presbyterian churches of Philadelphia alone, and from that center, and other places where he labored, the revival spread, and spread, over the English speaking world. Nobody knows how many hundreds of thousands of souls were saved. But Finney records that the ministers and churches that clung to their old Calvinistic doctrines were smitten with the barrenness of death.

And working right along with Finney were the Methodist ministers, preaching a similar Gospel, and winning multitudes to God. "

Calvinism stands in the way of the spread of holiness. In Scotland we saw it producing its natural fruit. A friend of ours somehow got an opportunity to preach holiness in some week-night meetings of a Presbyterian Church. The Sabbath school superintendent and eleven Sabbath school teachers and the chorister and thirty-three members of the choir got sanctified. Meantime twelve of the sixteen members of the official board of the church were known to be addicted to the use of intoxicants. A meeting of these highly religious officials was called. The very night of the called meeting, one of the elders was distributing communion cards for the next communion service. But he went into a saloon, got drunk, got into a fight, and was put in jail. While this was going on, the brother elders were discussing what should be done to the members who were rejoicing in sanctification. The meeting adjourned without decision. But at the next meeting, nothing whatever was done to the elder who got drunk; but those who were sanctified were censured so severely, and such a ban was put upon them, that they left the church, and formed a holiness church which in three months, had eighty members! Much of this transpired while we were holding meetings in the city. We found that one Calvinistic church, at least, preferred drunkenness to sanctification, and we could give similar illustrations of many more.

A friend of ours, a female evangelist of great power in preaching and prayer, was holding meetings in a Methodist church in a certain city, and had, night after night, in her audience a tall, queenly young woman of unusual ability and culture. One night she listened as for life with fixed eyes and strained attention. At the close she went forward, put her arms about the evangelist's neck and sobbed convulsively, and asked for an interview the next day. Her story was as follows: She had been converted at eighteen in a Methodist revival, held by my friend, but her proud, aristocratic mother forced her to join a cold, formal church. She was training for a professional career in music, when she had a nervous collapse. She was engaged to a noble young man, and just before the wedding day he died. Blow followed blow, till, absorbed in her sorrow, she waked up to the fact that she had lost her Christ. "I have wanted to seek your counsel," she said, "but I was a stranger, and you were always so busy, that I did not dare. But yesterday morning, I felt that I could stand it no longer, arid so I went to my own pastor, and told him of my conversion, my hopes, my disappointments, my sorrows, and how I had lost my hold on God. I laid my quivering heart all bare before him and begged him to help me back to God. And what do you think he said? He leaned back in his chair and looked at me intently for what seemed to me an age, and finally said slowly, 'My dear Miss --, if all that you tell me is true, I very much fear that you were deceived about your so-called conversion, and that you are not among the elect of God at all!' 'Shocking,' I exclaimed. I rushed from his presence like one demented. For hours I walked the streets unconscious alike of weariness and time. The word 'doomed' seemed to ring in my ears at every step. I at last resolved to end it all. A few years more or less in hell would not make any great difference. I felt an almost insane desire to get there quickly. And so, before returning home, I availed myself of the means of taking my own life. But something impelled me to go once more to hear the old Gospel. 'Yes,' I said, 'I will hear once more the voice of prayer that can never be answered for me. Once more I'll hear the preached Word which holds no message for my soul, and then I'll go home and send it to the place where it belongs quickly! So I went to church last night in that frame of mind, and you told us that Christ died for all; and that he willeth not the death of any.

You assured us that 'whosoever will may come.' My heart cried out, 'It must be true! It must be true!' I listened for eternity, catching at every word. But when you called for prayer, I had not strength to go to the altar, but I dropped my head on the back of the pew, and in my despair I cried out to God once more, and, oh, Mrs. W--, He heard my cry, he came to my relief, he took me back and rested my tired heart so sweetly, and I am not doomed, hell is not to be my portion, I am His-His forever." This woman soon was sanctified, and became an effective leader in the church of God.

Now, we have nothing but abhorrence for a system of theology that can make a minister so brutally callous in the presence of a soul quivering with anguish and crying out for God. A system of thought that will make an "ambassador of Christ" so little like the gentle Jesus, "who would not break a bruised reed, nor quench a smoking flax," is not the truth, is not from heaven, and was never inspired by the Spirit of God!

Calvinism is being killed by the Christian consciousness of the age. They have revised the catechism: let them revise it out of existence. When we were teaching theology in an English city of a million people, we wanted the Westminster Catechism to use in the class room, and went to seventeen bookstores and could not find a Confession of Faith. One merchant, with twenty thousand volumes within fifty feet of him, looked us in the face and asked if it was a Roman Catholic publication!! It took our breath away. We said in ourselves, thank God it is dying! May its death be hastened the sooner it breathes its last, the better it will be for the kingdom of God on earth and in heaven.

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CHAPTER X -- THE DOCTRINE OF ELECTION IN CHAPTER III -- CONFESSION OF FAITH

Calvinism teaches the doctrine of Unconditional Election in these words: III. "By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life, and others fore-ordained to everlasting death.

IV. 'Those angels and men thus predestinated and fore-ordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number is so certain and definite, that it cannot be either increased or diminished.

V. "Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life. God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to His eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, hath chosen in Christ, unto everlasting glory, out of His mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions or causes, moving Him thereunto, and all to the praise of His glorious grace.

VI. "As God has appointed the elect unto glory, so hath He by the eternal and most free purpose of His will fore-ordained all the means thereunto. Wherefore they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ are effectually called unto faith in Christ by His Spirit working in due season, are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by His power, through faith unto salvation.

Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, or effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only"

VII. "The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel, of His own will, whereby he extendeth or with-holdeth mercy as He pleaseth, for the glory of His sovereign power over His creatures, to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise of His glorious justice."

The foregoing blasphemous utterances are further explained and supported by these atrocious declarations on effectual calling in Chapter X.

I. All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only He is pleased in His appointed and accepted time, effectually to call by His Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ, enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God, taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them an heart of flesh, - renewing their wills and by His almighty power, determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ; yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by His grace.

II. This effectual call is of God's free and special grace alone, not from anything, at all foreseen in man, who is altogether passive therein, until being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit, he is thereby enabled to answer this call, and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it.

III. Elect infants dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ, who worketh when and where, and how He pleaseth; so also are all other elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.

IV. Others not elected, although they may be called by the ministry of the Word, and may have some common operations of the Spirit, yet not being effectually drawn by the Father, they neither do nor can come to Christ, and therefore cannot be saved; much less can men not professing the Christian religion be saved in any other way whatsoever, be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature, and the law of that religion they do profess; and to assert and maintain that they may, is very pernicious and to be detested."

I have no vocabulary to adequately express my abhorrence of a doctrine, so insulting to every moral instinct and intuition of man, and such a blasphemous caricature of the goodness and mercy and justice and love of our holy God! It tells its own story, and makes its own comment. The marvel is that any company of Christian men, born in a Christian land, with a Bible in their hands, could write a statement of doctrine so absolutely diabolical, and such a base calumny against God, and profess to believe it!

THE METHODIST DOCTRINE OF ELECTION

How unspeakably more Scriptural and rational, and more honorable to the character and government of God is the doctrine of Election, as Methodist thought has developed it. Notice I. There are three kinds of election, or of choosing and separating from others, mentioned in the Scriptures.

1. There is the election of individuals to fill some office or to perform some important public service. In this sense, Aaron was called to be priest, and Saul was called to be a disciple. But this calling implied nothing as to their eternal destiny.

The oldest sons of Aaron, called to be priests, Nadab and Abihu, were struck dead by Jehovah, for becoming filled with strong drink and offering strange fire before the Lord. Lev. 10: 1-10. Saul, chosen and anointed with holy oil to be king of Israel, died a suicide. So did Judas. Annas and Caiaphas, the high priests, who condemned Jesus to death, died miserably. None of these were saved by their election to office.

2. There is the election of nations or bodies of people to special religious privileges. Thus the family of Abraham or one branch of it, the descendants of Isaac and Jacob were called or chosen to be separated from all the other descendants of Abraham, and from all other nations of the earth, to be the visible church of God, and to give a Bible and a revealed religion to mankind, and to be the human ancestor of the incarnate Son of God. No other such election of a family and nation was ever given to man. Hence they are spoken of as His "chosen" or "elect" people (Deut. 4:37; 7: 6; 10: IS; Ps. 33: 12; Isa. 41: 8, 9). He invited them to the honors and privileges of His "sons," and dealt with them leniently and graciously for the sake of His own cause and kingdom in the world.

He hedged them about by peculiar laws and forbade them to intermingle and unite by marriage with foreign peoples, and eventually become lost. He called them His "peculiar people" (Deut. 7: 6; 14: 2; 26: 18) and by rites and ceremonies and laws, offensive to heathen nations, He kept them so.

But, let it be noted, that all these peculiar privileges and blessings belonged to all the descendants of Jacob without exception, and were the result of God's free grace, without any prior righteousness or peculiar merit of their own. They were granted for the ultimate good of all nations (Gen. 12: 3, 22: 18; Ex. 9: 16, 15: 14; Num. 14: 10-24). Yet there was nothing in these peculiar blessings that made certain the final salvation of any individual soul. While the nation, and the cause of God was spared, yet for sin, multitudes were destroyed (Ex. 32: 28; Num. 11: 33, 16: 32-35, 16: 49, 21: 5, 6; Heb. 3:11; 1 Cor. 10:8).

Under the Christian dispensation the term "election" was sometimes applied to bodies of Gentiles who have professedly embraced the Gospel. The Jews had been deprived of "election" for rejecting Christ, and their privileges were transferred to believing Gentiles. It was this calling and election of Gentile believers to the privileges of the Church of God that constituted "the mystery which was not made known to the sons of men," in pre-Christian ages, but hath now been revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets (Eph. 3: 1-7).

It was this that so angered the Jews, and which St. Paul so nobly defended in the ninth of Romans.

He tells us that it was no accident of history that believing Gentiles were brought into the Church, but was a part of the original plan of God. "They were called according to His purpose." Rom. 8: 28, and were "chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world." Eph. 1:4, "that we should be holy and without blemish." But in all these passages there is not the slightest reference to the unconditional election of individuals to eternal life.

3. In the New Testament we have the Abrahamic race-election displaced by the faith election.

Natural descent is disregarded. While that was in vogue, it secured only religious privileges and opportunities, but never made certain an individual's personal salvation. The individual who then repented and believed and continued in the faith was saved, - then, and so he is now. A wicked Absalom could perish then as now, even though he could trace his descent to Abraham, and to Adam, and even though His father was chosen to be king, and to be the ancestor of Christ.

When it came to personal salvation, God designed a plan of salvation and all the means of grace, and all the conditions of its appropriation, and then elected to save all that would fall in with that plan, and to reject all who would not. Every personal penitent believer, therefore, whether Jew or Gentile, is chosen in Christ, to enjoy all the privileges of grace here, and heaven hereafter. And to each one the same language of election is applied, that was used relative to the rational or collective elections of peoples, - "the elect," "the chosen of God."

How this personal election or salvation is brought about is explained clearly. First, in 1 Pet. 1:2.

We are told that we are ''elect through sanctification of the Spirit." We are not elected when sinners, in rebellion against God, and "compelled to be saved and sanctified by "irresistible, efficacious grace"; but we are elected "through the sanctification of the Spirit," (which is forced upon no one). It is, therefore, strictly conditional, though it takes place, like everything else, in the foreknowledge of God.

Second, in 2 Thess. 2: 13, 14, we are told "that God chose you from the beginning unto salvation in sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto He called you through our Gospel."

"Belief" is our own personal act, for which we are held responsible, as Jesus always taught. "Except ye believe that I am He, ye shall die in your sins, and whither I go ye cannot come" (John 8: 24, 21; 3: 16; 3: 36).

"Now sanctification and belief of the truth cannot be the ends of election, if they are the means of it. Paul preached a wonderful Gospel, directly adapted to save and sanctify his hearers. Whether they believed it and acted upon it and were saved, or not, depended solely upon themselves. St.

Peter in 2 Pet. 1: 10, begged them to "give diligence to make their calling and election sure." Then it follows, irresistibly that our election is conditional, depending on our own willingness to repent and believe and be saved and sanctified.

People do not get sanctified until after they are regenerated, by their own acceptance of Christ by faith, as their atoning Savior. They must further comply with certain divinely appointed conditions, before Christ will baptize them with the Holy Spirit. Such as

1. "Hunger and thirst for righteousness" (Matt. 5:6).

2. Ask for the Holy Spirit (Luke 11: 13).

3. Submit the will in complete obedience (Acts 5: 32).

4. Make a complete consecration (Rom. 6: 13; Rom. 12: 1).

5. Receive the cleansing by faith (Acts 15: 8, 9; Acts 26: 18). 18).

Now these are all conditions that we can comply with, and must comply with before the cleansing, sanctifying baptism of the Spirit will be given us.

If then, we obtain our election through the sanctification of the Spirit, it is conditional. In other words, God elects to save the "Whosoever wills" and reprobates to death the "Whosoever will nots," and we decide whether we will be "candidates for election" and "will give diligence to make our calling and election sure," or not.

II. We are more confirmed in this view by the absurdities and evils of the opposite view. We have seen the Calvinistic doctrine of "the unconditional election of a fixed and definite number of moral beings to everlasting life without any merit in them, and all the means and agencies inevitably leading thereunto; and that all the rest of the moral beings of the universe were malignantly created, and purposely endowed with possibilities of the most excruciating agony, and had unavoidable sin fixed upon them by a heartless Creator, who endowed them with an eternity of woe, - the horrors of endless damnation, just to display before an appalled universe His resistless power!-such a doctrine would shame hell itself, It can be nothing but a nightmare of human reason, that logically makes God the moral monster of the universe! The reason, which God has given us, declares that it cannot possibly be true!

1. Because of what God is in His nature and moral character. "He is the absolute monarch of the moral universe. No constitution limits His authority, and He receives no counsel from His subjects in any form. He needs none, either in Himself, or for the satisfaction of His subjects. Any participation, on the part of finite beings, in the government, would not add to our confidence in the government, but detract from it."

God assumes the government, not simply because He is the Creator, and therefore has a right to do what He will with His own. In a very important sense He owns the universe; but there is no such ownership of moral beings possible, as makes it proper to dispose of them arbitrarily, without reasonable regard to their good. God never claims the right to appoint arbitrarily, without due reason, the destiny of His moral creatures.

Nor merely because He is good does He claim the right to govern. There are other good beings in the universe, but they have no such right. Goodness is one of the qualifications, but that alone does not confer the right. The duty would exist without the goodness; He would be under obligation to become good, and to establish a righteous government.

God governs the universe because it needs to be governed, and because He, and He alone, is perfectly able to govern. These two facts would constitute Him ruler, even if He were not the Creator. The fact of His being Creator demonstrates His qualifications---reveals Him to man as the infinite and perfect, capable of universal dominion. He does not ask the consent of His creatures to His exercise of authority. His right to govern rests on no such contingency. He assumes the government, and requires the obedience of His subjects. All moral beings are constrained to acknowledge His right to govern, and their own duty to obey.

The law which God proclaims and enforces, is the moral law - the law of nature and of reason.

The great principle of obligation He does not create. It exists in the eternal nature of things, is affirmed in His own reason, and reaffirmed in every finite reason. As thus existing in the reason, it is law - subjective law, a real expression of obligation; and conformity to it would be virtue. God adds to this original principle of obligation the authority of His own will, and publishes and enforces it throughout the moral universe. It thus becomes the law of God, having a vitality and impressiveness to His creatures, indefinitely greater than that of any abstract principle. This expression of His will is found in the constitution of His creatures, in the course of His providence, and in His written word.

The knowledge of God's existence and attributes brings to men, from their own moral constitution, the conviction that He holds them accountable for all their moral conduct. The apprehension of accountability is not strictly intuitive, like that of obligation; but the conviction of it fastens upon the soul with an authority, which it can never throw off, however it may resist."

"Men do not need an express announcement that this accountability extends to every thought, word, and deed-all their moral life; the knowledge of God's character, and of their dependence upon Him, brings with it this conviction" (Fairchild's Moral Philosophy, pp. 142-144).

I make no apology for this long quotation. It is most wholesome and timely. God, it teaches us, is a moral being, like other moral beings, only He alone is infinite. All finite moral beings are under perpetual obligation to have a benevolent regard for the rights and happiness of all sentient being.

How much more are the obligations of the Infinite Moral Being! Now if a humane society should learn that a farmer reared litters of pigs and then put them to death by slow, lingering, excruciating torture just to display his power over the helpless swine, the society would promptly put the cruel wretch behind the bars, with the approbation of all decent civilized people! But here are theologians who vainly imagine, that because God is infinite in power, therefore, He has a perfect right to create billions of moral beings on purpose to torture them in an unavoidable hell forever,

"as He pleaseth"! "for the glory of His sovereign power over His creatures!" "to the praise of His glorious justice!!"

A theologian, no matter who he is, who can write and believe such infinite blasphemy against a holy God is insanely drunk, on "sovereignty!" indulging in a wild orgy of besotted reasoning. He has forgotten, or never knew, the first elements of moral reasoning. It flatly gives the lie to God under oath: "As I live saith the Lord Jehovah, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked!" Ezek.

33: 11. It insults God to declare that He is compelled to practice atrocious cruelty to get glory out of His power! Still worse, it is moral lunacy to call such infinite wickedness "glorious justice!!"

The upshot of it all is, no infinitude of power can make anything righteous that is inherently, and essentially wicked. Moreover, God Himself has only the liberty to do right, just like any other humblest moral being. "Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" Gen, 18:25, 2. It cannot be true because of its evil influence.

(1) "It renders all certainty on the subject of salvation impossible."

(2) "It tends to make the confident presumptuous, and the timid despairing."

(3) "It is at variance with the Gospel invitations, made to all men."

(4) "It destroys the sense of human responsibility, and religious earnestness."

(5) It brings against God, the unanswerable charge of partiality.

(6) It renders the judgment day unnecessary.

3. Unconditional election cannot be true, because Conditional election or the election of character is more honorable to God.

(1) Conditional election lifts from God all blame for man's doom.

(2) It agrees with the commission to preach the Gospel to all.

(3) It makes man responsible for his sin and doom.

(4) It is favorable to diligence, watchfulness, and prayerful-ness.

(5) It makes proper and necessary a judgment-day (see Field's Theology, p. 184).

4. There are special objections against the doctrine of unconditional reprobation of a fixed and definite number of men and angels to damnation.

(1) No such doctrine is taught in the Bible. If there were many passages that we were compelled to interpret, as teaching so awful a doctrine, then we would be shut up to one of two alternatives.

Either, we would be compelled to abandon our faith in the holiness of God; or we would be compelled to abandon our faith in the inspiration and truthfulness of the Bible. All true doctrines must be supported by many passages of Scripture. But there is no passage which reverent Christian scholarship is compelled to interpret in defense of such a doctrine.

(2) It is directly opposed to all the revealed attributes of God; a. "To His love} which embraces all the world" (John 3: 16) and "is not willing that any should perish" (2 Pet. 3: 9).

b. To His justice; for it represents Him as destroying or punishing His creatures, for no fault of their own, just to make an abhorrent display of His sovereignty.

c. To His sincerity; for, while publicly publishing His Gospel, and inciting all mankind to share its benefits and be saved, He has decreed that vast multitudes shall be hopelessly excluded forever from its benefits.

d. To His veracity; for He declares that He is good to all (Ps. 145: 9), and "is not willing that any should perish" (2 Pet. 3: 9), "and is no respecter of persons" (Acts 10: 34). When by His own irresistible decree one part of mankind are infallibly saved and all the rest are necessarily and infallibly damned!

These lovely Calvinists try to explain and excuse this by telling us that God has "a declarative"

and "a secret will." His published, declarative will is, "Come unto me all ye that labor, and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11: 28). "Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6: 37).

But His secret will is, that "by the decree of God," "other men and angels are foreordained to everlasting death, and the number is so definite and certain that it cannot be either increased or diminished." If language means anything, this makes our blessed God, a double-dealing, two-faced, lying hypocrite.

Thus this doctrine, as John Wesley saw, with his clear moral vision, "makes our adorable God worse than the devil, - more false, more cruel and more unjust." No one has yet appeared, who is able to reverse Wesley's verdict.

(3) Wesley pointed out that it has a manifest tendency to destroy holiness, and Field's theology reiterates it. For it wholly destroys the motives to follow after holiness so frequently urged by the Holy Spirit, the hope of reward, and the fear of punishment, the hope of heaven, and the fear of hell. A man may justly say, and I have heard them say it, "If I am foreordained to eternal life, nothing can prevent my salvation. But if I am foreordained to everlasting death, it is fixed and settled forever, and nothing can possibly avert my doom. In either case, I need not concern myself about it." Thus this doctrine acts as a stupefying opiate, to deaden the soul and send it to perdition.

(4) Said Wesley, "It destroys our zeal for good works, for if the doctrine be true, they avail nothing." Why should anyone toil and agonize over men if the destiny of all of them was fixed and unalterable back in eternity, ages before they or we were born?

If the most devout Christian is sure that he has a warrant from heaven to believe that every person to whom he can preach, or reach by his influence is unchangeably elected to heaven or, reprobated to hell, it would not be human, in the very nature of things, to waste himself in careful prayerful effort for either class that was absolutely unneeded or unavailing.

(5) It tends to make the whole Christian revelation, needless. One portion of moral, beings will be saved anyway, either with or without a gospel; all the rest, by the force of an irresistible decree, will be damned anyway, even if there were a hundred gospels, and thousands more of preachers to preach them.

III. It is well to consider some texts, which seem, at first thought to favor this doctrine of unconditional election and reprobation.

1. Acts 13: 48. "As many as were ordained to eternal life believed." "Rarely has a text been so violently wrenched from its connections, and strained beyond its meaning to support the doctrine of predestination." The noble English scholar Bishop Ellicott, translates it "as many as were disposed for eternal life believed." "The words seem to the English reader to support the Calvinistic dogma of divine decrees as determining the belief or unbelief of men. . . . The Greek word, however, does not imply more than that those who believed fell in with the divine order which the Jews rejected."

Dr. Whedon, in his Commentary says: "There is not the least plausibility in the notion that Luke in this simple history is referring to any eternal decree predestinating these men to eternal life. The word usually means disposed. . . . This meaning is required by the antithesis between the Jews in verse 46, and these Gentiles. The Jews were indisposed to eternal life, and so believed not; these were predisposed to eternal life, and so believed. The permanent faith of the soul was consequent upon the predisposition of the heart, and the predetermination of the will."

2. Rom. 9: 13, 17, 18, 21, 22. John Fletcher wrote: "Reason and conscience should alone convince us that St. Paul in Romans 9, does not plead for the right in God so to hate any of His unformed creatures as to intend, make, and fit them for destruction, merely to show his absolute sovereignty and irresistible power. The apostle knew too well the God of love to represent Him as a mighty potter, who takes an unaccountable pleasure to form rational vessels, and to endue them with keen sensibility, only to have the glory of absolutely filling them, by the help of Adam with sin and wickedness on earth, and then with fire and brimstone in hell.

This is the conceit of the consistent admirers of unconditional election and rejection, who build it chiefly on Romans 9. They fix so dreadful a meaning on it, through inattention and prejudice, overlooking the two keys which the apostle gives us to open his meaning, one of which we find in the first three verses, and the other in the last three verses of that perverted chapter."

"But," some one asks, "if the apostle did not intend to establish the absolute, personal preterition of the rejected Jews and their fellow reprobates, what could he mean by the mysterious chapter?" I reply: He meant in general to vindicate God's conduct in casting off the Jews, and adopting the Gentiles. . . .

"He advances two doctrines: (1) That God as the Creator and Supreme Benefactor of men, may do what He pleases with His peculiar favors; and that now He had as indubitable a right to give five talents of church privileges to the Gentiles, as He had once to bestow three talents of church privileges upon the Jews." And, (2) That God had as much right to set the seal of His wrath upon them, as upon Pharaoh, himself, if they continued to imitate the inflexibleness of that proud unbeliever, inexorable unbelief being the sin that fits men for destruction, and pulls down the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience."

But, let it be noted that the rejection of the Jews as a church and nation, did not reprobate any individual to damnation. The individual Jews could be saved, just as Paul had been. The choosing of Isaac rather than Ishmael, and of Jacob rather than Esau, and of Judah to be the ancestor of the Messiah, rather than Reuben, Simeon, or Levi-the three eldest sons of Jacob, had nothing to do with the personal salvation of either of the rejected ones. For aught we know, each one of these rejected ones was personally saved, though some one else in each case was preferred for a special privilege.

Verse 13: "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." Quoted by Paul from Malachi 1:3. Malachi referred not to the twin sons of Isaac, but to the nations that sprang from them as they developed in history. "God foresaw Edom-the nation descended from Esau, as persistently godless, and so the objects of God's disfavor."Jacob" stood for or represented the church and the spiritual seed by faith, Jew or Gentile, and so were the object of God's favor or love. But this does not at all imply that the evil of the Edomites was decreed of necessitated, or that it secured the personal damnation of Esau or of any particular Edomite. Esau may have been saved; salvation was in reach of every Edomite" (see Whedon's Commentary).

Verse 17. "Even for this purpose have I raised thee up." "Hebrew- made thee to stand" Calvinists have gratuitously read into this verse their awful doctrine, that God created Pharaoh on purpose to damn him. The context in the Old Testament, manifestly teaches something entirely different,

"Pharaoh looked upon every plague as a death. Witness his own words, "Intreat the Lord your God that He may take away from me this death only" (Ex. 10: 17). And if every plague was death to Pharaoh, was not every removal of a plague a kind of resurrection a raising him up together with his kingdom, from a state of destruction, according to these words of the Egyptians. "Knowest thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed?" How reasonable and Scriptural is this interpretation! How diabolical is that of the Calvinist!" Fletcher. God sent Moses and Aaron, the two greatest preachers in the world, to preach for months to Pharaoh. Indeed there were years in which God would gladly have shown His mercy to this proud monarch. "Now those years are past; the hour has come when he is made to live on earth, when he should be in hell, that God may reveal His true Omnipotence in the land, and over the rulers and the gods of Egypt." Whedon.

Verse 15. "He saith to Moses: I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that hath mercy." R. V. Calvinists have drawn from these words this monstrous doctrine. Paul asks the question, "Is there unrighteousness with God?" They answered thus: "God is an absolute sovereign, and can do as He pleases, and will as He will, and therefore what He does is right. He can choose men to sin and death 'for nothing in them' and for no fault of theirs; and because He is Almighty, it is all right!" No interpretation could be farther from the truth. Paul's doctrine is not that a thing is right because the Absolute One does it; but that the Absolute One always does that which is intrinsically right. The supposed answer is no answer at all. Moses had prayed that God would spare sinning Israel, or else blot his own name out of God's book." Jehovah respects His great servant's unselfishness, but sternly replies: "Whosoever hath sinned against Me, him will I blot out of my book." I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, without any dictation, even from my mistaken servant Moses. Thus did God will as He was supremely pleased to will.

But notice:

First, this willing as God will, does not mean willing without a reason, motive, or rule, but willing according to a perfect right, reason and rule.

Second: It does not mean that the motive or rule is an incomprehensible, mysterious, unknown and unknowable one, but the fully revealed and perfectly just rule of dealing impartially and justly with all free agents.

Third: It means that He will take no dictation from devout, but mistaken finite servants, but will show mercy to whom He ought to show mercy.

Fourth: This willing as He wills, is a willing to deal with men, not for "nothing in them" but for something in them, viz., their possession of faith in Christ, or their want of it.

This assertion that God will accept whom He pleases does not reveal whom He pleases to accept.

But that is abundantly revealed elsewhere. He proclaims Himself to be a God "showing mercy to thousands that love me and keep my commandments." "Let the wicked forsake his way, and return to the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him, and to our God for He will abundantly pardon"

(Isa. 55: 7).

The pretence therefore that these verses presuppose necessarily a no-reason, or an unknowable reason, for God's gracious preferences, saving some and rejecting others, is a pure fiction of Calvinism. The last sentence of Romans 9 utterly annihilates the doctrine of unconditional election and reprobation. So do Romans 10: 9-13. "Whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed." "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture saith, "Whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek; for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."

The conclusion of Paul's masterly argument is a perfect "whosoever gospel," with not an infinitesimal fraction of Calvinism in it. "For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all" (Rom. 11:32).

* * * * * * *

CHAPTER XI -- REPENTANCE

Repentance is a spiritual exercise which presupposes sin. Hence the propriety and deep meaning of Jesus' words: "I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." But all men have sinned, and so, until they have repented, all ought to have a deep interest in this subject, especially since God Himself has said that, "except we repent we shall all perish."

Let us consider in this discussion:

I. What precedes and induces repentance?

II. What is the nature of repentance?

III. The necessity of repentance.

IV. The fruits of repentance.

I. It is well to know what it is that moves men to turn from their sins to God.

1. We will name the convicting influence of the Holy Spirit. God looked over the antediluvian world and saw its awful wickedness, and declared, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man"

(Gen. 6: 3). That was implying that He had been striving with them in all their colossal wickedness; but He declared that the probation was limited, and the striving should not go on forever. The Prophet Joel prophesied, "I will pour out my Spirit upon 'all flesh'" (Joel 2: 28). A part of this same prophecy was quoted by Peter on the day of Pentecost, and by Paul in Romans 10: 13 and it was applied by both to all, and it was added, "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Peter declared: "The promise is unto you, and unto your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." God calls all sinners to repentance, and doubtless all are wrought upon by the convicting Spirit. Jesus confirms our faith. He declares in John 16: 7, 8. "The Spirit, when he is come, will convict the world, in respect of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment." "The world" includes all mankind. Deacon Stephen in his last sermon before his martyrdom, charged home on the sinners in his audience the guilt of resisting the Holy Ghost (Acts 7: 51).'This is a universal influence that doubtless comes to all mankind, quickening the conscience, pressing truth home upon the aroused and illuminated mind, revealing the enormity of sin, and the displeasure of God, and the foreboding of the wrath to come.

With the clamoring of appetites and passions, and the relish for sin in the depraved heart it may well be doubted if any man would ever repent and be saved, without the convicting influence of the Spirit in his soul.

2. This is purely the sovereign work of God. Nobody is saved against his will. Salvation and compulsion are contradictory terms. But conviction is the work of God's Spirit alone. A body of Christians, wholly right with God can pray conviction on a whole community. They may resist the Spirit and nobody be saved, as is sometimes the case. But they cannot help being convicted. When Peter preached at Pentecost, a multitude were both convicted and saved. When Deacon Stephen preached, they were profoundly convicted; but they resisted the Holy Spirit, and killed the preacher. So far as we know none were saved.

3. Serious consideration is a means that leads to repentance. This is largely under the control of man and so is voluntary. Voluntary thoughtlessness largely characterizes the unconverted world.

They shut God out of their thoughts, and often say, "Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways." In view of the folly and inconsideration of the people, Moses cried: "O

that they were wise, that they understood this; that they would consider their latter end!" (Deut.

32:29). God complained: "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider" (Isa. 1:3). This inconsideration is a fruitful source of ruin.

God said, "My people perish for lack of knowledge," and they lack knowledge because they do not consider and seek to know about God and divine things. A study of the condition and peril of the sinful soul would be a long step toward repentance.

4. The study of the Divine Law is a precursor of repentance. By this means, men who are away from God and out of Christ would soon learn their peril. They would soon know that they were transgressors of its precepts and in danger of its penalties. When, the law of God in its spirituality and power comes home to the conscience it is aroused to break up the false peace of the guilty soul. "By the law is the knowledge of sin." The sinner can soon learn that his fancied security is a delusion and that he "is wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked." "The law is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ." St. Paul wrote: "When the commandment came, sin revived and I died." All his self-confidence was gone. He found himself to be a poor sinner in the sight of God.

5. A faithful use of the means of grace will induce repentance. The study of the Bible in a right spirit, and attendance upon the sanctuary will sooner or later lead a man to feel his need of God.

Paul declared he was "not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it was the power of God unto salvation." The Gospel is perfectly adapted to the end it proposes-the salvation of men; and those who embrace its teachings and follow its counsels will be led to repent of sin and accept Christ.

II. Let us now consider the nature of repentance.

I. Negatively, what it is not.

(1) It is not conviction. We have seen a college student, on two successive Sabbath evenings fall perfectly helpless under conviction and remain so for two hours, yet he fought off conviction and remained impenitent.

(2) It is not an ungodly sorrow of sin. That is, it is not a mere carnal regret of the shame of it, or the natural consequences. Such sorrow or regret leads to no helpful consequences, and produces no spiritual betterment in life.

(3) It is not remorse. Judas had remorse and committed suicide, but he did not repent. Repentance, even on his part, would doubtless have brought him the loving favor of heaven.

(4) It is not despair. If it were, hell would be a world of repentance; for it is a world of undying remorse and despair. But true repentance would turn hell itself into a vestibule of heaven.

Repentance cannot consist in an involuntary state of mind.

2. Positively, what repentance is.

(1) There are two Greek verbs, which are translated by the English word, repent. Metamelomai,

"to care for," or to be concerned for one's self; hence to change one's course. Sometimes it expresses a state of the sensibility; but it also expresses a change of purpose, as in Matt. 21: 29.

"He answered and said, I will not; but afterward he repented and went." The word denotes contrition for sin.

Metanoeo implies all that the other word implies, with the added notion of reformation from sin, -

that is sorrow for sin and turning from sin. Metanoia is the noun, repentance. It means a change of mind, thought and feeling, and so "a practical reformation," "a reversal of .the past." It evidently expresses a change of choice, purpose, intention, in conformity with the dictates of the intelligence.

Ultimately, it is a phenomenon of will, and consists in the turning or change of the ruling preference of the soul.

Dr. Steele thus defines it: "Evangelical repentance is called a repentance toward God because it consists in turning from sin to holiness, implying a sense of, and hatred of sin and a love of holiness," Finney says: "It is a turning from sin to holiness, or more strictly from a state of consecration to self, to a state of consecration to God." We will observe in passing, that if these definitions are Scriptural then a good case of repentance would take all the fight out of a person against holiness. When professors of religion are full of fight against holiness and have a lenient feeling toward sin, it is extremely doubtful if they have ever known good gospel repentance, Ezra said: "O my God. I am ashamed to lift up my face to thee my God" (9: 6). Job said: "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes" (42: 5). Ezek. 36: 31 says: "Then shall ye remember your evil ways and shall loathe yourselves." All this means that people who have a good case of repentance do not hold up their heads, and boast how good they are, and that they are as good as others. The boast and brag is all taken out of them. Finney says: "Repentance implies such an apprehension of one's guilt as to produce self-condemnation, - a conviction of sin, and guilt, and ill-desert, and a sense of shame. It implies an apprehension of the nature of sin, that it belongs to the heart, and does not essentially consist in though it leads to outward conduct; that it is utterly unreasonable, and that it justly deserves the wrath of God.

It implies an apprehension of the reasonableness of the law, and commands of God, and the folly and madness of sin. It implies an intellectual and hearty giving up of all controversy with God, upon every point. It implies a conviction that God is wholly right, and the sinner wholly wrong, and a thorough and hearty abandonment of all excuses and apologies for sin. It implies a deep and thorough abasement of self in the dust, a crying out of soul against self, and a most sincere and universal, intellectual, and hearty exaltation of God" (Finney's Theology, p. 365).

3. Repentance, then, means a turning from 'sin. The two verses that best define repentance in the entire Bible are Isaiah 55: 7. "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord and He will have mercy on Him, and to our God for He will abundantly pardon." And Ezek. 14: 6, "Repent, and turn yourselves from all your idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations." Genuine repentance leads a man to go out of the sin business; and makes him only too glad to accept any thing God has for him in the way of personal righteousness. He is glad to accept holiness, for in the purpose of his heart he has parted company with sin forever.

4. Repentance implies confession of sin. It does not conceal, or cover up, or deny sin. The Psalmist said: "I acknowledge my transgression" (51:3). The beloved John wrote: "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1

John 1:7). Multitudes of people find no peace with God because they will not confess their past. It is the direct road to salvation. God has said: "He that covereth his sins shall hot prosper; but he that confesseth and forsaketh them shall obtain mercy."

5. A good case of Repentance of financial sins involves restitution. "The thief shall make full restitution" (Ex. 22: 3). A man arose in one of our meetings and made his confession, and said: "I will get right with God if I have to wear the prison stripes." Of course such a penitent found God.

We have witnessed many such things in revival meetings; and all verified the promise of God, that He is faithful and just to forgive.

6. Repentance is, of course a duty of the sinner himself. It devolves upon the sinner himself to repent. He must do the work, and no one else can do it for him. It is true that repentance is sometimes spoken of in Scripture as the gift of God. Acts 11: 18. "They ... glorified God, saying, and then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life." Also 2 Tim. 2: 25: "If God peradventure may give them repentance." That is, God convicts the sinner of sin, and makes repentance a condition of salvation.

REPENTANCE

The first passage doubtless means that God gave the Gentiles the offer of salvation on condition of repentance. At any rate God gives repentance to man only as he gives a crop of corn. He gives the conditions and seed and man must make the crop. God gives us the requisite faculties and light on our conduct-the perception of our sinful course to be renounced, an apprehension of it as wrong.

He gives us the conviction by the Spirit of our sinfulness, and makes known through conscience and the Word our duty---and his command to repent. One might suppose, from Calvinistic teaching, that repentance was somehow forced into a man by irresistible grace as medicine is often given by hypodermic injection. It is one of the many errors of Calvinism that originate in the forcing of Scriptures to make them teach doctrines in harmony with their peculiar system.

7. "It is important to distinguish Repentance as a duty from all the experiences connected with or resulting from it. The obligatory part is the voluntary turning away from sin-always obligatory and always possible. Whoever has light enough to sin has light enough to renounce sin. If other experiences be made prominent in the presentation of the duty there is danger of an abatement of the of immediate obligation; because these (accompanying) experiences are not (always) immediately possible or attainable. One may become bewildered waiting for conviction or feeling.

There is no more propriety in waiting for feeling when one is wronging God than when he is wronging a fellow-man. His plain first duty is to stop and there is no occasion to perplex this plain duty with other experiences" (Fairchild). There is no question that the great moral change will be attended with emotional experiences more or less speedy, more or less intense, according to light and circumstances and the nature of the subject.

8. Fairchild justly observes that, "Repentance like conversion if genuine; is comprehensive in its character; that it covers all sin." It is impossible to repent of a particular sin without repenting of sin as such - of all sin. The repentance may begin with a particular sin, probably often does; but when the sin is abandoned it must be abandoned as sin; and this involves a renunciation of all sin---that is, of the carnal mind which is the essence of all sin. Other sins may not be in the thought at the time; but such is the unity of sin that if one is repudiated all must go. Old habits of sin may afterwards come up as temptations and occasion a new struggle; they may possibly gain sway, and reinstate themselves, involving temporary apostasy. But this does not imply that they were reserved or cherished in the soul. We sometimes hear one say that when he was converted there was one particular sin that he did not repent of; it did not occur to him; it afterward came up and he had a struggle with it, and put it away. The experience is doubtless real, but the philosophy of it is not correctly apprehended, the sin was not reserved in the soul; sin as such was renounced, the sinful attitude; but a sinful habit, not before the mind at the time, appeared afterward as a temptation. Hence in repentance it cannot be necessary to recall every past sin; such repentance would be impossible. The sinful mind, the self-indulgent will, is renounced and thus all sin is repudiated, even if a particular act of sin be not at the moment recalled.

Nor is there any true repentance where one sin is retained. Luke 16: 10, "He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much."

James 2: 10: "Whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point he is guilty of all."

Luke 14: 33: "Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple"

(Fairchild's Theology, pp. 250,251).

Now this being so, it will be seen that Dr. Daniel Steele's definition is justified that "Repentance is a turning from sin to holiness." To turn away from every known sin, and to renounce the carnal mind from which all sins spring, would be to turn in purpose toward holiness, and, so far as its nature is apprehended, to be disposed to welcome it to the heart. Again we repeat, repentance takes out of a man all fight against holiness.

9. "Penitence as distinguished from repentance, is a permanent state-the state into which repentance brings the soul. Penitence must be an attitude or attribute of every moral being who has been recovered from sin; it will have a place in heaven. We sometimes hear it said that when the sinner has repented and been forgiven, he has no occasion to recur to his past sins, or to recall them. This is probably not true; it must always be appropriate to look to the past, to remember the sin that has been forgiven, and perhaps to confess it anew" (Fairchild). Moses and David and St.

Paul did, and it is becoming in any of us.

III. Consider the Necessity of Repentance.

1. It would be enough to know that God commands it. John the Baptist preached, "Repent." Six months later Jesus took up the same text and preached, "Repent." Peter did the same in Jerusalem.

St. Paul preached the same message in Athens. The Bible is full of the great truth that sin must be abhorred and forsaken. "Except ye repent, ye shall all perish" (Luke 13: 3).

2. Unrepented and unforsaken sin puts us out of harmony with God and all holy beings. God is love, and love is sinless. God is holy, and holiness forever hates sin-and opposes it continually.

There can be no truce in the war betwixt right and wrong. While sin remains in man it is an active force, ever seeking expression, ever striving to gain its selfish end, ever seeking dominion and conquest. Unless restricted and restrained it spreads like a contagion, leaving moral blight and ruin in its path. God cannot be indifferent to the existence and influence of such an evil. He must array all the forces of His moral government against it. So it comes about that the sinner finds himself in opposition to God, and Omnipotence arrayed against him. It is a perilous position. Repentance is therefore necessary, because there is no safety for any moral being except to he in moral harmony with God.

3. Repentance is necessary to fit one for heaven. Things are in a mixed condition here in this life.

But God is preparing a future and eternal home for His own, from which all sin shall be forever excluded. Nothing shall enter there "that defileth or worketh abomination or maketh a lie." So we must abandon all sin or give up all hope of heaven. God simply will not have His home polluted by I lie presence of sin, and He will not associate with unrepentant, incorrigible sinners.

4. Another reason St, Paul gave for the repentance of all sin was "Because He hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness." We must all face our record. The guilty past will rise up before us in that solemn hour when we all stand before the "Great White Throne" to

"give account for the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or whether they be evil." Woe to the soul in that hour whose sins have not been put under the blood! The secret things studiously concealed to the human knowledge, will be revealed to the universe. The crimes committed in darkness and hidden securely from the most industrious search will be dragged into the blazing light. The privacy of vice will be turned into the publicity of infamy. Justice will hold the even scales, and "every man will be rewarded according as his work shall be." The guilty soul laden with iniquity and unconfessed and unforsaken sin, will be calling on the rocks and mountains to fall on him and hide him from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and of the Lamb." Then to the unrepentant, existence will be torment, and memory will be the fuel of hell.

IV. The Fruits of Repentance.

God has given every possible encouragement to repentance by describing its blessed results. "Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and He will have mercy on him and to our God for He will abundantly pardon" (Isa. 55: 7). "He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall obtain mercy" (Prov. 28: 13). "But if the wicked turn from all his sins that he hath committed ... he shall surely live, he shall not die" (Ezek. 18:21). "When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive" (Ezek. 18: 27, 28). "Because he considereth and turneth away from all his transgressions that he hath committed he shall surely live, he shall not die." "Return ye, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin" (v. 30). "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1: 9). There is an open path to God and heaven before the advancing feet of every man who will heartily repent of all sin.

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CHAPTER XII -- SAVING FAITH

I. What is Evangelical Faith?

1. The word pistis translated faith means "a firm persuasion, confiding belief in the truth, veracity, or reality of any person or thing." Lexicographers tell us it is derived from peitho-mai-to persuade, then to let one's self be persuaded, to be convinced, to believe. Therefore the proper definition of faith is: "The assent of the mind to the truth of what is declared by another, resting solely and implicitly on his authority and veracity." "Reliance on testimony." "The assent of the mind, a firm and earnest belief on probable evidence of any kind, especially in regard to important moral truth."

"In the New Testament the word is used specially in reference to God and divine things, to Christ and His Gospel, and thus becomes in some sense a technical word, denoting that faith; that confiding belief which is the essential trait of Christian life and character." (Greek Lexicon) It is:

"The belief in the facts and truth of the Scriptures, with a practical love of them; especially that confiding and affectionate belief in the person and work of Christ which affects the character and life, and makes the man a true Christian." It is then called evangelical or saving faith. (Webster) This is in harmony with Heb. 11:1:

1. "Faith is the assurance (confidence) of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."

2. Let it be clearly understood that faith implies a previous knowledge of that which is made subject or object of belief. Hence knowledge is one of the antecedents or elements of faith. It is impossible to believe that which is not so revealed to the mind as to be an object of faith, because the mind understands it. Jesus asked the once blind man whom he had healed, "Dost thou believe on the Son of God?" He answered with perfect propriety, "Who is He, Lord, that I might believe on him?" It is an erroneous assumption that faith does not need light. How can we believe, trust, or confide in what we do not sufficiently understand to make it a matter of faith? Dr. Hodge says,

"The impossible and the irrational cannot be believed."

3. But let it further be understood that saving faith is more than a state of the intellect. "Evangelical faith cannot be merely a phenomenon of the intellect, for the reason that, it is always regarded as a virtue. But virtue cannot be predicated of merely intellectual states, because these are involuntary and passive states of mind. Faith is a condition of salvation. It is something that we are commanded to do upon pain of eternal death. But if it be something to be done - a solemn duty, it cannot be a merely passive state, a mere intellectual conviction. The Bible distinguishes between intellectual and saving faith. There is a faith of devils, and there is a faith of saints. James clearly distinguishes between them, and also between an antinomian and a saving faith. "Even so faith without works is dead being alone. Yea. A man may say, thou hast faith, and I have works; show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe and tremble. But will thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?" James 2: 17-20. Evangelical faith then is not a mere conviction, a perception of the truth. It does not belong to the intellect alone, though it implies intellectual conviction. Yet the evangelical or virtuous element does not consist in it.

4. Nor is faith a mere feeling of any kind; that is, it does not belong to, and is not a phenomenon of the sensibility. The phenomena of the sensibility are passive states of mind, and therefore have no moral character in themselves, Faith regarded as a virtue, cannot consist in any involuntary state of mind whatever. It is represented in the Bible as an active and most efficient state of mind. It works, and works by love. It produces the obedience of faith. Christians are said to be sanctified by the faith that is in Christ. Indeed, the Bible, in a great variety of instances and ways, represents faith in God and in Christ as a cardinal form of virtue, and as the mainspring of an outwardly holy life.

Hence, it cannot consist of any involuntary state or exercise of mind whatever (Finney's Theology, pp. 373, 374).

5. "Since the Bible uniformly represents saving or evangelical faith as a virtue we know that it must be a phenomenon of the will. It is an efficient state of mind, and therefore it must consist in the embracing of the truth by the heart or will. It is the will's closing in with the saving truths of the Gospel. It is the soul's act of yielding itself up, or committing itself to the truths of the evangelical system. It is a trusting in Christ, a committing of the soul and the whole being to Him, in His various offices and relations to men. It is a confiding in Him, and in what is revealed of Him, in His Word and providence, and by His Spirit" (Ibid.) In Luke 16: 11 the word for believe is translated "Commit," "Who will commit to your trust the true riches, So saving faith is a committing of one's self to God, and to Christ for pardon, and safe-keeping, and for all that Jesus is represented to be, and to do, for the soul. An unqualified surrender of the whole being to him.

6. There are, then, manifestly three elements in saving faith, 1. An intellectual perception of, and assent to the Gospel truths about God's plan of saving sinners through an atoning Savior. 2. A full and hearty consent of the will to the Gospel plan of salvation. We are everywhere addressed in the Bible as voluntary agents. "If ye be willing and obedient ye shall eat the good of the land." "If any man will come after me let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me" (Matt. 16: 24).

"With the heart man believeth unto righteousness." "Saving faith then implies an enlistment of the whole heart-the will and affections-in the cause of God." "A voluntary and full surrender of ourselves to God" (Wakefield). 3. There is the appropriating act of faith, which lays hold of the blessing. This is usually called trust or reliance on God. "Our fathers trusted in Thee," said David.

"They trusted in Thee, and thou didst deliver them" (Ps. 22: 4). Job said, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him" (13: 15).

In harmony with this blessed truth, Moody said that "Saving faith was assent, consent, and laying hold." Dr. Whedon defines "Saving faith as being that belief of the intellect, consent of the affections and act of the will, by which the soul places itself in the keeping of Christ as its ruler and Savior" Again he says, "Faith, therefore is our self-committment to God and to all goodness."

And again he writes: "Faith is not simply the belief of the intellect embracing the historical facts of Christ's character and death: it is the faith of the whole man. It is the act of the assenting intellect, the consenting heart and the accepting will by which man's soul deposits itself in the hands of the Redeemer for salvation, it is self-surrender to Christ. And as Christ is the very incarnation of holiness, goodness and God, so the soul gives itself over to holiness, goodness, and God for time and eternity." We wish to make this very plain to enable preachers and teachers to understand this important subject, that they may successfully point seeking souls to Christ. We therefore give other definitions. Miley says, "Saving faith apprehends the atoning work of Christ as the remedy for sin trusts directly therein and receives forgiveness as the immediate work of grace." Dr. Steele gives the following helpful comment: "The faith by which we are justified is present faith: faith actually existing and exercised now (John 1: 12, 3: 18, 36). We are not justified by tomorrow's faith, foreseen, for that would imply justification from eternity; neither are we justified by yesterday's faith recorded and remembered; for that would imply justification that is irreversible (Ez, 18: 24; 33: 12, 13). The acts of this faith are three. They are distinct yet concurrent exercises of the mind.

1. The assent of the understanding to the truth of God in the Gospel, especially that part of it which related to the death of Christ as a sacrifice for sin.

2. The consent of the will and of the affections to this plan of salvation, such an approbation and choice of it as implies a renunciation of every other refuge.

3. From this assent of the enlightened understanding, and consent of the rectified will, result actual trust in the Savior, and personal appropriation of His saving grace. This must necessarily be preceded by repentance (Mark 1: 15; Luke 24: 47; Acts 2: 38; 3: 19; 20: 20, 21) (Theological Compend, pp. 121, 122).

7. It will be apparent from the above, that many are deceived about their supposed faith in Christ.

They commit a catechism to memory and perhaps assent to the intellectual propositions, and they assume that that is saving faith. Multitudes are thus deceived, vainly supposing that they are saved, when they are still in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity" on the way to hell. This is the standing peril of all the churches that admit members by catechetical instruction, It is perfectly safe to say that the majority of the communicants, so admitted have no saving knowledge of Christ.

Their daily walk and conversation prove it to a demonstration. The intellectual element of faith, by itself, has no saving power. The devils believe and tremble at the truths of the catechism, and remain fallen beings still, and so may men, women and children.

On this important subject we quote from President Finney who knew the meaning of saving faith if any man ever did: "Evangelical faith implies an evangelical life. This would not be true if faith were merely an intellectual state or exercise. But since, as we have seen, faith is of the heart, since it consists in the committal of the will to Christ, it follows, by a law of necessity, that the life will correspond with the faith. Let this be kept in perpetual remembrance." Saving faith must also imply the existence in the soul of every virtue, because it is a yielding up of the whole being to the will of God. Consequently, all the phases of virtue required by the Gospel must be implied as existing either in a developed or in an undeveloped state, in every heart that truly receives Christ by faith.

Certain forms or modifications of virtue may not in all cases have found the occasions of their development, but certain it is, that every modification of virtue will manifest itself as its occasion shall arise, if there be a true and living faith in Christ. This follows from the very nature of faith.

"Present evangelical faith implies a state of present sinlessness. Observe, faith is the yielding and committal of the whole will and of the whole being to Christ. This and nothing short of this is evangelical faith. But this comprehends and implies the whole of present true obedience to Christ.

This is the reason why faith is spoken of as the condition, and as it were, the only condition, for salvation. It really implies all virtue. ... Its existence in the heart must be inconsistent with present sin there. Faith is an attitude of the will and is wholly incompatible with present rebellion of will against Christ. This must be true, or what is faith?" "Faith implies the reception and practice of all known or perceived truth. The heart that embraces and receives truth as truth, and because it is truth, must of course receive all known truth. For it is plainly impossible that the will should embrace some truth perceived for a benevolent reason, and reject other truth perceived. All truth is harmonious. The heart that embraces, one, will, for the same reason, embrace all truth. If out of regard to the highest good of being, any one revealed truth is truly received, that state of mind continuing, it is impossible that all truth should not be received as soon as known (Theology, 373, 374).

Perhaps these words of this great soul-winner explain why so many professors of religion and church members refuse to accept the experience of sanctification, and draw back from any exalted type of piety. If they ever had it they have lost that saving faith that is a committal of the whole will and being to Christ for a sinless life, and the practice of all known truth. They are not living up to all the light they know, and do not welcome any more light because their faith that committed them wholly to God has either broken down, or they never had it.

2. Here we meet the question much discussed among theologians: "Is faith the gift of God, or is it the act of man?" According to the Antinomian, Calvinistic theory, faith is the gift of God in the same sense that manna was sent from heaven, without any co-operation of man. That is, Calvinists understand that faith is a grace, or a something possessing an abstract existence, as separate and distinct from the existence and operations of the believer, as the manna in question was from the existence and operations of the people who gathered and used it. This has been the avowed sentiment of Calvinists for more than two centuries; and Indeed it is difficult for any interpretation of the subject essentially variant from this to be reconciled with Calvinism, even in the mildest forms it has assumed" (Ralston's Theology, p. 357).

A few quotations from their writings will show this. One of their creeds says of justifying faith:

"which faith they have not of themselves it is the gift of God." Again: The grace of Faith whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls is the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts." The Shorter catechism says: "In applying redemption to sinners, the Spirit worketh faith in them; He alone is the efficient cause of faith in the soul. It requires the same power to work faith in the soul that was wrought in Christ when he was raised from the dead. The way in which the Spirit works faith is this: He first comes in the Word, and enters into the heart of the elect sinner, dead in sin; and when he has thus entered, he quickens it by working faith in it. By this faith the soul apprehends Christ, and actually unites with him" (p. 115). "None are able of themselves to embrace Christ or believe in Him." We might quote further but it is needless. It is of course an essential element of Calvinism which teaches that there are certain sinners for whom alone Christ died. They alone are elect. Into them alone comes an irresistible, efficacious influence or power from God, working in them or into them, when helpless as a dead man, a life-giving faith, as one might inject a liquid into a corpse!

Ralston well says: "An idea so absurd and unscriptural as the above, and which has been so frequently disproved by arguments perfectly unanswerable, requires, on the present occasion, but a brief notice. Suffice it to say that, according to this notion of faith, to call upon men to believe, and to hold them responsible for their unbelief, would be just as consistent with reason and Scripture as to call upon them to stop the planets in their course, and to hold them responsible for the rotation of the seasons. Such a view is not only inconsistent with the whole tenor of Scripture, which enjoins upon man the exercise of faith as a duty, but it is irreconcilable with the very nature of faith. What is faith? It is no abstract entity which God has treasured up in the magazines of heaven, to be conveyed down to man without any agency of his. Faith has no existence in the abstract. We might as well suppose that there can be thought without an intelligent thinker, as that faith can exist without an intelligent, voluntary believer. Faith is the act of believing: it is an exercise of the mind; and in the very nature of things, must be dependent on the agency of the believer for its existence (p. 357)

In the same strain Fairchild says: "These facts, that Faith is a duty, that it is made a condition of salvation, and that unbelief is a sin, show that Faith is considered a voluntary, responsible exercise, involving not thought or feeling alone, but the action of the will. It must be a voluntary disposition or attitude of the soul, because it is required of all men. We may define Faith as the voluntary acceptance of truth, which calls for moral action (pp. 252, 253). A necessary antecedent of Faith is an intellectual apprehension, of the truth of just so much truth as is necessary to obligation, or as brings moral responsibility. The first apprehension of the truth pertaining to duty puts one under the obligation of Faith. He is bound to act on that truth to treat it as true. Let us observe that the moral attitude is the same, whether the light be greater or less" (p. 254).

"Ability is the condition of obligation, and obligation presupposes the ability. If the sinner has no ability to be holy without God's help, he is under no obligation to be holy without that help; and there is no sin in not being holy. That help is a part of the ability necessary to obligation. If a man can sin without divine help, he can stop sinning without it; the same ability is necessary to the one as to the other. No one questions that the sinner is under obligation to repent and turn to righteousness; therefore he can. The sinner is required to exercise faith, to believe on the Son of God; therefore he can. He can treat the truth as true, which is the moral clement of faith, the duty.

These exercises are simply acts or attitudes of the will, and the will is free; therefore these attitudes are always possible.

But here an important fact meets us. With this full ability to meet obligation, men do not turn from a sinful life without some divine persuasion; they do not, self-moved, set out on a life of obedience.

They must be persuaded. But this persuasion presupposes ability, not inability. Persuasion is absurd except on this condition. The whole substance and manner of God's address to sinners imply His ability. He commands, admonishes, warns, entreats; if the sinner has no ability-all this is a show. A delusion. Thus there is demonstration of the sinner's ability on every page of the Scriptures (Theology, pp. 268, 269).

Thus all sinners have the ability to believe God's truth revealed to them, and to exercise faith in Christ, unto salvation. And faith is a gift of God, only as a crop of wheat is a gift of God. God gives the seed and the ground and the season, and man makes the crop. So, and only so, does God give faith. He gives the requisite faculties to every man, and reveals to him the saving truth and then commands man himself to believe on peril of damnation. God gives us eyes and pours light around us, and then tells us to lift up our eyes and behold," and He holds us responsible for seeing.

God creates the laws of sound, and our auditory nerves, and commands us to hear, AND HOLDS

US RESPONSIBLE FOR hearing. So, after all that God has done, man must act; his agency must be put forth, or faith cannot exist. God has never promised to insert faith into a man, or believe for any man; nor can any man ever possess faith till he exercises the ability, which God has given to all, and receives and acts upon the saving truths of the Gospel.

Dr. Daniel Steele names two errors respecting saving faith:

1. That it is not the act of a graciously aided penitent, but the gift of God, sovereignly bestowed, when and to whom He wills. It is refuted in 2 Thess. 2: 12, "That they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." Also in Heb. 3: 18, "And to whom sware He that they should not enter into His rest but to them that believed not." In 1 Cor. 12: 9 faith is not a grace, but a miraculous endowment. In Eph. 2: 8, "Faith is feminine, and "it" is neuter,

"touto." The "gift" is not faith, but the plan of salvation by faith is the gift of God. '

2. That the unregenerate are incapable of the act of saving faith, and that it does not precede regeneration as a condition, but follows it as a result. It is refuted in John 3: 18 and 36. "He that believeth not hath been judged already, because he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God. He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life; but he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." Also by Acts 10: 43, "Every one that believeth on him shall receive remission of sins." Also by Rom. 1: 16. "The Gospel is the power of God unto Salvation to every one that believeth." Also by Rom. 3: 26 and Eph. 1:13.

Both of these are the stock errors of Calvinism, and logically throw all the blame on God for the unbelief and eternal death of Sinners. Sinners are commanded by God to believe; but they are incapable of believing themselves: and God will not give faith to any but the elect sinners.

Therefore the non-elect unbelievers go to hell because God does not care to save them! Such doctrines are wicked reflections on God, even blasphemous.

3. It may be asked in what sense are there degrees of faith. We may answer: 1. There can be degrees in the content of faith. One man may believe more than another because he knows more truth to believe. So a man may grow in faith from the dimmest light of duty to the fullest comprehension of Gospel truth.

2. Again, one grows in his experience of the faithfulness of God, until nothing will disturb his unshaken confidence in his heavenly Father. Such a full grown faith came to be Abraham's. It grew by experience, till "He staggered not at the promise of God."

3. There come to be degrees of faith in one's establishment. One can get where he will not surrender his confidence in God under any trial or temptation, and will exclaim like Job, "Though he slay me yet will I trust him." Faith is weak in the sense that Christian character is weak, and becomes strong as the Christian character matures into heroic proportions.

4. But there cannot be degrees of faith in the responsible moral element, in the sense that one may partly accept the truth in his soul, and partly refuse or neglect it at the same time. This is the same as to have a divided will, to be partly benevolent, and partly not, partly honest and partly not, partly loyal to God and partly not, involving a dual, self-contradictory action of the will which is impossible.

5. Fairchild wisely observes: "Just here we must put ourselves on guard against the mistake that it is of small account what men believe so that they have an honest and believing heart; or that error will answer the same purpose as truth, provided one is honest and right at heart. It is true that the right heart persistently maintained in the greatest possible error of the head, will bring salvation at last. But the faith once delivered to the saints, - the Gospel of Christ, is the power of God unto salvation. The victory which over-cometh the world is a faith which embraces this truth; and there will be an end of all honesty of belief, of all moral faith, when the great doctrines and truths which call out faith and sustain it have dropped out of the knowledge and thought of men. A sound theology, in its essential features, is necessary to any permanent or established Faith among men.

The way to promote Faith, the moral exercise, is to give men an object of Faith; a great truth to believe. "This is the work of God that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent" (John 6: 29). Faith will not spring up or abide in the soul without an object which commands regard or acceptance.

Human passion and selfishness are too strong to be overcome, except by mighty truths (Theology, pp. 261, 262).

More might be said along this line. A man may take a dose of arsenic honestly thinking that it is sugar; his honesty will not change the natural results. A person may sincerely believe a dangerous error; but it will be a dangerous error none the less, and its evil effects will be equally certain.

There is but one Gospel, and one Savior, and "there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4: 12). Our faith and moral attitude toward Christ and His Gospel, or our unbelief, however sincere, makes all the difference between heaven and hell.

Let us contrast Faith and Unbelief.

Let it be remembered that Saving Faith is a loving voluntary acceptance of apprehended truth about Christ and Salvation. Now unbelief must be the opposite of evangelical faith. It is not therefore mere ignorance of truth. Ignorance is a blank, the absence of knowledge. This cannot be the unbelief everywhere represented in the Bible as a grievous sin. Nor again is unbelief a mere negation or absence of faith. This were a mere nothing, a nonentity. But a mere nothing is not that abominable thing which damns the soul. It cannot be a mere phenomenon of the intellect, or of the feelings or emotions, a state of intellectual incredulity, doubt, distrust, skepticism. If faith is a loving, voluntary acceptance of apprehended truth, the unbelief which damns the soul, must be a malignant willful rejection of apprehended truth. It is the soul's withholding confidence from truth and the God of truth. It is the heart's rejection of evidence, and refusal to be influenced by it. It is the will in the attitude of opposition to truth perceived, -or evidence presented. Intellectual skepticism or unbelief, where light is proffered, always implies the unbelief of the will or heart.

Light is rejected. This is the sin of unbelief. ... It is the will in its profoundest opposition to the truth and will of God (see Finney's Theology, p. 378).

"And this is the judgment that light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil" (John 3: 19).

Plainly, then, "it is no arbitrary thing in God, that faith is made the condition of salvation. It is for the same reason that repentance or conversion is a condition of salvation. It is essentially the same thing, or rather; the beginning of faith in a sinner brings repentance or conversion. A sinner cannot have repentance without faith, nor faith without repentance." Faith is an affectionate voluntary acceptance of all apprehended truth about sin; Christ and salvation (see Fairchild, p. 262).

It falls in with God's plan of saving us, and links the soul with Christ forever, Unbelief malignantly rejects the plan of salvation and separates the soul from Christ forever,

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CHAPTER XIII -- JUSTIFICATION

Job's question, "How shall man be just with God?" (9: 2) has perplexed the reflecting minds of all the ages. More perplexing is it, still, since God Himself, hath said: "I will not justify the wicked,"

and "By the works of the law, shall no flesh be justified in His sight" (Rom. 3: 20; Ps. 143: 2).

And yet we must be justified in order to be saved.

Thus this question we are to discuss is of the deepest interest to all mankind. How may a fallen sinner recover from the miseries of his fallen state? "What must I do to be saved?" is the agonizing inquiry that comes to us from all nations and all ages. It shows that the universal human heart is instinctively seeking some satisfactory knowledge of a certain and adequate remedy for the evils of Conscious sin.

Every human scheme, as all history shows, has terminated in failure and disappointment and despair. If there is any solution of the question or any remedy, it must come from God.

I. Consider the Nature of Justification.

1. The Greek word in the New Testament rendered "justification" is dikaiosis, which means "A declaration of right or justice, a judicial sentence, in New Testament acquittal, acceptance, and justification." The verb means to justify, to absolve, to clear from any charge; and then to pronounce upright, righteous. Good; then to acknowledge and vindicate, to honor, to glorify."

Justification, then, is the pronouncing of one just, and in some sense must be an act of the divine government.

2. The question now arises whether it is a judicial act of God as supreme Judge; or whether it consists in pardon, or the setting aside of the execution of an incurred penalty, and is therefore an act, of God as Chief Executive. This is an important question and will shape our whole theology on this subject. This cannot be a judicial or court phrase. The power to pardon is never exercised by the judicial department of a government. The ground of a judicial or forensic justification invariably is, and must be, that the party arraigned at the bar is innocent. If one crime or breach of the law is alleged and proved, the court must inevitably condemn, and can in no such case justify, or pronounce the convicted person just, But Gospel justification is the justification of sinners; it is therefore naturally impossible, and a palpable contradiction, to affirm that the justification of a sinner is a judicial justification, which could only be the case if he were guiltless, or has not violated the law. The law condemns the sinner, and in his case a judicial justification is impossible. This is expressly affirmed by the Bible: "By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified." It is the executive department of a government that pardons, not the judicial; so, if God pardons it must be done by Him as an executive or governor, and not as a judge.

3. Calvinistic theologians, who hold to the imputation of our sin to Christ, and of his righteousness to us, treat justification as a judicial act, a pronouncing of a sinner just before the law. As they hold, it is on this wise. "The obedience TO the law which Christ rendered when on earth is set down to the credit of elect sinners, and imputed to them. The law regards them as having rendered perfect obedience in Him. They have perfectly obeyed by proxy: and they are pronounced just.

Christ has taken the place of the sinner, has borne his sins, and has wrought out for him a righteousness. The law is satisfied; it has no other or further claim upon him. He is now acquitted, as innocent." This, Calvinists insist, is properly a forensic or judicial justification.

4. But we have previously shown that there can be no such thing as a transfer, or imputation, either of guilt or of righteousness. Character must be forever personal and private. The sinner must be forever guilty before the law; and "Justification is an act of God's sovereign grace, setting aside the penalty, on the conditions of repentance and faith in the Atoning Savior, which make it safe and right. We sometimes loosely say that Justification is treating the sinner as if he had not sinned. No: there are two ways of treating a sinner as a sinner; one is to punish him, the other to pardon. An innocent man can neither be punished nor pardoned (Fairchild). Finney observes that the Calvinistic doctrine of an imputed righteousness, or that Christ's obedience to the law was accounted as our obedience, is founded on a most false and nonsensical assumption; to wit, that Christ owed no obedience to the law in His own person, and that therefore His obedience was altogether a work of supererogation, and might be made a substitute for our own obedience; that it might be set down to our credit, because He did not need to obey for Himself. Justification respects the moral law, and it must be intended that Christ owed no obedience to the moral law, being wholly a work of supererogation, is set down to our account, as the ground of our justification upon condition of faith in Him, Surely this is an obvious mistake. We have seen that the Spirit of the law required good will to God and the universe. Was Christ under no obligation to do this? Nay, was He not under infinite obligation to be perfectly benevolent? Was it possible for Him to be more benevolent than the law requires God and all beings to be? Did He not owe entire consecration of heart and life to the highest good of universal being? If not, then benevolence in him were no virtue, for it would not be a compliance with moral obligation. It was naturally impossible for Him, and it is naturally impossible for any being to perform a work of supererogation; that is, to be more benevolent than the moral law requires him to be. This is and must be as true of God as of any other being. Would not Christ have sinned had he not been perfectly benevolent? If He would, it follows that He owed obedience to the law as really as any other being. Indeed, a being that owed no obedience to the moral law must be wholly incapable of virtue; for what is virtue but obedience to the moral law?

But if Christ owed personal obedience to the moral law, then His obedience could no more than justify Himself. It can never be imputed to us. He was bound for Himself to love God with all His heart, and soul, and mind, and strength, and His neighbor as Himself. He did (and could do) no more than this. It was naturally impossible, then, for Him to obey in our behalf" (Theology, p.

385). We have previously shown that this doctrine of the imputation of Christ's righteousness to us, and of our sins to Christ is a theological fiction, utterly unreasonable, and without support in Scripture. The above quotation only shows more clearly how absurd the doctrine of imputation is, in all its several parts.

5. We are now ready to state formally what Scriptural justification is. Definition: Justification is that governmental act of God, by which, on condition of the sinner's repentance and faith in the atoning Savior, God pardons his sins, remits the penalty, restores him to the divine favor, and thereafter treats him as if he had never sinned. The sinner having turned from sin becomes a recipient of the favor of God: he is accepted and forgiven. "This act of God in relieving the sinner from the consequences of his sin, and from the penalty of the law, is called justification. This is the theological term used to express the divine act. It is used also in the Scriptures, in both the Old and New Testament. Isa. 53: 11, "By His knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities." Acts 13: 38, 39, "Through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins; and by Him all that believe are justified, from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses."

It is clear from the Scripture presentation and from the nature of the case that this justification, or pronouncing just, is simply an act of pardon (in its largest meaning)-a remittance of the penalty of the law. The usual expression in the Old Testament is pardon, forgiveness. The same terms are used abundantly in the New Testament; but the term justification is used, especially by Paul.

Indeed the term is almost confined to him, especially as referring to the forgiveness of sin (Fairchild's Theology, p. 276).

Aside from Christ, God is an offended Sovereign, and man is a guilty subject. But a new relation is effected by the death of Christ. The offended Sovereign has devised honorable means to suspend the execution of the penalty of death, and to offer terms of pardon to the assurance of the willingness of God to forgive all his offenses, and that he may, by the use of the prescribed means, actually obtain the loving favor of God. If the conditions are complied with, amicable relations are restored between the Sovereign and the subject, the record of sin is cancelled, the penalty is set aside, and relations of friendship and fellowship are restored. The prodigal son sits again at his Father's table, enjoys His bounty, wears the apparel He furnished, and rejoices in His benignant smile.

II. Let us consider what justification is not.

1. The pardon of sin is not an act of mere prerogative, done above law, but an executive act done consistent with law and justice. In this transaction there are three parties: 1. God as a Sovereign.

"It is God that justifieth." 2. Christ as Advocate, not to defend the guilty sinners, but to intercede for them. "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (1 John 2:1). 3. The third party is man, who, by his own confession is guilty, sinful, and deserving of the wrath of God. The repentance which always accompanies faith, and really precedes it, is a confession of sin and desert of punishment. But as justification does not take place except through the propitiation of Jesus Christ, and on condition of faith in His Atoning blood on the part of the sinner, it is not an arbitrary act of mere mercy, or prerogation, but one, as we have already shown, which is perfectly consistent with a righteous government, and with the justice of God, and the good of all His subjects.

2. Justification does not save all men en masse. It has respect to particular individuals. As we have seen, a provisory atonement has been made for all men, and all are placed in a savable state before God. But whether any are saved or not, depends upon what individual sinners do with the offer of salvation; that is, whether they comply with the conditions announced by God, Justification is not, therefore, common to the race at large, but only to the individuals who comply with the terms. It is, therefore, a matter of personal concern, personal prayer, personal effort to meet the conditions, and an earnest seeking of the grace of God. It is a special favor of heaven bestowed upon the individual soul.

3. In the light of the above facts, justification cannot be eternal. "The Antinomian notion of eternal justification becomes a manifest absurdity. It supposes the grant of pardon before man was created, when no sin had been committed, no law published, no Savior promised, no faith exercised, which is not only absurd, but impossible. ... It is the ungodly who are justified; and therefore guilty; so that the advocates of this wild notion must either give up justification in eternity, or a state of condemnation in time. If they hold the former, they contradict common sense; if they deny the latter, they contradict the Scriptures (Wakefield's Theology, p. 408).

4. Justification is not an act of God by which we are made actually just and righteous. This is brought about by regeneration and sanctification. These are distinct and entirely different works of the Spirit. Justification is what God does for us through His Son; the others are what God works in us by His Spirit. There are occasionally times when the term "justification" is used to include the works of grace that follow, but it is not usual. By justification we are saved from the penalty of sin and restored to the favor of God; by sanctification we are saved from the power and root of sin and restored to the image of God.

5. The justification of a sinner does not in the least degree alter or diminish the evil nature and ill-desert of sin. "It is God that justifieth, and we know that He can never regard sin, on any consideration or under any circumstances, with less than infinite hatred. Sin therefore, is not changed in its nature, so as to be less ''exceedingly sinful," or less worthy of wrath, by the pardon of the sinner. The sinner must be forever guilty before the law; but the penalty is remitted, by an act of sovereign grace, on condition of the atonement and repentance and faith, and the obligation to suffer that penalty is set aside; but it is still deserved, and naturally due, though graciously remitted. "Hence appear the propriety and duty of continuing to confess and lament even pardoned sin with a lowly and contrite heart. Nor will even the redeemed in heaven forget the humiliating fact that they are sinners saved by grace. Their songs and services will ever be dedicated unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father (Wakefield's Theology, p. 409).

III, We now will consider the conditions of justification, and how it is obtained.

On this important subject men have widely differed in opinion. It has led to wars between nations, and civil wars. It has divided Christendom. It has formed different denominations of Christians; it has aroused heated passion and angry debate.

1. We may say, the ground of justification, or the moving, procuring cause, was the benevolence, and merciful disposition of the whole Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This love made the atonement (John 3: 16); but the atonement did not beget the love. The Triune God desired to save sinners, but could not do so without danger to the government of God, unless something was done to meet the requirements of public justice. The atonement was resorted to, to meet that need. It reconciled forgiveness with the wholesome administration of government. The forgiving merciful love of God was the ground of all grace toward sinners, the source of every offer of pardon ever made.

2. The conditions of justification are of two kinds: governmental on the part of God, and personal on the sinner's part. The governmental conditions are met in the atonement, which provides such moral forces, in the government of God, that it is safe to offer pardon to the penitent. The personal conditions are repentance, a turning from sin to righteousness, and faith in the atoning Savior.

These are necessary conditions, because salvation is impossible without them, and unsafe if it were possible. Sin must be forsaken, and God and His government and law must be honored, if rebel sinners are safely forgiven (see Fairchild, p. 277).

3. Five different methods or plans of obtaining justification have been named by theologians.

(1) By the imputation of Christ's active righteousness or obedience to sinners.

(2) By the imputation of Christ's active and passive obedience to sinners.

(3) By works alone.

(4) By works and faith.

(5) By faith.

(1)Justification by the imputation of Christ's active obedience. This is the high Calvinistic, Antinomian scheme. It teaches that the active obedience or righteousness of Christ is so imputed to the elect, as to render them as legally righteous as if they had never sinned. To this is objected: (a) That it is a fiction of theology wholly unsupported by Scriptures, No text can be found in which it is taught, either expressly or by logical inference, that Christ's active obedience ever was, or ever will be, imputed to any man for justification.

(b) The doctrine involves a falsehood inconsistent with the divine attributes. The judgment of God must be according to truth. Nor can His unerring wisdom think that I am innocent, or judge that I am righteous or holy, because another at some time lived a holy life. "He can no more confound me with Christ," said Wesley, "than with David or Abraham." Moreover, "If the obedience of Christ is to be accounted ours in the sense of this theory, then it must be supposed that we never sinned, because Christ never sinned; and if we are accounted to have perfectly fulfilled the whole law in Christ, why are we required to ask for pardon? Should it be said that when we ask for pardon, we only ask for a revelation of our eternal justification, the matter is not altered, for what need is there of pardon, either in time or eternity, if we are accounted to have perfectly obeyed God's law? And why should we be regarded as having suffered, in Christ, the penalty of sins which we are accounted never to have committed?" (Wakefield).

(c) The doctrine lessens the sense of obligation to keep the moral law of God, and tends directly to antinomian carelessness in living. Why should man be conscientiously careful about his conduct, when he has the spotless conduct of Christ set down to his credit? So the carnal heart will reason, and as a historic fact, has reasoned. The theory tends directly to immorality, and encourages ungodliness. So far is it from being a demonstration of God's righteousness, that it transfers the obligation of obedience from the subjects of the Divine government to Christ, and thus leaves man without law, and God without dominion."

(d) A more fatal objection to this theory is that it grounds our salvation on the active obedience of Christ instead of conditioning it on His atoning death, and thus leaves no reason for Christ's vicarious suffering.

It thus flies in the face of Scripture. For "If the active obedience of Christ is imputed for justification to all for whom He died, then it will follow, 1. That He died for the just and not for the unjust, as the Scriptures declare. 2. That His death was unnecessary; for those for whom He died are perfectly righteous without it. "If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain" (Gal. 2:21). And, 3. That men are still under the covenant of works, and are justified by an obedience to the law; though St. Paul declared that "by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified" (Rom, 3:20) (Wakefield's Theology, p. 411).

(2) Justified by the imputation of the Active and passive obedience of Christ. This theory was held by Calvin, who wrote, "We simply explain justification to be an acceptance by which God receives us into His favor, and esteems us as righteous persons; and we say it consists in the remissions of sins, and the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. But this is a wonderful method of justification, that sinners being invested with the righteousness of Christ dread not the judgment which they have deserved. Man is righteous, not in himself, but because the righteousness of Christ is communicated to him by imputation." "What is placing our righteousness in the obedience of Christ, but asserting that we are accounted righteous only because His obedience is accepted for us as if it were our own" (Institutes, Book 3, chap. 11). Calvin does not divide the active and passive obedience of Christ. But his views are open to the same objections. His imputation is without any foundation in Scripture. There is no transfer of character from one person to another in the Bible; no impossible thinking by God that what Christ did when on earth we did before we were born! But the strongest objection to this theory of imputation, and if this righteousness includes both His active and passive obedience to the law of God, then these consequences will follow: 1. That in our justification there is no room for pardon; for it is absurd to suppose that pardon and perfect obedience can meet in the same person. 2. That we are furnished with both an active and a passive obedience in our justification, which is more than the case demands. How can it be made to appear, that we rendered a perfect obedience to the divine law, and suffered its penalty also? This would be both unjust and absurd (Wakefield). Look at this subject in which ever way one will, the theory of imputation runs into absurdities and fooleries of thought. "It is only an idle dream without reason or Scripture for its support, involving an absurd fiction, irreconciliable with the divine character" (Ralston).

(3) Justified by works is the third scheme.

It may mean several different things.

For instance, it may mean in the minds of some, perfect obedience to the original law of God. But this is quite impossible to a sinner. Again it may mean perfect conformity to the moral law, by which also, no one who has ever voluntarily diverged from the perfect law of rectitude can ever be justified. "By the law," written in every human heart, is the knowledge of sin. "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3: 23).

Again justification by works may be understood to mean evangelical works under the Gospel, which spring from faith, and are the fruit of the Spirit of God. These are the works advocated by James. But they follow salvation, and are the fruit and evidence of it. We are discussing how pardon and salvation are obtained, the initial justification which inducts the soul into the Christian life. "It is not by works lest any man should boast" (Eph. 2:9).

(4) The fourth scheme of justification is that which teaches that we are justified by faith and works taken together. Dr. Macknight says: "God hath actually made faith and works, not separately, but jointly, the condition of justification, as St. Paul and St. James declared." But Dr. Macknight uses justification to mean, not the pardon of sin in this world, but the sentence of acquittal to be pronounced upon the righteous at the day of final judgment. Let it be here observed that St. Paul talked about that justification which was synonymous with the forgiveness of sin, the divine act which brings peace with God (Rom. 5:1). But St. James was writing about the approval of Christians at the bar of God. They were not writing about the same thing, or the same act of God.

So there was no conflict between them, as Luther supposed.

But there is another class who hold that we are not saved by faith alone, but by faith and the performance of a rite. To this class belonged the Judaizers who taught that faith in Christ must be supplemented by the rite of circumcision. These people made trouble for St. Paul as long as he lived, and well nigh ruined whole churches. They "bewitched" the Church at Galatia, which fact called out the Epistle to the Galatians.

We have representatives of that same class today in the "Disciples of Christ" who teach the necessity of immersion in order to salvation. One of their writers says: "In reference to regeneration the Disciples teach that an individual, who is first begotten of God, is enabled to enjoy the life thus bestowed when immersed into Christ, as it gives him an introduction to the happiness of the pardoned and the spiritual. Baptism, succeeding faith and repentance, consummates regeneration. The new birth as a change of state is a formal ingress of a penitent believer, a prior spiritual creation, into the family and kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, formed for a new state by faith and repentance, he enjoys its heavenly adaptations, the moment he enters the kingdom by being baptized into the name of Christ. The waters of baptism in connection with the death of Jesus, afford him an assurance of safety, as did the waters of the Reel Sea, to the redeemed Israelites, when they engulfed Pharaoh and his hosts, Thus we are taught that penitent believers are born the children of God by baptism, that salvation is connected with baptism when accompanied by faith; that remission of sins is to be enjoyed by baptism, through the blood of Christ; that persons having previously believed and repented, wash away their sins in baptism, calling on the name of the Lord; that they profess to be dead to sin and alive to God in the action of baptism: that believers put on Christ when baptized into Christ; that the Church is cleansed by baptism and belief of the Word: that men are saved by baptism in connection with the renewing of the Holy Spirit; and that the answer of a good conscience is obtained in baptism through the resurrection of Christ" (quoted from Disciple Theology, by Milner, in Religious Denominations, pp. 154, 155).

This deluded writer only mentions "believers" and "faith" seven times, while his precious immersion is mentioned thirteen times in this single quotation. He thinks that neither the death of Christ nor the renewing of the Spirit, nor anything else will avail to save without immersion. Just substitute "immersion" for "circumcision" in the Epistle to the Galatians, and it would fit their case exactly. St. Paul would say today, "neither immersion availeth nor a want of immersion, but faith working through love" (Gal. 5:6). It is a historical fact that baptism took the place of circumcision in the Christian church. And just as circumcision was not necessary to salvation in St. Paul's day, so neither is immersion essential now. But these Disciples contend that without immersion there can be no remission of sin, an utterly unscriptural notion, as we shall hereafter show. The Roman Catholics hold to a similar notion about baptism, penance, etc. They teach that certain works or rites or performances, are essential to the complete remission of sin, and are meritorious in the sight of God. But there is no such phrase or teaching in the Bible as justification by faith and works, and no passage that by fair interpretation conveys any such idea.

(5) The fifth Scheme is Justification by Faith only.

Let it be remembered that saving faith is preceded by repentance. This is a necessary order of Spiritual exercises, because the soul cannot put forth a true act of saving faith while it is consciously clinging to known sin. Jesus preached: "Repent ye, and believe the Gospel" (Mark 1: 15, also Acts 20: 21).

In a separate chapter we have already discussed the nature of saving faith. It will suffice here to observe that in the approach to its exercise there is a profound sense of spiritual need, a sense of sin, and peril, and utter helplessness. In the stress of this need the soul looks to Christ and apprehends in Him the salvation it needs. It sees the fullness and freeness of His grace. His infinite power to save and His infinite willingness to do it. It beholds in Jesus a most engaging and assuring trustworthiness. In this apprehension of an all-sufficient Savior, the soul is moved to a self-committal to Christ, and to trustingly rest in Him for the needed salvation. This is saving faith and God responds to it with the bestowment of pardon, and the divine favor. This is justification by faith. This faith derives its chief efficacy from the appointment of God though it is a natural condition of salvation. In his sovereignty, he prescribed it as the condition of salvation. It is so, in such a sense that none can be saved without it, and all who have it are at that moment justified. It necessarily follows that nothing else can be the condition, in the same sense, without a contradiction. The following texts will verify this statement:

Luke 7: 50: "Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace."

John 1: 12: "As many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become children of God, to them that believe on His name."

John 3:16: "That whosoever believeth on Him should not perish."

John 3: 36: "He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life." John 20:31: "And that believing ye may have life in His name."

Acts 16: 31: "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved."

Acts 15: 9: "Cleansing their hearts by faith." Rom. 1:16: "It is the power of God unto salvation, to everyone that believeth."

Rom. 3: 26: "The justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus."

Rom. 3: 28: "Man is justified by faith."

Rom. 3: 30: "God shall justify by faith, and through faith."

Rom. 4: 3: "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness."

Rom. 4: 5: "His faith is reckoned for righteousness."

Rom. 4:16: "The promise may be sure to all the seed which is of the faith of Abraham."

Rom. 4: 24: "It (faith) shall be reckoned (for righteousness) who believe on him."

Rom. 5:1: "Being therefore justified by faith."

Rom. 9: 30: "Righteousness which is of faith."

Rom. 9: 33: "He that believeth on Him shall not be put to shame."

Rom. 10: 4: "Righteousness to every one that believeth."

Rom. 10:9: "If thou shalt believe-thou shalt be saved."

Rom. 10: 10: "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness."

Rom. 10: 11: "Whosoever believeth on Him shall not be put to shame."

Gal. 3:6: "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned for righteousness."

Gal. 3: 26: "Ye are all sons of God through faith in Jesus."

Gal. 3:8: "God would justify the Gentiles by faith."

Gal. 3:9: "They which be of faith are blessed."

Gal. 5:6: "Faith working through love (availeth)."

Acts 10:43: "Every one that believeth on him shall receive remission of sins."

Phil. 3:9: "The righteousness which is of God by faith."

Eph. 2:8: "By grace have ye been saved through faith."

2 Tim. 3: I5: "Salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus."

Heb. 11:7: "Righteousness which is according to faith."

1 John 5: 10: "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness."

Now here are thirty-three texts telling how people are justified and saved, and there is not a drop of water in one of them. Whenever Baptism is named in connection with salvation, it is referred to simply as a rite of public confession, and initiation into the brotherhood of disciples. Jesus demands that we shall confess Him before man. "Baptism is the external act and manifestation of the conditional faith, baptism is mentioned before that remission which follows the internal faith, although the instant divine act of remission has actually preceded the baptism. Internal faith precedes the divine act of remission" (Whedon's commentary on Acts 2: 38).

We cannot confess justification by baptism until we have it: therefore adults are baptized not to be saved but because they are saved, and wish to openly confess Christ as Savior and Lord. Probably no one thing has brought more peril to souls, or more degradation to the Church of Christ, than the deluding notion of baptismal regeneration. Mark 16: 16, is no part of the Bible: the epistle ends at verse 8 (see Revised Version note).

We will consider the results of justification, and how they are preserved.

1. We have already seen in our definition that justification puts the believing sinner into a new category. He is a sinner no longer. He is a rebel against God no longer. He is an alien from God's spiritual Israel no longer. He had to renounce sin and turn away from it by a sincere and hearty repentance, before faith could lay hold of the promise for justification, so both repentance and justification involve a renunciation of the sinning business. God has His eternal quarrel with sin and sinning; and the sinner who wishes to be saved must take sides with God on the sin-question.

God then welcomes him as a recruit to the divine army, gives him the sunshine of His favor, the smile of His recognition and the kiss of His peace, and gives him a seat at the table of His bounty among His recognized friends.

2. Now it costs as much to keep justified as it does to get justified. President Fairchild well says:

"As repentance is the condition (preliminary antecedent) to (saving faith and) justification, so a continued repentance or penitence, or continued obedience is a condition of continued justification.

A lapse into sin must bring condemnation, and repentance of sin alone can restore the pardon. A different view is held by those who regard justification as a judicial act (irreversible) an acquittal of the sinner before the law. Such an acquittal, it is said, can never be revoked; the sinner can never again come under condemnation. He may fall into sin; indeed he is supposed to be continually in sin, to a greater or less extent; but the condemnation of the law cannot rest upon him.

"Once in grace, always in grace," is a maxim which grows out of this view. The regenerate sinner in sin is only a sinning child.

"We may accept the fact that a sinning Christian (?) is in a different relation to God's promises from one who has never believed. But he is a sinner, and it is just as necessary that he should repent and turn from sin as that any sinner should. This is the doctrine of the Scriptures. Ezek. 18: 24, "When the righteous turneth away from his righteousness and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations which the wicked man doeth, shall he live? All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die." 1 Cor. 11: 30-32, "For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world."

Justification is an essential fact, and not merely a technical or formal one. It depends on the moral attitude of the sinner himself, and cannot exist while he is in a state of sin. The doctrine that justification is not invalidated by a lapse into sin is naturally connected with the idea of mixed action and mixed character-that there can be genuine righteousness in a Christian even in sin; that the sinner is justified without being free from sin; and a little more or a little less of sin can make no difference in the result. One who holds this view of character does not regard a full turning from sin as a condition of justification" (Theology, pp. 278, 279).

3. There is an objection to this doctrine of justification that it favors immorality and encourages sin. This criticism may be valid against the Calvinistic doctrine described above, that it is impossible to forfeit justification by any lapse into sin. Such a doctrine does tend to antinomianism, and to make the Church "a hospital for invalids and a refuge for scoundrels." What could do more to insure in every newborn soul a backslidden life, than to require of it an absolute belief that it cannot receive grace sufficient to obey God. but must "Daily sin in thought, word, and deed; sin nobody knows in what form and to what extent, but that, no form or degree of sin it can possibly commit will imperil its immortal interests?" (Mahan).

But the true scriptural doctrine of justification has no such tendency. It is only shallow thinking that can object to such a doctrine as we have set forth on the ground that it is opposed to morality. With the Scripture, we have advocated a justification which demands the abandonment of all sin to get it, and a life of obedience to keep it. The deep sense of sin, the genuine repentance, the spirit of consecration to a good life in the service of God as the prerequisite of forgiveness, the known necessity of a good life in order to the retention of a justified state, the grateful love for the great salvation graciously provided and conferred, - all combine in the enforcement of the highest form of Christian morality. The question of practical results is confidently appealed to the history of the evangelical churches, wherein great prominence is given to the doctrine of justification by faith.

No system of ethics apart from Christianity nor any unevangelical form of Christianity, lifts up so many into a truly good life (Miley's Theology, Vol. II, p. 325).

* * * * * * *

CHAPTER XIV -- CONVERSION OR REGENERATION

The Greek verb translated to be "converted" in Matthew 18: 3 means "to turn in mind," "to be converted," "changed," "to become a new man." It is so used in many other passages.

"Regeneration" is found but twice. Matthew 19:28 and Titus 3: 5. This Greek noun means, "A new birth, i. e.; regeneration, a change by grace from a sinful nature to a Christian life; from sinful to holy affections," when spoken of a man. The verb used in John 3:3, "Except a man be born again,"

and in many other places, means to beget; then to have a new life imparted, or to impart a new life, or a new Spirit in Christ."

I. Calvinists, driven by the exigencies of their system of theology, have taught that conversion applies entirely to the human side, and regeneration is wholly the divine act: that men are passively regenerated, first, by the Holy Spirit, and then they are enabled to convert or turn themselves to God.

The Scriptures do not seem to bear them out in this contention, to be born again is to have a new moral character: and regeneration implies and includes a change of moral character, but a moral character cannot be made without the co-operation of the moral subject. The thing done implies the turning or activity of the subject. It is nonsense to claim that a man's moral character is changed without any agency of his own. Passive holiness of character is impossible. Regeneration is synonymous with a new heart: but sinners are required to make themselves a new heart, which they could not do, if they were not active in this change. "If the work is a work of God, in such a sense that He must first regenerate the heart or soul before the agency of the sinner begins, then it would be absurd and unjust for God to require the sinner to make himself a new heart until God had first regenerated him.

"Both conversion and regeneration are sometimes ascribed to God, in the Bible, sometimes to man, and sometimes to the subject; which shows clearly that the distinction under examination is arbitrary and theological rather than Biblical. The fact is that both terms imply the simultaneous exercise of both human and divine agency. The fact that a new heart is the thing done demonstrates the activity of the subject: and the word regeneration or the expression "born of the Spirit" asserts the Divine agency. The same is true of conversion or the turning of the sinner to God. God is said to turn him, and he is said to turn himself. God draws him, and he follows. In both alike, God and man are both active, and their activity is simultaneous. God works or draws, and the sinner yields or turns, or, which is the same thing, changes his heart, or, in other words, is born again, or born from above. The sinner is dead in trespasses and sins. God calls on him, 'Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead and Christ shall give thee light' (Eph, 5: 14). God calls and the sinner answers, Here am I. God says, arise from the dead. The sinner puts forth his activity, and God draws him into life: or rather, God draws, and the sinner comes forth to life" (Finney's Theology, pp. 283, 284).

The assertion or teaching that a sinner is morally helpless, and can do nothing to be saved until he is regenerated is of a most injurious tendency. "It leads the sinner to wait to be regenerated before he repents or turns to God. It is a most fatal tendency to represent the sinner as under the necessity of waiting to be passively regenerated before he gives himself to God" (Finney). We must not press the figure of the sinner being dead in sin too far. Dr. Albert Barnes says, "We are not in all respects like the dead. Let not this doctrine be abused to make us secure in sin, or to prevent effort.

Let us not abuse this doctrine as though we could be required to do nothing. It is willful death. It is death because we do not choose to live. It is a voluntary closing our eyes, and stopping our ears as if we were dead; and it is a voluntary remaining in this state, when we have all the requisite power to put forth the energies of life. Let a sinner be as active in the service of God as he is in the service of the devil and the world, and he would be an eminent Christian. Indeed, all that is required is that the misdirected and abused energy of this world should be employed in the service of the Creator, and then all would be well." "The two terms, Regeneration and Conversion, evidently refer to the same essential change, because they are both used to express the condition of acceptance with God, to be supplied on the part of the sinner. John 3: 3, "Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." Matt. 18: 3, "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Pres. Fairchild).

II. What Regeneration and Conversion are not.

It is not a change of substance in soul or body. If it were that, a sinner could not be required to effect it. Such a change would not bring about a change of moral character.

No such change is needed, as the sinner has all the faculties necessary to render perfect obedience to God, He has intellect, sensibilities and free-will. All the moral attributes of an angel or of God Himself. It is not a new set of faculties which he needs, but a new use of the old faculties. He needs to be induced to use his powers and attributes as he ought to use them. The words

"conversion" and "regeneration" do not then imply any change of substance, but only a change of character. The terms do not express a physical but a moral change. They do not imply any change whatever in the constitution of body or mind.

2. The terms do not imply the creation of any new faculties or attributes. This is a matter of consciousness. The newly-converted Christian has no more faculties and attributes than he ever had. He had an intellect before conversion and the same afterward. He had a memory before and a memory afterward. He had a sensibility both before and afterward. He had a conscience before even though drugged by sin: and he has a conscience afterward.

He had a will; a power of choice, before and afterward. A man would not know what to do with a new faculty, if one were given him. But as a matter of experience, such is never the case. A sinner has already all the moral attributes of an angel, or even of God Himself. It is not new faculties which he needs, but a new use of the old faculties. All he needs is to be graciously moved to use his faculties in line with right and duty. A suasive influence from God, which is never necessitating, creative, or causative (Daniel Steele).

III. Consider what Regeneration or Conversion is.

Turning from sin to righteousness is manifestly the change that God requires for salvation. Ezek.

18: 21, "If the wicked will turn from the sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live." The sinner will never make this turning without the help of the Holy Spirit. This constitutes the great feature of his guilt that he can do it, and will not. The spirit graciously persuades him to turn from sin. This must be the essential significance of the words "Conversion" and "Regeneration." The necessity lies in the nature of the case; sinners cannot become the subjects of salvation without turning from sin to righteousness.

Rom. 8: 7, "The mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be." The necessity is two-fold, governmental and natural. God cannot pardon the sinner while continuing in sin, without breaking down His authority and His law. Again, pardon, if it could he offered, would bring no salvation. Sin and salvation are incompatible. In the nature of the case, sin is ruin. The necessity is as wide-spread as sin; and as all men are sinners, all must be converted that their sins may be blotted out. This is the assumption of Scriptures:

"Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." This language is addressed to every man. The nature of the change is shown in the fact that it is a ceasing to sin, turning from sin to righteousness. Sin is what stands in the way of salvation. Ceasing to sin is the necessary condition of salvation. As it is a turning from sinning to obedience, it is called Conversion, turning.

In this view, and to this extent, the change is wholly moral, a voluntary change. The man himself has power to make the change, and no other being can make it for him. Sin is man's free action; so also is obedience; and so is the change from sin to obedience. Thus the scriptures everywhere hold the sinner responsible for the change. Matt. 11:28, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Acts 3: 19, "Repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out." James 4: 8, "Cleanse your hands, ye sinners." John 5: 40, "Ye will not come to me that ye might have life." These passages, and many others, indicate that man himself must turn; that he alone is responsible for the failure, if there be a failure.

Sin may be defined as the gratification of the sensibilities, against the protests of right reason.

The fundamental choice of the sinner is self gratification. Whether he eats or drinks or wakes or sleeps, or toils or rests, his own pleasure, from the gratification of his sensibilities, is the end of his being. The glory of God, the interests of His kingdom, and the good of the universe, are all overlooked. Self-gratification is the end of his being.

God commands: "Make you a new heart and a new Spirit" (Ezek. 18: 31). "Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die?" (Ezek. 33: 11). "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh" (Ezek. 36:26). "Except one be born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3).

There is no contradiction between the commands and the promises; for in Regeneration there is human and divine co-operation.

Definition-Regeneration is the work of God and man cooperation, by which man resolutely turns from a life of self-gratification, and makes the supreme choice to live for the glory of God and the good of being; having been previously incited thereunto by the convicting and enlightening influence of the Holy Spirit who graciously inclined him to the love of God and holiness"

This divine influence is never compulsory. Salvation and compulsion are contradictory terms.

There is no such thing as "irresistible, efficacious grace." God's saving grace is being constantly and fatally resisted. Jesus says: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in" (Rev. 3: 20). But Jesus does not break down the door, and come in uninvited. So long as man is man, and God is God, the heart's door must be opened from the inside! God eternally respects man's self-sovereignty.

At the same time we have reason to suppose that no one ever turns of his own motion; that is, without antecedent, inducement or persuasion. Sinners are so fascinated and possessed, as to require divine persuasion; and the Scriptures sometimes state very strongly this unwillingness or repugnance. John 6: 44, "No man can come unto me except the Father who hath sent me draw him."

This "cannot" is still unwillingness. It stands in close connection with the Savior's words: "Ye will not come to me that ye might have life." It expresses the difficulty, the reluctance and unwillingness,-not the impossibility; as when Joseph says (Gen. 39: 9), "How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" The drawing which precedes the coming is not physical, but moral. It carries with it no compulsion. John 12: 32, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." This divine drawing is necessary to the conversion of men because they make it so.

"The moral force of persuasion is often exerted through human agency; as Paul says (2 Cor. 5:11, 20), "We persuade men; we pray you ... be reconciled to God." Sometimes the drawing influence comes through providences; sometimes by the direct action of the Spirit upon the sensibilities, to soften and subdue, and predispose to a reception of the truth. But this direct action upon the soul does not produce conversion in the sense of causing it; it is simply an arousing of the soul to understand and appreciate the truth; and the truth must operate as motive to induce conversion. The change must be made by the sinner himself in view of the truth; the work of the Spirit becomes effective through the truth, - that is, as motive. James 1: 18, "Of His own will begat He us with the word of truth." 1 Pet. 1: 23, "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible; by the Word of God." The work is done by the truth; that is, by persuasion, motive. It is therefore a moral work. . . .

In reference to the nature of this change, and the cause or force that produces it, there is confusion in the minds of theologians, and God excites holy affections (only) by motives, inducements, persuasions. The efficient cause of them is the man himself; there can be no other cause of responsible activity in any form. A theologian says: "The Spirit of God is the efficient cause of all holy affections." There is a mistake as to the nature of holy affections. Some condition of the sensibility or of the feeling is in the writer's mind, which belongs to a Christian experience, and which the sinner cannot originate; but such an experience is not required of him-is not obligatory.

What he can do is to yield his heart to God in a spirit of obedience; this is possible, and this is a holy exercise, and he is the cause of it. It is an utter removal of responsibility to say that God must give us a new heart before we can become obedient. We take to ourselves the new heart, in becoming obedient; and the Scriptures always place the responsibility upon the sinner himself, The antecedent action of the Spirit in inducing obedience is often brought to light in the Scriptures.

Eph. 2:1, "And you hath He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins." This sounds, at first thought, like a work of divine power, of (mere) omnipotence; but lest we should press this figure of death too far, we have, again, in the same epistle, Eph. 5: 14, "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead and Christ shall give thee light." The death spoken of is not an irresponsible condition; and to arise from the dead, is a duty resting upon the sinner, which he is exhorted to discharge. . . . There is no propriety in waiting for the movement of the Spirit, and no excuse for waiting. Every sinner has motive sufficient, and there is not the slightest hindrance out of his own will; he will not turn.

But this persuasive action of the Spirit is not irresistible; it is doubtless often resisted. We have no reason to suppose that the influence of the Spirit is different in kind or degree, in the case of those who are converted, from that afforded in the case of others who are not converted. "Because I have called and ye refused" is the language God addressed to the reprobate. Effectual calling, as distinguished from the common calling addressed to men, is an idea of theology, not of the Scriptures. It is the responsibility of the sinner to determine whether the call shall be effectual.

Thus jar, then, we find two things: God's persuading, calling; and man's hearing, yielding. The last is the moral change required; the first is the universal antecedent (Fairchild's Theology, pp.

234-238).

We will quote some other authors on this exceedingly important subject. It may help to dispel the confusion of thought existing in so many minds. Finney, than whom no man ever had more experience, in the regeneration of men, said: "Regeneration is represented in the Bible as constituting a radical change of character, as the resurrection from a death in sin, as the beginning of a new creature, as a new creation, not a physical, but a moral or spiritual creation, as conversion, or turning to God, as giving God the heart. Now we have seen abundantly, that moral character belongs to, or is an attribute of the ultimate choice or intention of the soul. Regeneration then is a radical change of the ultimate intention, and of course of the end or object of life. We have seen that the choice of an end is efficient in producing executive volitions, or the use of means to obtain its end. A selfish choice is, therefore, a wicked heart, out of which flows every evil, and a benevolent ultimate choice is a good heart, out of which flows every good and commendable deed.

Regeneration, to have the characteristics ascribed to it in the Bible, must consist in a change in the attitude of the will, or a change in its ultimate choke, intention, or preference; a change from selfishness to benevolence; from choosing self-gratification as the supreme and ultimate end of life, to the supreme and ultimate choice of the highest wellbeing of God and of the universe; from a state of entire consecration to self-interest, self-indulgence, self-gratification for its own sake, or as an end, and as the supreme and ultimate end of life" (Theology, p. 287).

These authors both recognize human and divine co-operation in regeneration, which is entirely Scriptural. The best definition of the divine side of regeneration is given by Wakefield as follows:

"Regeneration may be defined to be that moral change in man, wrought by the Holy Spirit, by which he is saved from the love, the practice, and the dominion of sin, and enabled, with full choice of will and the energy of right affections, to love God and to keep His commandments."

This is an excellent definition of its kind; but it is onesided, and can be misinterpreted. It represents the work as wholly the Lord's,-monergistic, as the Calvinists say, and leaves out man's part altogether. . . . The author's entire discussion follows in the same vein. He strangely quotes only a part of one verse, the whole of which, clearly proves human and divine co-operation in the work of regeneration: "But as many as received Him to them gave He the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on His name; which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1: 12). Man does the receiving and the believing; God does the moving upon the heart by gracious influences and the conferring of the right to become children. This is the synergism taught by Arminians.

If this were not true, then, logically, the entire blame for many sinners remaining unregenerated must fall upon God. This is the difficulty with Calvinism always, and everywhere; it makes God responsible for everything, and lifts all blame from the sinner. They remain in rebellion against God because they were not included in the atonement, were not elected, were not the subjects of an effectual call, and were not visited by a sovereign God, with an efficacious, irresistible, regenerating grace. It is an awful misrepresentation of God, wholly foreign to the Bible.

In a gentleman's library in Liverpool, England we found a book written by Dr. Charles Hodge of America containing the following: "Regeneration consists in the production not of new views, feelings and purposes, but of a new principle antagonistic to the principle of depravity.

Regeneration does not destroy the principle of evil which remains, although weakened and counteracted. These two principles, the flesh and the spirit, the law in the members, and the law of the mind, are in constant conflict. The new principle is generally victorious. It does not always prevail as to specific acts, and never as to complete conformity to the will of God. The final and complete victory is certain. The means of subduing it are the Word, sacraments and prayer. By the assiduous use of these means the principle of evil is weakened, and the principle of grace is strengthened," etc. This means monergistic regeneration by God alone and gradual sanctification by our own efforts, - neither of which can we accept.

And while we admit the co-operation of man in regeneration, we do well to emphasize the agency of the Holy Spirit, because it is vital to the reality of the experience. Whatever else may be conditional to regeneration, or whatever must precede or accompany it, still it is certainly wrought by the power of the Holy Spirit.

But while admitting this, we make a mistake, as we shall see hereafter, in affirming, as many do, that the Holy Spirit, is "the only efficient agency," and belittling the effect of truth, and the influence of Christian workers, and the potent co-operation with God of the sinner himself. Miley says: "Regeneration is not an absolute work of the Spirit. There are prerequisites which cannot be met without our own free-agency. There must be an earnest turning of the soul to God, deep repentance of sin, and a true faith in Christ. Such are the requirements of our own agency. There is no regeneration for us without them. Yet they are not possible in the unaided resource of our own nature. Hence there must be a help work of the Spirit prior to His work of regeneration. There is such help, The Holy Spirit enlightens, awakens, and graciously draws us. All this may be without our consent, and even despite our resistance. We may finally resist, or we may yield to the gracious influence, and be born of the Spirit. Here is the sphere of synergism" (Miley's Theology, Vol. II, pp. 336,337).

IV. Consider Why Regeneration Is Necessary.

1. The sins of men make their justification necessary; the necessity for regeneration lies in the depravity of our nature. The necessity then is co-extensive with moral depravity. This is universal among the unregenerate of our race. It surely is impossible for a race of selfish, sinful beings to be happy in a universe ruled over by a holy God. It is impossible that heaven should be made up of selfish beings. "It is intuitively certain that without benevolence or holiness no moral being can be ultimately happy. Without regeneration, a selfish soul can by no possibility be fitted either for the employments or for the enjoyments of heaven" (Finney).

2. This is the universal teaching of Scriptures: "Jesus answered and said unto him, verily, verily, I say unto thee' except a man be born again, (from above) he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3: 3). The Greek word means "anew" or "from above," "For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision availeth anything, nor un-circumcision, but a new creature" (Gal. 6: 15). In other words, nothing will avail but to be made anew in Christ Jesus."

This is what God is laboring for, all down the ages. "I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you" (Ezek. 36: 25, 26). The reason is plain. If men were allowed to go to heaven in their carnal selfishness, there would be as many petty little sovereignties in heaven as there were miserable sinners. Each one would be opposed to God, and would set up for himself. But regeneration brings to every breast the constitution of a new and holy choice of will which leads to a new character. The governing motive of the soul is changed from devotion to the gratification of the senses, to the pursuit of the glory of God, and the good of being.

It can then unite in sympathy and accord with all holy beings in the universe in seeking the glory of God, in the extension of this kingdom, and ascriptions of praise to His holy name.

V. Consider the Various Agencies Employed in Regeneration.

1. As we have already fully shown in our discussion, our regeneration is due to the Holy Spirit.

"That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3:6).

"Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God"

(John 1: 13).

2. We have seen that the sinner himself is active in the work. Since what is called regeneration consists in the sinner changing his ultimate choice or preference; changing from selfishness to love or benevolence, or one's choice of self-gratification to the supreme love of God, and the love of one's fellow-men, of course it is the result of the sinner's own choice. He would never make this choice without the gracious moving and prompting of the Holy Spirit; but still, as an ultimate fact, he must make it before the work is done. No one can do it for him.

3. There are often other human agents besides the sinner, who helped persuade him to turn to God.

Thus St. Paul says: "I have begotten you through the Gospel" (Cor. 4: 15). "Onesimus whom I have begotten in my bonds" (Philemon 10). In both these verses the same Greek verb is used, which is also used when Regeneration is ascribed to God. Again an apostle said: "Ye have purified your souls, by obeying the truth" (1 Pet. 1:22). Here the work is ascribed to the sinner himself. There may be, then, several active agents in the regeneration of a man. 1. The Holy Spirit. 2. The Christian worker or preacher, perhaps several of them. 3. The sinner himself. When a theologian says that regeneration is the work of the Spirit alone, he simply misrepresents the facts. Men may be willing, designing, responsible agents, as really and truly as God Himself.

4. Let it be observed that these agents use instrumentalities; to produce the effects they aim to accomplish. (1) The truth. This must, from the nature of the mind, be employed in effecting regeneration. In view of truth the will is aroused to holy action. This is plainly taught in the Word:

"The truth shall make you free" (John 8: 32). "The Spirit of truth will guide you into all truth" (John 16: 13). "God hath chosen you to salvation, through belief of the truth" (2 Thess. 2: 13). "Ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth" (1 Pet. 1: 22). "Being born again . . . by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever" (1 Pet. 1: 23). "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth" (Rom. 1: 16). "Of His own will begat He us with the word of truth" (James 1: 18). "I have begotten you through the Gospel" (1

Cor. 4: 15).

Calvinists who teach some kind of constitutional or physical regeneration, some change of man's constitutional being, hold that the Holy Spirit employs no instrument whatever, because the work is an act of omnipotent creative power, like the creation of a star in the heavens. Such theologians have taught that regeneration is a miracle of creative power; and that there is no power in the Gospel, whether presented by God or man, to regenerate the heart. Dr. Edward Griffin says in his Park Street Lecture on Regeneration Supernatural: "Motives have no influence to produce a new disposition. Though the word of God in the shape of motives has an important instrumentality in carrying on the preparatory work in the conscience, and in occasioning the exercises of the new heart, it is in no sense instrumental in changing the disposition. The motives must find the disposition already prepared to favor them before they can act upon the mind. ... If the carnal mind is hostile to the true God, it will hate Him the more, the more it sees Him, and light will only rouse the enmity to stronger action. To use the light (of the Gospel), then, as an instrument to cure the disposition, is like using oil to extinguish fire." In other words, he denies the adaptability of the Gospel to regenerate the soul. Until that is done by arbitrary, sovereign omnipotence, he says that neither the Gospel, nor preaching, nor entreaty, nor any other influence, can aid the work, or help to bring it about; but on the contrary they are all adapted to produce an opposite result." What a monstrous theory that is, which teaches that neither Gospel truth, nor preaching, nor any other means of grace can have any effect to bring about a revival or hasten in the least the regeneration of men! It practically tells the sinner that he can do nothing to secure his own regeneration, and must idly wait until God is pleased to recreate His constitution or put in him a new disposition, before he can do anything but oppose God! Just another monstrous error of Calvinism!

Well does Finney say: "It is the most abominable and ruinous of falsehoods. It is to mock his intelligence. What! call on him, on pain of eternal death, to believe; to embrace the Gospel; to love God with all his heart, and at the same time represent him as entirely helpless, and constitutionally the enemy of God and of the Gospel, and as being under the necessity of waiting for God to regenerate his nature, before it is possible for him to do otherwise than to hate God with all his Heart!" (p. 290).

Just such Calvinistic preaching prevailed in this country a hundred years ago. It wrapped sinners in the slumbers of death, idly waiting for God to come and work some strange, mysterious work of regeneration in them to enable them to accept the Gospel and be saved. God raised up Finney to smite this false teaching, hip and thigh, and arouse the people to seek God, just as they were, without waiting for anything. The many scores of thousands that were regenerated under his preaching proved that he was right.

(2) The Various providences which God brings to a community, ' or church, or family or individual, may be used by the Spirit to arouse the soul, and drive truth home on the heart. The apostle Peter, in his early sermons in Jerusalem called attention to the late events and used them to put his hearers under conviction and get them saved; this is often done with great profit. A great providence, like the Titanic disaster or the Galveston flood, may be used to bring conviction to multitudes of men. They are God's alarm bells to call men to repentance and salvation.

If now it be asked how the Bible can consistently ascribe regeneration at one time to God, at another to the subject, at another to the truth, at another to a third person; the answer is to be sought in the nature of the work. The work accomplished is the change of a sinner's character, as the result of his change of fundamental, supreme choice. The end to be chosen must be clearly and forcibly presented by the Holy Spirit, and perhaps also by a Christian worker. The Spirit takes the truths of salvation and presses them upon the soul, and so truth must be used; and in view of all the truth, and gracious persuasions, the sinner acts,-that is, makes his new choice, which carries along with it soul destiny.

Thus we get a comprehensive view of this great work of grace. The sinner must be active in it from the very nature of the change. But he acts only as, and when, he is acted upon by the Holy Spirit.

The sinner may be passive in the perception of the truth presented. This perception of truth elects the heart, induces or leads to regeneration. It is the condition and the occasion of regeneration, therefore the subject of regeneration must be a recipient of the truth presented by the Holy Spirit, who acts upon him through or by the truth. Thus far he is, or may be, passive. He yields to the truth; in this he is active. So plainly there is human and divine co-operation.

"Now what a deplorable blunder those theologians are making, who represent the sinner as altogether passive in regeneration! If this were true, it rids the sinner at once of any conviction of responsibility or duty about the matter. He can calmly fold his hands and wait for God to regenerate him. It is wonderful that a notion so absurd and so wholly dishonorable to God has held its way in theology so long. It ought long ago to have been banished from the theological writings of all mankind. The only reasons why it has not been, is that the Devil loves falsehood, and error dies hard, People love systems of thought, and this is an essential part of a system! But while it is maintained, it is no wonder that sinners are not converted, while the sinner believes this, it is a well-nigh insuperable hindrance to his regeneration. He will stand and wait for the arbitrary, sovereign, electing, regenerating grace to do for him and in him "what he ought to do himself and God requires him to do, and no one else can do for him. Neither God, nor any other being, can regenerate him, if he will not turn. If he will not change his choice it is impossible that it should be changed" (Finney). Sinners, who have been taught this and have believed it, are not at all likely to be subjects of saving grace, unless the Holy Spirit leads them to forget their error, and bestir themselves and seek God.

To tell men that they are utterly helpless to do anything toward their own salvation, until God comes to them while in a complete passivity, and creates in them a new "disposition," or "trend,"

or "appetite," or "inclination," or "propensity," or "taste" for God and righteousness, and that this is regeneration, and that they must wait for it, is to throw all blame for unregeneracy upon God. It absolves the sinner of all responsibility and all guilt for his wicked obduracy of heart. He is under no obligation to be regenerated in childhood, or early manhood or at any other time. God will come, when He pleases, and do the work irrespective of our wishes and desires, or not do it at all, as He sovereignly elects, and, in that case, consign the helpless sinner to a hopeless and eternal damnation! Such a theory is as irrational and unscriptural as it is horrible and blasphemous!

But there is another Calyinistic theory quite as dishonorable to God. It teaches that all the exercises and actions of moral agents in all worlds, and whether those exercises be holy or sinful, are produced by divine efficiency, or by a direct act of omnipotence; that holy and sinful acts are alike the effects of an irresistible cause, and that this cause is the power and agency, or efficiency of God.

This philosophy teaches that the moral character of every moral agent, whether holy or sinful, is formed by an agency as direct, as sovereign, as irresistible as that which gave existence to planets and suns. True submission to God implies the hearty consent of the will to have the character thus formed, and then to be treated accordingly, for the glory of God! This theory leads to some unavoidable conclusions. 1. It leaves in the mind a harrowing sense of the tyranny and injustice of God, in forcing a character upon each of us, and then treating us as if we were responsible for it. 2.

It contradicts human consciousness. We know, if we know anything, that we are the cause, of our moral actions, and are justly responsible for our choices, and the ensuing character. 3. If God handles moral beings in that way, then there are no moral beings. There is no moral government in the universe, only a physical government. Men would be in the estimation of God, no better, and worthy of no more considerate treatment, than stocks and stones. 4. God has deluded all moral beings. He has created the notions in our heads that we are all responsible for our character and conduct. But according to the theory, it is all a delusion.

In the atmosphere of such philosophies and theological notions, what chance is there to get a Scriptural idea of regeneration? What a relief to turn from these speculations of men to the Word of God. It teaches how the Holy Spirit is brooding over all hearts, striving to regenerate all: how He pleads with all to fall in with His invitations and offers of mercy and life; how He pleads with all who know God to co-operate with the Spirit and press the saving truths of the Gospel upon the attention of sinners, and beseech them, as in Christ's stead, to be reconciled to God.

This view of the co-operation of God and man in the regeneration of the soul is of supreme importance.

1. If sinners are thus to be regenerated by truth, arguments and persuasions, then preachers and Christian workers can understand what their work is, and learn how to adapt means to ends, and how to co-operate with the Spirit in the work of regenerating men.

2. The unsaved also may learn a most salutary lesson. They are not to wait in passive indolence for God to work some physical constitutional change, or create something new within them, before they seek to be saved. It behooves them to embrace the truths of salvation, and submit to God at once, waiting for nothing, if they ever expect to be saved. Any other course is spiritual suicide.

To wait for physical omnipotence to regenerate us is supreme folly. It is not a work of mere power. Universalists reason thus: "If God cannot save all, He is not omnipotent. If He can save everybody and will not, He is not a God of infinite love. But we know that He is omnipotent, and a God of infinite love. Therefore He can and will save all men." Such foolish reasoning seems very satisfactory to them. But the simple answer is that we are not regenerated and saved by physical power, but by moral influence, which any sinner can successfully resist. The physical omnipotence of God affords no presumption that all men will be saved, or any man. God cannot compel men to be regenerated. "Salvation and compulsion are contradictory terms." Salvation is the voluntary harmony of the soul with the immutable law and character of a holy God. It is not accomplished by mere physical power. God cannot do the sinner's duty for him, and regenerate him without the right exercise of the sinner's own agency. Finney nays: "The sinner's dependence on the Holy Spirit arises entirely out of his own voluntary stubbornness, and that the guilt is all the greater, by how much the more perfect this kind of dependence is" (p. 300).

VI. Evidences of Regeneration.

We must remember, when discussing this subject, that regeneration has added no new faculty to man's nature, and does not reorganize his physical constitution. This is not saying that along with regeneration, God may not work a miracle of deliverance from abnormal appetites and the diseases connected with them. We know that this is sometimes the case. But, then, it is an accompanying blessing, additional to regeneration, and not regeneration itself.

1. We must remember, then, that saints and sinners have precisely similar constitutions, and constitutional susceptibilities, and therefore they have many things in common. We may enumerate them as follows:

(1) They have alike the whole complement of moral faculties that belong to every moral being, viz., Intellect, sensibility, free-will and conscience. In thought-power the sinner may be the equal of the saint. He may be as susceptible of any kind or degree of feeling, as vigorous in the use of his will.

(2) They must alike desire their own personal happiness.

(3) They may alike desire the happiness of others.

(4) They must certainly alike dread their own misery.

(5) They may be agreed in desiring the triumph of truth and righteousness in the world, and the suppression of error and vice. Sometimes un-Christian men are the most active moral reformers, and are against every public wrong.

(6) In their inmost souls they alike approve of what is right, and disapprove of what is wrong. Paul knew he could commend himself to every man's conscience in the sight of God. Whether men were good or bad, and whatever they said or did, he could get the endorsement of their conscience. Even sinners can have delight in contemplating the goodness of God, or the character of Christ.

(7) Saints and sinners may alike feel disgust and abhorrence of sin, or some great crime. This is often the case, as all may know. Men will sin, and weep over it, and curse themselves for committing it. Few if any sinners, love sin for its own sake; it is the self-gratification connected with it that they seek.

(8) Both saints and sinners admire justice. Listen to their comments on the street when a great crime has been committed, or justice has miscarried, and you will find that sinners have a constitutional love of justice, and wish in general to have it prevail.

(9) So they may alike esteem all the other cardinal virtues that ennoble society, sobriety, industry, integrity and the like. None of these things, however, are the decisive tests of Christian character, or give reliable evidence that one has been regenerated.

2. What then are the positive evidences of such a change of heart?

(1) The regenerated man does not habitually sin. 1 John 3:9, "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin." 1 John 5: 18, "Whosoever is born of God sinneth not." "He cannot sin because he is born of God" (3: 9). Not that it is physically impossible, but morally so. He must first abandon his regeneration, before he can get his own consent to commit a willful sin. A regenerated man must live outwardly above the conscious practice of sin, as truly as a sanctified man. There are no separate standards for them. "In this are the children of God manifest, and the children of the devil; whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God" (1 John 3: 10).

(2) Peace. Rom. 5:1, "Therefore, being justified by faith we have peace with God." This comes with justification, which always accompanies regeneration.

(3) The regenerated man loves the brethren, 1 John 3: 14, "We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren." When one becomes a new born child of God, a spontaneous love is felt for every other child of God.

(4) The Holy Spirit witnesses to regeneration. 1 John 5: 10, "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in him." A satisfactory evidence will be given to every child born into the family.

He will hear from the skies.

(5) The regenerated man will keep the commandments. 1 John 2: 3, "And hereby know we that we know Him if we keep His commandments." 1 John 2:29, "Ye know that every one also that doeth righteousness is begotten of Him." The loyalty to the commandments is an infallible test of sonship.

(6) To be born of God means to resemble God. The child resembles the parent. There is a family likeness. Jesus said to wicked men: "Ye are of your father, the Devil." They had the likeness. So it is with the Heavenly Father's children; they are like Him.

3. Thus it is that this great supernatural work of grace lifts the sinner from a life of sin to the practice of righteousness. It instantly translates him from the broad road that leads to death, to the narrow way that leads to heaven, and transfers his allegiance from Satan to God. It is a complete change in the purpose and aim, and goal of life. In this respect he is a new creature, "Old things have passed away, and all things have become new." Instead of worldliness, and a life of self-pleasing, there is a life of willing obedience to Christ, and devotion of self to the glory of God.

"The mystery of it does not lie in the change of moral character. All this is open to consciousness, and is comprehended by our understanding as a natural human exercise. Nor does it lie in the forces employed by the Spirit,-the motives of truth operating on the will. The mystery is the coming and intervention of the Spirit; this is a supernatural fact and lies outside of the field of consciousness (John 3:8). In this view and to this extent regeneration is a supernatural fact"

(Fairchild's Theology, pp. 242, 243).

4. The idea of baptismal regeneration is sometimes maintained, on the ground that the rite is a channel of grace. Another view is that, baptism is an act of obedience, appointed as the entrance upon the Christian life; that the sinner can do nothing acceptable but this, and in doing this he is accepted. This is a misapprehension. The sinner may enter upon a life of obedience in the act of prayer or in any other duty, or in an inward act of consecration independent of any outward duty; and the act of baptism is just as liable to be performed without inward obedience as any other outward duty. The interpretations of a very few passages of Scripture that make them teach that baptism is the essential condition of salvation is wholly out of harmony with the general tone of the Scriptures, as what we wrote on justification proves. The lives of the members of the churches that teach baptismal regeneration give no credence to the doctrine. Beyond all question, the notion has been fraught with unspeakable evil to the world.

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CHAPTER XV -- ADOPTION AND WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT

This is a precious blessing concomitant with justification and regeneration. It may be discussed under three heads: 1. The nature of adoption. 2. The witness of the Spirit to it, 3. The benefits which it secures. We will consider.

I. The nature of adoption.

The ancient nations, as well as the modern, had the custom of adopting children. Among the Romans, the ceremony of adoption consisted in buying the child to be adopted from his parents for a sum of money, formally given and taken. The parties appeared before the magistrate in the presence of five Roman citizens; and the adopting father said to the child, "Art thou willing to become my son?" to which the child replied, "I am willing." Then the adopter, holding the money in his hand, and at the same time taking hold of the child, said, "I declare this child to be my son according to Roman law, and he is bought with this money," which was given to the father as the price of his son. Thus the relation was formed according to law and the adopted son entered into the family of the new father, took his name, and became an heir to the estate, or shared it with the other sons (Wakefield, quoted from Kennel's Roman Antiquities).

This is an excellent illustration of the transaction of adoption in the Divine economy, by which sinners and aliens become children of God. Without pressing the points of analogy unduly, there is a purchase price, the blood of Christ. The adopted child's or sinner's consent must be gained. God the Father adopts us, and we become "an heir of God" and "a joint-heir with Jesus Christ."

We may therefore define adoption, according to the Scriptural sense of the term to be that gracious act of God, by which we are acknowledged to be of the number, and become entitled to all the privileges of His children." The term expresses the covenant relation into which God graciously receives those who become justified and regenerated, by acknowledging them to be His people and declaring Himself to be their God.

The difference between this and the other experiences becomes plain. Justification emphasizes the pardon of sin. Regeneration relates to the change of moral choice and moral character. Adoption is the gracious reception into the Divine family, of those who were once alienated from God and disinherited. The Scriptures tersely describes their former state as "aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world" (Eph. 2: 12).

This privilege of God is freely offered to all men, regardless of their sins: yet the spiritual adoption does not become ours until we personally accept it by our justifying and regenerating faith. "As many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become the Sons of God even to them that believe on His name" (John 1: 12).

II. We consider the evidence of adoption the witness of the Spirit. It is not enough that we be forgiven. We need to know it. We could not be satisfied with a half-doubting conjecture. We need a joy-giving assurance of the fact. If a criminal were condemned to die, his sovereign might graciously pardon him; but how essential it would be that he should know the fact! And surely his king would make his kindness known, through some document or messenger. Such is always the case.

Now God at great pains and expense to Himself has granted to penitent and believing men His pardoning and regenerating grace. He has also made them His adopted children. Therefore what is more natural than that He should in some way make His favor known to us, and give us assurance of His love. "God sent forth His Son to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God" (Gal. 4:4, 5; 1 John 3: 1).

1. It is not consistent with such love that it should be permanently concealed from us. There is certainly a reasonable presumption that God, with His infinite resources, will grant us some comfortable persuasion of His favor to our waiting souls. If He forgives us, He will in some way assure us of the fact. Before Jesus ascended to His mediatorial throne, He frequently said to penitent, believing sinners: "Thy sins be forgiven thee." Has He less power now to make His pardon known? He reveals other things to the heart; can He not reveal this also? The convicting Spirit tells men that they are sinners; cannot the same Spirit assure them that the name sins are forgiven? There can be no rational doubt of it.

2. The Scriptures fully verify and confirm this presumption, "Ye received not the spirit of bondage again unto fear; but ye received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit that we are children of God" (Rom, 8: IS, 16). "And because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father"

(Gal. 4; 6). "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in Himself." These passages seem to teach unmistakably, that God's Spirit witnesses to the heart of its adoption into the family of God. When the justification and regeneration becomes a reality, and the transaction of our adoption is completed, the Spirit of God so impresses the heart that it can look up and cry Abba, Father, as one who had heard from the skies. The Spirit of God comes to "dwell" in the believer, and speak His messages to the inmost soul. "Ye are the temple of the Holy Ghost," "the habitation of God through the Spirit." Such an indwelling of the Spirit is not voiceless.

3. The witness of the Spirit is given by an immediate operation within our consciousness in a manner to assure us of the gracious sonship. The state of sonship is prior to this testimony. There is first the fact, and then God's witness to the fact.

The Greek is very clear and striking: "The Spirit Himself beareth witness with" (summartureo)

"our spirit." It means two witnesses jointly, yet separately, testifying to the same thing. The two are designated the Holy Spirit, and our spirit. Walton says: "I have never found the word used in a different sense by any writer in any one instance." But if it be denied that two witnesses are mentioned in this text, it would not change the truth in the least. For this text must then be translated: "The Spirit Himself beareth witness to our spirit." We should still have the witness of the Holy Spirit to our adoption as a truth of the Scriptures.

4. The manner of the Spirit's witnessing, the how of it, may be beyond our knowledge. When no awakening truth seems to be present to the mind, and no particular circumstance is calculated to call forth serious reflection, suddenly the Spirit may touch the springs of moral feeling and bring deep conviction of sin and peril, how we cannot tell. So by an operation of the Spirit equally immediate, there is produced in the mind of the believer in Christ, a comfortable persuasion, a sweet sense of sonship and acceptance with God. It is by some divine touch of holy influence; just how it is given may remain a mystery. .

This is not the only mystery relative to the Spirit's working. His work of inspiration is equally mysterious; but the truth He inspires is true just the same. His work of regeneration lies beyond our comprehension in its supernaturalness; but the new life that ensues is none the less real and blessed. "There is for us an utter mystery in the perceptions of the ear and eye; but sounds are just as sweet, and scenes are just as beautiful as if we understood their mode. So it is respecting the assurance of sonship through the witness of the Spirit" (Miley, Vol. II, p. 348).

III. Witness of Our Own Spirit,

The Greek verb, summartureo, as we have observed, implies two agreeing witnesses. The Holy Spirit is one witness; and our own spirit is the other. 1. This witness of our own spirit is indirect.

It is a logical deduction from the fact that our inner experience tallies with the Bible description of believers. The Scriptures clearly state the determining facts of sonship, and a regenerated life. The reason can take these tests of sonship and compare them with the facts of our own experience, as revealed by conscience and consciousness. If they harmonize, a judgment is necessarily reached by our spirit that we are a child of God. The witness comes to us in the form of an inference; but it is one that is perfectly warranted and blessedly assuring.

2. Notice some determining facts, illustrating this truth.

(1) Sonship is a state of conscious peace with God. When therefore we read Rom. 5: 1, "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8: 1). The believing heart from which the sense of condemnation has gone, in the place of which has come a blissful, conscious peace with God, may conclude with perfect propriety. I have this experience; I measure up to this test. I am, therefore, an adopted child of God.

(2) The children of God love Him. When we read 1 John 4: 7, "Love is of God; and every one that loveth is begotten of God and knoweth God." The newly regenerated heart may say, "I find within myself a new and unaccustomed love of God, blessedly uniting my once dead heart to Him. I now am sure that I am His child."

(3) The children of God love one another. "We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren" (1 John 3: 14). "If we love one another, God abideth in us, and His love is perfected in us." Let a young convert read that who is conscious that ever since his conversion he has felt a warming of his heart toward every child of God, and he cannot but conclude that he himself is one of "the brethren"-a child of God.

(4) A child of God is obedient. "We know that everyone that doeth righteousness is born of Him,"

If we read that, and are conscious of a supreme purpose to obey God, and that His "commandments are sweeter to us than honey and the droppings of the honey-comb," our spirit witnesses, and has a right to witness, that we are of the "household of faith."

(5) God's child has a victory over the world. "Whosoever is begotten of God overcometh the world" (1 John 5:4). Now let a Christian read that, who is blessedly conscious that the world has lost its power over him; that he is proof against its attractions, and dead to its charms; who can say

"the world is crucified unto me and I unto thee," and to what possible conclusion could His Spirit come but this: "God's Word warrants me in saying, I am born into the divine family of God."

(6) The Sons of God are Spirit-led. "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God." Now any true Christian knows whether he has an attentive ear to the Spirit's voice, and a willing heart to obey His slightest wish. It is a matter of consciousness when there is no uprising of soul against the light He brings and the truth He reveals, and the duty He makes plain. There is no deception about this. And in the face of this truth of God's word, the Spirit-guided soul will say, "I know whom I have believed; and I am persuaded" to whom I belong.

Such a witness of our own spirit confirms the direct testimony of the Holy Spirit. It assures us that we do not mistake the Divine voice, "The fruits of the Spirit," and the "answer of a good conscience," and a uniform obedience, and the indwelling of the mind of Christ, are a most assuring testimony, that we are the Lord's, and He is ours.

This witness may be the result of a logical process; but it often comes so rapidly that we may not distinguish the process in our consciousness. The peace and joy of conversion may bear an instant testimony to our sonship. But again this witness may be very gradual and tardy in coming. Human spirits differ, and the Holy Spirit does not confine Himself to one mode of operation. The witness of our own spirit and that of the Holy Spirit also vary in constancy and intensity. Much depends upon the richness and fullness of the Christian's own life. The state of the mind and of the body and the circumstances of the life may affect the clearness of the testimony. There may be times of temptation and trial, when the soul is in heaviness and sorrow, that the testimony is less distinct; or seasons of physical depression when the assurance is less keen and pronounced, Both Elijah and John the Baptist, had such an experience. But, usually, to the faithful children of God, there comes such a witness of the spirit to sonship as brings peace and rest of soul.

3. It must be admitted, too, that personal temperament has a decided influence upon the witness of our spirit. "Some," says Miley, "are timid, doubting, and hesitant, respecting their own spiritual good; others are joyous, hopeful, and confident. These differences must greatly vary the strength of assurance." The drooping souls may be more spiritual and conscientious than those of the sanguine turn of mind, though they have less joy in a conscious salvation.

4. We may, further observe that while this assurance is the result of a two-fold witnessing, yet as a mental state it is single, not double. It is so, not withstanding the profound differences between the witnesses, and the modes of witnessing. There are not two forms of assurance, one from the Holy Spirit, and one from our own heart; but a single, simple state of confidence, springing from the joint witnessing of the two. Though the witnesses are two, the subjective assurance of sonship is one (Miley, p. 350).

IV. The Benefits of Adoption.

These are many and most desirable. Far back in the antediluvian world some men were called the

"sons of God," and they "began to call upon the name of Jehovah," or, as some translate, "call themselves by the name of the Lord" (Gen. 4: 26; 6:2). God said to His chosen ones. "I will be your God and ye shall be my people" (Lev. 26: 12).

1. It bestows upon all the true believers, great dignity and honor. How glorious is the family of which God is the Father and Jesus Christ is the "Elder Brother," and angels and saints are our brethren! The prophets and apostles, the heroic martyrs, and the glorious saints of all the ages are a part of the family, the glorious company, into which adoption admits us. We become joined to the most glorious fellowship in the universe. Well did John the Beloved, exclaim, "Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God!" (1

John .1:1).

2. By adoption we become entitled to all the privileges of the home. God becomes all to us that is implied in the precious word "Father," and we have all the rights of a child of the King. Whatever is for our good and for the furtherance of the kingdom will be granted to us. "No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly" (Ps. 84: 11). "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God" (Rom. 8:28). The blessings to the children are a matter of covenant and promise; and each may say with trusting heart, "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life" (Ps. 23: 6).

3. God has promised them His protection. What true father does not protect his helpless child?

Much more does the infinite God. He says to every one of them, "The Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil; He shall preserve thy soul, The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in, from this time forth, even forevermore" (Ps. 121: 5-8). "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burnt; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel thy Savior" (Isa. 43: 2, 3).

4. Like earthly fathers, God teaches His children. As the elder President Dwight of Yale said:

"This work He accomplishes by His providences, by His Word, by His ordinances, by His ministers, by the life and conversation of Christians, by the Divine example of His Son, and by the peculiar communications of His Spirit. It is the Spirit who takes of the things of Christ, and shows them unto us. In all these ways He furnishes them with whatever knowledge and whatever useful impressions they need to receive, and trains them up as children, in effectual preparation for the perfect state of manhood to which they will arrive in His heavenly kingdom."

5. He will correct them. "My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him; for whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons, for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? ... He chastens for our profit that we might become partakers of His holiness" (Heb. 12:5-11).

6. He will bestow upon them an eternal inheritance. Children inherit the estate of their father. Not to press the analogy too far, we may truthfully say, God has an estate in glory to bestow upon us.

"If we are children, then heirs; heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ" (Rom. 8: 17). The Scripture abounds in the most glowing descriptions of the glory that lies beyond the veil. We are told of "the kingdom," "the crown of glory," "the crown of life," "a better country," "a city that hath foundations," "a crown of righteousness," "eternal life," "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory," "an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away," reserved in heaven for you, who by the power of God are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" (1 Pet. 1: 4). God watches over His own, and He has prepared great things for them more than we can now know. "It doth not yet appear what we shall be." It is enough to know that we are "joint heirs with Christ," and "we shall be like Him, and see Him as He is,"

and dwell with Him forever. How men have been sustained in the conflicts of life, in hours of pain and weariness, by the contemplation of these blessings that await us just beyond the horizon of this little life! We only have the earnest now. We see them by the eye of faith. We know them only in our hopes. The real treasures lie beyond the vail.

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CHAPTER XVI -- SANCTIFICATION

There is another work of grace, subsequent to justification and regeneration, and as distinct to consciousness. It is called sanctification, or holiness.

I. God commands us to have this experience, and the reason is plain. A Greek Lexicon of the New Testament gives the first three definitions of hamartia, the most common word for sin, as follows:

"Error, offence, sin." But the next three definitions are, "a principle, or cause of sin; proneness to sin; sinful propensity." These two sets of definitions of a Greek noun in an unbiased dictionary prove that this double use of the word "sin" in the New Testament is no fanciful notion of the author but the actual Bible usage.

The first set of definitions refer to actual transgressions, willful acts of disobedience to a known law of God. "Sin is the transgression of the law." It is very frequently used in the plural, "sins,"

"iniquities," "transgressions." It is for this kind of sin that every man's conscience holds him directly responsible. Man is cured of his sins and sinning by regeneration. "Whosoever is born of God sinneth not." "He cannot sin because He is begotten of God." "We know that whosoever is begotten of God sinneth not" (1 John 3: 9, 5: 18).

But the second set of definitions of hamartia, refer to that sinful state of our moral nature brought upon each of us by our connection with a sinful race. It is that natural lack of conformity of our whole being to the divine nature. It was to this which St. Paul referred, when he wrote of "the sin which dwelleth in me." In this sense, the word "sin" is always in the singular number. It means the depravity or corruption of our moral being. It may be a misfortune that the word sin is used in this double sense, and some theologians may not like it. But we cannot help it. We were all born too late to alter the use of words in the Greek Testament, and the theological literature of the world.

That the word is used in these two senses in the New Testament is undeniable.

Now this corruption of our moral nature, this disordered state of our faculties, this abnormal condition of our being, needs to be rectified. It is a perpetual source of temptation to acts of sin, And though a gracious God does not hold us responsible primarily, for this corruption of nature, yet He cannot be pleased with the fact that His children, designed to be perfected images of Himself, are thus infested with indwelling sin, "the body of sin," "the old man of corruption," "the law of sin and death," "the lusts which war in the members." These striking expressions all mean the same thing, -depravity, or inbred sin. It makes us unlovely in the eyes of a pure and holy God.

This inbred sin produces a sad harvest of fruit,-pride, anger, self-will, jealousy, covetousness, peevishness, impatience, hatred, variance, emulations, strife, envyings, unbelief, and such like.

These do not reign in the justified believer; but they keep up an incessant warfare against the holiest purposes of his soul. The feelings and appetites and cravings are abnormal and displeasing to God.

Now regeneration does not cure this depravity of our being. That is why there is a need of a second work of grace. And right here we touch the meaning of sanctification. It is the work of the Holy Spirit-the act of God's grace in the heart of one already regenerated, by which the "old man is crucified" and the moral nature is "cleansed from all unrighteousness,"-unrightness, proneness to sin, sinful propensity.

It has been called by different names-"Perfect Love," "The full assurance of Faith," "The Rest of Faith," "The Baptism with the Holy Spirit," "Holiness," "Entire Sanctification." The work, called by whatever name, is essentially the same. It is God's act of cleansing the soul (Acts 15: 8, 9).

Others have defined thus:

Isaiah Reid: "Doctrinally holiness may be defined as that secondary work of grace, by which the depravity of the soul is remedied. Holiness or entire sanctification is the application of redemption to the depraved, corrupt nature in which we were born. It relates to our depravity."

President Mahan: "Sanctification means a renewal of the Spirit, and temper, and dispositions of the mind, and of the tendencies and habits which impel to sin, and prompt to disobedience to the Divine will."

Dr. W. McDonald: "It is to be cleansed from all actual sin, and original depravity."

Dr. Steele: "Sanctification is the act of God removing impurity existing in the nature of one already born of the Spirit the deliverance from sin as a tendency born with us."

We thus see the meaning and scope of sanctification, and how it differs from the other works of grace that precede it in time.

1. Justification is the governmental act of God by which the sinner, on condition of repentance of sin and faith in an atoning Savior is forgiven his past transgressions, and freed from their penalty.

Regeneration, on the Divine side, is the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart, graciously inclining the sinner to repentance of sin and faith in an atoning Savior, and so renewing the voluntary nature, that the power of sin is broken, and the spirit of obedience is quickened in the soul.

Sanctification is the cleansing of the entire nature from its depraved propensity to sin.

2. Justification is God's work done for us, making us at peace with His law and government.

Regeneration is God's work done in us, renewing the attitude of the will toward Him and holiness.

Sanctification is the act of God, purging the whole being.

3. Justification removes the guilt of sin (liability to penalty). Regeneration removes the love of sin.

Sanctification removes the inclination to sin in the future.

4. Justification secures the pardon of actual sins. Regeneration changes the attitude of the will toward sin. Sanctification removes inbred sin, and by purifying the entire nature, confirms the will in obedience.

5. Justification remits the penalty of broken law. Regeneration brings love for the law.

Sanctification removes the hindrances to keeping the law.

6. Justification brings the smile and favor of God. Regeneration creates a longing for the image of God. Sanctification transforms us into that image, "from glory to glory." And we are made partakers of the Divine nature.

7. In short, Justification brings forgiveness. Regeneration brings renewing. Sanctification brings cleansing.

8. In justification and regeneration sin does not reign. In Sanctification, it does not exist.

9. In justification and regeneration, sin is suspended. In Sanctification, sin is destroyed.

10. In justification and regeneration, irregular desires are subdued}. In Sanctification they are removed.

11. Justification and regeneration save from the commission of sin. Sanctification saves from the being of sin.

12. Justification and regeneration bring us out of the world. Sanctification takes the love of the world out of us.

13. In justification and regeneration, a babe is born. In sanctification an "old man" dies.

To remove all misapprehensions from the subject we will further define negatively: 1. Sanctification does not bring us absolute perfection. God only has essential absolute perfection.

2. It does not bring angelic perfection. With their freedom from all inherited infirmities, and their superior knowledge, judgment and discernment, they have a degree of perfection which no grace of God makes possible to us in this life. .

3. It does not bring us to the perfection of our own glorified state in the after-resurrection life. St.

Paul disclaimed that celestial perfection in Phil. 3: 12, while he did claim the perfection of a sanctified man in 3: 15.

4. It does not bring a sinless perfection in the sense that it makes it impossible for us to sin and fall. The angels fell, and Adam fell, though they were once holy.

5. Entire Sanctification does not imply or involve infallibility of knowledge, or judgment, or memory. There is still room for innocent mistakes. The heart may be right, while the judgment is wrong.

6. It does not secure us from temptation. Even Christ was tempted; but He said: "Satan cometh and findeth nothing in me." There was no evil propensity in Christ for Satan to appeal to.

7. Sanctification does not end Christian growth; but cleansing the heart of its vileness, it makes all best growth in Christian graces more possible and certain.

8. This blessing does not obviate the need of constant dependence upon the atoning work of Christ.

No other class of believers so constantly trust in Jesus, or so feel their utter dependence upon Him, or so live in Him moment by moment. The atonement secures for us even all our temporal blessings. Especially does it secure the privilege of abiding in Christ, and being kept by Him from all sin.

II. Evidences that Holiness is Attainable.

Let us notice the evidences that such a blessing as sanctification is attainable, and that God has provided humanity with healing for the hurt of sin.

1. There is the Argument from Probability. All God's dealings with the race prove that He hates sin with an infinite hatred, and loves His sin-cursed children with an infinite love. With infinite remedial agencies at His disposal, what will He be likely to do for us? What would an earthly father do, a skillful physician, whose son had been fatally poisoned? Would he use every possible antidote to drive out all the poison, and that immediately, or would he leave a portion of the virus in his system, to be fought gradually, and to leave him a suffering invalid for life? There is but one answer to such a question. How much more probable is it that our compassionate Heavenly Father would provide an instantaneous and complete salvation for His "grievously tormented" children?

Reasoning from God's nature and His hatred of sin, it is not probable that we must be infested with

"the sin that dwelleth in us" until death. Yea, it is more than probable that He "would provide some better things for us," and enable us to "serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days" (Luke 1: 74, 75).

2. The Bible as a whole is a witness for the possibility of holiness. The most careless reader cannot fail to see that it is a Book against sin in every kind and degree. As a grand whole it is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work (2 Tim. 3: 16, 17). It plies the heart with the most cogent and winning motives, drawing hearts to holiness by the sweetness of communion with God, and the blessedness of His service, while it drives from sin by the revelations of Divine displeasure, and the interminable horrors of the damned. This makes it plain why Jesus prayed that His disciples might be sanctified (John 17: 17), and why the Bible so frequently urges believers to seek the second work of grace. The Scriptures explain the blessing, and tell us how to obtain it, and describe its blessed fruits. They are wonderfully calculated to promote the sanctification of heart and life.

3. We may infer the possibility of the sanctification of believers, from the Bible description of the possible experience of Christians.

(1) They may have a clean heart. "Create in me a clean heart" (Ps. 51: 10). "Blessed are the pure in heart" (Matt. 5: 8).

(2) They may be blameless. "That ye may be blameless and harmless, the children of God without blemish" (Phil. 2: 15). "Give diligence that ye may be found in peace, without spot, and blameless in His sight (2 Pet. 3: 14). The same Greek words are used of Christ in 1 Pet. 1: 19. "But with precious blood as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ," This suggests the solemn, as well as most comforting thought that we may, by the sanctifying power of Jesus, live such a spotless, blameless life as He lived. Again, the same word is used in James 1: 27, which urges us to "keep ourselves unspotted from the world," as one of the essential elements of salvation. The sanctified heart can so live.

(3) We are taught to be wholly given up to God, to be possessed and used by Him, and made holy and acceptable to God. (Rom. 12: 1) "I beseech you, therefore, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable to God." These "brethren" were Christians already.

God was pleading with them for a more intelligent, all-including sacrifice or consecration of themselves, the body and all it contained, their whole being, to be holy and acceptable to God, Christ, and the altar sanctifying the gift.

(4) The Bible speaks of love as the fulfilling of the law (Matt. 22:37-40; Rom. 13: 10; Luke 10: 27). We are not required to love God with an angel's powers, but only with our own mind and strength. Such holiness implies that abnormal passions no longer exist.

(5) The Bible teaches that it is possible to be "dead to sin" having "the old man crucified" "the body of sin destroyed" and the soul "freed from the sin." "Our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed (done away), that so we should be no longer in 'bondage to sin."

Cremer says in his Greek Lexicon: "Paul uses the verb translated 'destroy' in the sense of 'to annihilate' 'to put an end to,' 'to bring to naught.' Hence the apostle declares that he is 'made free from the law of (uniform tendency to) sin and death (spiritual death)." Wonderful salvation! which so sanctifies the soul, that it is "crucified to the world," and "freed from" the tendency to sin, and

"dead" to all the solicitations to evil!

(6) The Bible holds up to believers the possibility of being "filled with the Spirit." ""That ye might be filled unto all the fullness of God" (Eph. 3: 19)."Be filled with the Spirit" (Eph. 5: 18). "The possession of the Spirit," says Dr. A. J. Gordon "commits us irrevocably to separation from sin."

"The fullness of the Spirit cannot be realized by a corrupt, defiled heart."

4. We infer the possibility of sanctification from the revealed ^opurpose of the life and death of Christ. The Scriptures declare that Christ came "to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity and to bring in everlasting righteousness" (Dan. 9:24). "That He would grant unto us, that we, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days" (Luke 1: 74, 75). Here is sanctification, not at death, nor after death, but "all the days of our life." Again, "Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it that He might sanctify it, having cleansed it ... that it should be holy and without blemish" (Eph. 5: 25-27).

Again, "Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate" (Heb. 13: 12). "Who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous of good works" (Titus 2: 14). "Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that ye should follow His steps, who did no sin" (1 Pet. 2: 21, 22). "Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness" (1 Pet. 2: 24). Manifestly God designed the great plan of salvation, and Jesus died on the cross, that He might restore fallen man to holiness.

5. We can make an unanswerable argument for sanctification, from the continuous mediatorial work of Christ. "He ever liveth to make intercession for us" (Heb. 7:25). "He is made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness (justification), and sanctification and redemption" (1 Cor. 1: 30). We have a specimen of Christ's mediatorial work in His intercessory prayer, in which He prayed to the Father: "Sanctify them through thy truth" (John 17: 17). "He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). That is sanctification.

6. Another unanswerable argument for the possibility of full salvation can be made from the revealed work of the Spirit as a Sanctifier.

(1) He anoints us. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me for He hath anointed me to preach the Gospel" (Luke 4: 18). "Ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye know all things." This is the spiritual discernment and the divine insight into Gospel truth which the Spirit alone can give, and which makes the deep theologian. He holds the key to the knowledge of divine mysteries, and fills the heart with the understanding of truth that sanctifies the soul (1 Cor. 12:38).

(2) The Spirit fills us. "Be filled with the Spirit" (Eph. 5: 18). The passive verb here is suggestive.

The surrendered will, the yielded body, the emptied heart are the great requisites to His incoming.

Then He fills us, possesses us, and makes us what He will. Clean and holy!

(3) He gives us sanctification. "God chose you from the beginning unto salvation in sanctification of the Spirit" (2 Thess, 2: 13). "Elect in sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience" (1 Pet.1:2).

"Sanctification is that act of divine grace whereby we are made holy."

(4) This sanctifying Spirit imparts power. "Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you" (Acts 1:8). "Strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inward man" (Eph.

3: 16). "This is what enables weak, ineffective Christians to become giants, having glorious victory over the powers of darkness. This is the blessing that enables ordinary people to do exploits, and bring things to pass for God. This Pentecostal Blessing makes Christians, and churches, victorious over the world, and mighty to the pulling down of the strongholds of Satan.

7. God commands His people to be holy. God said to Abraham. "I am the Almighty God, walk before me and be thou perfect" (Gen. 17: 1). The story of Abraham's justification is in the fifteenth chapter of Genesis, where we are told that he believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. Several years afterward he receives God's call to the second blessing of sanctification. God gave him the rite of circumcision, typifying that spiritual circumcision or entire sanctification which consists in the instantaneous removal of inbred sin (see Col. 2:11).

Again, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might" (Deut. 6: 4, 5). But how can depraved man live such a life? Deut. 30: 6 lets us into the secret. "The Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live."

Jesus taught the same command in stronger terms in Matt, 22: 37-39, and Luke 10: 27,-a command which no man will keep, until God prepares him to do it by sanctifying his soul. "Ye therefore, shall be perfect," says Jesus, "as your Heavenly Father is perfect." Rom. 6: 11, "Even so, also, reckon ye yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus." Sin,-indwelling sin, will not go dead at our bidding; but we can reckon it dead by faith, and God, by His sanctifying Spirit, will make the reckoning of faith a reality in our experience. Rom. 6: 13, "Present yourselves unto God as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." This means consecration for the blessing of holiness. God only cleanses a fully consecrated lift*. "Follow peace with all men and the sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord." Only holy beings can rise to the beatific vision, After the Holy Spirit has sanctified the heart, to the exclusion of the sinward trend, one may behold God, Eph, 4: 22-24, "Put away the old man which waxeth corrupt after the lust of deceit; and that ye be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, which after God hath been created in righteousness and holiness of truth."

1 Pet. 1: 15, 16, "Like as He who called you is holy, be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living, because it is written ye shall be holy for I am holy."

With these commands to be holy we put two other passages: "He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blemish before Him in love" (Eph.

1:4). Also Col. 1:22, "In the body of His flesh through death to present you holy and without blemish, and unreprovable before Him."

Now what shall we say of all these thrilling passages? Does God command the impossible? To say it is to cast a wicked reflection on His holiness. "His commandments are not grievous." What He commands He furnishes ability to perform. "Our sufficiency is from God" (2 Cor. 3:51).

8. Another argument for the possibility of holiness is drawn from the promises of God. Take Ezek.

36:25-27 and 29, "I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and give you an heart of flesh, and I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them," "and I will save you from all your uncleannesses." Here is a perfect cleansing from all sinful disposition, tendencies and habits, and a perfect renewal, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, for perfect obedience. And it is all God's work.

Mal. 3: 3, "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi, and refine them as gold and silver and they shall offer unto Jehovah, offerings in righteousness." Mal.

4: 2, "Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings; and ye shall go forth and grow up as calves of the stall." First God promises to give the refining and the healing, or sanctification; and then the life of righteousness and growth in grace. This is God's order.

Matt. 5: 6, "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled"

Righteousness in this passage means, actual righteousness, being right. Personal holiness is naturally the object of a true Christian's hunger and thirst; and this passage is a promise of personal holiness.

Luke 1: 73-75, "The oath which He sware unto our Father Abraham that we, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, should serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days." This proves that sin is not a necessity, and we can live without it. 1 Cor. 1: 8, "Who shall also comfort you unto the end that ye be unreprovable in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Phil. 4: 19, "And my God shall supply every need of yours, according to His riches in glory." Now what do we all need so much as to be cleansed from the corruption of sin, and to be enabled to walk with God with a holy heart? And God has promised to supply the need.

2 Cor. 7: 1, "Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilements of the flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God." All filthiness of body and soul is to be cleansed away, in the act of perfecting holiness. What a blessing! All the base appetites of the body removed! All the promptings to mental and spiritual sins, such as pride, unbelief, rebellion, hatred, and the like, all taken away!

2 Peter 1: 4, "Whereby He hath granted unto us His precious and exceeding great promises, that through these ye may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust."

Now this is precisely the work of the sanctifying Spirit of God to cleanse our hearts of corruption, and make us in nature like Christ and all these commands and promises are correlated to each other. They are in the present tense, on demand now for immediate realization. They authorize us to ask of God, and expect now salvation to the uttermost from every kind of sin.

9. Christ and inspired writers pray that believers may be sanctified. What is prayer? Is it a kind of spiritual gymnastic, whose only benefit is the development of soul muscle by reflex influence? Or is it the voice of a child, asking of a Father what that Father has encouraged him to ask, and promised to grant? This is the only rational, and it is the well-nigh universal, conception of prayer.

Any other theory is fatal to prayer itself. Let us now turn our attention to some of the Bible prayers.

(1) The prayers of Jesus. He taught us to pray: "Thy will be done as in heaven so on earth" (Matt.

6: 10). No one can deny that the saints and angels in heaven are holy, and sanctified He therefore taught us to pray that we may be sanctified on earth here can be no possible doubt of the correctness of our reasoning here, for He saith: "This is the will of God, even your sanctification (1 Thess. 4; 3), Again: "Deliver us from evil" (Matt 6- 13) There is no evil but sin, and sin's consequences. When delivered from that, we shall be sanctified. Again, Jesus prayed in John 17: 17, "Sanctify them through the truth." "I pray that thou shouldest keep them from the evil" (v. 15). "I in them and thou in me, that they may be perfect in one" (v. 23). Now who can deny that these prayers are for the sanctification of God's people?

Now notice St. Paul's prayers. 2 Cor. 13: 9, "This we also prayed for, even your perfecting." This was the burden of the apostle's prayers for these Corinthians; and he had too good sense to be praying for what was impracticable in this life, or for what would certainly come at death, to all believers. Eph. 3: 14-21, "That Christ may take up His lasting abode in your hearts by faith . . . that ye may be strong to apprehend with all saints, what is the breadth, and length and depth and height.... That ye may be filled unto all the fullness of God." Bishop Ellicott says: "The aorist tense in this passage denotes instantaneous perfecting in love." 1 Thess. 5: 23, "And the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul, and body be preserved blameless."

Here again it is the aorist tense,-instantaneous sanctification in this life,-wow while in the body, not at, or after death. 1 Thess. 3: 13, "To the end He may establish your hearts, unblameable in holiness." Heb. 13: 19, 20, "Now the God of peace make you perfect in every good thing to do His will." In the same chapter also, he says: "Wherefore Jesus, also, that He might sanctify the people, suffered without the gate (Heb. 13: 12). Col. 4: 12, "Epaphras a servant of Jesus Christ saluteth you, always striving for you in his prayers that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God." Finney said: "What language could more fully describe a state of entire sanctification?" All these inspired prayers ask for "salvation to the uttermost," and "standing perfect and complete in all the will of God," in this life.

10. What Christ is able to do for us. He said, "All power is given to me in heaven and in earth."

Therefore, if He cannot sanctify us now, how can He do it anywhere, at any time? He hates sin with an infinite hatred. If we give our consent, can He not destroy it in us? Let us see: (1) Heb, 2: 18, "He is able to succor them that are tempted." The Greek verb means, "To run to the aid of those who cry for help." When, in a mighty struggle for holiness, if we cry to Him, will He not give us adequate help?

(2) Jude 24, "Now unto Him that is able to guard you from stumbling, and to set you before the presence of His glory without blemish, in exceeding joy," It is the office work of the Holy Spirit to complete our characters in this life, so that we shall be satisfactory to God.

(3) Rom. 4: 21, "Being fully assured that what He had promised He was able to perform." Now what are some of these promises? "From all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you ... I will put my Spirit within you . . . and I will save you from all your uncleannesses." (Ezek.

36: 25-29) "He will purify the sons of Levi, and refine them as gold and silver, that they may offer the Lord an offering in righteousness" (Mal. 3:3). "The God of peace Himself, sanctify you wholly." "Faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it" (1 Thess. 5: 23, 24). Wonderful promises! And they are all made by One who is able to keep them. The Holy Spirit is the sanctifying fire; and Jesus is the Refiner, to sanctify His people.

(4) Rom. 4: 14, "Yea he shall be made to stand; for the Lord hath power to make him stand." The omnipotent Savior is not only able to sanctify us but also to give us the keeping, standing grace.

(5) 2 Tim, 1: 12, "I am persuaded that He is able to guard that which I have committed unto Him against that day." We all know how we fail when we try to keep ourselves. We watch against besetting sins. But in spite of ourselves, there are weak hours, or moments, when "the old man"

rises up to cast us down. But sanctifying grace can destroy "the old man," and Jesus can guard us from every assault of Satan from without.

(6) Acts 20: 32; "Jesus is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them that are sanctified." St. Paul is about to leave these dear Ephesian Christians. He knows that he will be followed by teachers who will pervert the truth. In his parting address, he commends them to a mighty Savior who is "able to give them an inheritance among the sanctified."

(7) Heb. 7: 25, "Wherefore He is able to save to the uttermost." This verse alone might prove the obtainability of sanctification. Olshausen and Lange say the Greek words for "uttermost," mean

"completely; perfectly." Delitzsch says: "perfectly, completely; to the very end; in all respects; so that every want and need is utterly done away." It can mean nothing less than being saved from every kind and degree of sin. He can save us from the "old man" of indwelling sin, and from all actual sin. To deny this is to charge God with mocking our misery; leading us to hope for a blessing which we greatly need, and which He can but will not give.

(8) 2 Cor. 9: 8, "God is able to make all grace abound toward us; that ye, having always all sufficiency in all things may abound unto every good work." It seems as if Paul were taxing the resources of language, piling up "Alps upon Appenines," as he heaped up superlatives in this verse to express his conception of the abounding grace of God, Here is "sufficiency," "all sufficiency,"

"always all sufficiency," "in everything," "all grace abound," "abound unto every good work."

Could stronger words be used to magnify the sufficiency of sanctifying grace? Well does Dr.

Steele observe that the mass of believers are mere babes in spiritual development. They see days of great weakness, and are often on the verge of surrender to the foe. Some, alas, throw away their arms, and run away from the fight, and never renew the battle. Others fight all their lives with foes in their own hearts, and never overcome and cast them out. They have been told by their preachers that this war in the members is the normal Christian life. They believe them instead of the Word of God, and never become "conquerors and more than conquerors through Him who loves them"

(Rom. 8: 37).

(9) Eph. 3:20, "Able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us." Here is another verse in which language itself is strained to contain one of God's infinite truths. If we were only told that Jesus was able "to do "all that we ask," it would seem to be ample. How quickly we could drop on our knees and cry from the depths of our loving hearts, "O blessed Savior, take away these evil propensities, this indwelling sin? Crucify this "old man" this "carnal mind" in me, and let me be dead to sin, and alive to righteousness forever more!

That would indeed be a great thing for us. But He is "able to do all that we ask"; yea, "above all that we ask"; yea, "abundantly above all that we ask"; yea, "exceeding abundantly above all that we ask." And, as if that were not enough to inspire faith to ask for sanctification. He assures us that He is "able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us!" O God, give us enlargement of heart to take in this mighty truth.

And for what has this revelation been made but to inspire in us faith to claim this great uttermost salvation? To deny that such a salvation is available is to deny God's ability or to impeach Hit veracity and love. It is to say that He cannot or will not sanctify us. But He says: "This is the will of God even your sanctification"

11. The various assurances and exhortations, of the Scriptures prove that sanctification is possible, These confirm the doctrine of an instantaneous deliverance from all sin, Heb, 12: 10, "For they verily for a few days chastened us as seemeth good to them; but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness" "This," says Steele, "is the recovery of the lost image of God, a glorious possibility to every believer." And the verse declares that this is the aim and end of God's chastenings and providences. If we are God's children, He allots to us our experiences, not so much primarily to make us happy as to make us holy. He chastens us because He loves us, and wishes us to "bear the peaceable fruits of righteousness," and become "partakers of His holiness."

Col. 2: 9-11, "In whom ye were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ." Paul is explaining how we become full in Christ by sanctification. Dr. Steele says: "We call the attention of every Greek scholar to the strength of the original noun, "putting off." It is a word invented by Paul, and found nowhere else in the Bible, nor in all Greek literature. To show the thoroughness of the cleansing by the complete stripping off, and laying aside of the propensity to evil, the Apostle prefixes one preposition, apo, denoting separateness, to another denoting outness, ek, and then constructs the strongest conceivable term for the entire removal of depravity, apekdusei.

The great Greek exegete, Meyer, comments thus: "Whereas the spiritual circumcision, divinely performed, consisted in a complete parting and doing away with this body (of sin) in so far as God, by means of this ethical circumcision, has taken off and removed this sinful body from man, like a garment, drawn off and laid aside," Dr, Steele adds, "If this does not mean the complete and eternal separation of depravity, then it is impossible to express the idea of cleansing in any language."

Col. 3: 14, 15, "Put on love which is the bond of perfectness." Meyer translates: "Put on love by which Christian perfection is knit." Thus Meyer, whom Dr. Schaff pronounced the greatest exegete of his age, used the very phrase, "Christian perfection," for which John Wesley was almost snowed under by hostile pamphlets," The world moves.

Heb. 6: 1, "Wherefore, let us cease to speak of the first principles, and press on unto perfection,"

Here again we meet this same word for "perfection," which, in this passage, refers to fullness of spiritual knowledge. The commentator, Dr, Whedon, says: "When Heb. 6: 1 is adduced as an exhortation to advance to a perfected Christian character, it is no misquotation, Dr, Clark says:

"The verb teaches the idea of our being borne on immediately into the experience," And indeed this is the true translation, "Let us be borne on unto perfection." Bishop Taylor said: "The Holy Spirit meant something by this language of vast importance. You may readily perceive that Christian perfection is not that misty, incomprehensible, unattainable something that Satan and poor dwarfish doubters would have us believe, but a simple, appropriate, necessary, practical attainment."

Now look at these double sentences:

JUSTIFICATION

SANCTIFICATION

Acts 2: 38, "Repent ye and be

And ye shall receive the gift of the

baptized, everyone of you, in

Holy Spirit" (which means sancti-

the name of Jesus Christ, unto

fication. See Acts 15: 8,9).

the remission of sins."

Acts 26: 18, "That we may

"And an inheritance among them

receive remission of sins.

that are sanctified, by faith in me."

Titus 3:5, "He saved us by

"And the renewing of the Holy

the washing of regeneration.

Spirit."

1 John 1:9, "He is faithful and

"And to cleanse us from all

righteous to forgive us our sins."

unrighteousness."

James 4:8, "Cleanse your hands,

And purify your hearts ye double-

ye sinners."

Minded.

Rom. 5: 1 and 2, "Being

Through whom also we have our

therefore justified by faith we

access by faith into this grace

have peace with God through

wherein we stand.

our Lord Jesus Christ."

Now the first member of no one of these sentences means the same as the second member.

"Remission of sins" is different from the baptism with the Holy Spirit. "Remission of sins" is different from being "sanctified." "Forgiving our sins" does not mean "cleansing from all unrighteousness!' Justification has to do with voluntary sins which must be forgiven; sanctification has to do with a state of moral nature which has to be cleansed.

Eph. 5: 25-27, "Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it that He might sanctify it, having cleansed it." That it is a momentary act is seen by the aorist tenses in which the verbs appear. An unsanctified church dishonors the Lord by its incongruity. A self-indulgent church disfigures Christ. A worldly church betrays Christ.

12. This is drawn from the words of Jesus and the Apostle Paid to believers, Jesus said His disciples were regenerated men, hated by the world because they did not belong to it. Their names were written in heaven, and He was going to heaven to prepare a place for them. Yet He prayed that they might be sanctified, and He charged them to wait for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which would sanctify them (Acts 15: 8, 9). See John 14th to 17th chapter.

St. Paul wrote in the same way to Christians. He wrote to the Christians at Rome, in the fifth chapter about "the sin"; twenty of the world's great commentators tell us that the noun for sin (Hamartia) in the singular number with the article "the" before it means "the sin-principle." It so occurs twenty-nine times between Rom. 5: 12 and 8: 10. Paul is there telling us how to get rid of depravity. In the sixth chapter he urges them to get sanctified and be "freed from the sin principle."

In the seventh chapter, he tells them that they cannot get freed from "the sin" by law. In the eighth chapter he tells them that they get the deliverance from the sin principle, or sanctification by the Spirit through faith. In the twelfth chapter he pleads with them to present themselves to God for the blessing.

He wrote to the Thessalonians, and spent the first chapter of the first epistle telling them what good Christians they were. But in the third and fourth chapters, he expresses great concern for their sanctification. He tells them that it is God's will, and that he calls them to the blessing; and in the fifth chapter he prays: "And may the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless." He writes to the Hebrews, and has in the Epistle fourteen passages referring to sanctification. He tells them that Jesus died that they might have the blessing (Heb. 13: 12) and tells them that without it they cannot see God (Heb. 12: 14).

It is the same through all the Epistles. There are seventy-five passages in Paul's writings urging on Christians this blessing. The words "holy" and "holiness," "sanctify," and "sanctification/' and

"without spot," and "perfect," and "perfection," move through his writings like a flock of birds.

Mahan says: "If such terms do not mean salvation from all sin, and entire sanctification, then no man living or dead can tell us what they do mean.

13. The possibility of sanctification is proved by the testimony of God's Word concerning His children. If the doctrine is true we shall find some persons in the Bible who had the blessing, we are not disappointed. We have the witness of the Spirit to God's holy ones.

1. Abel . . . had witness home to him that he was righteous, God bearing witness (Heb. 11:4).

2. Enoch "walked with God" three hundred years, until he walked straight into heaven, without passing through the gateway of death (Heb, 11:5).

3. Moses walked with God in such intimacy of Holy communion "that his face did shine," until even his own brother Aaron and all the people were afraid to come near unto him. He had to wear a veil to hide from the people the indwelling glory. "But when Moses went in before the Lord to speak with Him, he took the veil off, and spoke to God 'face to face.'"

When the jealous Korah, Dathan, and Abiram rose up against Moses, and said: "Ye take too much on you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them," Moses meekly replied:

"Tomorrow the Lord will show who are His, and who are holy." And God settled the question for all time, whether all are holy.

4. Job was, in his day, and with his light, such a man as God required. God declared that he was "a perfect and an upright man," and permitted the Devil to test him. Job was permitted to suffer in body and mind and heart all that man may endure. "In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly (Job 1: 8-22).

5. Isaiah was a prophet of God whose bosom glowed with the fervor of piety; He was certainly neither an unregenerated man nor a backslider. But one day, when at worship, he got a vision of a holy God, and a holy heaven, and it put him under conviction for holiness. He cried: "Woe is me!"

etc. An angel came with fire, which is an emblem of the Holy Spirit, and laid it upon his mouth, and said: "Lo, this hath touched thy lips and thine iniquity is taken away and thy sin purged" (Isa. 6: 1-8). Notice. 1, This blessing was brought from God. 2. The holiness was induced instantly. It was not developed within by a long growth in grace.

6. The great Hezekiah, Isaiah's contemporary, when told that he must die, said to the Lord in prayer: "I beseech thee, O Lord, remember how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart" (2 Kings 20: 3). God did not contradict him, but answered his prayer.

7. "Asa's heart was perfect with the Lord all his days" (1 Kings IS: 15).

8. Of Zacharias and Elizabeth, the father and mother of John, the Baptist, it is recorded: "They were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless (Luke 1:6)."And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit" (Luke 1: 41). "And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost" (Luke 1: 67). "This fullness of the Spirit," says Dr.

Steele, "is a synonym of entire sanctification." (Acts 15: 8, 9) "To be filled with the Spirit is to be completely emancipated from the flesh, or inherent depravity."

9. St. Paul said so much about entire sanctification, that we might expect to find him an illustration of his own doctrine. We are not disappointed. There is abundance of both negative and positive evidence that he was a sanctified man. He often asks for prayers for himself, but never that he may be delivered from "a besetting sin," or "from an evil habit," or "that he may be forgiven," or "made holy." He wrote to the Thessalonians: "Ye are witnesses and God also how holily and righteously and unblameably we have behaved ourselves toward you that believe." Here is direct testimony to his own sanctification, which only the rash will venture to dispute. The secret of his wonderful life was given in his own words: "I have been crucified with Christ (that is the "old man of sin" in me), yet I live; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me." Surely Christ did not live in him and through him an un-sanctified life. St. Paul unceasingly urged upon others the experience of sanctification, and mentioned it seventeen times in his writings, and we may be sure he had the experience himself.

14. The witness of the Holy Spirit is unanswerable proof of the attainability of sanctification. Of course, this argument has weight only with those who have the witness of the Spirit, and those who will believe testimony. Acts 15: 8, 9, reads: "And God, who knoweth the heart bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, as He did unto us, and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith" Turn also to that companion Scripture: "For by one offering, He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. And the Holy Ghost also beareth witness to us."

The men who deny the possibility of sanctification, may argue their case to a conclusion, not with the author of this book, but with the Holy Spirit,-the Infinite God Himself. He bears witness to His own work.

Let us now listen to the testimony of modern witnesses: 1. Carvosso, that wonderful man of early Methodism, says, when seeking sanctification one year after conversion, "I then received the full witness of the Spirit that the blood of Jesus had cleansed me from all sin." 2. Rev. William Bramwell testifies: "The Lord for whom I had waited, came suddenly to my heart, and I had immediate evidence, that this was the blessing I had for sometime been seeking. My soul was all wonder, love and praise." 3. Rev. Benjamin Abbott wrote: "In three days, God gave me a full assurance that He had sanctified me, soul and body, I found it day by day manifested to my soul by the witness of the Spirit." 4. Bishop Hamline says: "All at once I felt as though a hand, not feeble, but omnipotent, not of wrath but of love, were laid on my brow. I felt it not only outwardly but inwardly. It seemed to press upon my whole body, and diffuse all through it a holy, sin-consuming energy." 5. Mrs. Jonathan Edwards describes her experience in these glowing words: "So conscious was I of the joyful presence of the Holy Spirit that I could scarcely refrain from leaping with transports of joy. My soul was filled and overwhelmed with light, and love and joy in the Holy Ghost." 6. Mrs. Phoebe Palmer, the blessed evangelist, wrote: "While thus exulting, the voice of the Spirit again appealingly appealed to my understanding."Is not this sanctification?" I could no longer hesitate; reason as well as grace, forbade; but I rejoiced in the assurance that I was wholly sanctified, throughout body, soul and Spirit." 7. Dr. Carradine writes: "I knew I was sanctified, just as I knew fifteen years before that I was converted. The Holy Ghost bore witness clearly, unmistakably and powerfully to His own work."

We could fill a volume with such testimony, that God still gives the witness of the Spirit to sanctification. It is satisfactory proof to those who are willing to accept the consenting testimony of God's ripest saints.

Now what conclusion shall we draw from these fourteen arguments for the possibility of sanctification. We have drawn them. (1) From probability; (2) From the Bible as a whole; (3) From Bible descriptions of what is possible to believers; (4) From the revealed purpose of the life and death of Christ; (5) From His continuous mediatorial work; (6) From the revealed work of the Spirit as our Sanctifier; (7) From God's commands to be holy; (8) From God's promise of holiness to those who seek it; (9) From the inspired prayers that believers may become sanctified; (10) From what Christ is declared to be able to do for us; (11) From the exhortations to holiness; (12) From Christ's words to the disciples and Paul's instructions to the churches; (13) From the testimony of God concerning His own children; (14) From the witness of the Holy Spirit Himself to the sanctification of those who obtain the blessing.

If a hundred proof texts of unmistakable bearing can prove a doctrine; if the revealed work of Christ and the Spirit and the commands and prayers, and promises and assurances, and the witness of the Holy Spirit can teach a truth, then the obtainability of sanctification, and the duty to be sanctified are among the revealed truths of God,

We conclude therefore,

1. That there is a second work of grace distinct from regeneration, and subsequent to it, which God would have wrought in every believer by the Holy Ghost.

2. It is cleansing, purifying act of God Himself, that sanctifies the heart. "The God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly." It is not therefore reached by gradual growth or development. Such a notion is a grave and calamitous error that keeps Christians from seeking immediate sanctification.

3. It is like justification, or anything else, performed by an act of God, instantaneous. It is as sudden as Pentecost. President Mahan said: "Forty-seven years ago ... in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye ... I stood face to face with the Son of Righteousness, feeling His divine healings through every department of my being."

4. This blessing, like justification, is obtained by faith. "Purifying their hearts by faith" (Acts 15: 9). "Sanctified by faith in me" (Acts 26: 18). Like all other spiritual blessings, sanctification comes by faith.

Such an instantaneous sanctification is the only kind that will answer our purpose. Any one Christian living, may be dead tomorrow and at the bar of God. Living or dying, we want the blessing, and want it now. Such a sanctification instantaneously received and accessible to all, the Scripture reveals and promises to those who seek. "This is the will of God even your sanctification." It is not His will, nor for His honor, that one of His children should be defiled or unholy for a single hour. "Sanctified by faith." Jesus does not regenerate you by faith, and then leave you to make yourself holy, by your own struggles of soul. "Sanctified by faith in me" (Acts 26: 18).

All this is the blessed truth of God, or He has deceived, has grossly deceived us, in a matter most vital to our soul. He has told us that He is "able," and "willing" to sanctify us; He "calls" us to be sanctified," and "commands" us to be sanctified, and promises the blessing, and prays that we may have it, and baptizes with the Holy Spirit for that purpose. And the Spirit witnesses to the blessing.

Has God deceived us? Is it all untrue? It cannot be. The Savior is longing to purify our hearts and

"fill us with the Holy Ghost, and all the fullness of God."

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CHAPTER XVII -- SANCTIFICATION (continued)

A Christian Obligation and How to Obtain the Blessing.

I. Christians are under obligation to be sanctified. Eph. 5: 18, "Be filled with the Spirit.'' Hab. 2: 3, "Though it tarry wait for it, because it will surely come." Mal. 3: 1, "The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to His temple." 1 Cor. 3: 11, "Ye are the temple of God."

1. This is a universal obligation of all Christians. This is not supposed to be the case; but there can be no question about it. The ringing exhortation of the Bible is, "Let us cease to speak of the first principles and press on (be borne on) unto perfection." Who shall say that this command, "Be filled with the Spirit," is not as imperative as the command not to steal? It is not optional with the believer whether to have this blessing or not. It is his imperative duty, as soon as the Holy Sanctifier sheds light on this truth, for the young believer to go forward and seek and obtain the blessing.

The neglect to obey God's positive command, "Be ye holy for I am holy," involves a risk of the forfeiture of the justified relation that no person should rashly assume.

But Bishop Taylor declared: "This is not merely a question of the personal salvation of the individual, but one on which hangs conditionally the salvation of the world. The power of the church will be proportionate to the holiness of her individual members. . . . Why is it that we grapple so feebly and ineffectively with Mohammedanism, and the various forms of heathenism?

Why is it that even in Christian countries comparatively so few even profess to be loyal to God?

Why is it that the large majority of our children brought up at our family altars, and trained in the nursery of our churches, the Sunday school, go out into the world unblushing rebels against God?

"Why is it that the Christian Church, instead of pushing a bold, aggressive warfare, under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, is quietly reposing in barracks and spiritual hospitals, maintaining a feeble defensive, and unable to resist the forces of worldliness and sin, and the corrupting tide of infidelity itself? It is a want of heart purity in her individual members. We have a sickly, dwarfish type of Christianity which is proving itself to a demonstration quite inadequate to meet the demands of her mission to save the world,"

Mrs. Catherine Booth, in one of her magnificent addresses, said: "What a tide of lamentation and mourning reaches us all round the land as to the deadness, coldness, and dearth of Christian Churches! We cannot help feeling that there is a great want somewhere. The Gospel is the same power that it ever was, 'the power of God unto salvation' where then is the lack? I say most unhesitatingly that the great want is the power of the Holy Ghost."

"What numbers of ministers, elders, deacons, leaders, Sabbath-school teachers, and the like have come to me confessing that they have been working with little results. This is how I account for a want of results, the want of the direct, pungent, enlightening, convicting, restoring, transforming power of the Holy Ghost. Let me remind you, and it makes my soul almost reel when I think of it, that God holds us responsible for all the good we might do if we had this Holy Spirit power. Do not deceive yourself. He will have the five talents with their increase. He will not have an excuse for one. He will say: "You knew where you could have got the power. You knew the conditions.

You might have had it. Where are the souls you might have saved? O friends, these are solemn and awful realities."

Finney said: "If we are not filled with the Spirit, our guilt amounts to disobedience to God. It amounts to all the good we might do if we had the Spirit of God in as great, measure as possible, but good which is now all undone because we are without this power. Our guilt is also measured by all the evil we do in consequence of not having the Spirit."

2. Each true Christian may seek this blessing with full assurance that he may obtain it. Whatever is obligatory upon believers, each believer may realize in his own life. Only be sure you are a son or a daughter of God in a justified state. Have the witness of the Spirit that you are born again; then never entertain a doubt that you are an heir of all the covenant blessings and promised grace of God. "The promise is unto all ... even as many as the Lord our God shall call." He has told each one of us: "This is the will of God even your sanctification." "For God hath called you unto sanctification" (1 Thess. 4: 3, 7).

3. Christians of any age or degree of Christian experience may hopefully seek the blessing. This is literally true. It is not a question of education or culture or years in Christian service. People unable to read have had a marvelous anointing of the Spirit, while profound theologians and ripe scholars have missed the way. I have known a child just entering her teens to receive the filling of the Spirit unto sanctification, while in the name family were two generations of elders, of one and two score years of Christian experience, and gray in honors and service, who were as far from the great prize as when they first began the Christian life.

John Wesley wrote: "We have all been wanting. We have not made it a rule as soon as ever persons are justified, to remind them of going on to perfection. Whereas this is the very time preferable to all others. They have then the simplicity of little children, and they are fervent in spirit, ready to cut off a right hand, or to pluck out a right eye. But if we once suffer this fervor to subside, we shall find it hard enough to bring them again even to this point." He tells us of a young girl, Grace Paddy, who was convicted of sin, converted to God, and renewed in love all within twelve hours.

4. None should be discouraged by the time occupied in the preparatory process. It may take days, or weeks, or months, according as we are apt pupils of the Master. The Disciples at Pentecost prayed for the blessing ten days. Dear Dr. Keen and his wife sought together the "enduement of power from on high" for seven days; and the great blessing came that never left him, until he was glorified, after a quarter of a century of triumphant service. Some get the blessing the first time they ever hear it preached. Remember, God will wait no longer than you make it necessary for Him to wait, by your own failure in complying with the conditions. Only seek Him with all your hearts, with patience and perseverance. "If the blessing tarry, wait for it. It will surely come. It will not tarry."

5. Avoid forming any preconceived opinion or plan as to what your experience shall be when the blessing comes upon you. Some souls have a thrilling, overwhelming experience, when the Sanctifier comes. These are the experiences that are most likely to find their way into print, and they sometimes produce discouragement in others. Mrs. Jonathan Edwards, and Finney and Moody, and Carradine, and others had an excess of glory pour through their being that overwhelmed them. Yet Dr. Carradine sweetly writes: "It is not a necessary feature of sanctification. The majority do not have such an excess of feeling. It is a purifying and filling of the soul rather than a prostration of the body." Some laugh; some shout; some weep. Some are possessed by a heavenly calm. It matters not which, so the heart is cleansed.

6. The Lord whom ye seek "shall suddenly come." John Wesley reached these correct principles: (1) Christian perfection implies deliverance from all sin.

(2) It is received merely by faith.

(3) It is instantaneously given, in a moment.

(4) We are not to expect it at death but every moment. He wrote: "As long as we thought it was to come gradually, we had few witnesses to full salvation. . . . The body of sin, the carnal mind must be destroyed; "the old man" must be slain, or we can not put on 'the new man' which is created after God in righteousness. But this is done in a moment. To talk of this work being gradual would be nonsense, as much as if we talked of gradual justification."

II. Conditions of Receiving the Blessing. Multitudes of Christians wish to get rid of the carnal mind that is enmity against God. Many are weary of moral defeats, and would like to enter upon a life of victory. Large numbers long for a relief from internal conflicts and sigh for cleansing of heart and soul, for purity and power.

Well, their hunger and thirst may be satisfied. There are some spiritual conditions to be complied with, and then the longed-for goal will be fully reached.

1. The First Condition is a Conviction of Want. Black Amanda Smith wrote: "When I was convicted for holiness, I was in a clearly justified state; I had no doubt about my acceptance with God. When I was converted it was a conviction of guilt; now it was a conviction of want. As the hart panted after the water-brook, so my soul panted after God, the living God."

Now this dear saint's conviction of want is usually the first condition of receiving the Holy Spirit.

Hence Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit" those who are conscious of a soul need of something more. Nothing short of this deep sense of need will lead one to earnestly seek the blessing. Hannah Whitehall Smith, after eight years of Christian experience said: "My heart was ill at ease. ... I resolved, I wrestled, I strove, and I lashed myself up to attain to more faithfulness. But all in vain! I said, If this is all the Christian life has to offer, it is a bitterly disappointing thing."

Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote about herself: "There is an undercurrent of perplexity and unhappiness about my spiritual state. Why am I thus restless? Why do I not have all God wants me to have? Ah, why not? Every effort of mine breaks like a wave upon a rock. We reason, reflect, resolve and pray, weep, strive, love, love to despair, and all is vain,"

Andrew Murray wrote: "The believer must be convicted and brought to the confession of being in the carnal stale. What may be termed a second conviction of the utter impotence of the flesh to do good, and its mighty power to do evil. "Blessed are those who have such a conviction. It is a sign that God is moving on their hearts for sanctification

2. The Second Condition is Repentance. Unless Christians were sanctified immediately after conversion, and were converted early in life, they will certainly grieve for having kept the sanctifying Savior out of His full possession of their nature so long, and for the resulting failures of life. A Christian lady once said to the writer: "How can God ever forgive my past?" "Blessed are they that mourn," for wrong words spoken, questionable deeds done, duties neglected, opportunities wasted, usefulness impaired, cleansing deferred, holiness hindered, and perhaps souls lost because they did not have clean hearts filled with the Holy Spirit.

3. A Third Condition is to feel its importance. The one hundred and twenty in the upper chamber have been commissioned to represent Jesus, and disciple the world! How would they feel about it?

Peter would remember his fickleness and blasphemy, and lying, and cowardice. Thomas would remember his doubting, and James and John their unholy ambition, and Martha her fretting. Mrs.

Catherine Booth said: "God never gave this gift to any soul who had not come to the point where he would sell all he had to get it." Torrey said: "No man ever got this blessing who thought he could get along without it." We can imagine those disciples fell before the Lord, and cried: "O

Lord, we are not like these; as we are we cannot represent thee before men, and in our helplessness we cannot face our enemies and thine and overcome them. We might as well die, here and now, as to attempt to overcome the world, as we are. Take all sin, and fear out of our hearts and make us like thee. Give us the enduement of power." They wanted the blessing, and cried for it, as hungry children cry for bread.

4. Another Condition is to believe that the Promise is for you. Not merely for Paul and John, and John Wesley, and Finney, but for you. Dr. Daniel Steele writes: "I took the promise, 'verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it you.' I wrote my name in the promise, making it read, 'I say unto you, Daniel Steele.' "Dr. A. J. Gordon wrote: "The filling of the Spirit belongs to us as a covenant privilege," because we are the children of God. Dr.

Lowrey wrote: "It is a prime necessity to bring yourself to the conviction that sanctification is for you. The Scripture affords ample ground for such a blessed faith.

1. Jesus prayed for it. John 17: 17.

2. Jesus died for it. Eph. 5: 25 and Heb. 13: 12.

3. God wills it. 1 Thess. 4: 3. 1 Thess. 5: 24.

4. God promises it. 1 Thess. 5: 24.

5. God commands it, 1 Pet. 1: IS.

What more ground of confidence can any soul demand, that you may seek this blessing, with the expectation of receiving it? The blessing is for you.

5. Hunger and thirst for it. "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." One must desire the blessing intensely, with a real craving of soul. A lazy, indifferent, feeble desire never obtained this blessing. We once said to an audience: "You may pray for the baptism with the Holy Spirit until your tongues are tired; but as long as you fight holiness, and reject it, He will not come (1 Thess. 4: 7, 8). On the way out of church, a lady said: "I see my mistake; I have long prayed for the Holy Spirit, but all the time I have opposed holiness. I now see that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of holiness." She consented to be sanctified and at once the Spirit came.

David B. Updegraff, the saintly Quaker, writes as follows: "I hated pride, ambition, evil tempers, and vain thoughts, but I had them for all that. There came into my heart a great hunger and thirst to be filled with the fullness of God." Anna M. Hammer, a great temperance worker, writes: "Finally a great hunger of soul came on me. I knew that nothing but the 'anointing that abideth' would satisfy my soul. I was in deep conviction for three days in an agony of tears, as one said to me 'dying hard'

But all this time, the hunger and aching increased, till I could no longer resist the pleadings of the Spirit." Hannah Whitehall Smith says: "I began to long after holiness. . . . My whole heart panted after entire conformity to the will of God."

Rev. J. O. Peck, D. D., writes: "A deep heart hunger began to be realized for a clean heart. I was not backslidden and my ministry was never more fruitful; but the hunger of my soul grew more imperious. I went to a holiness camp meeting and confessed how I was hungering,' It will be noticed in what similar language all these people depict the deep longing of their souls for a holy heart. The forerunner of sanctification is usually a desire for it so intense that it can be fitly likened to "hunger and thirst," as Jesus said.

6. The Sixth Condition is Obedience. God says: "He gives the Holy Spirit to them that obey Him"

(Acts S: 32). An illustration is furnished by the Bible itself of this condition. Jesus told the five hundred believers to tarry in Jerusalem till they were baptized with the Holy Spirit, the blessing promised of the Father which they should soon receive. Only one hundred and twenty obeyed, Jesus had promised the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him (Luke 11: 13) And He commanded His followers to tarry and pray for the blessing till it came. They obeyed, and prayed in that upper chamber, and the blessing came. How many got the blessing? The one hundred and twenty who obeyed. Who failed to receive it? Those who did not obey. Obedience means obeying in everything.

Mr. Torrey tells of a woman who prayed and struggled for this blessing until people thought she would go crazy in the intensity of her desire. Every time she prayed some little gew-gaw in her hair was the sticking point with her. She prayed and prayed and that would come up every time. At last, one day, when in prayer, she put her hand to her head and tore it from her hair, and threw it across the room. Immediately the Spirit came because she had settled a principle that she would obey God.

Mrs. Maggie Van Cott of the United States has led seventy-five thousand souls to Christ. When she was converted she laid aside all her jewelry, of which she had been vain, but one ring. As often as she prayed for sanctification, the Spirit said: "Put away your ring." At last, one day, when dealing with seekers at the altar, she saw that her ring was attracting the attention of a seeker and she took it off. Immediately the Spirit came. She had settled it, that she would obey the slightest whisper of God. We know of a man who prayed in agony for hours until he consented to give up selling tobacco in his store. He did not use it; but God would not even let him sell it, and be sanctified.

We know another man to seek the blessing at the altar for nine days until he consented to leave the Masonic lodge. Nobody can get the blessing and have any controversy with God. Whatever the Spirit condemns in habit or life must be given up in the spirit of implicit obedience, or it is useless to seek His sanctifying work in the heart.

7. The Seventh Condition is full consecration. God's Word is: "Present yourselves unto God as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." Consecration is the actual present surrender to God of our whole being and all we possess. It is the turning over of ourselves to the Lord to be owned and used by Him, just as a master owns a slave. The ground of it is Christ's ownership. He created us. He preserves us. He bought us with His blood. He has a triple right to us, and in consecration we recognize the right. Consecration is not an act of feeling.

It is an act of will. It can be performed without feeling. It is a simple recognition of God's claim upon us for the service of all our God-given powers. Rev. B. K. Pierce, D. D., writes: "On my knees I wrote out an entire surrender of myself, body, soul, and substance; and all pertaining to me, and I solemnly signed my name to it."

Rev. Isaiah Reid presents this as a proper form of consecration for this blessing: "O Lord, in view of this thing thou hast besought of me to do, I hereby now do really consecrate myself unreservedly to Thee, for all time and eternity. My time, my talents, my hands, feet, lips, will, my all, my property, my reputation, my friends and family, my entire being, a living sacrifice to be, and to do, all thy righteous will; for the cleansing of my nature from indwelling sin, I seek the sanctification of my soul."

Prof. Dougan Clark, the Friend, says: "The essence of consecration is in the sentence, 'yield yourselves unto God.' When you yield yourselves you yield everything else. Consecration is not to God's service, or His work, or to the church, or to the missionary cause, but to God Himself. Yield yourselves unto God." Consecration does not mean the giving up of your sins, or vices, or depraved appetites, or forbidden indulgences. We cannot consecrate our alcohol, or our tobacco, or our opium, or our card-playing, or dancing or theater-going. He wants none of these things.

Actual and known sins must be abandoned at conversion.

He wants all the good things; the son Isaac, most precious to our heart, laid on the altar.

An English periodical had this:

"I am willing

To receive what Thou givest.

To lack what Thou withholdest.

To relinquish what Thou takest.

To suffer what Thou inflictest.

To be what Thou requirest.

To do what Thou commandest. Amen."

Amanda Smith says: "You must make your consecration complete and you must make it eternal."

8. The Last Condition is Faith. One might take all the seven steps already described, and still remain without the blessing.

The Children of Israel marched out of Egypt and entirely across the desert to the very border of the Promised Land, and halted on the wrong side of the border. For lack of faith they did not get into Canaan. Jude says: "The Lord having saved a people out of the land of Egypt destroyed them that believed not the second time" (v. 5). With faith, they might have gone in before sundown. Jesus said: "Sanctified by faith that is in me" (Acts 26: 18). We receive the promise of the Spirit through faith," said Paul (Gal. 3: 14). "Our hearts are purified by faith" (Acts 15: 8, 9), all other conditions lead to this and without faith, and all of them would end in failure.

Dr. A. J .Gordon wrote: "It is the duty and privilege of believers to receive the Holy Ghost for sanctification, by a definite act of appropriating faith, just as we received Jesus Christ by faith for justification. It is as sinners that we accept Christ by faith for justification; it is as sons, that we accept the Spirit by faith for sanctification"

Dr. Steele says: "My faith had three things to master; the Spirit, for me, now!" Upon the promise I ventured with an act of appropriating faith, claiming the Comforter as my right, in the name of Jesus. For several hours I clung by naked faith. Suddenly, I became conscious of a mysterious power . . . melting my heart."

Dr. Carradine says: "Is everything upon the altar? If so, who is the altar? Paul tells you it is Christ.

What does the altar do? God says: "The altar sanctifies the gift." Will you take God at His word?

You must believe that Christ makes you holy right now. Will you take that step, and receive full salvation? Plant yourself on God's Word. Dare to believe it, and hold on till the witness comes."

Andrew Murray says: "Who are ready to come into this life and claim their heritage as a child of God?"

(1) Say tonight. I must be filled with the Spirit.

(2) I may be filled with the Spirit. God does not give a must without a may.

(3) I would be filled with the Spirit. I long for it.

(4) I shall be filled with the Spirit. O God, I give myself to Thee eternally. I claim the filling of the Spirit. Thou givest it."

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CHAPTER XVIII -- OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED

I. Doctrinal and Philosophical Objections. It is one of the marvels of a thinking mind, and one of the strongest proofs of the Divinity of Christianity that it has escaped annihilation from the falsities of its own friends and defenders,-false lives, false doctrines, or false philosophies. There is not a Christian doctrine that has not been perverted, travestied, or denied by learned theologians, nor an error that has not been defended by texts of Scripture. The precious doctrine of sanctification has not escaped.

1. Here is the theory of Dr. Hodge. Laying on us the guilt of Adam's sin and holding us responsible for the entailed corruption, in every sense, his picture of Sin is painted in too dark colors, and needlessly offends every sense of justice, and every conception of divine goodness in the heart of man. His standard of holiness is as much too high. He tells us that no allowances can be made for the natural infirmities, the unavoidable limitations of human faculties consequent upon the fall, the errors of judgment, the lapses of memory, the mistaken conceptions of duty and propriety. The law of God requires of us such absolute holiness as might have been required of Adam's posterity if he had never sinned. ^The thing to be done is to turn from sin to holiness; to love God perfectly and our neighbor as ourselves; to perform every duty without defect or omission, and keep ourselves, from all sin of word, thought and deed of heart and life. Can any man do this? Every one knows two things as clearly and perfectly as he knows his own existence; first that he is bound to be morally perfect and to avoid all sin of feeling as well as act; and, secondly, that he can no more do it than he can raise the dead." "Man is utterly disabled and enfeebled by moral inability, through inherited corruption; he is still under obligation to be perfectly holy, for obligation is not measured by ability. God requires holiness, and holiness is impossible!" (Vol. IT, p. 271; Vol. Ill, p. 2S8).

If this is true, hard indeed is our lot. God is a hard master, driving us to attempt an impossible feat, and on our quivering, straining back, paralyzed with inability, He pitilessly lays the lash of obligation. There is nothing for us here, but a life of hopeless sinning, and consequent agony of heart, for which, all the blood of Christ, affords no adequate help. No healing balm. To command men to be holy under such circumstances is tyranny; and to strive for it is unutterable folly.

2. The Oberlin Philosophy is quite as fatal in its way to any propagation of holiness.

President Finney had a marvelous experience, but a faulty philosophy on this subject. He held a peculiar theory of sin and depravity. All sin was in the wrong use of the will. Moral quality could be affirmed of nothing else. He consequently denied that man's nature was morally depraved.

Oberlin also adopted the view of "The Unity or simplicity of moral action." According to this theory there can be no mixed character. "A man cannot be holy and sinful at the same time. A man's obedience is entire or he does not obey at all. It is nonsense to talk of a holiness that consists with sin. It would of course follow that every moral agent is always, "as sinful or holy as with their knowledge they can be. Regeneration is an instantaneous change from entire sinfulness to entire holiness." "The only sense in which obedience is partial is that it may be intermittent." Therefore the only thing to be expected of sanctification is the confirmation of the will in its right choice.

President Fairchild, the latest exponent of these views who has written, says: "One of the most obvious consequences of the doctrine is, that conversion is entire consecration (sanctification); that the earliest obedience of the sinner is entire obedience, and that his moral state is entirely approved of God."

Now there is something wrong with this philosophy; for its conclusions are at war with Scripture, consciousness, and universal experience.

1. It locates all sin of every kind in the attitude of the will, and accepts but one Scripture definition of sin, viz., "Sin is the transgression of the law." This means actual sin,-a willful act of disobedience. But there is, as we have pointed out, and the Greek lexicon shows, another kind of sin, indwelling sin, inbred sin, and carnality. The Bible says, "All unrighteousness (unrightness) is sin." This refers to the disordered state of that vast realm in the nature of man that lies back of the will, in his thoughts, feelings, imaginations, passions, appetites and desires, of which our enlightened conscience, and the law of holiness takes cognizance. The Greek Lexicon of the New Testament calls this, "A principle or cause of sin; proneness to sin; sinful propensity." In regeneration and justification we receive pardon for actual sin; but there is still left a proneness to sin, an opposing element in the sensibility, which does not obey the will. It produces uprisings of anger, strivings of pride, evil imaginations, envies, jealousies, lusts that find an expression in every regenerated man, until sanctified. Together they form a state of heart that is unrighteousness-unrightness, and the Bible calls it "sin."

2. To hold that a Christian believer in every moral act is as good or bad as he can be, and that the least sudden sin of a warmhearted Christian plunges him to the level of the worst sinner, is too great a tax on credulity to be accepted. Finney says: "These sinful or holy states can succeed each other an indefinite number of times for aught we can see."

Now this "intermittent," "vibratory," "alternating" theory of moral character is certainly opposed by the unanimous testimony of multitudes of immature but earnest Christians. They love Jesus, and would die for Him, and have the witness of the Spirit to their sonship. But they are conscious, like the Galatians that "the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh." They know they are living a kind of mixed life, not altogether holy. If it is only, as Fairchild says, "The mixture of alternation," then we ask with Dr. Daniel Steele, if "Jesus Christ has any immediate salvation from the mixture of alternation." Christians are everywhere longing to be rid of this state, by whatever name called.

3. This philosophy stands in the way of obtaining, or teaching others the Scriptural experience of sanctification. Signally useful as that beloved man of God, President Finney, was, I cannot but believe that he would have led many more into the experience of sanctification, had he held a different philosophy. He himself had experienced a marvelous baptism with the Holy Spirit, which made him an example to the world of "holiness and power." But when he tried to lead others into an experience similar to his own, something stood in his way. President Mahan says of him: "No one ever disciplined believers so severely, and with such intense and tireless patience as Brother Finney. Appalled at the backsliding which followed his revivals, he put forth the most earnest efforts to induce among believers permanence in the divine life. He gathered his theological students together and instructed them in renunciation of sin, consecration to Christ, and purpose of obedience. They would renew their renunciations, consecrations, and purpose, with all the intensity with which their natures were capable. But they were not told to exercise faith for the blessing; and all their human efforts and consecrations, ended in dismal failure, and left them in groaning bondage, under the law of sin and death." If he had only told I hem to exercise their faith in Jesus, and receive the Holy Spirit /is their Sanctifier, "to will and to do" in them, they would have received the establishing and keeping blessing.

4. The Oberlin teachers confounded consecration with sanctification. Four times in the space of two pages, President Finney defines sanctification as "entire consecration." President Fairchild follows the same line of thought, and makes sanctification consist in, "establishment in consecration," so that there shall be no more "alternation of the will." This is a careless confusion of thought in these great men. Consecration is not sanctification, and no establishment in it can be, however permanent. Consecration is only the condition of sanctification, but not the thing itself.

Consecration is man's part of the preparatory work,-wholly man's act of self-devotement to God; Sanctification is God's act of cleansing the believer. Jesus prayed, "Father, sanctify them," and Paul prayed: "Now the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly." No dependence here upon vows and renunciations and consecrations. It is the work of God in response to our consecrations and faith.

5. The Oberlin teachers, like so many others, make sanctification a matter of growth. Fairchild starts his chapter on sanctification thus: "The growth and establishment of the believer, the development in him of the graces of the Gospel, is called sanctification." "We may use the word in the theological sense as a convenient term to designate Christian growth, and progress, and establishment."

Now this "growth" method, by man's toilings and strivings, differs absolutely from God's method of sanctifying. Even Webster's Dictionary defines sanctification as the "act of God's grace whereby the affections of men are purified or alienated from sin and the world, and exalted to a supreme love to God." Sanctification, then, is not reached by the slow growth of man, but is instantaneously wrought in us by an "act of God." This is the uniform teaching of Scripture (see Acts 15: 8, 9).

Inbred sin is a unit, a simple element, a principle; therefore it cannot be removed by a gradual process. Inbred sin cannot be grown out of the heart, any more than weeds can be grown out of the garden; it must be destroyed. Growth in grace is not a destroying, a washing, a crucifying or a cleansing process. Entire sanctification is all of these a cleansing, a destroying, a crucifying, a death, a washing, a purification. Growth in grace has respect to addition, to development; while the idea of entire sanctification or heart cleansing is the subtraction or removal of defilement. One is an enlargement, the other a destruction.

Moreover, growth never changes the nature of anything; hence, a regenerate soul cannot grow pure any more than a sinner can grow pardoned or regenerate. At one moment the sinner is guilty, at the next he is pardoned by an act of God. At one moment the believer has an impure heart, at the next his heart is purified by an act of God,-"justified by faith" (Rom. 5:1). "Sanctified by faith" (Acts 26: 18). The process is as instantaneous as faith" (Ben Mullen, M. A., A Tremendous Awakening, pp. 102, 103).

6. The Oberlin philosophy rejects the idea of purification in sanctification. But the dictionary defines it as the "act of God's grace whereby the affections of men are purified." This is Scriptural.

The root meaning of the word in the Scripture is, "cleansed, purified." But there is no cleansing or purification in either Fair-child's definition or discussion of sanctification. Indeed according to this philosophy there is nothing to be cleansed from. However corrupt and defiled the sensibilities may be, nothing is needed but to get the will "established" and cured of "alternation." Somehow this does not sound like the Bible. God promised: "From all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you . . . and I will save you from all your uncleannesses" (Ezek. 36: 26-29).

"Purifying your hearts by faith" (Acts 15: 9).

7. Again, President Fairchild argues against the notion of a "sudden uplift of soul into a life of holiness." "The gospel does not provide a spiritual elevator which one may enter, and be lifted at once to the heights of spiritual vision." It would be a sufficient answer to this argument to say,

"Pentecost," a repetition of which would be a wonderful "spiritual elevator," for the church of today, and it was sudden. In, London, John Wesley found six hundred and fifty-two people whose sanctification he could not doubt. Every one declared that his deliverance was instantaneous; that the change was wrought in a moment.

8. President Fairchild denies the second work of grace. He writes: "The idea has been set forth of receiving Christ as our sanctification in a second experience, as we receive Him as our justification in the experience of conversion. There is no proper basis for the idea."

We only need to say in answer to this that in all the New Testament, no sinner is invited to be sanctified; none but Christian believers are eligible to the blessing or can receive it. Every person in the New Testament who received the Pentecostal baptism with the Holy Spirit was already a believer; and each had a marvelous second experience. President Mahan, the first president of Oberlin College, writes of himself: "The first eighteen years of my Christian life, I lived and walked in the dim twilight of that semi-faith, which fully knows Christ in the sphere of justification by faith, but knows almost nothing of Him in the sphere of sanctification by faith. But one day, when praying for the baptism with the Holy Spirit, there came an instantaneous passage from the dimmest twilight to cloudless noon; and for fifty years I have had the grace to walk with God in cloudless sunlight, in which "we are complete in Christ." Sanctification, like pardon, I found in experience to be an instantaneous work. Propensities which, from childhood up, and not less during the first years of my Christian life, than during my impenitency had had absolute control when excited, in a moment lost utterly and forever their power."

Now here is President Mahan's Scriptural experience, against President Fairchild's unscriptural theory. Which shall we accept as the truth?

9. Again, President Fairchild makes sanctification "a term to designate Christian growth and progress, and development." His idea is, grow sufficiently, and you will be sanctified. But the Scripture theory is precisely the reverse of this, viz., be sanctified, cleansed from all sin, that you may grow the Christian graces, just as you kill the weeds in the garden that the vegetables may have a chance to grow. Get carnality out of the heart, and then you can grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." A man cannot grow "into" a grace; but he can grow in it, after God puts him into it. Sanctification is the great condition of rapid growth in grace, and must necessarily precede it.

10. President Fairchild denies that there are two works of grace. He says: "One of the mischievous implications and inferences of the doctrine of instantaneous sanctification by a special experience is that there is a form of religious life which is much below holiness, a justified, not a sanctified state. It does not seem possible to guard the doctrine of special sanctification, whatever its form from this false impression."

In other words there are no two works of grace, no special sanctification apart from justification.

Indeed! Then what a blundering theologian the Apostle Paul was! Nine times he prays that the Christians of the various churches may become holy and sanctified. Thirteen times his inspired lips command Christians to go on to sanctification and perfection and holiness. Either the blessed Apostle Paul was a deluded man, or this philosophy is false.

We have thus examined the teaching of Oberlin at length, because it covers most of the errors afloat in the minds of the people concerning this great truth; also because Dr. Huntington, and other Methodist writers, are copying these Oberlin arguments, and using them against the true Methodist and Scriptural doctrine of sanctification.

This philosophy has been a great spiritual detriment to Oberlin. It will ruin the vital power of any school or church or community, or any Christian denomination that accepts it. It will keep the children of God from their birthright privilege of holiness and power.

The Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church said in 1824: "If Methodists give up the doctrine of entire sanctification, or suffer it to become a dead letter, we are a fallen people. Holiness is the main cord, which binds us together. The original design of Methodism was to raise up and preserve a holy people."

The saddest sign in the religious sky today is the fact that so many Methodist ministers and churches are so neglecting this great central idea of Methodism. This accounts for the sad decline in the revival power which that church once had. Her theology is the best in the world. She ought to take the world for God and holiness. Her doctrine of sanctification we have given in these pages.

II. Perverted texts examined. There are a few passages of Scripture which seem, on the face of them, to be against the doctrine of sanctification. They have long been a "soothing syrup" to the chronic babies in Christ who love spiritual baby-hood. Professors of religion, who are still willing to be "conformed to the world" hide behind these texts, so that they are reached by no appeals to move up to a higher life. We will examine some of them.

1. Take 1 Kings 8: 46, "If they sin against Thee (for there is no man that sinneth not) and thou be angry with them." Now this cannot teach the perpetual sinfulness of the saints, for, in the forty-eighth verse, they repent with "all their heart and soul." Hebrew scholars and professors tell us that the parenthesis ought to be rendered, "for there is no man who may not sin." The word sinneth is in the future tense, the only form in the Hebrew for expressing the potential mood. The Latin Vulgate of the Roman Catholic Church translates it, "non peccet"-"may not sin."

2. The same criticism and correction apply to Eccl. 7: 20, "For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good and sinneth not." It should read, "and may not sin," as the Vulgate, and Septuagint and ancient versions read (Steele's "Half Hours," pp. 153-155).

3. Job 9: 2, 3, "How shall a man be just with God?" Dr. Morgan, a life long teacher of Hebrew, says: "These words say nothing at all on the question of constant sinfulness. They speak of past sins, so that on the ground of sinless perfection from the commencement of life, no man can be just with God."

4. Job 9: 20, "If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me." Dr. Steele comments thus:

"This verse lies just as strongly against justification as against sanctification. In the evangelical sense in which God is the justifier and the sanctifier of the believer in His Son, it contradicts neither. Job disclaims only justification by works, and absolute perfection (Job 1: 8-22; 27: 3-6).

5. Ps. 14: 23, "There is none that doeth good." Paul quotes this in Rom. 3: 10 as a proof of universal depravity. But it does not at all militate against our privilege as believers, through regenerating and sanctifying grace, to live without sin.

6. Ps. 130: 3, "If thou shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?" "But there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared." Says Dr. Morgan, "Not a syllable is dropped from which we could gather that the Psalmist refers to present sin. Is it for present, unrepented sin that there is forgiveness?"

7. Isaiah 64: 6, "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags."

Evidently the prophet speaks here in the name of backslidden Jews; for two verses before, he speaks of those who work righteousness. "The passage as a whole is not against the doctrine of holiness," says Dr. Morgan, "but decidedly sustains it."

8. Prov. 20: 9, "Who can say, I have made my heart clean. I am pure from all sin?" Such interrogative sentences are often intended to express a universal negative; but not always; as is shown by Prov. 31: 9, "Who can find a virtuous woman?" The context shows that the writer did not mean that there were no virtuous women, but that they were rare. So the men with clean hearts and pure from sin are rare.

9. Rom. 7: 14-25. This long passage is held by those who oppose the doctrine of sanctification to be a picture of St. Paul's best Christian experience, and of all believers in their most exalted state.

Such an interpretation in support of the doctrine of unavoidable and continuous sin is utterly untenable for the following reasons:

(1) It contradicts all Paul has declared about his life, and his testimony that "he had lived holily and unblameably" (1 Thess. 2: 10).

(2) It contradicts utterly both the sixth chapter and the eighth chapter. In the sixth chapter, the Apostle throughout urges Christians to no longer live in the sinful state, but have the "old man"

crucified and destroyed, and be "dead to the sin" and "freed from the sin" (so the Greek reads) and

"have fruit unto sanctification and the end thereof eternal life" (Rom. 6: 19-22). And the eighth chapter depicts the sanctified life,-a picture wholly unlike that of the seventh chapter.

(3) The last verse of the seventh chapter declares there is victory over carnality "through Jesus Christ our Lord," and Paul had it, and describes it in the eighth chapter.

(4) The interpretation of the seventh chapter as a Christian experience makes Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and the Gospel, as great a failure as the law in redeeming men from sin."

(5) The Greek Fathers for the first three hundred years held that Romans, seventh chapter, was a portrait of a sinner and not of a Christian at all. Augustine, to rob Pelagius of two proof-texts, originated the theory that the chapter was the picture of a regenerated man, and his interpretation was held even to the time of Luther and Calvin. But thirty-three great modern scholars and interpreters go back to the earlier view, which is the correct one. No Christian is a groaning captive "sold under sin."

(6) Fletcher interprets as follows: "In Rom. 7: 4-6, Paul shows how as an unawakened sinner, he was roused. In the 7th verse he was made a conscious convicted sinner, struggling with sin. Now he has already used the past tense, and from here on, for vividness of style, he uses the present tense to picture himself (when a legal Jew); as the representative of every one struggling with 'the sin' 'the indwelling carnal mind' Paul frequently wrote thus for vividness (see 1 Cor. 4: 6; 1 Cor.

13: 1-3; Rom. 3:7). Paul was no more a liar in Rom. 3: 7, or uncharitable in 1 Cor. 13: 1-3, than he was a carnal slave to sin in Rom. 7: 14. So we conclude that whether Paul in this famous passage was picturing a carnal sinner or a carnal Christian, he was certainly not picturing his own best experience nor the best possible experience of any Christian. His own best experience is drawn in the sixth and eighth chapters of Romans, and in 1 Thess. 2: 10, and other places. In St.

Paul's mature experience he was not a bond slave, 'carnal, sold under sin' making miserable abortive efforts to do good and avoid evil. He was 'sanctified' and 'holy and acceptable to God/

and living 'holily' and unblameably, as may be inferred, also, from seventy-five passages in which he urges such a life upon others."

10. Phil. 3: 12-14, "Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect," etc. This is the chosen text for preachers to fight holiness with. But they studiously avoid verses 11 and 15. Paul was earnestly coveting resurrection perfection (v. 11), which is the object of the verb, "obtained,"

in the twelfth verse, which of course Paul had not yet secured. This resurrection perfection is mentioned in the eleventh verse. But evangelical perfection, as a runner for the great prize, Paul did have, and professes it in the fifteenth verse. Thus lazy believers are robbed of another pillow of indolence on which they have laid their heads so long. The simple fact is, "the dogma of the constant moral imperfection of the saints" cannot stand by Scripture support.

11. Gal. 5: 17, "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary the one to the other so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." The Greek and the New Version reads, "so that ye may not do the things that ye would." The corrected translation takes away from the carnal another pillow of comfort and another excuse for sin.

12. 1 John 1: 8, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Many use this text to keep themselves and drive all others from the hope of holiness. On its face it does seem to declare that all Christians do sin continually. But this cannot be the sense, because it is contradicted by the seventh verse and the ninth verse. Surely a man whose "sins are all forgiven,"

and who has been "cleansed from all unrighteousness" does not have any sin or sins left in him to lie about.

It may be pertinent then to ask why St. John thus seemed to contradict himself. A little explanation will make all plain. A class of evil teachers had arisen called the Gnostics or Docetae, who denied the reality of Christ's incarnation and atonement, Christ only seemed to have a body, and seemed to die on the cross. They also taught that all sin was in matter, and that people could wallow in gluttony and debauchery, and still their souls would suffer no detriment, and they would

"have no sin." It was a subtle error that would have plunged the Christians lately converted from heathenism, back into all their carnal vices. So John wrote against it. In the first four verses he declared that Jesus had a real body, and was no phantom Christ, for he had "seen" him and

"handled" him.

Then the next six verses are written in antithetic pairs, the first verse of each pair being the truth of the Gospel; and the second verse of each pair being a blow at the false teaching of the Gnostics.

(v. 5) "God is light and in Him is no darkness at all." His children will walk in the light of moral purity and be like their Father, (v. 6) "If we say we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness (as you false teachers say and do) we lie and do not the truth."

The Apostle wrote "we" for politeness and policy; he meant, "You" seducers, who are living in licentiousness, while professing to be children of the light, (v. 7) "If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin." This is the Gospel of full salvation, (v. 8) this is the antithesis, another blow at the heresy,

"If we say that we have no sin, (and no need of a Savior from all past sins, as your vile teachers would have you believe) we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." You Gnostics affirm that your wicked vices are not wrong, and you commit no sin. You are simply deceiving yourselves.

The Docetae were the Christian scientists of their day, who denied the reality of sin." (v. 9) "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." This again is the blessed Gospel of salvation from all sin. God has a perfect cleansing for all. (v. 10) "If we say we have not sinned (have never sinned as these seducers say) we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us." Read verses 5, 7, 9 together and you have the Gospel of sanctification and full salvation. Read verses 6, 8, 10 together, and you have the Apostle's castigation of those who said they had no sin while practicing orgies of vice.

It is amazing that religious teachers should wrest this eighth verse from its connection and divinely intended meaning, and apply it to holy children of God professing sanctification, instead of applying it, as the Apostle intended, to the lustful seducers who were destroying the churches.

Again we say, that he who has the experience described in verses 7 and 9, would have no sin left in him to lie about. Jesus has made ample provision for us to be pardoned and sanctified, cleansed and saved from all sin. We have thus examined the passages which are quoted against the doctrine of sanctification; and we see that not one of them, correctly translated and interpreted, is against the doctrine. None of them teach the necessity of perpetual sinfulness. It is nonsense, akin to blasphemy, to teach that a holy God commands us to be holy, if sin is an unavoidable necessity.

III. Keswick and Kindred Teaching. Our answer to objections would not be complete unless we noticed the unscriptural teaching at Keswick and other places. Dr. Torrey says: "The Baptism of Christ has no direct reference to cleansing from sin. This is an important point, bear in mind, for many reasons. There is a line of teaching on this subject that leads men to expect that if they receive the baptism with the Holy Spirit, the old carnal nature will be eradicated. There is not a line of Scripture to support this position" Now we only need to put by the side of this monstrous statement just one passage of Scripture to show how utterly unscriptural It is. Acts15: 8, 9, "And God, who knoweth the heart, bare them witness, giving them (Cornelius and household) the Holy Ghost, even an he did unto us (at Pentecost); and he made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith." This answer is annihilating and complete.

But a crushing reply to Dr. Torrey can be obtained from his own utterances. We quote the following from a sermon of his preached in Edinburgh, Scotland: "The second thing the fire of the Holy Spirit does is to purify, or refine (Mal. 3: 1-3). Men and women, if the filth is on the outside with us it can be washed away with the water of the Word; but the trouble is that the filth is on the inside and what we need is the fire of the Holy Ghost, penetrating to the innermost depths of our being,-burning, burning, burning! cleansing, cleansing, cleansing! What a refining came to the apostles on the day of Pentecost! ... Oh! friends, cleansing is a very slow process by ordinary methods, but a baptism of fire does marvels in a moment. ... Oh isn't that what we Christians need tonight? A fire that will burn up all the self-seeking, and pride and worldliness of ours that are hindering the world from coming to Christ!" Now how Dr. Torrey can thus contradict himself is unaccountable. The Judgment Day will explain.

Dr. Webb-Peploe said at Keswick: "It is taught on this platform, as in every part of God's Word, that there are, to the very last hour of our life, upon earth, powers of corruption within every man which defile his very best deeds and give even to his holiest efforts, the nature of sin." Now if this is so, then the saintliest soul, on his knees in wrestling prayer for the salvation of others, is sinning!

Monstrous thought! That is only another way of stating the utterly unscriptural doctrine of necessary and continuous sin, from which the blood of Christ and the Holy Spirit, are entirely impotent to cleanse us.

These teachers tell us that "the old man," "indwelling sin," is restrained, and repressed and suppressed, but is never removed from the nature. Now the truth is, the Bible invariably uses words that teach the destruction or removal of the carnal mind. If God had wished to teach the suppression of carnality the words were at hand, and the Bible writers knew them. For instance.

1. (Katecho)-"to hold down" (Rom. 1: 18). If the carnal mind were to be held down, this word would have taught it.

2. (Sunecho)-"Constraineth" (2 Cor. 5:14). This word might have been used to teach restraint of carnality.

3. (deo)-"to bind or tie" (Mark 3: 27). That word might have been used.

4. (koluo)-"to withstand, to hinder" (Acts 11: 17). That word might have taught suppression.

5. (Sugkleio) - "to close, to shut up" (Gal. 3: 22). If the "old man" was "to be imprisoned," this word would have taught it.

6. (katapauo)-"to give rest or restraint" (Acts 14:18). If the "old man" was "to be restrained," that verb might have been used.

7. (krateo)-"to subdue," and (pnigo) which means to "stifle or choke" (Matt. 18: 28). These words would have taught subduing and choking the old man.

8. (hupopiazo)-"to hit beneath the eyes," and (doulagogo) - "to bring into slavery." Paul used both words in (1 Cor. 9: 27). These verbs might have been used-any and all of them, and they would have taught the suppression of carnality. But the Holy Spirit did not use one of them. Is it not strange that He did not, if the Keswick teaching is true?

Notice now what words the Spirit did use:

1. (apotithimi)-"to put off" (Eph. 4: 22). "Put off the old man."

2. (luo)-"to destroy" (1 John 3: 8)-"destroy the works of the devil."

3. (sunestauroo)-"to crucify with" (Rom. 6:6).

4. (katargeo)-"to destroy, to put an end to, and to annihilate" (Rom. 6: 6). Cremer says St. Paul always used the word in that sense.

5. (eleutheroo)-"to set free" (Rom. 8: 2). "Free from the law of sin and death." (Rom. 6: 22)

"Being made free from the sin."

6. (apekdusei)-"the putting off" (Col. 2: 11). "In the putting off of the body of the flesh."

7. (katharizo)-"to cleanse, to render pure." Used in Eph. 5: 26. "That he might sanctify it, having cleansed it." The word is used about cleansing from leprosy, in Matt. 8: 2, 3, and Luke 5: 13, "And immediately the leprosy departed from him."

8. (ekkathairo)-"to cleanse thoroughly, to purge out, to eliminate" (1 Cor. 5:7). "Purge out the old leaven" (2 Tim. 2:21). "If a man purge himself from these, he shall be sanctified. This text leaches that the man purged of carnality is sanctified.

9. (ekrizoo)-"to root up, to eradicate" (Matt. 15: 13). "Every plant which my Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up," God never planted carnality in the human heart.

Now we turn to the Old Testament.

1. Isaiah 1: 25, I will purely purge away (tsaraph) thy dross and take away (auor) all thy tin, 2. Ezek. 11: 19. "I will take away the stony heart." Ezek. 36: 29, "I will save you from all your uncleannesses."

3. Mal. 3:3. "He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver. So in the Old Testament we have, "Purge away," "take away," "purge," and "cleanse from." In the New Testament we have, "put off," "destroy," "crucify," "done away," "free from," "putting off,"

"eliminate," "root up," "mortify" (kill off at once, Col. 3:5).

Now every honest, unprejudiced mind must admit that each and all of these passages teach the removal of carnality or depravity. We love the Keswick teachers for what they are trying to do; but truth is truth, and before God we must say, these teachers have missed it.

The summer of 1912, a Keswick teacher publicly renounced the unscriptural notion of suppression, which they had been teaching for a score of years, and substituted for it the equally unscriptural word-"counteraction."

They forget to tell us in what passages the word is used in reference to depravity. We submit that

"counteract" does not mean "purge away," "take away," "put off," "destroy," "crucify," "free from,"

"eliminate," "root up," or "mortify."

Their language does not sound at all like God's language. God says: "They that are Christ's have

'crucified the flesh.' "They say "counteracted the flesh." The Bible says: "Purge out the old leaven"

(1 Cor. 5:7). How insipid to say, "counteract the old leaven." The Scripture says: "The blood cleanseth from all sin!" Heb. 9: 26 reads: "He appeared to put away all sin." How repulsive to make it read, "He appeared to counteract sin!" This new pet of Keswick is a most shabby substitute for the incisive, radical words of God. Take Acts 15: 9, "Purifying their hearts by faith,"

and make it read "counteracting their hearts by faith." How farfetched and unnatural! St. Paul wrote: "Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." Keswick would have it read, "Let us counteract (!) ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit." How unspeakably absurd!

Well does the great writer say: "What fools these mortals be!" How hard men strive to dodge God's plain and blessed truth! We are aware that very able physicians sometimes use counter-irritants to draw inflammation away from some inner part of the body that is seriously diseased, and cannot be directly reached by remedies. A case in point came to us only a few weeks ago. An American youth studied for two days so laboriously on a mathematical problem without sleep that he burst a blood-vessel in his head and became unconscious. Counter-irritants were used to draw away that inflammation and brain disturbance. As a last effort, his breast was repeatedly burned with a hot iron. But it succeeded. The boy lived to be a hero of the Civil War, a Major General, and a Governor of a State, and is still living a ripe, honored old age. Such extreme remedies are expected to end in complete cure. But Keswick teaching offers no cure. It offers only a perpetual counteraction for a life-long disease of indwelling sin. It might be symbolized by a perpetual fly-blister on the top of the head for a life-long brain fever, or the perpetual burning of the back of the neck with a hot iron to relieve an unrelievable, incurable cerebrospinal meningitis!

Depend upon it, the mighty; Christ has a more satisfactory and immediate cure for the malady of inbred sin. For a fuller discussion of this great subject see our "Holiness and Power," 386 pages, and "Pentecost Rejected," 100 pages.

* * * * * * *

CHAPTER XIX -- PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS

On this subject we shall use a somewhat modified argument of John Wesley, which is unanswerable, and further supplement it by arguments of our own.

"A short, plain treatise on this subject," said Wesley, "is what serious men have long desired, and what is here offered to those whom God has endowed with love and meekness of wisdom.

By the saints I mean those who are holy, or righteous in the judgment of God Himself; those who are endowed with the faith that purifies the heart, that produces a good conscience; those who are grafted into the good Olive tree, the Spiritual, invisible church; those who are branches of the true vine, of whom Christ says, "I am the vine; ye are the branches"; those who so effectually know Christ, as by that knowledge to have escaped the pollutions of the world; those who see the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and have been made partakers of the Holy Ghost, of the witness and fruit of the Spirit; those who live by faith in the Son of God; those who are sanctified by the blood of the Covenant; those to whom all or any of these characters belong. I mean by the term saints." Now if these people may not be called saints, then there are no such beings on the earth. If Mr. Wesley can show that such people may fall away fatally, then he has won his case, against, the doctrine of Calvinism. "Once in grace, always in grace."

Mr. Wesley continues: "By falling away we mean, not barely falling into sin. This, it is granted, they may. But can they fall totally? Can any of these so fall from God as to perish everlastingly? I am sensible either side of this question is attended with great difficulties, such as reason alone could never remove. Therefore, "to the law and the testimony." Let the living oracles decide; and if these speak for us, we neither seek nor want further witness.

On this authority I believe a saint may fall away; that one who is holy or righteous in the judgment of God Himself may never-the-less so fall from God as to perish everlastingly.

I. For thus saith the Lord: "When the righteous turneth away from his righteousness and committeth iniquity; in his trespass that he hath trespassed and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die" (Ezek. 18: 24). That this is to be understood of eternal death appears from the 26th verse:

"When a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness and committeth iniquity, and dieth in them; (here is temporal death), for his iniquity which he hath done he shall die." (Here is death eternal.) It appears further, from the whole scope of the chapter, which is to prove, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die" (v. 4). If you say, "The soul here means the body," I answer, that will die, whether you sin or no. Again, thus saith the Lord: "When I shall say to the righteous that he shall surely live; if he trust to his own righteousness, (yea, or to that promise as absolute and unconditional) and commit iniquity, all his righteousness shall not be remembered; but for his iniquity that he hath committed he shall die for it" (Ezek. 33: 13).

Again: "When the righteous turneth from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, he shall even die thereby" (v. 18). Therefore one who is holy and righteous, in the judgment of God Himself, may yet so fall as to perish everlastingly."

Objection. "But," some one asks, "how is this consistent with what God declared elsewhere? If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments, I will visit their offenses with the rod, and their sin with scourges. Nevertheless my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him nor suffer my truth to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. I have sworn once by my holiness, that I will not fail David" (Ps. 89:30-35).

Wesley's answer. "There is no inconsistency between one declaration and the other. The prophet declares the righteous judgment of God against every righteous man who falls from his righteousness. The Psalmist declares the old loving kindness which God sware unto David. . . .

May not every man see that the covenant here spoken of relates wholly to David and his seed or children? (as a family) while the other is spoken to men as individuals. Where, then, is the inconsistency between the most absolute promise made to a particular family, and that solemn account which God has given of His way of dealing with all mankind?

"Beside, the very covenant mentioned in these words is not absolute, but conditional. The condition of repentance, in case of forsaking God's law, was implied that, this condition failing, not being performed, God did also fail David. He did "alter the thing that had gone out of His lips," and yet without any impeachment of his truth. He "abhorred and forsook His anointed," verse 38, the seed of David, whose throne if they had repented, should have been "as the days of heaven." He did break the covenant of His servant, and cast his crown to the ground" (v. 39). So vainly are these words of the Psalmist brought to contradict the plain full testimony of the prophet!

"Nor is there any contradiction between this testimony of God by Ezekiel, and those words which he spake by Jeremiah: "I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee." For do these words assert that no righteous man ever turns from his righteousness? No such thing. They do not touch the question, but simply declare God's love to the Jewish church. To see this in the clearest light you only need to read the context. "At the same time, saith the Lord, I will be a God to all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people," etc. (Jer.

31: 1-4).

Suffer me here to observe, once for all, a fallacy which is constantly used by almost all writers on this point. They perpetually beg the question, by applying to particular persons, assertions, or prophecies which relate only to the church in general; and some of them only to the Jewish Church or nation, as distinguished from all other people.

II. One who is endued with the faith that purifies the heart, that produces a good conscience, may nevertheless so fall from God as to perish everlastingly. For thus saith the inspired apostle: "War a good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience, which some having put away, concerning faith have made shipwreck" (1 Tim. 1: 18, 19).

Observe 1st. These men (such as Hymeneus and Alexander) had once the faith that purifies the heart, that produces a good conscience, which they once had, or they could not have "put it away."

Observe 2nd. They made "ship-wreck" of the faith, which necessarily implies the total and final loss of it. For a vessel once wrecked can never be recovered. It is totally and finally lost.

And the Apostle himself, in his Second Epistle to Timothy, mentions one of these two as irrecoverably lost. "Alexander," says he, "did me much evil; the Lord shall reward him according to his works" (2 Tim. 4: 14). Therefore, one who is endued with the faith that purifies the heart, that produces a good conscience, may nevertheless so fall from God as to perish everlastingly."

Objection. "But how can this be reconciled with the words of the Lord: 'He that believeth shall be saved?"

Answer. "Do you think these words mean, 'He that believes' at this moment 'shall be saved'

certainly and inevitably? If this interpretation be good, then, by all the rules of speech, the other part of the sentence must mean, "He that does not believe at this moment, shall certainly and inevitably be damned," Therefore that interpretation cannot be good. The plain meaning, then, of the whole sentence is: "He that believeth (if he continue in faith), shall be saved; he that believeth not (if he continue in unbelief), shall be damned."

Objection. "But does not Christ say elsewhere, "He that believeth hath everlasting life?" (John 3: 36), and "He that believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life?" (v. 24).

Answer. I answer. 1. The love of God is everlasting life. It is, in substance, the life of heaven.

Now, every one that believes, loves God, and therefore, hath everlasting life." 2. Every one that believes "is" therefore, "passed from (spiritual) death unto life." 3. "Shall not come into condemnation," if he endureth in the faith unto the end; according to our Lord's own words, "He that endureth unto the end shall be saved"; and "Verily I say unto you, 'If a man keep my sayings, he shall never see death'" (John 8: 51).

III. Those who are grafted into the good Olive tree, the spiritual, invisible church, may nevertheless so fall from God as to perish everlastingly. For thus saith the Apostle: "Some of the branches are broken off, and thou art grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the Olive-tree. Be not high-minded but fear; if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he spare not thee. Behold, the goodness and severity of God! On them which fell severity; but toward thee goodness, if thou continue in His goodness; otherwise thou shalt be cut off" (Rom. 11: 17-20-22). We may observe here:

1. The persons here spoken to were actually grafted into the Olive-tree.

2. This Olive-tree is not barely the outward visible Church but the invisible, consisting of holy believers. So the text: "If the first fruit be holy the lump is holy; and if the root be holy so are the branches" (v. 16). "And because of unbelief, they were broken off, and thou standest by faith."

3. These holy believers were still liable to be cut off, from the invisible church, into which they were then grafted.

4. Here is not the least intimation of those who were so cut off being ever grafted in again.

Therefore those who are grafted into the good Olive-tree, the spiritual invisible church, may nevertheless so fall from God as to perish everlastingly.

Objection. "But how does this agree with the twenty-ninth verse, 'The gifts and callings of God are without repentance'?"

Answer. "The preceding verse shows: 'As touching the election (the unconditional election of the Jewish nation), they are beloved for the Father's sake,-for the sake of their forefathers.' God has never regretted calling the Jewish nation, and He has blessings still in store for them as a nation.

The words refer to the promised blessings to the nation: 'God is not a man that He should lie, neither the son of man that He should repent' (Num. 22: 19). The passage has no reference to the eternal salvation of individuals."

Objection. "But do you not hereby make God changeable? Whereas with Him is 'no variableness'"

(James 1: 17).

Answer. "By no means, God is unchangeably holy; therefore He always loveth righteousness and hateth iniquity." He is unchangeably good; therefore He pardoneth all that "repent" and "believe the Gospel." And He is unchangeably just; therefore He "rewardeth every man according to his works." But all this hinders not His resisting the proud, to whom He gave great grace, when they were humble. Nay, His unchangeablehess, itself requires that, if they grow high-minded, God should cut them off; that there should be a proportionable change in all the divine dispensations toward them.

Objection. "But how then is God faithful?"

Answer. "In fulfilling every promise He hath made, to all to whom it is made, all who fulfill the condition of that promise. More particularly,

1. "God is faithful" in that "He will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able to bear."

2. The Lord is faithful to establish you and keep you from evil (if you put your trust in Him), from all the evil that you might otherwise suffer, "through unreasonable and wicked men" (2'Thess. 3:2, 3).

3. "Quench not the Spirit; hold fast that which is good; abstain from all appearance of evil; and your whole spirit, soul, and body, shall be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it" (1 Thess. 5: 19-23).

4. "Be not disobedient unto the heavenly calling; and God is faithful by whom ye were called, to confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor.

1:8, 9). Yet, notwithstanding all this, unless you fulfill the condition, you cannot obtain the promise.

Objection. "Nay, but are not all the promises, Yea and Amen?" Answer. "In many cases the condition is not expressed. But this does not prove there is none implied. No promise can be expressed in a more absolute form, than those cited from the eighty-ninth Psalm. And yet a condition was implied even there, though none was expressed.

Objection. "But there is no condition expressed or implied, in those words of St. Paul: 'I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord' (Rom. 8: 39)."

Answer. "Suppose there is not, (which will bear dispute) yet what will this prove? Just this much, that the Apostle was at that time fully persuaded of his own perseverance. And I doubt not many believers at this day have the same persuasion, termed in Scripture 'the full assurance of hope.' But this does not prove that every believer shall persevere, any more than that every believer is thus fully persuaded of his perseverance."

IV. Those who are branches of the true Vine, of whom Christ says, "I am the vine, ye are the branches," may nevertheless so fall from God as to perish everlastingly. For thus saith the blessed Lord Himself: "I am the true Vine and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit He taketh away. I am the Vine, ye are the branches. If a man abide not in me he is cast forth as a branch and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned" (John 15: 1-6). Here we may observe: 1. The persons here spoken of were in Christ, branches of the true vine. 2. Some of these branches abide not in Christ, but the Father taketh them away. 3. The branches which abide not are cast forth, cast out from Christ and His Church. 4. They are not only cast forth but withered; consequently are never grafted in again; nay, 5. They are not only cast forth and withered, but also cast into the fire; and 6. They are burned. It is not possible for words more strongly to declare, that even those who are now branches in the true vine may yet so fall as to perish everlastingly.

By this clear, indisputable declaration of our Lord we may interpret those which might be otherwise liable to dispute; wherein it is certain, whatever He meant besides, He did not mean to contradict Himself. For example: "This is the Father's will, that of all which He hath given me I should lose nothing." Most sure, all that God hath given Him, or as it is expressed in the next verse, "every one that believeth on Him"-namely, to the end-"He will raise up at the last day, to reign with Him forever."

Again: "I am the living bread; if any man eat of this bread, (by faith, and continue eating) he shall live forever" (John 6: 51). True if he continue to eat thereof, and keep up the vital relation with Christ, and who can doubt it?

Again: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand" (John 10: 27-29). In the preceding text, the condition is only implied; in this, it is plainly expressed. They are my sheep that hear my voice (continually), and (always) follow me in all holiness. And, "if ye do these things, ye shall never fail." "None shall pluck you out of my hand."

Again. Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end (John 13: 1).

"Having loved His own" (namely the apostles, as the next words, "which were in the world"

evidently show) "He loved them unto the end" of His life, and manifested that love to the last.

Once more: "Holy Father, keep through Thine own name, those whom Thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are one" (John 17: 11). Great stress has been laid on this text; and it has been hence inferred, that all those whom the Father had given Him, (a phrase frequently occurring in this chapter) must infallibly persevere unto the end. And yet in the very next verse, our Lord Himself declares that one of those whom the Father had given Him did not persevere unto the end, but perished everlastingly. His own words are: "Those that Thou gavest me I have kept and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition" (John 17: 12). So one of these was finally lost! "Those whom thou hast given me," signifies here, if not in most other places, the twelve apostles, and them only.

On this occasion, I cannot but observe another common instance of begging the question, of taking for granted what ought to be proved; it is usually laid down as an indisputable truth that whatsoever our Lord speaks to or of, His apostles is to be applied to all believers. But this cannot be allowed by any who impartially search the Scriptures. They cannot allow, without clear and particular proof, that any one of those texts which related primarily to the apostles (as all men grant) belong to any but them.

V. Those who so effectually know Christ as by that knowledge to have escaped the pollutions of the world, may yet fall back into those pollutions, and perish everlastingly.

For thus saith the Apostle Peter: "If, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world, through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ (the only possible way of escaping them), they are again entangled therein and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they had known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered them" (2 Pet. 2: 20, 21). That the "knowledge of the way of righteousness, which they had attained, was an inward, experimental knowledge, is evident from that other expression, "they had escaped the pollutions of the world," an expression parallel to that in the preceding chapter, verse 4, "having escaped the corruption that is in the world." And in both chapters the effect is ascribed to the same cause, - termed in the first, "the knowledge of Him who hath called us to glory and virtue," in the second, more explicitly, "the knowledge of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ."

And yet they lost that experimental knowledge of Christ, and the way of righteousness; they fell back into the same pollutions, they had escaped, and were again "entangled therein and overcome."

They "turned from the holy commandment delivered to them," so their "latter end was worse than their beginning."

Therefore those who so effectually know Christ as by that knowledge to have escaped the pollutions of the world may yet fall back into those pollutions and perish everlastingly. And this is perfectly consistent with St. Peter's words in the first chapter of his former Epistle: "Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation." Undoubtedly so are all they who ever attain eternal salvation. It is the power of God only, and not our own, by which we are kept one day or one hour.

VI. Those who "see the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," and have been "made partakers of the Holy Ghost," of the witness and fruits of the Spirit, may nevertheless so fall from God as to perish everlastingly. For thus saith the inspired writer to the Hebrews: "It is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, if they shall fall away, (and then fell away-New Version) to renew them again to repentance seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame (Heb. 6: 4-6).

Must not every unprejudiced person see the expressions here used are so strong and clear, that they cannot, without gross and palpable wresting, be understood of any but true believers?

1. They "were once enlightened,"-an expression familiar with the apostle Paul, and never applied by him to any but believers. So, "The God of our Lord Jesus Christ give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation; the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to usward that believe"

(Eph. 1: 17-19). So again, "God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined into our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2

Cor. 4: 6). This is a light which no unbelievers have. They are utter strangers to such enlightening.

"The God of this world hath blinded the minds of them who believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ should shine unto them" (verse 4).

2. "They had tasted of the heavenly gift, (emphatically so-called), and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost." So St. Peter likewise couples them together: "Be baptized for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost" (Acts 2: 38), whereby the love of God was shed abroad in their hearts, with all the other fruits of the Spirit. Yea, it is remarkable that our Lord Himself, in His grand commission to St. Paul (to which the apostle probably alludes in these words) comprises all these three particulars: "I send thee to open their eyes, and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, (here contracted into that one expression,

"they were enlightened"), that they may receive forgiveness of sins ("the heavenly gift") and "an inheritance among them that are sanctified" (Acts 26: 18); which are made "partakers of the Holy Ghost," of all the sanctifying influences of * the Spirit.

The expression, "They tasted of the heavenly gift," is taken from the Psalmist: "Taste and see that the Lord is good" (Ps. 34: 8), As if he had said, Be ye as assured of his love as of anything you see with your eyes; and let the assurance thereof be sweet to your soul as honey is to your tongue. And yet those who had been thus "enlightened," had "tasted" this "gift," and been thus "partakers, of the Holy Ghost," so "fell away," that it was "impossible to renew them again to repentance."

Objection: "But the Apostle only makes a supposition: 'If they shall fall away.'"

Answer: "The Apostle makes no supposition at all. There is no 'if' in the original. The words are kai parapesontas-that is, in plain English, 'it is impossible to renew again unto repentance, those who were once enlightened, "and have fallen away"; therefore they must perish everlastingly.'"

Objection: "But if so, then farewell all my comfort!"

Answer: "Then your comfort depends on a poor foundation. My comfort stands, not on any opinion, either that a believer can, or cannot fall away, not on the remembrance of anything wrought in me yesterday; but on what is today; on my present knowledge of God in Christ, reconciling me to Himself; on my now beholding the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ; walking in the light as He is in the light, and having fellowship with the Father and with the Son. My comfort is that through grace I now believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that His Spirit doth bear witness with my spirit that I am a child of God. I take comfort in this, and this only, that I see Jesus at the right hand of God; that I personally for myself, and not for another, have a hope full of immortality; that I feel the love of God shed abroad in my heart, being crucified to the world, and the world crucified to me. My rejoicing is this, the testimony of my conscience, that in simplicity and Godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God I have my conversation in this world.

Go and find, if you can, a more solid joy, a more blissful comfort, on this side of heaven. But this comfort is not shaken, be that opinion, true or false, whether the saints in general can, or cannot fall. If you take up with any other comfort short of this, you lean on the staff of a broken reed, which not only will not bear your weight, but will enter into your hand and pierce you.

VII. Those who live by faith may yet fall from God and perish everlastingly. For thus saith the same inspired writer. "The just shall live by faith; but if any man draw back my soul shall have no pleasure in him" (Heb. 10: 38). "The just"-the justified persons-"shall live by faith," even now shall he live, the life which is hid with Christ in God; and if he endure unto the end, he shall live with God forever. "But if any man draw back," saith the Lord, "my soul shall have no pleasure in him,"-that is, I will utterly cast him off; and accordingly the drawing back here spoken of is termed, in the verse immediately following, "drawing back to perdition."

Objection: "But the person supposed to draw back is not the same with him that is said to live by faith."

Answer: "I answer, 1. Who is it then? Can any man draw back from faith who never came to it?

But, 2. had the text been fairly translated, there had been no pretense for this objection; for the original runs thus: 'But my righteous one shall live by faith; and if he shrinks back my soul hath no pleasure in him' (Revised Version)."

Objection: "But the Apostle adds: 'we are not of them that draw back unto perdition.'"

Answer: "And what will you infer from thence? This is so far from contradicting what has been observed before, that it manifestly confirms it; It is a further proof that there are those who 'draw back unto perdition,' although the Apostle was not of the number. Therefore those who live by faith may yet so fall from God as to perish everlastingly."

Objection: But does not God say to everyone that lives by faith, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee?"

Answer: The whole passage runs thus: "Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have; for He hath said, 'I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.'

"True, provided "your conversation be without covetousness," and ye "be content with such things as ye have." Then ye may "boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.'" Do you not see,

1. That this promise relates only to temporal things?

2. That, even thus taken, it is not absolute, but conditional?

3. That the condition is expressly mentioned in the same sentence?

VIII. Those who are sanctified by the blood of the Covenant may so fall from God as to perish everlastingly. For thus again saith the Apostle: "If we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin; but a certain looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witness. "Of how much sorer punishment shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?"

(Heb. 10: 26-29). It is undeniably plain, 1. That the person mentioned here was once sanctified by the blood of the covenant. 2. That he afterward, by known, willful sin, trod under foot the Son of God. 3. That he hereby incurred a sorer punishment than death, namely, death everlasting.

Therefore those who are sanctified by the blood of the covenant may yet so fall as to perish everlastingly.

Objection: "What! Can the blood of Christ burn in hell? Or can the purchase of the blood of Christ go thither?"

Answer: I answer. 1. "The blood of Christ cannot burn in hell, no more than it can be spilled on the earth. The heavens must contain both His flesh and blood, until the restitution of all things. But, 2.

If the oracles of God are true, one who was purchased by the blood of Christ may go thither. For he that was sanctified by the blood of Christ was purchased by the blood of Christ. But one who was sanctified by the blood of Christ may nevertheless go to hell, may fall under the fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries.

Objection: "Can a child of God, then, go to hell? Or can a man be a child of God today and a child of the devil tomorrow? If God is our Father once, is He not our Father always?"

Answer: "1. A child of God, that is, a true believer, (for he that believeth is born of God) while he continues a true believer, cannot go to hell. 2. If a believer make shipwreck of the faith, he is no longer a child of God; and then he may go to hell, yea, and he certainly will if he continues in unbelief. 3. If a believer may make shipwreck of faith, then a man that believes now may be an unbeliever some time hence; yea, very possibly tomorrow; but if so, he who is a child of God today, may be a child of the devil tomorrow. For, 4. God is the Father of them that believe, so long as they believe; but the devil is the father of them that believe not, whether they did once believe or no.

The sum of all is this: If the Scriptures are true, 1. Those who are holy or righteous in the judgment of God Himself: 2. Those who are endued with the faith that purifies the heart; that produces a good conscience; those who are grafted into the good Olive-tree, the spiritual, invisible Church; those who are branches of the true vine, of whom Christ says, I am the vine, ye are the branches; those who so effectually know Christ as by that knowledge to have escaped the pollutions of the world; those who see the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and who have been made partakers of the Holy Ghost, of the witness and fruits of the Spirit; those who live by faith in the Son of God; those who are sanctified by the blood of the covenant, may nevertheless so jail from God as to perish everlastingly."

We have never seen this argument of Wesley's answered, and do not believe it can be.

II. The Bible continually warns the saints, as if there was real and constant danger of their backsliding fatally. It requires them to spend the time of their sojourning here in fear, and abounds in cautions and warnings and threatenings, that are most unaccountable, and illogical, and out of place if there is no possibility of fatal apostasy and the salvation of the saints is a revealed certainty. Can God reveal to us the fact, that we shall certainly be saved, and then call on us and exhort us to fear that we shall not be saved? Can He require us to doubt His word and His oath? If God has revealed the certainty of the salvation of all true saints, can any saint fear that he shall not be saved without down right unbelief? and can God approve, and even enjoin such fears?

Look at these amazing warnings.

1. 1 Cor. 10: 12. "Wherefore let him that thinketh he stand-eth take heed lest he fall."

2. "Be not high-minded but fear; for if God spared not the natural branches, neither will he spare thee."

3. "We entreat you that ye receive not the grace of God in vain." 2 Cor. 6: 1.

4. "Take heed, brethren, lest haply there shall be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God." Heb. 3: 12.

"Exhort one another, day by day, so long as it is called today; lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." Heb. 3: 13.

5. "Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. Like as in the day of temptation, in the wilderness." Heb. 3: 8.

6. "Let us fear, therefore, lest haply, a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any one of you should seem to have come short of it." Heb. 4: 1.

7. "Let us therefore give diligence to enter into the rest, that no man fall after the same example of disobedience." Heb. 4:11.

8. "Looking carefully, lest there be any man that falleth short of the grace of God." Heb. 12: 14-17.

9. "If ye call on Him as Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to each man's work, pass the time of your sojourning in fear." 1 Pet. 1: 17.

10. "Wherefore, brethren, give-the more diligence to make your calling and election sure." 2 Pet.

1: 10.

11. "Now I desire to put you in remembrance . . . how that the Lord, having saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not the second time." Jude 5 (margin).

12. "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life." Rev. 2: 10.

Side by side with these solemn warnings of God I put this jumble of nonsense from a defender of the Calvinistic doctrine. "Once in grace always in grace." "No true saint who has an evidence, or an earnest of his acceptance with God, such as the true saint may have, has a right to fear for a moment that he shall fall nor has he a right to fear that he shall not be saved. I also add, that the Bible nowhere encourages or calls upon the saints to fear, that they shall not be saved, or that they shall be lost. It calls on them to fear something else, to fear to sin, or to apostatize, lest they should be lost, but not that they shall sin and be lost,"

When able men write such contradictions, the reason is, their mind is confused by a poor cause which they are laboring to defend.

III. The Bible has some most remarkable conditional sentences, which inferentially teach the possibility of fatally falling from grace. The following are specimens: 1. "Jehovah searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thought. If thou seek Him, He will be found of thee; but if thou forsake Him, He will cast thee off forever." 1 Chron.

28:9.

2. "He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved." Matt. 10: 22.

3. "If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch and is withered." John 15: 6.

4. "To them that by patience in well-doing, seek for glory, and honor and incorruption, eternal life." Rom. 2:7.

5. "Be not high-minded, but fear; for if God spared not the natural branches, neither will He spare thee. Behold then, the goodness and severity of God; toward them that fell severity; but toward thee God's goodness, if thou continue in His goodness; otherwise, thou also shalt be cut off." Rom.

11: 20-22.

6. "I buffet my body, and bring it into bondage; lest by any means, after that I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected." 1 Cor. 9: 27.

7. "To present you holy and without blemish and unreproveable before Him; if so be that ye continue in the faith, grounded and stedfast, and not moved away from the hope of the Gospel."

Col. 1:23.

8. "Whose (Christ's) house are we, if we hold fast our boldness, and the glorying of our hope firm unto the end." Heb. 3: 6.

9. "For we are become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto the end." Heb. 3: 14.

10. "To him that overcometh, to him will I give to eat of the tree of life." Rev. 2:7. "He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death" (v. 11). "To him that overcometh, to him will I give to eat of the hidden manna" (v. 17). "He that overcometh, and he that keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give authority over the nations" (v. 26). "If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come upon thee as a thief" (3:3). "He that over-cometh shall thus be arrayed in white garments; and I will in no wise blot his name out of the book of life" (v. 5). "Hold that fast which thou hast, that no one take thy crown." But suppose some of God's children do not "overcome" and do not "hold fast," and do not "keep Clod's words unto the end" (as many do not), what then? Then Jesus teaches here that they lose their crown, and their "name is blotted out of the book of life/'

after being once put in it. No one would dream of any other interpretation, if he had not a doctrinal notion to drive through the Bible at any cost.

IV. The Scriptures seem to name many cases of those who once knew God and fatally fell.

1. The Israelite Fathers, "Who were baptized and eat of the same Spiritual drink" (Christ), but

"God was not pleased with many of them, and overthrew them in the wilderness." And "some committed fornication and fell" and "some tempted Christ and were destroyed," etc. Now "these things were written for our admonition," "wherefore, let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." 1 Cor. 10: 1-12.

2. Balaam, who knew God; and got remarkable answers to prayer, and God talked with him, and

"whom he blessed was blessed, and whom he cursed was cursed." He was the "man who heareth the words of God, and knoweth the knowledge of the Most High." "The word that God putteth in my mouth that shall I speak," yet his carnal nature, through covetousness, caused him to backslide and fall, as many another prophet and preacher has fallen since. Num. chapters 22-24; 2 Pet. 2: 14, 15; Rev. 2: 14.

3. "God gave Saul another heart," "and turned him into another man," and the Spirit of God came mightily upon him and he prophesied." But he afterward disobeyed, and backslid, and God left him, and he became a suicide. 1 Sam. 10.

4. There was "a man of God," a prophet, by whom God sent a warning to Jeroboam. But he disobeyed God and was slain by a lion. 1 Kings 13.

5. As David declared, Solomon forsook God and was "cast off forever" though in his early life

"Solomon loved Jehovah, walking in the statutes of David his father." 1 Chron. 28: 9; 1 Kings 3: 3.

6. Judas was one of the twelve Apostles, called to preach, and work miracles, and cast out devils.

There is absolutely nothing to indicate that his early ministry was not as successful and acceptable as was that of the other apostles; but "from his apostleship Judas by transgression fell." Acts 1:25.

It is unthinkable that Jesus chose an unbeliever and a child of the devil to be a minister and an apostle.

Hymeneus and Alexander had once the faith that purifies the heart and produces a good conscience.

But they put their good conscience away, and made shipwreck of faith.

1 Tim. 1: 19, 20.

Men fatally backslid in the ancient church; and they have done the same in the modern. We have lived to see great Bible teachers, great evangelists and leaders of holiness, and bishops fall.

Angels fell from heaven; and men, honored almost as angels, shining in the front ranks of the Church militant, have fallen, like Lucifer from heaven.

The great Finney used seventy-five large crowded pages to try to prove in his theology, that the saints could not fatally fall away from God. He would have needed less space, if he had argued a better cause. It was the poorest reasoning we ever read from his pen. No one can reason well against the truth.

Calvinists, who deny that salvation can ever be lost, reason on the subject in a marvelous way.

They tell us, that no virgin's lamp can go out; no promising harvest be choked with thorns; no branch in Christ can ever be cut off for unfruitfulness; no pardon can ever be forfeited, and no name blotted out of God's book! They insist that no salt can ever lose its savor; nobody can ever

"receive the grace of God in vain"; "bury his talents"; "neglect such great salvation"; trifle away "a day of grace"; "look back" after putting his hand to the gospel plow. Nobody can "grieve the Spirit" till He is "quenched," and strives no more, nor "deny the Lord that bought them"; nor "bring upon themselves swift destruction." Nobody, or body of believers, can ever get so lukewarm that Jesus will spew them out of His mouth."

They use reams of paper to argue that if one ever got lost he was never found. John 17: 12; that if one falls, he never stood. Rom. 11: 16-22 and Heb. 6: 4-6; if one was ever "cast forth," he was never in, and "if one ever withered," he was never green. John 15: 1-6; and that "if any man draws back," it proves that he never had anything to draw back from. Heb. 10: 38, 39; that if one ever

"falls away into spiritual darkness," he was never enlightened. Heb. 6: 4-6; that if you lose the Holy Spirit, you never had Him to lose. Heb. 6: 4; that if you "again get entangled in the pollutions of the world," it shows that you never escaped. 2 Pet. 2: 20; that if you "put salvation away" you never had it to put away, and if you make shipwreck of faith, there was no ship of faith there!! in short they say: If you get it, you can't lose it; and if you lose it you never had it. May God save us from accepting a doctrine, that must be defended by such fallacious reasoning!

* * * * * * *

CHAPTER XX -- THE CHURCH AND ITS SACRAMENTS

Inasmuch as the Church is a divine institution designed to help men home to God, its discussion may be properly included in Soteriology.

I. The Church of Christ, in its largest sense, consists of all who have been baptized in the name of Christ and have made a profession of their faith in Him, and the doctrines of His Gospel. But in a stricter sense, the Church consists of those, and only those, who have a saving relation to, and vital union with, Christ, as members of His body, and who "walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

The usual New Testament word for Church is ekklesia. It sometimes meant only a concourse of people, as in Acts 19: 39, 41. But the Christian idea was a body of believers "called out" from the world to live for God. They were a people "called to" a heavenly hope and a glorious inheritance (Eph. 1: 18); "called" into a brotherly fellowship, "in the unity of the Spirit" (Eph. 4: 1-4); "called into his kingdom and glory" (1 Thess. 2:12); "called with a holy calling" (2 Tim. 1:9); "called out of darkness into His marvelous light, to be a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people" (2 Tim. 1:9). The dominant idea of an organic association is ever-present, in all these beautiful figures of speech, a people "called out" and organized by God himself.

1. Visible fellowship with the church would naturally seem, then, to be the duty of every true child of God. This is a real and most substantial way of obeying the command of Christ to confess Him before men. It would seem, therefore, obligatory on all who are convinced of the truth of Christianity, to accept Christ by faith for personal salvation, and then to take upon them the vows of church-membership, and accept the sacraments of the church, in order to testify to their faith in Christ as the Savior of men, through His atonement.

The end of this fellowship is mutual helpfulness, and association in worship and mutual co-operation in the spreading of the Gospel and in extending the kingdom of Christ throughout the world. The organized church provides for the proclamation, and hearing of the Gospel, the training and support of the ministry, the erection of houses of worship, the sending forth and support of missionaries, the publication of Bibles and Christian literature, the watch care and government of the members, and whatever else is calculated to spread the leaven of the Gospel among men.

The very importance of this work makes it obligatory for those who would do good and get good, to join the organization. Membership therein is necessary to the full enjoyment of the privilege and the largest usefulness. The duty of church-membership seems often to be insisted on in the New Testament. It appears in the emphasis placed on the public confession of Christ. "Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven" (Matt. 10: 32, 33). Such a confession carries with it membership in the visible church.

Such also is the meaning of an unyielding fidelity to Christ amidst persecution and trial. The devil strikes his blow at the known members of the church organization. He hates the church and would wipe it from the earth. Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it. The friends and followers of the Master must take sides with Him, and lift His standard, and carry it victorious to the ends of the earth. God gives assurance of the divine favor to the persecuted, and the promise of a crown of life as the reward of fidelity (Rev, 2: 10).

All these things mean that Christ intended His followers to unite into a visible organization. What if there had been no such organization! What if the apostles and martyrs of the early church had kept their relation to Jesus private, and had taught the principle of privacy to all their converts, and had discouraged all organic unity and co-operation! A moment's reflection would show that the church would long ago have perished from the earth. But if one has a right to abstain from such a public profession of Christ, so has another, so have all; and soon the church would cease to exist.

2. Church government. All organized or co-operative and collective bodies of men must be governed. Men widely differ in opinion and practice as to the government of the church of Christ.

(1) It may be said at the outset that the Scriptural idea of church government is one wholly spiritual. It is concerned only with spiritual subjects. Its members are united only by the bond of a common faith in, and loving devotion to, their common Lord. Their hearts are inspired by a common purpose to escape the moral corruption of the world, and to please God. They have one common aim to exalt Jesus as Lord of all. And His kingdom is not of this world. It is a kingdom of moral influence, and cannot be successfully propagated by the sword. It cannot employ force to compel men to enter its pale; for faith and love are the only doors of entrance, and these come open not by compulsion. He who believes in Christ, and confesses Him in the ordinance of baptism, becomes a member of the church, according to its original constitution.

Further evidence that the government of the church was only spiritual is shown by the New Testament discipline. The early church did not inflict pains and penalties upon the disobedient, like civil governments do. It had no thumb-screws, or racks of torment. It built no dungeons, in which prisoners were left to groan their life away in solitary confinement. It kindled no martyr-fires. Its only punitive discipline, authorized by Christ and His apostles, is comprised in admonition, reproof, rebukes, expostulation, and, finally, expulsion from the church. Christians were taught to consider themselves members of one body, and members of one another, and that, they were a holy brotherhood, bound together in a common bundle of sympathy, and love. Their ties were not the good will which they were commanded to feel for all men; but that holier tie of Christian love which sprang from the cross, and was inspired by the Holy Ghost.

They did "good to all men, but especially to those who are of the household of faith." They were forbidden, however, "to eat" at the Lord's Table with those who dishonored their profession by immoral conduct. This was extreme discipline, to treat an unchristian and refractory brother, who would not heed the discipline of the church, "as a heathen-man and a Publican." But still, like heathen and Publicans, they were to be subjects of prayer, and also objects of pitying love. And even this extreme discipline was not to be inflicted hastily; but only after deliberate, and prayerful, and repeated efforts at restoration. Originally, excommunication itself was only a merciful separation of an incorrigible member from the body of believers, without any infliction of civil punishment. How this matter of discipline and excommunication has since been perverted and abused by false and backslidden churches, scarcely deserving the name of Christian, is a matter of church history too painful to record.

(2) Who are to govern? Here there is a wide difference of opinion, as to the early government of the church, as it is set forth in the New Testament. Men are not even agreed as to the original orders or ranks in the ministry. An appeal to the Scriptures will here be helpful.

In Ephesians 4: 11, 12, we apparently have a complete list of what we now would call the clergy:

"And he gave some (to be) apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering," etc.

The apostles were those immediately commissioned by Christ to witness to His resurrection, and to be inspired authority in Christian doctrine. This order ceased.

The prophets, if we mean by it those who were inspired to foretell future events, had an office of an extra-ordinary nature, and it too ceased with the first century. If it meant, an extraordinary, inspired and authoritative teacher, still the office was temporary.

The evangelists, it is thought were assistants of the apostles, who went about under their authority and direction. Of this number were Timothy and Titus, who were directed by the Apostle Paul to ordain bishops or presbyters in the several churches; but were not instructed to appoint their own successors. Perhaps there were also evangelists like Philip, who were more like the evangelists of today, who have no authority. But the kind who had authority, were extraordinary and temporary ministers, who served the first age of Christianity, and then passed away.

We still have two terms left "pastors and teachers," and in other passages "bishops" and

"presbyters," or "elders." Whether these terms signified the same order of ministers is a point of interpretation hotly discussed by Episcopalians and Presbyterians. The Episcopal form of church government gathers around the Greek word (episkopos), which means an overseer; a watcher; a guardian, a bishop. The Presbyterian form of church government gathers around the word (presbuteros), which means an elder, or preacher in a Christian church. But in Acts 20: 17, we find that St. Paul sends for the elders, presbyters of Ephesus to meet him at Miletus; in verse 28, he tells them that the Holy Ghost had made them episkopos (bishops) to feed the flock of God which he had purchased with His own blood." So the presbyters are the same kind of ministers as bishops; and they are told to feed the flock, as pastors or shepherds, as if all three were the same office.

Again in Titus 1: 5 St. Paul directs Titus to "ordain elders or presbyters in every city," and then adds, as a directory to ordination, verse 7, a bishop must be blameless,"-plainly using the two words as synonyms, and indicating the same office. "Bishops and deacons" are the only classes of ministers, addressed in the Epistle in the Philippians; and if the presbyters were not to be understood to be included under the term bishop, then the absence of all mention of this order of preachers is unaccountable.

So it seems that the presbyters were to take the oversight of the flock of God, This seems a conclusive evidence that the teaching and government of the church devolved, after the time of the apostles, upon a class of men indiscriminately called pastors, presbyters, and bishops, the latter names becoming the most common.

In the course of years, perhaps as early as the beginning of the second century, a distinction arose between the bishops, and the other clergy, or ministers. But it was evidently not because they belonged to a superior order of ministers, who could rule the presbyters and pastors by a divine right. They were simply first among equals; first by their pre-eminent ability, so that they were looked up to, and often consulted by their brethren; or they were first by virtue of the prominence of the large city church of which they were the pastor, so that the elders of the churches in smaller towns sought the counsel and help of the city pastor, precisely as it is done today in churches where there is no thought of different orders of clergy.

But, as we can easily conceive, and may well believe, in the course of years, perhaps centuries, the pastors of these large, central city churches, grown proud and elated by their prominence, began to give unasked, the counsel that was once sought after; and their advice grew into dictation, and domination. So, by ways perfectly natural to the proud, carnal heart of man, there came to be a wide-spread and generally accepted notion of different orders in the clergy. The ambitious leaders of the backslidden church favored the notion and propagated it as a convenient way of reaching place and power.

"As to the argument from the succession of bishops from the time of the apostles (could the fact be made out), it would only trace diocesan bishops to the bishops of parishes; those to the bishops of single churches; and bishops of a superior order, to bishops who never thought themselves more than presiding presbyters, primi inter pares. This, therefore, would only show that an unscriptural assumption of distinct orders has been made, which that succession, if established, would refute.

But the succession itself is imaginary" (Wakefield, p. 542).

Whether Episcopacy may not be a wise and allowable form of church government is quite another question. This is to be decided by expediency, by its fruits. Godly men, equally pious, have prayerfully studied the New Testament, to find out from it, if possible, how churches should be governed. And after the most careful investigation, they have widely differed in their findings. As a result of their study, some have conscientiously adopted the Congregational polity; others have adopted the Presbyterian form of government; and others still the Episcopal form of government.

These three forms, with minor variations practically include all forms of government. This fact makes it more than probable that no particular form of ecclesiastical government is of divine origin and command, any more than any particular form of civil government. It is doubtful if a uniformity of method prevailed even during the life-time of the Apostles.

"Churches are quite at liberty to adopt the Episcopal mode of government, provided they maintain St. Jerome's distinction, that "bishops are greater than presbyters rather by custom than by appointment of the Lord, and that still the church ought to be governed in common," that is, by bishops and presbyters united. It was on this ground that Luther placed Episcopacy, as useful, though not of divine right. It was by admitting this liberty of churches that Calvin and others allowed Episcopacy and diocesan churches to be lawful, there being nothing in Scripture to forbid such an arrangement, when placed on the ground of expediency. Indeed some divines of the English Church have chosen to defend Episcopacy wholly on this ground, as alone tenable; and, admitting that it is safest to approach as near as possible to primitive practice, have proposed the restoration of presbyters as a senate to the bishops, the contraction of dioceses, the placing of bishops in all great towns, and the holding of provincial synods, thus raising presbyters to their original rank, as the bishop's "compresbyters," as Cyprian calls them, both in government and ordination.

The only objection to Episcopacy, as it is understood in modern times, is its assumption of superiority of order, and of an exclusive right to govern the pastors, as well as the flock, and to ordain to the Christian ministry. These exclusive powers are nowhere granted to bishops in distinction from presbyters. The government of pastors as well as people was at first in the assembly of presbyters, to which ruling body all were individually accountable. As to ordination, it was a right in each presbyter, though used by several together for better security; and even when the presence of a bishop came to be thought necessary to its validity, presbyters were not excluded" (Wakefield, pp. 542, 543).

John Wesley wrote of the office of Bishop: "Lord King's 'Account of the Primitive Church,'

convinced me many years ago that Bishops and Presbyters are the same order, and consequently have the same right to ordain. For many years I have been importuned to exercise the right to ordain traveling preachers. But I have still refused, not only for peace's sake, but because I was determined as little as possible to violate the established order of the National Church to which I belonged.

It is in obedience to those laws that I have never exercised in England the power which I believe God has given me. I firmly believe I am a Scriptural (Episcopos) Bishop, as much as any man in England or in Europe. For the uninterrupted succession I know to be a fable which no man ever did or can prove" (Works, VII, pp. 311, 312).

3. The Church to be Governed. The Papists contend for the visible unity of the church, throughout the world under a visible head the Pope. But this opinion is contradicted by the language of the apostles. While they taught that there is but one Church composed of all believers throughout the world, yet they thought it was not inconsistent with that idea to speak of "the churches of Judea,"

"the churches of Galatia," "the seven churches which are in Asia," and "the Church at Ephesus,"

"the churches of the Gentiles" (Rom. 16: 5); "Salute Priscilla and Aquila; and the Church that is in their house" (Rom. 16: 5). So it seems that a little congregation worshiping in a woman's private house was called a "church." All the worshiping congregations of a city or province were called

"churches"; yet all the churches in the world were called "the church of God."

The apostles among themselves had no common head. St. Paul had to administer a public rebuke to Peter at Antioch (Gal. 2: 11). The apostles planted churches and gave directions for their government, in most cases without any correspondence with each other. The doctrine of a Pope at the head of the church, to whom all yielded obedience, is not hinted at in the New Testament. So far were the apostles from making provision for the government of this one supposed church by the appointment of one visible head, a Pope, that they provided for the government of the respective churches raised up by them, if at all, in a totally different manner, that is, by the ordination of ministers for each church, who were indifferently called bishops, presbyters, and pastors. There were but two orders, in the officiary of the Church,-one of the above three, and deacons. The only unity was the common faith in Christ, the invisible Head, and the common love for Him and for each other, that bound them together.

"Nor has the popish doctrine any countenance from antiquity. The best ecclesiastical historians have shown that the Christian Churches were independent of one another during the greater part of the second century, and that no very large associations of churches existed till toward its close.

These facts sufficiently refute the papal argument from antiquity" (Wakefield, p. 544).

The advocates of extreme independency hold that the universal church is composed of all the independent churches in the world, each one perfect in itself and independent of every other.

Whatever union may grow up between such churches is purely voluntary, for the sake of mutual helpfulness and co-operation, still preserving inviolate the principle of self-government. It is probably true that insulated, widely separated churches preserved a large degree of independence long after the death of the apostles, and their government was what is now called Independency.

But it is also probably true that the churches in large cities, and populous communities, had many presbyters who might be called in the language of today "official boards," and as the members multiplied there were separate assemblies or congregations, yet all under the same government.

"When churches were raised up in the neighborhood of cities the appointment of chorepiscopoi, or country bishops, and of visiting presbyters, both acting under the presbytery of the city, with its bishop (or ruling elder) at its head, is sufficiently in proof that the ancient churches, especially the larger and more prosperous of them, existed in that form which, in modern times, we should call a religious connection, subject to a common government" (Wakefield, p. 544).

4. The Ordination of Ministers. The Apostles were ordained by our Lord, the evangelists by the apostles, and the elders in every church, both by apostles and evangelists. The New Testament seems to show clearly that the laity never had the power of ordination, or exercised it. It was the ministry who ordained the candidates for the ministry, and were the final judge of their fitness.

This continued after the death of the apostles. The people seem never to have invaded this prerogative of the presbyters.

But yet the members of the Church had their influence in an indirect way. The directions to Timothy and Titus imply a reference to the judgment of the members of the Church, because from them only could it be learned whether the party fixed upon for ordination possessed those qualifications without which ordination was prohibited. When churches assumed a more regular form, it was usual for the people to be present at ordinations, and to ratify the action by their approbation. Sometimes also they nominated persons by vote and thus proposed them for ordination, as is the custom in Congregational Churches now. "The mode in which the people shall be made a concurrent party is a matter of prudential regulation; but they had an early, and certainly a reasonable right to a voice in the appointment of their ministers, though the power of ordination was vested in ministers alone, to be exercised on their responsibility to Christ" (Wakefield, p.

546).

5. The Admission into the Church, and Expulsion. This is dependent upon the united action of minister and people. To the minister is committed the office of baptism by which the outward sign of grace is applied to the subject of it. It is in a way the door of admission into the Church organization, or one of the steps to it. But the members of a church have a right to decide who shall be admitted into their fellowship and society, and to oppose the administration even of the rite of baptism on an unworthy subject. Their concurrence with the pastors in the admission of members, and in the discipline of them, when insubordinate and backslidden, is most reasonable and proper, and may be supported by arguments drawn from the New Testament, and from primitive usages.

The expulsion of unworthy members also devolves upon the joint action of members and the pastor. The laws and requirements are in a general way laid down by Jesus, the great Head of the Church, and cannot be abrogated, or set aside.

The determination of the facts as to whether Christ's laws have been so flagrantly broken that it is improper, to retain a member longer is to be decided, by the members with the pastor as presiding officer, and he is to voice the findings of the body, and carry it into execution.

Unworthy ministers under accusation of immorality should be tried by their peers,-that is, by their fellow pastors. If a presbyter must be arraigned, it should be before a tribunal of his own brethren,

"provided an accusing lay brother having proper evidence, is unobstructed in the prosecution."

Such are the general principles of church government that may be gathered from the Scripture and they give a fair footing for the support of either one of the three forms of church polity. There have been many variations from any one form in the course of the centuries, and large variations between the managements of churches in the same connection. This is because the methods of ecclesiastical government are not a matter of divine appointment, like the Ten Commandments; but are largely a matter of human invention and growth. What was found useful and expedient has grown into custom, and usage, and ecclesiastical law, within the bounds of a denomination.

6. The Legitimate Ends of Church Government. Of course in a comprehensive way, these are the spread of the Gospel and the extension of the kingdom and glory of Jesus Christ. The church must defend itself against the destructive influence of unclean members and false doctrines. Against false doctrines and the men of "corrupt minds" who taught them, the sermons of Christ and the writings of His apostles abound in warnings. Christ said "beware of the wolves in sheep's clothing," and Paul said of false teachers "their mouths must be stopped." This implies that there must be a standard of truth, and some person or persons who can authoritatively pronounce on the correctness of doctrines for the Church, or Churches of a denomination. False teachers ought to be silenced within the pale of any connection of Churches.

This duty is assigned to the Church; but the right has been abused by the Church of Rome, and has led to anti-Christian usurpation of human rights, and to cruel persecutions. She has brought in tradition as the equal of inspired Scripture, and denied to men the right of independent private study of The Holy Word, and of private judgment, and the right to test her dogmas by the Bible.

The great Protestant principle is that the Holy Scriptures are the only standard of doctrine, and that the doctrines of every church must be measured by the Divine Word, and that every man has the right to test every doctrine of a creed by this standard. This principle must be maintained if Protestantism is to live, and if we would not see the teaching of God displaced by the doctrines of men. This is the duty of every man for himself before God, to know the truth which will make him wise unto salvation.

But since men may come to different opinions about the interpretation of Scripture, it has been the custom from the early days of Christianity to give the consenting voice of the meaning of Scriptures by assemblies of ministers and learned Bible scholars, who reverently studied the Word, and prayerfully reached the best united conclusion they were able to attain. Such a decision or creed has authority as to what will be allowed to be taught within the pale of church or connection of Churches. But it has no authority with an individual soul, as to what he shall believe for his own salvation. That is between him and his God.

It is the manifest duty of every church.

1. To make a formal statement of its articles of faith, and let men know how it interprets the Scriptures on all the leading doctrines of Christianity. Some contend that no articles of faith, or (reeds, are proper, but that acceptance of Scripture is all that should be required. But we may ask whose idea of Scripture, and whose interpretation? A Roman Catholic's, or a Protestant's? A Universalist's or Unitarian's? Or a Trinitarian's? Or a Swedenborgian's? Or a Christian Scientist's?

It will be seen at once that to denounce all creeds and statements of doctrine is cowardly in the extreme, and is dealing unfairly and dishonestly with the public.

2. The members of a church should be fairly instructed by the Pastor in the articles of its faith. The members should give them due respect, and careful examination, receiving them as helps and guides to faith.

3. It is the duty of a church or denomination to silence any teacher or preacher within its pale who proclaims doctrines contrary to the accepted standards. If a preacher or theological professor changes his views and comes to accept doctrines contrary to those of his church, let him withdraw, like an honest man, and join himself to those of a like faith with his own. To stay in a church and disrupt it by sowing infidelity to its articles of faith, or to draw a salary from trust-funds contributed by godly men to propagate the Gospel of faith in a Divine Redeemer, and then to teach a Christless infidelity, is to be another Judas Iscariot and a wolf in sheep's clothing. We have seen colleges and churches and a theological seminary blotted out by such conduct. We cannot conceive of anything more base or more reprehensible. To accept the support of a Christian institution, while stabbing its faith and corrupting its life, is unadulterated infamy. Every minister is commanded by God to "contend earnestly for the faith once delivered unto the saints," not to destroy it. Whoever has fallen low enough to seek to destroy it, should step down and out of the ministry. If he does not, he should be put out of it. This is no violation of Christian liberty, or any right of man.

II. The Sacraments. The Greek fathers used the word (mustarion) for sacrament, in the sense of a hidden meaning of a symbol. It was specially applied by the early church to the symbolical rite of the Lord's Supper.

It is called in the Vulgate translation, sacramentum, and signifies a sacred ceremony. It is also the name of the military oath of fidelity taken by the Roman soldiers. For both these reasons, probably, the term sacrament was adopted by the Latin Christians. For the first reason, because of the peculiar sacredness of the Lord's Supper; and for the second reason, because of that engagement which was applied in this sacred ordinance to be faithful to the commands of Christ. The same term was early applied to the ordinance of baptism.

Of the nature of sacraments there are three leading views.

1. The Roman Catholic view, and that of similar churches. According to this, the sacraments contain the grace which they signify, and confer grace by the work itself upon such an offer no hindrance. Their theologians declare, "These sensible and natural things, work by the Almighty power of God in the sacraments, what they could not do by their own power." Nor is anything more necessary than that the priest, "who makes and consecrates the sacraments, have an intention of doing what the Church doth, and doth intend to do."

According to this the efficacy, depends on the intention of the priest who speaks a few words of a formula. He conveys to sacrament a Divine virtue; and this is mechanically conveyed to the soul that receives it, whether with a good disposition and faith on the part of recipient, or not. The act of receiving it is alone sufficient for the experience of the benefit.

The following objections are urged by many thoughtful Protestants against such teaching.

(1) It is without authority in the Scriptures.

(2) It is antiscriptural. It makes the communication of saving grace depend alone upon a sacrament; while the Scriptures teach that it depends on faith.

(3) It debases an ordinance of God, from a rational service into a magical charm.

(4) It is of vicious tendency; as venial sins cannot prevent the communicant from receiving the grace, which it is designed to bestow.

(5) It makes the benefit of the sacrament to depend on the intention of the administrator.

2. The Socinian Notion. The Unitarians hold that the sacraments are quite like other religious rites and ceremonies; their peculiarity chiefly consists in their emblematic character, representing as they do spiritual and invisible things, and are memorials of past events. They are chiefly an aid to pious sentiments, and a quickener of devotional feelings and holy emotions. They are also an appointed means of professing faith in Christ, and acknowledging Him before the world. There is very much truth in this view.

3. The Stronger Protestant View. A sacrament is thus defined by Wakefield: "A sacrament is a holy ordinance formally instituted by Christ in His Church, not only as a badge or token of our Christian profession, but rather as a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, and a means of conveying to us the blessings of the Gospel." This is excellent if we do not make too much of the latter clause, which is perilously close to the Romish doctrine. The Essential Elements of the Sacraments are: 1.

They arc instituted by Christ Himself. This invests them with a peculiar sanctity. We cannot understand how Christians, who really love their Master and profess fidelity to Him, can consent to neglect them, and discontinue their observance. It seems to us that what Christ so solemnly appointed should be obligatory upon every Christian conscience. He gave to His disciples the parting command to disciple all nations "baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost" (Matt. 28: 19). In like manner, also He instituted the supper, when He said:

"Take, eat, this is my body which was broken for you," and in regard to the cup, "Drink ye all of it"

(Matt. 26: 26, 27). It does not seem that these sacraments could be more significant, or sacred, and we do not see with what propriety they can be neglected.

2. They are signs of Divine grace. That is, they are visible and symbolical representations of the benefits of redemption. They exhibit to the senses, under appropriate emblems, the same benefits that are described and promised in the written Word of God. Augustine said, "sacramentum esse verbum visibile." A sacrament is a visible word. The water of baptism suggests the "washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost" of which it is not at all the cause, but only the after sign of what is already supposed to have taken place. So in the feast of the Eucharist, the visible elements which are employed point to the broken body and shed blood of the Redeemer. They are a sign of the infinite love, and atoning death of Jesus, and His offered grace to a sinful world. "As often," says the apostle, "as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He come" (1 Cor. 11: 26).

3. They are seals. A seal is a confirming sign. A sacrament is a seal of the covenant of grace, both on the part of God and of men. By it God declares His gracious intention of bestowing His saving grace upon us, and covenants to keep His promises of mercy. They show His condescending love, and His gracious desire to do everything that is possible for our salvation. By the same act, we set our seal that we will keep the obligations, according to the express terms of the covenant, and obey and trust God, and walk with Him by faith. We seal the contract that we and ours shall be the Lord's alone and forever.

4. Thus the sacraments are a means of grace. They are sweet and blessed reminders of our relations to God and what He has done for our salvation. They do not, as the Papist says, necessarily convey the grace which they signify; but they do exert a gracious influence upon the recipient; awaking a sense of obligation to be the Lord's. They are closely related to the central doctrines of Christianity. Baptism, as a symbol of regeneration, suggests the fallen condition of the human family, and the reason why we need a divine cleansing. The Eucharist teaches a Divine Savior who alone would be able, to make an atonement for sin, and whose blood is amply efficacious for our cleansing.

In partaking of the communion, the communicant may, and should, and often does reach out the hand of faith and take the blessings, so beautifully symbolized, and so dearly bought by the efficacious blood shed on Calvary's cross. Who ever draws near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, does receive a fresh sense of the presence of God, and a warming of His heart toward His Redeemer, and Savior. God does work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also confirm and strengthen our faith in Him.

Thus the sacraments become covenant transactions between God and our souls. It becomes, therefore, profoundly important that we keep the vows that we make at the sacramental altar.

5. As to the number of the sacraments. Jesus gave but two, - baptism and the Lord's Supper. Only these were practiced in the early Church, or have any foundation in the New Testament.

To these the Papal Church has added five others, - confirmation, penance, order, matrimony, and extreme unction.

In respect to these we may briefly say:

1. They rest on no Scriptural authority.

2. They have no visible sign ordained of God.

3. They seem to have been invented to magnify the priest and the Church in the eyes of the people.

* * * * * * *

CHAPTER XXI -- BAPTISM

This is a subject that has been strangely prolific in controversial literature, largely because there is a tendency in human nature to magnify rites and forms and ceremonies. Spiritual realities are lost in symbols. People get their eyes on the visible thing, rather than their thoughts on the spiritual experience signified. We are compelled to investigate the subject, each for himself in the light of revealed truth. It will be proper to discuss the subject under the following heads: I. The nature of baptism; II. The mode of baptism; III. The import of baptism; IV. The subjects of baptism.

I. The Nature of Baptism. Baptism may be defined as application of water in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, as an outward sign of an inward work of grace. It is also the initial rite of entrance into the Christian Church, and a divinely appointed method confessing faith in Christ before the world.

We may conclude from the above the Obligation of Baptism. There are some branches of the Christian Church who are disposed to deny that we are under any obligation to observe this rite or, indeed, any sacrament under the Christian dispensation. They base their views on Heb. 9: 10,

"Only with meats and drinks, and divers washings (baptisms), carnal ordinances, imposed until a time of reformation." The term "washings" in the Greek is (baptismous), baptisms; but it by no means follows that the Gospel sacrament of baptism is referred to. The Apostle in the context is referring to the ceremonial baptisms of the Jewish Church. These were, indeed, all set aside by the Gospel. But as the Apostles practiced Christian baptism after the ascension of Christ, it is perfectly manifest that those inspired men did not include baptism among the things that were done away.

Others conclude that baptism is set aside from the words of John the Baptist: "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance; but He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear; He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." From this passage the inference is drawn that under the Christian dispensation water baptism is supplanted by the baptism with the Holy Spirit. It may be that John's baptism as a sign of repentance was set aside or, at least, was only a type and forerunner of the coming baptism to be administered by Jesus; but still it does not prove that Christian baptism is set aside.

That baptism is of perpetual obligation may be argued,

(1.) From the command of Christ. His parting charge to His disciples was: "Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" (Matt. 28: 19). Here is specific direction with regard to the spreading of the Gospel and kingdom of Christ until "the end of the world," and water baptism is included among the helps to that end. So plain a command of Jesus, uttered at such a time, concerning such an important work, we dare not lightly set aside.

(2) From Apostolic practice. Those Apostles surely knew the teaching of Christ about this rite.

They heard His plain directions. He could not have left them in any doubt about the meaning of His command. Only a brief ten days after His ascension came the Pentecost, when, under the most potent illumination and manifestation of the Holy Spirit power the world has ever seen, they baptized three thousand converts in one afternoon. If their purpose to baptize was wrong, would not the Holy Spirit have told them? And if they had all made a mistake and misinterpreted the words of Jesus, could He not have set them right when He afterward indoctrinated St. Paul in the meaning of the Gospel, and set him up to be the great Christian teacher of the ages? But nothing of the kind ever took place. So far as we can learn from the brief records, baptism kept pace with the progress of the church so long as the Apostles lived, and on through the succeeding centuries. One or two characteristic verses will show what seems to have been the universal custom: "But then they believed Philip preaching good tidings concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women" (Acts 8: 12). "And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his immediately" (Acts 16:33).

"Then answered Peter, can any man forbid the water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?" (Acts 10: 47). Here the Holy Spirit fell upon the believers first, and the water baptism followed, by the administration of the Apostle, Peter. This proves that water baptism was not superseded by the baptism with the Holy Ghost. The two went together. It makes it certain that water-baptism is a divine institution appointed by Christ, and is to believers a perpetual obligation.

II. The Mode of Baptism. Those who call themselves "Baptists" and those who strenuously contend for immersion make five distinct claims. 1. That the word, baptize, means nothing but immerse: 2. That nothing but immersion is, or can be, Christian baptism: 3. That only adults are the proper subjects of baptism: 4. That Christian baptism is a type of the death and resurrection of Christ: 5. That the baptism of infants is a modern innovation without any support in the Word of God. We shall show that in all these contentions they are quite mistaken.

The precise question comes before us: Is immersion essential to Christian baptism? The question is not, is immersion a proper mode of baptism; but is it the only mode of baptism? We decidedly take the negative of the question.

1. Then consider the meaning of the word (baptizo). It may be thought that the question turns wholly on the meaning of this word which Jesus used in the great commission (Matt. 28: 19),

"baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." It might be urged that if the word means, "immersing," and that only, then all must immerse to obey. If Christ meant "sprinkle," then Baptists are wrong, and all must sprinkle. But if the word means "ceremonial cleansing," or "ritual purification by water," then any mode is right, and the Baptist theory falls to the ground.

Even granting that the word in classic Greek means always to immerse (which we do not grant), that does not at all decide the meaning if the word in the lips of Christ and His Apostles, theos, Christos, Metanoia, agape, pistis, sarx, ouranos, deipnon, pneuma,- all meant different ideas to the classic Greek than to a Christian Apostle. The words were spiritualized and immeasurably exalted when adopted into sacred literature.

Bapto had a secondary meaning given to it even by classic Greeks. First it meant to dip or immerse; then to dye without reference to mode. Homer in the Battle with Frogs and Mice, tells of a mouse that "fell and breathed no more and the lake was dyed with blood." Surely a lake was not immersed in the blood of a mouse."

Baptizo in classic Greek meant to dip in milk, vinegar, oil, water, honey, wax, fire, or ointment.

Yet to immerse in oil or milk, would not be Christian baptism, although Christ said nothing about water in the command to baptize. The classic meaning does not at all hint at the Scriptural meaning. There is no water in the classic baptizo; but there is in the New Testament use. An immersion in desert sand might strongly typify to a Baptist Christ's death and resurrection, but it would not be Christian baptism.

Rev. Edmund Fairfield, D. D., for years president of a Baptist College, and then Chancellor of a State University, was one of the bright lights of his denomination, and a Baptist minister for a quarter of a century. So recognized was his scholarship and ability that a Baptist publishing house requested him to prepare a book in defense of Baptist views. He started in to write a book, as he supposed, in favor of immersion that nobody could answer. He examined the whole subject anew; but did not read a single book written against immersion, but critically read very many in favor of it. He made a journey to Palestine to study the question there. This is what he writes of his experience: "I found tower after tower of my Baptist fort tumbling down. Month after month for more than two years did I labor to maintain my old ground, but to no avail. There were too many and solid facts against me. I was convinced of my error. Immersion was not the only baptism. The word 'baptizo' did not mean 'immerse,' in the New Testament. I saw it clearly." What did he do?

He wrote an unanswerable argument against immersion, and like an honest man left the Baptist denomination and joined the Congregationalists. Against the convictions of a lifetime, he was forced to conclude that there is not one passage in the Bible that necessarily involves or requires immersion. He said: "After most laborious research, in spite of the beliefs of twenty-five years to combat, I am compelled to say that baptizo in the New Testament neither means to immerse, to sprinkle, nor to pour. It conveys the general idea of ceremonial purification by water by all of these methods, but limited to none." We shall incorporate the substance of his argument in the following discussion, making free use of the evidence he gathered, and also draw freely from other writers. Of our indebtedness to whom, we now make full acknowledgment. As the argument proceeds, it will be perfectly apparent to the observant student why Dr. Fairfield concluded that the Baptist theory is wholly untenable, and immersion is not essential to Baptism.

1. The testimony from the Lexicons. Immersionists assert that "all lexicographers define Baptizo to man to immerse, to dip, and to plunge; not one to sprinkle or to pour." Whether this assertion is true or false we will leave to be determined by the lexicographers themselves. They shall decide the question.

Schrevelius, the great master of the Greek language whose Lexicon has been a standard authority for about two hundred years, defines Baptizo by mergo, abluo, lavo; that is to immerse, to wash, to sprinkle or wet. The same definitions are given by Scapula, and Hendericus. Only one of the words denotes exclusive immersion, the others signifying the application of water by other modes.

Schleusner, in his Lexicon of the New Testament, a work of the highest authority, defines Baptizo: 1. to immerse in water: 2. to wash, sprinkle or cleanse with water: 3. to baptize: 4. to pour out largely." Only one of these definitions restricts the meaning to immersion. Three of them denote the application of water by affusion.

Cole defines Baptizo: "to baptize, to wash, to sprinkle."

Suidas defines Baptizo by "mergo, madefacio, lavo, abluo, purgo, mundo; that is to immerse, moisten, sprinkle, wash, purge, cleanse.

Passor defines it "to immerse, to wash, to sprinkle."

Conlor defines it by "mersione, ablutione, etaspersione"; that is, immersion, washing, sprinkling or wetting.

Robinson defines: "to wash, to lave, to cleanse by washing." "In reference to the rite of baptism, it would seem to have expressed not always simply immersion but the more general idea of ablution or affusion." He then proceeds through a whole column to prove that it could not always mean immersion, and must mean in many places pouring or sprinkling" (pp. 118, 119).

Grove defines it "to dip, plunge, immerse, wash, wet, moisten, stain, sprinkle, steep, imbue, dye, or color."

On the testimony of the Lexicographers, then the theory of immersionists or Baptists falls.

2. We now turn to the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament, and the Apochryphal books.

This translation was made perhaps B. C. 280. It proves that the word was used long before Christ, to convey the idea of ceremonial cleansing, by the use of water. Bapto, and its derivative Baptizo were often so employed as to convey the idea of affusion, or sprinkling, and to exclude the idea of immersion.

(1) We read, Leviticus 14: 6, "As for the living bird he shall take it, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip (or tinge) them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water." Here it is evident that bapsei, the future of bapto, cannot mean to immerse, for it is impossible that the "living bird, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet and the hyssop," should all have been totally immersed in the blood of one bird.

(2) It is found in Septuagint, 2 Kings 5: 14, in the case of Naaman, a translation of the Hebrew

"tawbal," which is translated fourteen times by bapto, but here by (baptizo) because it expressed not the dipping, but the resultant ceremonial cleansing of Naaman. Seven gave the idea of completeness to the Hebrew mind.

(3) In Daniel 4: 33, it is recorded that Nebuchadnezzar's body (ebaphe) was wet with the dew of heaven. Now what is the action which in here expressed by elmphe an inflection of bapto? If we allow the Scriptures to explain their own phraseology, they will determine this to be a clear case of affusion or sprinkling, and not of immersion. Thus, "The dew fell upon the camp in the night"

(Num. 11:9). "His heavens drop down dew" (Deut. 33:28). "As the dew falleth on the ground" (2

Sam. 17: 12).

(4) The next case is in the book of Judith, and shows conclusively that baptizo was used to express the general idea of ritual purification, in a case where immersion is excluded with absolute certainty. Judith 12: 6, 7, 9. She "purified herself" (ebaptizeto) at the fountain, not in it, and entered into her tent pure (katharos). It was in a camp of soldiers, under the eye of a guard, at a spring (epi????). A hard pressed Baptist writer suggests that she might have found a horse-trough large enough to immerse herself in. It only shows to what silly lengths men will go to force an argument, when they make "at a spring," mean "in an imaginary horse-trough!" The purification of a Jew was almost always by sprinkling, and with running water.

(5) The next and only other use of (baptizo) in Septuagint is in Ecclesiasticus or Son of Sirach, 34: 25, and is in itself enough to settle the whole question. "He that is purified (baptizomenos) from a dead body and touches it again, what does his cleansing profit him?" To see how it was done, read Numbers 19: 13, 16, 19. A clean person took a bunch of hyssop and dipped it in running water and sprinkled the unclean. See the New Testament references to the same ceremony in Heb. 9: 13, 14, and Heb. 10: 22. The whole process of cleansing was by sprinkling, and yet in the passage above quoted, and in Heb. 9: 10, it is called baptism. It is absolutely conclusive.

Josephus, referring to this, wrote 250 years later. Baptizing by these ashes put into spring water, they sprinkled on the third day and seventh day (Josephus, Book 4, chapter 4).

These passages clearly show that baptizo had been used by Jewish Greeks to represent the idea of ceremonial cleansing by water for at least two or three centuries before Christ. Christ never explained the word, and it was in this sense therefore that He used it. It was so used when the entire cleansing was by sprinkling. Mr. Carson, the Baptist, translates the passage, "immersed on account of a dead body." This does violence to the Mosaic Law, and also to the meaning of "apo,"

which means "from" and not on account of. Such a rendering would not be thought of but to save a needy theory.

(6) Here we may remark that Baptist writers assume that "washing" and "bathing," imply immersion. It is a groundless assumption. Dr. Smith in his Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities says: "It would appear from the description of the bath administered to Ulysses in the palace of Circe that the vessel did not contain water itself, but" was only used for the bather to sit in, while the water was poured over him." "On ancient vases in which persons are represented as bathing we never find anything corresponding to a modern bath; but there is always a round or oval basin resting on a stand by the side of which those who are bathing are represented as standing undressed and washing themselves."

Plutarch says: "Some give orders to throw the water on cold; others warm."

Wilkinson speaks of a painting in an old tomb of Thebes which represents a lady at bath with an attendant pouring water from a vase over her head" (Ancient Egyptians, Vol. Ill, p. 328). Even when they went to a river, it was not to immerse, but to get to running water. This will show why

"pouring" is spoken of in the Bible (Joel 2:28).

3. We come now to the New Testament.

(1) We consider John's baptism of the people and of Jesus. Baptists are fond of telling how John baptized in Jordan, and how Jesus went down into the water and came up out of the water, thinking that the English prepositions "into" and "out of" settle the whole question. They settle nothing.

Matt. 3: 6, we are told that John baptized (in) the river Jordan. 1. Remember that the Jews sought living water; 2. That the preposition (in) is translated "at" 102 times in the New Testament, and it may as well be translated "He baptized at the Jordan"; 3. The expression "In the river Jordan"

applies to the whole river-bed, which is very much wider than the stream. Travelers today speak of pitching their tents "in the river Jordan," meaning within the outer banks of course, not in the water.

Moreover it says that, "All Jerusalem, and all Judea and all the region round about, came to be baptized of John." It is popular language. It does not mean everybody; but it doubtless does mean a vast number, perhaps 200,000. It was a vast popular movement that continued a large part of a year. Now what about the probability of John standing in the cold Jordan water, within 200 miles of the snow-capped Lebanon, waist-deep, baptizing in summer and through a winter, countless thousands of people, baptizing eight or ten hours a day? Two weeks of such an experience would kill any man living. Dr. Fairfield says: "As I stood on the banks of the furious, foaming, dashing river, and the words, 'what will you do in the swellings thereof?' occurred to me. I replied inwardly, I do not know; but certainly I would not undertake to baptize anybody by immersion unless I wish to bury him by baptism into death." I would as soon have thought of performing immersion in the Niagara, half a mile above the Cataract as at the Fords of the Jordan in March, 1864" (p. 235).

But it may be asked why John went to the riverside, or to Aenon, near to Salim, (John 3: 22, 23) because there was much water there. Answer: It was for the accommodation of the vast multitudes to drink and cook with, and to water their animals like any modern camp meeting ground today, where there are ten or twelve thousand attendants. It was not because of water to immerse in.

Aenon means "fountains" or "springs." The translation should be "many waters," as in the margin of revised version. The springs are there yet, but no body of "much water," is there, and nothing to indicate that there ever was." We have seen two such campgrounds, one at Hollow Rock, Ohio, and one in South West Michigan, gushing springs forming a good stream in each case; but the water was for the people, and the horses. There were no immersions at either of them.

Matt. 3:11, "I baptize you (en) in water" is translated "with" more than a hundred times in the New Testament. In 1 Cor. 5: 8 it is so translated three times. In the companion passage of Luke 3: 16 to Matt. 3: 11, the en before the dative of water is omitted, and must be rendered, "I baptize you 'with water,' "-the dative of means or instrument, and so it should be translated in both verses."Immerse could not be the proper translation of Luke 3: 16 for no one would say, "I immerse you with water."

Matt. 3: 16, He went up straight way out of (apo) the water. This preposition is used 600 times in the New Testament. Only 40 times in the old version was it translated "out of," and almost never in the New Version. Even the Baptist translation of the American Bible Union, translates it but six times "out of," to save their doctrine. It should be translated "from," its true meaning, as it is in the Revised Version, "He went up straight way from the water."

Mark 1: 9-10, Jesus was baptized of John in (eis) the Jordan, and coming up out of (apo) the water. Here may be as en, simply in the Jordan bed, at the Jordan. Eis is translated "to," five hundred times, in the New Testament, and also "towards," upon, up to, until, in, into, as to, in respect to, concerning, in accordance with, conformably to, unto, and many more meanings. We are not shut up to the one translation "into" to accommodate immersionists. It would be proper to translate this passage, in harmony with others -"He was baptized at the Jordan, and coming up from the water. Dr. Fairchild: "Jesus certainly went to the water and came up from the water. That is all that we are certain of. Even if He went into Jordan, as Mark might indicate, (it would not prove immersion). There is an ancient picture in the Catacombs of Rome made in the first century which represents Jesus as standing in the water ankle deep, and the Baptist pouring water from the palm of his hand upon His head. Remembering the way priests were inducted into office by applying water publicly, and the meaning of baptizo and the utter impossibility of John's immersing people month after month, it is, to my mind certain that Jesus was not baptized by immersion. And if He was not, there was not a case in the New Testament."

John 1: 31. "I knew Him not, but that He should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water" (both versions). Jesus asked to be baptized that He might fulfill all righteousness. What righteousness? He had no sins. It was to fulfill the ritual law, as our great High Priest, about to enter upon His work. He was talking to John, the son of a priest, who knew the law about priests being inducted into office thus for 1,500 years, which law Jesus came to fulfill. Exodus 29: 1-4 gives the ceremony. "And this is the thing thou shalt do to hallow them to the priest's office. Aaron and his sons thou shalt bring unto the door of the congregation and wash (rachats) them with water." This is not the Hebrew word for dip (tawbal), and there was no chance for immersion. John says he came to manifest Jesus to Israel. When Jesus explained that He wished to be set apart ritually by John the appointed fore-runner, he at once baptized Him with the ritual application of water. The probability is immense that Jesus would not radically alter the performance of the rite by being immersed. There is not a single prophecy that foretells that either John or Jesus would immerse anybody, but plenty that speak of them as purifiers. "He shall purify the sons of Levi." "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you." "So shall he sprinkle many nations."

Another argument against the necessity of immersion can be made from the fact that if it had been essential to baptism, and the only allowable mode of it, the Bible writers could easily have made it certain that all went into the water to be baptized, viz., by compounding the preposition eis with the verb and then repeating it before the noun. A fine illustration of this is found in John 20: 3, 4, 6, 8. (v. 3) Peter and the other disciple came to the sepulcher. The preposition eis is before the noun, but is not compounded with the verb, (v, 4) The other disciple came first to the sepulcher, but did not go into it; and the preposition eis is used but once before the noun, but is not compounded with the verb. He stooped down and looked in, but did not go into. (v. 6) Then cometh Simon Peter and went into the sepulcher. Here the preposition is both compounded with the verb and again repeated before the noun. It is "eiselthen eis to mnemeion." (v. 8) then entered in also that other disciple.

Here again the preposition is used twice. This unequivocal method of expressing the idea of going into is never used of going into water for baptism. This all means that the Bible might have taught the fact and the necessity of immersion; but it didn't.

(2) We proceed to show from other passages of Scripture the utter impossibility of "baptize" and

"baptism," meaning only immersion. Mark 7: 4, "When they come from the marketplace except they baptize themselves (baptisontai) they eat not; and many other things which they have received to hold,-washings of cups and pots and brazen vessels, and tables or couches. The word washings is

"baptismous." Now who can believe that they immersed themselves every time they came from the market before they ate; and also immersed their couches on which they reclined? Incredible! Going to the market they might unknowingly have touched some leper or some one that had touched a dead person or an unclean beast; and when they got back they performed a ceremonial cleansing which was performed by sprinkling (Lev. 14: 7). And this is called "baptismous" baptisms in this passage. Immersion would not be thought of. It must always be by living water, or water in motion.

Such a thing as immersion in still water in a baptistery or a pond or lake for religious cleansing would be abhorrent to a Jew of all ages. It is so in the Orient today. Still water represents death and corruption. The tables or couches could not be immersed from their very size. Besides there is not a single case of immersion required by the Mosaic Law (see Lev. 14: 17; 8: 6; Num. 19: 13-17).

Luke11: 38. "When the Pharisee saw it he marveled that He had not first baptized Himself (ebaptisthe). Who can believe that the host expected Jesus to immerse Himself just before sitting down to the table? Jesus had been teaching in a crowd, and might have touched some unclean person,"-and the Pharisee thought Jesus should have cleansed Himself ceremonially before eating.

It was done by sprinkling, but it is called "baptized Himself."

John 2: 6 and John 3: 25, 26. "And there were set there six water pots, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews." Where they ceremonially sprinkled themselves, or a servant poured water upon them. But nothing, not even the hand, was immersed; for the water was left clean for drinking, and Jesus turned it into wine and it was drunk. John 3: 26, "And there arose a question between some of John's disciples and the Jews about purifying" (same Greek word used in John 2:6). They appeal to John. (v. 27) "Rabbi, - he to whom thou bearest witness, behold the same baptizeth, and all men come to him." So the "purifying" question turns out to be a discussion about baptism! And where and how did they "purify" themselves? By sprinkling themselves at the water pots, at the front door. And it was baptism!! Such passages make it absolutely certain that baptize does not mean immerse, and immersion is not essential to baptism.

Now we come to Pentecost. Acts 1: 5 and chapter 2. "John indeed baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit." Peter explained it as follows: "But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel" (2: 28). "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh." They were not immersed in the Spirit: he was "poured out upon them." Other prophets spoke about this baptism as follows: Isaiah 32: 15, "Until the Spirit be poured out." Ezek. 39: 29, "For I have poured out my Spirit." Ezek. 36: 25, 27, "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you; from all your filthiness will I cleanse you ... and I will put my Spirit within you." Isa. 44: 3, "I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed." Zech. 12: 10, "I will pour upon the house of David the Spirit of grace and supplication; and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him as one mourneth for his only Son!" What a picture of Pentecost! Isa. 52: 14, 15, "As many were astonied at thee (his visage was so marred more than any man and his form more than the sons of men). So shall he sprinkle many nations." Representatives of fourteen different nations were baptized on .the day of Pentecost both with water and with the Spirit.

Now here are seven prophecies of the wonderful scene; two speak of sprinkling, and five of pouring, and not one hints at immersion! And Jesus called it "baptism with the Holy Spirit." Yet the Baptist writers try to claim even Pentecost. "But the attempt is most painful to contemplate."

Says Dr. Fairfield.

Dr. Carson ((pp. 109-111) talks about the immersion of the disciples in "wind and fire." "The house was filled with wind that the disciples might be baptized in it. Their baptism consisted in being totally surrounded with wind." Further on he says: "They were surrounded by the wind and covered by the fire above. They were therefore buried in wind and fire." Still further-for he must defend immersion through thick and thin at all hazards, he says: 'They were literally covered with

"the appearance of wind and fire!"

Immersed in wind! Immersed In wind and fire! Immersed in the appearance of wind and fire!' What can such language mean? It hasn't any meaning. Had not the noble doctor been confused by the desperation of his cause, he would have noticed that it was not wind that filled the house, but "a sound as of a wind." To have been exact, he should have said, "They were immersed in a sound."

But that would have been still more transparently absurd. But I forbear, only remarking that it is a weak cause that requires a defense so sad and painful from a Christian scholar!" (See Fairfield on Baptism, pp. 197-200.)

The baptism of 3,000. The three thousand were chiefly strangers at Jerusalem. They had no expectation of baptism; were provided with no change of apparel; they were twenty miles from the Jordan. There were no facilities in or about Jerusalem for immersion, except in the reservoirs of water used for drinking or cooking. To believe that these were used is preposterous. Decency and health would forbid it. Moreover these reservoirs were under the control of the deadly enemies of Jesus,-the city officials who had just put Him to death. They would not have allowed their best friends to be immersed there much less these hated Christians. "I have studied this subject in Jerusalem," says Dr. Fairfield, "and I cannot see how anyone familiar with the city, and conditions of the times, can for a moment accept the belief that the three-thousand were immersed, there being no natural body of water to furnish facilities, and no reservoirs to which access would not have been utterly impossible."

Dr. Godbey, after visiting Palestine, and having himself, like Dr. Fairfield, been immersed, gives similar testimony to the incredibility of these people being immersed. Edward Robinson, D. D., LL. D., says in his Lexicon of New Testament: "In Acts 2:41, three thousand persons are said to have been baptized at Jerusalem, apparently in one day at the season of Pentecost in June; and in Acts 4:4 the same rite is necessarily implied in respect to five thousand more. Against the idea of full immersion in these cases there lies a difficulty, apparently insuperable, in the scarcity of water. There is, in summer, no running stream in the vicinity of Jerusalem, except the mere rill of Siloam, a few rods in length; and the city is and was supplied with water from its cisterns, and public reservoirs. From neither of these sources could a supply have been well obtained for the immersion of 8,000 persons. The same scarcity of water forbade even the use of private baths as a general custom" (p. 119).

The great missionary to the Sandwich Islands, Titus Coan, baptized 1,700 converts in one day. He had them seated in lines, and he went along sprinkling them with a sponge, pronouncing the baptismal formula as he went. Most likely in some such way the multitudes at Jerusalem were baptized, with a hyssop dipped in water.

Baptism of the Eunuch. (Acts 8: 38, 39) "They both went down to (eis so translated 500 times in common version) the water. . . . And when they came up from (ek, translated "from" 170 times, and only 140 times "out of" in the New Testament) the water." The certain way of stating that one went out of a thing is by compounding this preposition ek with the verb, and then repeating it with the noun. It is so used in Mark 5: 8, "Come out of the man, thou unclean Spirit," and Mark 7: 31, "He went out from the borders of Tyre." (R. V.) Luke 4: 35, "Come out of him ... and when the devil had thrown him down in the midst, he came out of him. In the first instance in this verse ek is repeated; in the second instance, both ek and apo, are used, making it emphatic. But this repetition of ek, or apo is never found in the New Testament when referring to baptism. "Therefore there is no certain evidence in the New Testament that any one either went into the water or came out of it in connection with baptism."

The Eunuch was riding across the country in his chariot, not expecting immersion or apparelled for it, and came to a little rill of water, and the eunuch proposed baptism. What made him think of baptism at all? Because in the very passage in Isaiah, which Philip expounded, just seven verses before the verse which the Eunuch inquired about, Isaiah said: "So shall he sprinkle many nations"

(52: 15). The probabilities are more than a thousand to one that the Eunuch was sprinkled.

Travelers tell us that there is no spot on that road where a man could possibly be immersed the greater part of the year.

Dr. Godbey says: "The Bible is a self-interpreter. Hence my only appeal is to the Bible itself. That the solution may be close, clear and conclusive. I take the same author (Luke) and let him explain himself. He tells us in Acts that Jesus did the same thing with the Holy Ghost (Acts 1:5) that Philip did to the Eunuch; but he tells me Jesus poured the Spirit on them (Acts 2: 17). So I have the Bible answer that Philip poured the water on the Eunuch. (Sprinkle and pour are both affusion and the same.) Bloomfield, Jameson, Faussett and Brown, Olshausen and Baumgarten, the great lights of exegesis, corroborate this interpretation. There is no assurance in the original Greek that they either went into the water or came out of it. They went down to the water and came up from the water." The same preposition eis is used in Matt. 17: 27, where Jesus told Peter to "go to the sea, and cast a hook and take the fish that first cometh up." Are we compelled to believe that Peter had to dive into the sea and fasten the hook into the mouth of the fish?

Acts 9: 18. The Baptism of Saul. The whole story of the Apostle's baptism is told by three Greek words (kai anastas ebaptisthe) "and having arisen he was baptized." There is no intimation, and not the slightest probability that he left the room or moved one step from where he sat. He had been three days without sight, or food, or drink, v. 9. He was in a condition of utter physical prostration, and he was baptized before being "strengthened with nourishment." There is not the slightest indication or probability that he was immersed.

Acts 10: 47. Baptism of Cornelius. "While Peter was yet speaking, the Holy Ghost fell on all them that heard the Word, v. 44. Then Peter said: "Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?" This sounds very much as if water was to be brought, just as it has been brought many times in a bowl to us to perform a household baptism. They were sitting in a private house, and there is no indication that they left the house to go off to some living stream to immerse.

Godbey says: "Now what is the revelation on the mode of baptism? It is clear as the meridian sun.

Jesus baptizes, Peter's congregation while he is yet preaching to them; and what was the mode?

"The Holy Ghost fell on them." When Peter saw his Savior had baptized his congregation, he immediately said he would do the same with water. And so the inspired historian said he did.

Remember Peter uses the same word baptize to describe what he did with water and what Jesus did with the Holy Ghost. So we are coerced to conclude he did the same thing. "Fell on them,"

reveals the mode of baptism both by Spirit and water. "The whole narrative shows that they were baptized by affusion there in the house" (Baptism, pp. 27, 28).

Acts 16: 15. Baptism of Lydia and her household. "And when she was baptized and her household." The location was not unfavorable for immersion, but there is no hint of any delay to provide herself and others with a change of apparel. The simple natural interpretation precludes any such supposition. There is nothing about the word or the story that requires immersion or hints at it.

Godbey gives it as his opinion, that such was the temper of the times and the spirit of persecution and opposition to Christianity when it was first introduced, that if the apostles had immersed the mob would have assaulted them. "If Paul at Philippi had undertaken to immerse Lydia in the River on whose bank she was converted; her friends would have rallied and flogged him more terribly than they ever did for preaching. The very fact that they never persecuted them on account of their baptisms is unanswerable negative proof that their baptisms were not immersions, but simple affusions, so unostensible as to be passed over unnoticed by their enemies. They never would have permitted them to immerse their women" (p. 34).

Acts 17: 33. Baptism of the jailer. "And he took them, the same hour of the night and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, immediately." In the prison, at the dead of night, the apostles not at liberty to leave the prison, nor the jailer to take them out, there is not one probability in a million that immersion was even possible. We have Paul's veracity for it, that he did not and would not go out of the jail until the cruel, law-breaking magistrates brought them out.

John Wesley, Witseus, Baumgarten, and Moses Stuart give it as their opinion that Paul took from the same water brought to "wash their stripes" and baptized the jailor, and his household. The supposition of a tank all ready for immersion is absurd, and is a bald invention to get rid of a difficulty, and prop up a theory wholly unreasonable.

We see from the above that in the New Testament, men were baptized just where they happened to be converted, and at once, three thousand in the heart of Jerusalem. Saul in a private room in Damascus, the Eunuch in a dry and sandy desert. Cornelius and his family in his sitting room.

Lydia out by the river side, and the jailor in the prison! How different from all this would have been the performance of baptism by immersion. We do not find now-a-days that there happens to be a tank full of water wherever a man happens to be converted, whether in a parlor or a jail. On the whole, the assertion that in any case mentioned in the New Testament, baptism was certainly performed by immersion is a bald assumption, unsupported by a single fact.

Rom. 6: 4-6. "We were therefore buried with Him through baptism, into death, that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.

For if we have become united with Him by the likeness of His death, we shall also be by the likeness of His resurrection." Here we will let Dr. Fairfield speak: "It was the meaning of their baptism, and not the mode of it that Paul would burn into the minds of these Christians of Rome.

The key to the passage is in the second verse; "How shall we, who died to sin, live any longer therein? All that follows goes to enforce the idea of the utter inconsistency of a Christian profession with a continued living in sin. The very purpose for which Christ died was to put an end to the dominion of sin. Our consecration to Him is a consecration to all that His death signified. We were crucified with Him. We have become utterly dead and buried to the old life, and have been raised from the dead to a new life. This did our consecration to Him (made in our baptism) signify. It is therefore utterly preposterous to talk of our continuance in sin, "that grace may abound," or for any other reason.

The whole argument of the Apostle rests, not on the mode of the outward, ordinance, but upon the meaning of it as the beginning of an entirely new life. "Buried into death," is a peculiar form of expression which seems to be equivalent to our expression-"dead and buried"; that is dead beyond any question.

I call attention in this connection to two other points:

1. That all argument for immersion, drawn from the word "buried" depends upon the conception of a literal burial in the water of baptism. But when we bear in mind that the death spoken of in both of these passages is not a literal death, but figurative; that the crucifixion spoken of is not literal, but figurative; that the resurrection in like manner is not literal, but figurative, - is it not plain violation of every law of language to understand the burial alone as literal?

2. To what seems to me to be a manifest belittling of the apostle's whole argument by the interpretation, which the Baptist theory gives it. I cannot help feeling that an appeal to the acknowledged import of baptism as an act of entire consecration of soul, body and spirit to the crucified yet ever-living Christ would be far more impressive than any reference to a mere external form. The latter would seem to me to be trivial as compared with the grandeur and majesty of the former" (pp. 188-190).

Dr. Godbey makes the similar point on this passage: "The falsity of the interpretation consists in its application to water-baptism. All I have to do to refute the immersion, argument is to prove the pure spirituality of the passage to the eleventh verse. Verse 2: "Dead to sin"-spoken of the soul, not the body. Verse 3: "Were baptized into Jesus Christ?" Is your body baptized into Christ? The very idea is materialistic, idolatrous and blasphemous. Verse 4: "Buried with Him by baptism into death." Is your body buried with the body of Christ? You know it is not, Hence it is a spiritual burial. Verse 5: "Planted together," should have been translated "grown together." The Bible represents every Christian as a branch growing from Christ the living Vine. Our salvation depends on our being grafted into Christ. Now this is not physical but spiritual. Verse 6: "Old man crucified

. . . destroyed." Is the "Old man" your body? Is your body "crucified and destroyed" in water baptism? You know it is not. How preposterous the application. Verse 7: "He that is dead is freed from sin." Is that physical? Then whenever a man is converted his body dies. Verse 11: "Reckon yourselves dead unto sin." Is that your body? Then Christianity is for the dead and not for the living, for a man can never be a Christian while his body lives. So you see the utter falsity of the physical interpretation.

Water baptism is for the physical man. Hence it can't be water baptism. This is the most elaborate, clear and beautiful description of sanctification in the Bible. It is a great pity, to have this scripture so perverted by immersionists. It is no more applicable to a man's body than to his horse. The "Old Man" must be crucified, buried into death, i. e., into the atonement, i. e., utterly destroyed.

It is to be deplored that the immersion dogma throws a dark shadow over this pre-eminently important scripture, deceives the people, and keeps them from seeking the experience described, without which they never can enter heaven. The baptism is not represented here as a burial, but as the burier, i. e., "buried by baptism." Baptism is the agent of crucifixion, burial and resurrection. ...

Burial is not the baptism, but one of the important spiritual effects of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I here arraign my immersion brethren for contradicting St. Paul in the following points: First. When you immerse a man you bury him alive, whereas Paul's man in burial is crucified, i. e., and dead before he is buried. Now tell me by what authority you bury a man alive. You respond, O! his body is not dead but his spirit. Then let us have a spiritual burial and we all agree. The thing buried is dead. But you bury them all alive, and flatly contradict Paul.

Second Antagonism: You bury the man into water, whereas, the "Old Man," in the text is buried into "death" (of Christ).

Third Antagonism: You raise up the same body you bury, whereas, in the text the "Old Man," the son of the devil, is buried and left buried forever, i. e., utterly destroyed.

Fourth Antagonism: "You raise the man by your own physical power, whereas the man in the text is raised, "through faith of the operation of God," i. e., by the power of God, through faith, i. e., the crucifixion, interment, and resurrection are all, like everything else we get from God, simply through faith.

So you see, Rom. 6, is absolutely irreconcilable with the immersion. When you immerse a man you antagonize the Apostle Paul throughout. I would insist that you cease to mar that glorious description of sanctification, i. e., and full salvation, without the experience of which you people will all go to hell. When you immerse people, do like I do, immerse them for accommodation because I believe it will do for baptism; but don't pervert and destroy the force of God's Word in the vain attempt to prove something which is entirely unknown in the Bible. Every word in the chapter proves the baptism to be spiritual (pp. 40-43).

Col. 2: 12. "Buried with Him in baptism wherein also you are risen through the faith of the operation of God." The previous verse speaks about putting off the body of the sins of the flesh.

The same thought of dying to sin in Rom. 6: 3-6, occurs also here, and the rising to holiness. The remarks on that passage need not be repeated here. There is but one difference. In Romans it is

"dead and buried"; in Colossians it is simply "buried,"-the burial implying the death, and simply a shorter form of expression. It is death and burial to sin, and not a burial in water that the Apostle is urging.

Acts 22: 16, "Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord."

Here is Paul's account of his conversion, and baptism. Again two simple words (anastas baptisai).

There is not a hint that he left the room, or walked a step from where he was sitting. Certainly there is no suggestion of immersion here. But this passage is valuable in another direction. It is one of many passages, in which baptism is connected with the word "wash," showing that it was understood to be a symbol of purity, not of death and resurrection.

If baptism is a rite symbolizing death and resurrection, as Baptists claim, why was it not said to Paul: "Arise and be baptized and so represent the burial and resurrection of thy risen Lord"? There never could have been a more natural occasion. But it was not said, simply because that is not the meaning of the rite. Dr. Godbey says on this passage, "Water baptism is the emblem of spirit baptism. Paul's sins were on his soul; water could not touch them, unless you adopt the Pagan, Popish and materialistic heresy of baptismal regeneration and conclude that Paul's sins were washed away by the water. Five versions of the New Testament, namely, Wickliff, Tyndale, Crunmer, Geneva and Rheims, all render this passage, "wash away thy sins by calling on the name of the Lord," i. e., by prayer. There is no trouble about it. Paul's sins were symbolically washed away by the water, but really and actually washed away by the blood of Christ, the only elixir of purgation, applied by the Holy Ghost. Could you conclude that the man who said, "Christ sent me a water-regenerationist; Paul's commission, under which he preached all his life had no water in it"?

(Acts 26: 18).

1 Pet. 3: 20, 21. "The longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was preparing, wherein few that is eight souls were saved by water; the like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh but the answer of a good conscience toward God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." The immersionists make the ark a figure of Baptism; as that was surrounded by water, so we are in immersion. There is a fatal grammatical objection to this theory. "The figure whereunto," is in Greek, "the antitype to which, and the pronoun "to which" cannot refer to "ark" because it is of a different gender. Water is the antecedent, and the Apostle says: "Water baptism, as a ceremony of cleansing finds its type in the water that cleansed the old world; not, because it cleanses the flesh but because it fulfills a good conscience in obeying God, - Christ through the power of the resurrection being our only Savior"

(Fairfield, pp. 200-202).

On this complicated passage, Dr. Godbey is very strong: "The clause in this Scripture, 'Baptism saves us,' has been wonderfully vociferated by water-regenerationists (Papists and Campbellites).

We don't deny that "baptism saves." But what baptism? Let Peter answer. The adjective and noun is but one word in Greek, namely, antitupon, i. e., antitype. Throughout the Bible water is a type and the Holy Spirit the antitype. So here Peter says the antitype baptism, i. e., the baptism of the Holy Spirit now saves us. Peter fortifies himself against the very misconstruction the waterists have foisted on him by inserting the parenthetical clause exegetical of his meaning, "Not putting away the filth of the flesh," i. e., "not water baptism, for the design of water baptism in both Testaments is to remove ceremonial defilement and effect ceremonial purity, while its substantial counterpart (Holy Ghost baptism) removes spiritual defilement and effects spiritual purity. So Peter refutes this heresy by stating, "not the putting away the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God," i. e., the baptism of the Holy Ghost, in which the Spirit applies the atoning blood, washes the heart, makes it whiter than snow (Ps. SI: 7). This Holy Ghost baptism is God's answer to a good conscience, in which He speaks to your soul and tells you that your conscience, i. e., your heart is pure; you are gloriously "saved to the uttermost." This is salvation by baptism sure enough. It is none of your buncomb water-works." So be sure to get the "antitype baptism," which Peter says, "saves us." That is the Holy Ghost baptism saves us, and not the type (water) (pp. 60, 61).

Acts 2: 38. "Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus unto the remission of your sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." On these other words of Peter, Dr.

Godbey makes a similar striking comment: "I am happy to observe the Revised Version of 1881, omits the Popish phrase, "for remission" involving conditionality, and very correctly gives "unto remission," i. e., with reference to or pointing to, as water baptism refers to, points to and emblematizes the baptism of the Holy Ghost, by which we are saved.

Peter here enforces the baptism of the Holy Ghost as the salient matter, and so exhorts in verse 39:

"For the promise is to you, and to your children, and to all who are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." As Dean Alford and all the authorities certify that water baptism here is the outward and visible sign of the baptism of the Holy Ghost, he preached Holy Ghost baptism essential, and water the symbol referring to it.

These water-regenerationists grossly misrepresent Peter as preaching the essentiality of water baptism, while he lays all the emphasis on the baptism of the Holy Ghost, which they, in order to enthrone their water-God, discard altogether; thus ejecting God from the plan of salvation altogether. The water-regeneration of this passage antagonizes all the Bible. Peter's commission, under which he preached (Luke 24: 47) promising remission of sins on condition of repentance, had no water in it. When Peter preached to the house of Cornelius, the whole congregation were converted, pardoned, regenerated, and baptized with the Holy Ghost and saved, without a drop of water, (before a drop of water had touched them).

The cases are parallel. Peter says (Acts 15: 8, 9) on both occasions their hearts were "purified by faith." That is the Gospel, Jesus baptizes and saves, not the preacher.

The water-regenerationists who have debated with me have uniformly denied the baptism of the Holy Ghost altogether since the Apostles, thus dethroning Jesus, and enthroning the water-God.

And all this in the face of Peter in their favorite Scripture (Acts 2: 39) asserting that it is for everybody and essential to salvation. Why don't they obey Peter, and when they baptize with water pray cm until Jesus baptizes with the Holy Ghost? They deify the shadow and reject the substance.

So their water baptism is solemn mockery, farcical and blasphemous (pp. 56-58).

John 3:5. "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." Water-regenerationists make much of this passage, and other churches very unwisely put it in their baptismal liturgy. There is no reference here to baptism in all probability. Doubtless, it was a well-known phrase referring to child-birth. See Isaiah 48: 1. "Born of, the waters of Judah."

This is why Nicodemus made the turn on it which he did, and thus asked for further explanation; and Jesus gave it to him. There are two births in the third verse, and two in the fifth; and two in the sixth verse and seventh, and they are all the same. The first birth is of the mother, called in the fifth verse, "born of water," and in the sixth "born of flesh," (sarx) "human nature";-and the other birth is, "born from above," "born of the Spirit," repeated in verse 6. If this is not the correct interpretation, then we have three births in the passage,-born of the mother, born of water and born of the Spirit,-one too many; and Jesus should have said to Nicodemus, "You must be born twice more or you cannot see the kingdom of God."

Dr. Fairfield writes: "To my mind there is no more allusion to baptism in this verse than to the planet Mars or the French Revolution. It is simply natural birth that is spoken of. Being "born of water" was without doubt a well-known form of speech, which Christ used in that sense. . . . There never was a more fanciful exegesis known to the Middle ages, (than this finding of baptism here).

The reading of a single volume upon obstetrics would have suggested to the commentators the true meaning of this passage upon which so many of them have stumbled on the interpretation of this verse. I will put the doctors of medicine against the doctors of divinity, and they will vote them down by an overwhelming majority, and tell them that, this expression was undoubtedly a well-known mode of speaking of natural birth and nothing else" (pp. 171-176).

Heb. 9: 10. "And divers baptisms" (baptismois). Dr. Fairfield says: "Here I thought I should find my Baptist views sustained. To my astonishment I found 'purifyings,' 'divers' of them, but

'immersions' not one! I did not find one instance in which anybody was required to immerse himself or be immersed by another. Naaman did it of choice but was not required to. There was not an instance of required immersion from Genesis to Malachi. Yet the epistle to the Hebrews speaks of the "divers baptisms," of the old dispensation, and not one immersion, but plenty of ceremonial water cleansing. It was the purifying and cleansing of Heb. 9: 6-14. A reference Bible consulted will show to what the writer to Hebrews was referring.

"My previous notion that baptism always meant immersion received at this point another staggering blow" (pp. 99-101).

We have now examined as critically as our space would permit, the passages of the New Testament which relate to baptism, or throw any light on the mode of its performance. We have seen that none of them require immersion or teach it. And in most cases the use of that mode is overwhelmingly improbable. Dr. Owen, one of the greatest and best of men, says, "No one instance can be given in Scripture in which the word 'baptize' necessarily signifies to dip or plunge"

Prof. Wm. G. Williams, LL. D, of Ohio Wesleyan University, well says: "The interpreters, who declare that the primitive Christian baptism was by immersion, have invented their facts, to suit their erroneous explanation of the word buried, in Rom. 6, verse 4. There is in the Apostle's words here, no allusion whatever to immersion as the apostolic mode of baptism. The sense of the whole passage as well as of the several words does not hinge in the slightest degree on the mode of baptism. The usage of the Apostolic Church was precisely the same as that of the Jews for centuries before the Christian era, (sprinkling) the same as that of the larger part of the Christian Church for all the centuries since; any ritual application of water met all the requirements of the case. We may concede that apostolic baptism was possibly administered sometimes by immersion, though this is in doubt; yet certainly it was also administered by sprinkling, or pouring and this is not in doubt. The cumulative evidence for this conclusion, from Scripture and from history, long ago amounted to almost a demonstration. But if not thus settled before, the recent "find" of "The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles" puts it now beyond gainsaying. This book which was recovered at Constantinople in 1884 dates certainly, as early as the year A. D. 120, and some critics think it is earlier than A. D. 90. In chapter VII, of "The Teaching," it says: "Baptize into the name (profession) of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living water; (that is, in running water, compare John 4: 10). hut if thou have not living water, (going) unto other water (a standing pool), baptize; but if thou canst not in cold (water), then in warm, But if thou have neither (of these out-of-door opportunities), pour water upon the head thrice in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit,' The baptism here enjoined in the first two alternatives of "living water" or of

"other water" is not to be explained on the assumption that it was done by immersion, but like the baptism of the Jews, and the Baptist, and of the apostles, it was done in the open air, in natural supplies of pure water, not everywhere accessible. The third alternative of pouring water on the head from the hand or from a vessel was then offered for their wants; and this baptism, too, was probably in the open air. But baptism by pouring may equally have been the usage by the side of the running brook or the standing pool. (Baptism, pp. 19-22.) In fact, no change has taken place in the form of administration of Christian baptism. The Church began with sprinkling; and then lapsed for a time into the gross ritualism of immersion; but now has come back to the ancient and simple form in which the Apostles baptized their converts" (p. 25).

How, then, some may ask, did the practice of immersion in the early church become so common?

The answer is very simple. It became general in precisely the same way that the false doctrines and unscriptural rites of the Roman Catholic Church became general. Froude observes that "As the stream of piety lowers, the ice of formality and ritualism forms along its banks." The further the church got from the events of the Gospel and the Apostles and from the simplicity and purity and deep spirituality of the early Church, the more they multiplied rites and ceremonies and doctrines and sacraments.

This tendency toward ritualism made St. Paul unceasing trouble during his later years. This, disposition it was that fostered immersion. They first stepped into the water to be sprinkled or poured. Then they were immersed; then they were immersed three times; then they used consecrated water; anointing with oil, and making the sign of the cross; then they clothed in white garments; finally they stripped men and women perfectly naked for baptism to denote their moral nakedness.

The very people who practiced immersion practiced these fooleries, and defended them as Apostolic. E. G. Romanus, in his book, "Ancient Rites," published at Frankfort, A. D. 1681, contends that the use of consecrated water was handed down from the Apostles, touching nose, and ears, etc. He then gravely informs us that females stripped themselves for baptism, and came out of the water in a state of nudity, and that they were not permitted to consult the timidity and modesty of their sex. The reason on which this practice was grounded was this: "that Christ suffered naked, and that females as well as others must imitate Christ," precisely as it is argued now that we must imitate Christ in immersion, Romanus quotes Cyril as exclaiming: "O admirable spectacle! ye were naked in the sight of all and were not ashamed. So you imitate Adam who was naked in Paradise and was not ashamed. Yea, you imitate Him who was naked on the cross, even Christ."

To such shameful foolishness can poor human nature descend when it gets away from the spirituality of the Gospel, and begins to magnify the importance of the mode of performing a rite.

After going over the passages in the New Testament, very carefully many times, and reading the arguments on both sides, we do not believe there is a case of immersion in the New Testament, -

not even one. We do not believe God ever gave the rite in that form, and for many reasons. I will let Dr. Fairfield state them. He writes: "Some years ago, while I was still in the Baptist ministry, but after I had ceased to preach on baptism, and in my own mind, had ceased to insist on immersion, I met a Baptist clergyman, who was an entire stranger to my own thoughts and who said to me, "Has it never occurred to you that the great Head of the Church in establishing an ordinance for all time, and for all seasons of the year, would not be likely to give the Church one that is so utterly un-physiological as immersion? Now I have studied medicine and practiced as a physician fifteen years, and I know that what I say is true-it is contrary to all the laws of life and health, either for the baptized or for the administrator. I was at first quite startled to hear such words from a Baptist minister. But after a moment, I confessed my own thoughts and my own experience. For on several occasions, I had been ill for days, after baptizing a large number of persons in the spring, following a winter of special revival. I was present in Spurgeon's church in the summer of 1873, on the occasion of the baptism of ten persons. Spurgeon was present and preached, and was as well as usual; but another minister performed the ceremony because Mr.

Spurgeon felt that his health did not justify him in doing it." I have heard my father tell of a neighbor of his who was immersed, and from the effects of it, she never walked a step for twenty-five years. We have read of two converts being drowned in baptism. On each occasion the preacher became so chilled by the icy water that he could not hold the candidate, and the current carried her under the ice and she was drowned. Dr. Godbey names two ministers who were killed from baptizing in cold water, and of two candidates who died in the very act of being immersed, and of a third who fell dead on the bank. The number of such cases, if they could all be gathered up, would be appalling. Godbey adds: "Jesus said, 'He came not to destroy men's lives, but to save, them,' Immersion destroys life. Hence it is not the institution of Jesus" (pp. 32, 33).

Christianity is a religion for our globe. Godbey says: "Our Savior commands us to baptize all the people in the world. He commands nothing impossible or unreasonable. We can baptize every body, but we can't immerse everybody. We are commanded to baptize the millions of people living around the North Pole. To immerse them would kill both the subject and the administrator" (p. 31, 32). In climes where men have no water in winter but from ice melted over an oil lamp, and in dry and thirsty lands and deserts where immersion would be impossible. Baptism is a rite to be applied immediately after conversion, to young and old, to the sick and the delicate, and the feeble.

Is it at all probable that Jesus gave a universal rite to the church, and insisted on a mode of performing it so unreasonable, often so impractical, and so perilous? We are free to say, we do not believe it.

Universal immersion is impractical, even in Jesus' own land. Dr. Fairfield says: "In the spring of 1864, I spent a month in Palestine. I was then a Baptist and expected to remain so. It was in the month of March, and as the latter rain had just ceased, it would be a favorable time for finding suitable conveniences for immersion, if there were any. Yet, aside from the Mediterranean Sea, and the Sea of Galilee, I found only one or two where immersion would have been practicable. It was not oftener than once in four days on the average, that we could have baptized the Eunuch in that method, had we fallen in with him, and had he so required. The Jordan was one of them, and that at the Fords was like the Niagara half a mile above the cataract" (p. 235).

There are four commands in the commission, "go," "Disciple," "Baptize," and "teach." Nothing is said about the mode of going, or discipling, or teaching, or baptizing. The New Testament never insists on the form or mode, but only on things. It teaches worship, but not the form of worship. It teaches observance of the Sabbath, but not the form of observance. It teaches the celebration of the Lord's Supper, but not the form of celebration. It teaches baptism, but not the form of baptism. No rite is more important than the Lord's Supper. But Jesus left it all indefinite. "This do in remembrance of me." But whether bread be leavened or unleavened, eaten standing, sitting, kneeling, or reclining on a couch, as Jesus did, at breakfast, dinner or supper, in the early evening or about midnight, as Jesus did; with females present, or absent, as Jesus did; once a Sabbath, or once a month, when, where, or how is of no significance. Such is baptism. The quantity of water is unimportant, and to teach that it is, is absurd. It is simply a symbol of spiritual cleansing, and a few drops, or a handful is as significant as a tank full, or an ocean full. And yet we say, let any one be immersed who prefers to be, even though it is not the Scripture mode. It is still baptism.

III. The Import of Baptism. We have naturally and necessarily anticipated this part of our discussion in occasional sentences. It was unavoidable. We will now discuss it at sufficient length.

1. Baptism is initiatory. The Church of Christ is an institution. As such it must have some mode of admitting members. While all true gospel Churches insist that people must be regenerated to be fit subjects for church-membership, yet we cannot accurately judge of the state of the heart. So there must be some visible act, of admission. We have no other but baptism, which is of Divine appointment. It has been regarded as the initiatory rite from the earliest ages of Christianity. To deny it is to affirm that Christianity has no such ordinance. So our Lord connected it with the great commission to disciple all nations. As men were baptized in the name of Christ, they were united to his church.

2. It is a mode of profession. Jesus asks us to confess or profess Him before men. Baptism is a confession of our faith in the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for what each promises to do for us. It is looked upon by the world as an open avowal of Jesus as our Savior and Lord. The heathen all so understand it, when one of their number steps out from among them and accepts Christian baptism. They look upon him as lost to their fellowship and idolatry forever.

3. Baptism is a sign. It represents visibly to our view all the provisions of the Atonement for the cleansing of the soul from sin. It is a recognition of the cleansing efficacy of the blood of Christ, and the regenerating and sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit.

Baptists contend that baptism always means immersion, and always is a type of death and resurrection. So argues Campbell, Carson, Ripley, Hinton and others. But neither Scripture nor Church History bears them out in this. Over and over again, it is a sign of our Spiritual purification by the Holy Spirit. "I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed and my blessing upon their offspring" (Isa. 44: 3). The first clause is explained by the second. "I will sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you. ... I will put my Spirit within you . . . and I will save you from all your uncleannesses" (Ezek. 36: 25-29). "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh" (Joel 2: 28). This is called in Acts the "Baptism with the Holy Ghost." The fulfillment of Matt. 3: 11 and Acts 1:5. Baptism in its true mode of sprinkling or pouring is eminently the sign of the pouring out of the Spirit, the descending of the Spirit, and the falling of the Spirit upon men, "cleansing their hearts by faith."

4. Baptism is a seal. It is the seal of a covenant between us, and God. On God's part it is a visible assurance appointed by Himself, that He will be faithful to His covenant engagements. He has condescended to bind Himself by a perpetual ceremony that He will do all that He can wisely do for our salvation, or the salvation of those whom we bring to Him in the rite of baptism. But it is our seal also. It is the seal of our covenant to trust in God, and walk with Him with a holy heart, and do what we can to secure our own salvation, and the salvation of the children, whom we have thus given to God. We "set to our seal that God is true," and we pledge ourselves to believe in God for salvation, and live for Him, and keep His commandments, and forever put away sin.

Dr. Fairfield observes: "There has been a substantial oneness of the church from the beginning.

There has been but one plan of salvation, but one way of pardon, but one system of truth, from Abraham down. Under the old dispensation there were two ordinances, Circumcision and the Passover. Under the new dispensation there are two, baptism and the Lord's Supper. The two great doctrines of both dispensations are the same. Justification, and sanctification, forgiveness and holiness, pardon and purity. . . . The Lord's Supper shows forth the Lord's death till the end of time, and commemorates our deliverance by the blood of sprinkling. Both speak of pardon.

Circumcision symbolized purity, the putting away of the filthiness of the flesh and spirit. Many passages so represent: "Circumcise, therefore the foreskin of your heart": "He is not a Jew who is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit and not in the letter" (see also Col.

2: 9-11). Now, if baptism under the New Testament Dispensation is also ceremonial cleansing, the unity is complete; but if it is burial, and not purification, the unity is broken. This is a strongly presumptive argument showing that baptism means cleansing and not immersion. The unity is not broken, by such a rite and such an interpretation" (pp. 146-148).

Even the Fathers of the Church prove our position that sprinkling was a proper mode of baptism, and that it symbolized spiritual cleansing, and not the death and resurrection of Christ.

1. Justin Martyr, - born while the Apostle John was yet alive, says: "We make known baptism which he proclaimed, which is alone able to cleanse those who repent. For what is the benefit of that cleansing (baptism) which makes bright the flesh and the body only? (Fairfield on Baptism, p.

212).

2. Hippolytus, about the year 200, after quoting Isa. 1: 16-19, "Wash you make you clean," etc.:

"Thou sawest beloved, how the prophet foretold the cleansing of the holy baptism." . . . Certainly, this preacher understood baptism to mean cleansing, not burial (p 212).

3. Cyprian, about A. D. 250, in answer to a question that had been proposed to him as to the validity of baptism performed without 'immersion during sickness, says: "The divine favors are so maimed or weakened, because these sick people have nothing but an affusion or sprinkling; Ezekiel says: 'Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean.' And let not such, if they recover of their sickness, think it needful that they should be baptized again. For in baptism the pollution of sin is not washed away as the pollution of the body is washed away, in an external physical bath; far otherwise is the heart of the believer washed."

The whole discussion proves that he thought baptism signified cleansing, and not burial, and that sprinkling was baptism. No Baptist would write such a letter today, for it would give away his whole position.

4. Athanasius, about A. D. 328, wrote: "It is proper to know that in like manner with baptism, the fountain of tears cleanses man. Wherefore many who have defiled the holy baptism by offences have been cleansed by tears and declared just. . . . Three baptisms, purgative of all sin whatever, God has bestowed on the nature of men. I mean that of water, and again that by the witness of one's own blood; and thirdly, that by tears, in which also the harlot was cleansed." (Question LXXII.) A plainer case to prove that the word means "cleansings" and not "immersions," it would be difficult to conceive. Is a martyr immersed in his own blood, or a harlot in her own tears? They might so be sprinkled, but never immersed. And the passage proves that the author looked upon baptism as a type of cleansing, and not of burial.

5. Constantine the Great was sprinkled in A. D, 337.

6. Chrysostom, about A. D. 350, speaking of Christ's cup and baptism, says: "Here calling His cross and death, a cup and a baptism: a cup because He drank it with pleasure; a baptism because by it He cleansed the world."

The same writer, in his discourse on St. Lucian, the Martyr, says: "Wonder not if I call the martyrdom a baptism. For here also the Spirit hovers over with great fullness, and there is a taking away of sins and a cleansing of the soul, wonderful and strange; and as the baptized are cleansed by water, so are the martyrs by their own blood." Here is "cleansing" but no thought of burial, and sprinkling, but no thought of immersion, and it is "baptism."

7. Cyril, Archbishop of Alexandria, A. D. 412, wrote: "For we have been baptized, not with mere water; but neither with the ashes of a heifer, have we been sprinkled for the cleansing of the flesh alone, as says the blessed Paul; but with the Holy Spirit, and a fire that is divine, destroying the filth of the vileness in us." Again we have sprinkling as baptism, and cleansing, but no burial. In no one of these writings of the early Fathers is baptism regarded as an emblem of burial, and resurrection; and nowhere is immersion represented as the essential form of it. "It seems to me,"

says Dr. Fairfield, "that an appeal to the Fathers of the first ten centuries, subsequent to the Apostolic Age, is against the Baptist Theory and not in favor of it" (pp. 212-229).

And what shall le said of, the Campbellite theory that immersion is necessary to salvation? It is a monstrous perversion of truth. Dr. Godbey says: "In debating with me, Elder Briney argued, that when God converted a man, still he was not pardoned till he was immersed for the remission of his sins. You see this is a full endorsement of popery, elevating the Pope or the preacher above God. For after God has converted the man, He must still go to hell, unless the preacher immerses him. So Jesus doesn't save him in conversion, but the preacher saves him in immersion! ... A man would a thousand times better never receive water-baptism than to receive it as a saving ordinance; for in that case, it becomes a rival of Jesus. You worship everything to which you impute salvation. If you look to baptism as a saving ordinance in any sense, you deify it and become an idolater. If you go to the water imbued with this heresy, that God has promised to remit your sins in water baptism, you come away unpardoned, and so remain until you abandon the water-God, and take Jesus. The only condition on which Jesus will save, is to abandon everything, i. e., the water, the preacher, and everything else, and take Him alone and trust Him to save you"

(Baptism, pp. 48, 4?).

A few months ago a Congregational Deacon told us this incident, which well illustrates the fanaticism of the Campbellite, or Christian or Disciple preachers on this subject: "I was recently riding on the train to Oklahoma City, and sat behind two Campbellite preachers, one a young man just beginning his ministry, and the other a prominent evangelist of that denomination. Said the younger: "I was asked the other day this question. Suppose a person was being immersed, and he went all under but his nose, would he be saved? 'Well,' said the evangelist, 'what answer did you give?' 'I had never heard it put in that way, said the youth, but I answered, 'no.' 'You were right, you were right,' said the elder, 'a man would never be saved, with such a baptism!' "Could anything be a more stupid or a more harmful perversion of the Gospel? We dare to live in the serene faith that the infinite Christ and the omnipotent Holy Spirit are quite able to get a penitent and believing man to heaven, with his nose out of water, all the way. What about the thief on the cross?

IV. The Subjects of Baptism. It still remains for us to consider who are the proper subjects of Baptism. This has been a great source of controversy. We affirm without any hesitation that believers in Christ and the infant children of believing parents are the proper subjects of baptism.

We have already shown that as soon as adults or youth savingly believe, they should on the first opportunity confess Christ in baptism. But the following objections are vigorously urged against infant baptism.

(1) That infant baptism has no express warrant in the word of God. This statement may be questioned. But if it were admitted, to draw this conclusion is to assume the principle that whatever is not expressly enjoined in the Word of God ought not to be done. If so, then females ought not to be admitted to the Lord's Supper, for there is no express warrant for female communion. In the same way we ought not to keep the First Day of the week as a holy Sabbath, for there is no express command to do it. And the same possibly might be said of family prayer. The objection tries to prove too much, and proves nothing.

(2) That infants cannot believe, and therefore should not be baptized. Faith is indeed the proper condition of adult baptism. When Abraham was circumcised, it was "a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had" previously exercised; but when Isaac was to be circumcised, no faith was required of him because he was incapable of it. It is so with baptism. Faith is only required of those capable of exercising it, while their infant children become proper subjects of the ordinance because of the faith of their parents. The objection is, therefore, worthless. But in addition, it proves as much against the salvation of infants, as against their baptism. They cannot believe, and people must believe to be saved, therefore infants will be damned!! Again the argument proves too much, and proves nothing!

(3) Infants should not be bound by this ordinance because they cannot consent to the covenant of which it is the seal. But parents have a right to bind their children by covenants and do it continually. Every time a man deeds a property, he binds himself, his heirs, and assigns forever.

But sacred history also refutes the objections. Moses said: "Ye stand this day all of you, before the Lord your God; your Captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water; that thou shouldst enter into covenant with the Lord thy God, and into His oath, which the Lord thy God maketh with thee this day" (Deut. 29: 10-12). Here the parents made a covenant which included their "little ones," and bound them to the Lord. The obligations of religion do not depend on our voluntary, consent, but on the essential nature of our being.

(4) It is often objected, and with a sneer, "what good does it do to baptize a baby?" We may answer solemnly, with another question: "What good did it do for little Isaac and every other Jewish child to be circumcised, by the command of God?" We would reverently suggest that we can never know how much more God can wisely do for the salvation of those children who have been given to Him by parents in a solemn covenant than He can do for others not given to Him. The infinite, covenant-keeping God is quite able to bring special blessings to such children. Of all objections to (infant baptism, this contemptuous one is the most flimsy, and the most common.

Suppose we cannot see how it does the children any good, our ignorance is not the measure of our duty, when it comes to the appointments of God, and the dedication of our children to Him in this solemn rite. We are not obliged to believe in baptismal regeneration, nor to fear the damnation of unbaptized infants, in order to feel the importance of infant baptism.

ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF INFANT BAPTISM

I. From the admission of children to the Church under the Abrahamic Covenant.

Let it be understood that the Church of God took its visible form in the covenant made with Abraham, God said to him: "In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed" (Gen. 12: 3).

"Walk before me and be thou perfect, and I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. . . . And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee" . . . And this is my covenant which ye shall keep. Ye shall be circumcised. . . . And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you. Every male throughout your generations"

(Gen. 17: 1-12).

It will be observed that circumcision was the seal of the covenant. We shall show that baptism has taken the place of circumcision and is to the Christian Church what circumcision was to the former covenant.

St. Paul interpreted the covenant promise made to Abraham as follows: "The promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the Father of us all," that is, of all believers (Rom. 4: 10, 11; Gal. 3: 14).

This covenant with Abraham was to be everlasting in its duration and universal in its blessing. "I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee, in their generations for an everlasting covenant" (Gen. 17: 7). "And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed"

(Gen. 22: 18). St. Paul attaches this to the Christian Church as follows: "And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the Gospel unto Abraham, saying, in thee shall all nations be blessed. So, then, they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham" (Gal. 3: 8,

9). Hence this covenant, in its highest sense, is carried out in the Gospel dispensation, and Abraham is the Father of all true believers (Rom. 4: 10, 11).

Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, joins the ancient and modern Church, in the following words: "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for He has visited and redeemed his people. ... To perform the mercy which He promised to our fathers, and to remember His holy covenant the oath which He sware to our father Abraham, that He would grant unto us, that we, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him, all the days of our life" (Luke 1: 68-75). Now this Abrahamic Covenant was not annulled by the promulgation of the Gospel; but God saw fit to change the seal of the covenant from circumcision to baptism. The two are coupled together in these words of St. Paul: "And ye are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power; in whom ye are also circumcised in the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism." Here baptism is made the initiatory rite of the new dispensation. By it the Colossians were joined to Christ, in whom they are said to be

"complete," and this baptism is called "the circumcision of Christ" (Col. 2: 10-12). And again:

"For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, 'for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's (by thus being baptized and putting on Christ) then, are ye Abraham's seed" (Gal. 3:27-29). All these facts show that the Church is one, in the old and new dispensation, and that baptism is now the sign and seal and initiatory rite, as circumcision once was. From these premises, it follows that as infant children of believing parents, under the Old Testament were proper-subjects of baptism.

What a standing objection it would have made for the Jews against Christianity, if no provision had been made for the children to have some visible relation to the church of God I It would have raised a storm of opposition, on the ground, that the children were cast off, and unprovided for. But Church History reveals no such contention; the simple reason is that the children were provided for, by infant baptism.

II. From Scripture Testimony.

Mark 10: 14. "Suffer the little children to come unto me; forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God," etc. We do not argue that Christ baptized these children, or anybody else. But "it is unequivocal testimony that children belong to the kingdom of God." This simply cannot be explained away. It cannot mean less than that children have some real and vital relation to the kingdom of Christ on earth; and to prohibit infants from entering into God's covenant by baptism, is a gross usurpation of authority which belongs only to God, since He always permitted them to enter it by circumcision, and has never repealed the right.

III. From Apostolic Practice.

There are in the New Testament four cases of household baptism, the household of Lydia (Acts 16: 15), the household of the Philippian jailer (Acts 16: 33), the household of Stephanas (1 Cor. 1: 16), and perhaps of Crispus (v. 14). It does not say expressly that there were young children in each household; but the story reads just as if there were younger members who were baptized on the strength of the faith of the head of the house. It makes a strong presumption in favor of infant baptism. The accounts are worded precisely as we would expect in such a case. There is no fact or command against infant baptism in the New Testament; the relation of little children to the Church is taught; and believers and their households were baptized.

IV. From the History of the Church.

It cannot be denied that infant baptism has been practiced from the earliest days of Christianity.

There is no record of its being introduced into the Church. There was never any controversy about it. This is enough to refute the notion that the custom grew up subsequent to the days of the Apostles. It makes it altogether probable, therefore, that the custom Fests on Apostolic authority.

Justin Martyr, born before St. John's death, speaking of the Church of his day, says: "There were many of both sexes, some sixty and some seventy years old, who were made disciples to Christ in their infancy" In no other way could this have been done but by infant baptism.

Origen, born of Christian parents about the year 184, and a man of more information than any other of his day says: "Infants are baptized for the remission of sins." And again: "The Church hath received the tradition from the Apostles, that baptism ought to be administered to infants."

Fidus and Cyprian. In the middle of the third century, Fidus, an African bishop, applied to Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, to know if children might be baptized before the eighth day. The question was referred to a council of sixty-six bishops met at Carthage, who decided unanimously that they might be baptized at any time. This proves two things, (1) That baptism took the place of circumcision; (2) That infant baptism was universally practiced.

Augustine, who lived in the fourth century, says: "The whole Church practices infant baptism. It was not instituted by councils, but was always in use." Again, "I do not remember to have read of any person, whether Catholic or heretic, who maintained that baptism ought to be denied to infants."

Pelagius, a man of great learning, in the fourth century, after having traveled through France, Italy, Egypt, and Africa, says: "I never heard of even an impious heretic who asserted that infants are not to be baptized."

Dr. Wall, who examined this subject more extensively, perhaps, than any other man, sums up his history thus: "First, during the first four hundred years from the formation of the Christian Church, Tertullian only urged the delay of baptism to infants, and that only in some canes; and Gregory only delayed it perhaps, to his own children. But neither any society of men, nor any individual, denied the lawfulness of baptizing infants. Secondly, In the next seven hundred years, there was not a society nor an individual, who even pleaded for this delay; much less any who denied the right or the duty of infant baptism. Thirdly, In the year 1120, one sect of the Waldenses denied baptism to infants, because they supposed them to be incapable of salvation. But the main body of that people rejected the opinion as heretical, and the sect which held it soon came to nothing. Fourthly, The next appearance of this opinion was in year 1522."

We think it impossible to account for these testimonies, on rational principles, without admitting that the practice of infant baptism has come down to us from the days of the Apostles" (Wakefield's Theology, pp. 572, 573).

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CHAPTER XXII -- THE LORD'S SUPPER

Having duly considered baptism, the other sacrament of divine appointment is the Lord's Supper. It is called the Eucharist, because it is a thanksgiving rite, - Christ Himself having given thanks at its institution. It is called the Communion, because Christians at the table of their Lord are privileged to have blessed communion with Him.

Baptism and the Lord's Supper agree, in the following respects: (1) The author of both is God: (2) The spiritual part of both is Christ and His benefits: (3) Both are seals of the same covenant, and are to be continued in the Church of Christ until His second coming.

Their difference is, that baptism is to be administered but once with water, to be a sign and seal of our regeneration, and engrafting into Christ, and that even to infants.

Whereas the Lord's Supper is to be administered often, in the elements of bread and wine, to represent and exhibit Christ as spiritual nourishment, and His atonement as our only hope of salvation, and to confirm our continuance and growth in Him, and that only to such as are of years, and ability to know the moral condition of their own hearts.

I. Notice the Institution of the ordinance.

The Lord's Supper was given by the Savior to take the place of the Passover. The Jewish Passover was eminently a type of the sacrificial death of our Lord for the salvation of man. Christ Himself was the true Passover. And that the attention and hope of all men might be forever fixed on Him.

On the night before He suffered. "He took bread, and when He had given thanks, He brake it, and said, Take eat; this is my body which is broken for you; this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also He took the cup when He had supped, saying: This cup is the New Testament in my blood; this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup ye do show the Lord's death till He come" (1 Cor. 11: 23-26).

Matthew adds: "This is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many, for the remission of sins" (Matt. 26: 27, 28).

II. Its Perpetual Obligation.

What Jesus said to the Disciples on the night before His death. He repeated to St. Paul, about the Lord's Supper. "For I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, how that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread. . . . Ye proclaim the Lord's death till He come." 1 Cor. 11: 23-26. This latter clause seems to have been an addition. It must have been made with a special purpose:

1. It enjoined upon St. Paul, and the Churches He should establish, and therefore upon all churches, this rite, as an essential element of church life and service and worship.

2. It was a rite to be frequently celebrated, and that through all future time until the Lord Himself should come to judge the world. Such a perpetual obligation cannot, therefore, be reasonably disputed by any obedient disciple.

III. The Nature of the Lord's Supper.

There have been different and very grave contentions on this subject, which have divided and subdivided the Church of Christ.

1. The doctrine of transubstantiation, - this is the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. It is believed by those who hold this doctrine that the words "This is my body, this is my blood," are to be taken in the most literal sense; that when our Lord pronounced these words, by His Almighty power, He changed the bread and wine into His own body and blood, and really delivered His body and blood into the hands of the disciples. They further hold that, the priest, when the Lord's Supper is administered, by pronouncing those words in Latin with a good intention, has the power of making a similar change, and the whole Christ is in the bread, and the whole Christ is in the wine; and not only so, but in each and every particle of both species, and the change is permanent.

They conceive further that the bread and wine, thus changed, are presented by the priest to God as a literal sacrifice, and is a true propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the dead and the living. They further believe that where the body and blood of Christ is, there also is His soul and divinity, and so the priest, by half a dozen words, creates the whole Christ, body and blood, soul and divinity, and He is thus received orally, i. e., by the mouth of the communicant. It is further conceived that as the elements of the supper when converted into the body and blood and soul and divinity of Christ, are natural objects of reverence and adoration to Christians, it is highly proper to worship them upon the altar; and that it is expedient to carry them about in solemn procession that they may receive the worship of all men. This worship of the host, or consecrated wafer, takes place in every Roman Catholic Church on earth. It is what in the days of the Reformation, Protestants called, "the Idolatry of the Mass."

No wonder this monstrous theory of the Church of Rome was opposed; it is as utterly contradictory to the Holy Scriptures, as it is revolting to the reason of mankind. According to it, every priest has the power to create his own God, to which the people must bow in adoring worship.

Such was the doctrine, as formulated by the council of Trent, an outgrowth of the superstition and ignorance of the Dark Ages, chiefly designed to exalt the power of the priesthood.

2. The Doctrine of Consubstantiation. This is the name applied to the theory of Luther, and the Lutherans generally, respecting the presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper. He denied that the elements of the sacrament were changed, by the words of the priest, and held that the bread and wine remained the same; but that "the body and blood of Christ are with, in, and under the bread and wine," and are literally received by the communicants. Lutherans are divided among themselves as to their theories and explanations, as to the mode of Christ's presence, and some hold that it is "an inexplicable mystery." But the very idea that the flesh and blood of Christ are omnipresent, involves a contradiction, which an appeal to the omnipotence of God by no means relieves. Contradictions are not the objects of divine power. Dr. Hodge observes: "It is no more a limitation of the power of God to say that He cannot do the impossible, that He cannot make right wrong, or the finite infinite, than it is a limitation of His wisdom that He cannot teach the untrue or the unwise. All such assumptions destroy the idea of God as a rational being" (Theology, Vol. Ill, p. 671). If the body and blood of Christ are omnipresent, they are everywhere operative. This doctrine of the Lutherans never can be harmonized with reason and Scripture, and leads to a fatal defect in their Christology.

3. There is the theory of Zwingle of Switzerland and the Reformed Churches. Zwingle taught that

"The Lord's Supper was nothing else than the food of the soul, and Christ instituted the ordinance as a memorial of Himself. When a man commits himself to the sufferings and death of Christ he is saved. Of this He has left us a certain visible sign of His flesh and blood, both of which He has commanded us to eat and drink in remembrance of Him (Docat Council, Zurich, 1523). In his

"Exposition of Christian Faith" just before his death, he says: "The natural, substantial body of Christ, in which He suffered, and in which He is now seated in heaven at the right hand of God, is not in the Lord's Supper eaten corporeally, or as to its essence, but spiritually only. . . . Spiritually to eat Christ's body is nothing else than with the spirit and mind to rely on the goodness and mercy of God through Christ. . . . Sacramentally to eat His body, is the sacrament being added, with the mind and spirit to feed on Him."

The First Helvetic Confession says: "The Lord's Supper is called 'coena mystica' in which Christ truly offers His body and blood, and hence Himself to His people; not as though the body and blood of Christ were naturally united with the bread and wine, locally included in them, or sensibly there present, but in so far as the bread and wine are symbols, through which we have communion in His body and blood, not to the nourishment of the body, but of the spiritual, or eternal life."

In "The Sincere Confession of Zurich," 1545, occurs this precise statement; "We teach that the great design and end of the Lord's Supper, that to which the service is directed, is the remembrance of Christ's body devoted, and of His blood shed for the remission of sins. This remembrance, however, cannot take place, without true faith (Hodge, Vol. Ill, pp. 627, 628). In a word, the Zwinglians Regarded the Lord's Supper as a memorial service, specially used of God to bless the soul, and nourish its divine life.

4. Calvin wholly agreed with Zwingle as far as the latter went, but more strongly emphasized the spiritual presence of Christ to the minds of the communicants, so much so that the ordinance was not only supernatural but truly miraculous. "We conclude that our souls are fed by the flesh and blood of Christ, just as our corporeal life is preserved by bread and wine. . . . Now this sacred communication of His blood and flesh, by which Christ transfuses His life into us, just as if He penetrated our bones and marrow, He testifies and seals in the holy supper; not by the exhibition of a vain and empty sign, but by putting forth such an energy of His Spirit as fulfills what He promises." . . . "In the sacred supper we acknowledge it a miracle, transcending both nature and our understanding, that Christ's life is made common to us with Himself" (Hodge, Vol. Ill, pp. 628, 629).

5. Perhaps the modern Protestant view may be put in these words: The Lord's Supper is a commemorative rite sacramentally observed, - a sign and seal of the covenant of our redemption.

(1) As a sign, it teaches (a) the vicarious and sacrificial character of the death of Christ as an offering for sin, and propitiation, in virtue of which only, a covenant of grace was made with man by God. (b) It signifies the benefits derived from it through believing -"remission of sins," the nourishment of the soul in Spiritual life and its growth in Christ-likeness.

(2) It is a seal, (a) a constant assurance on the part of God of the continuance of His covenant of redemption through the ages, (b) It is a pledge to the believing penitent, who receives the sacrament in sole reliance upon Christ, that he is graciously accepted of God. (c) It is a perpetual exhibition to the world of Christ as the true food of the soul.

So much for the divine side. On the human side the communicants 1. Renew their acceptance of the covenant of grace.

2. Publish afresh to the world their faith in Christ.

3. They glory in His cross, as the wisdom and power of God.

4. They feast their souls on the Bread of Heaven, on Christ, the true Passover, with joy and gladness of heart, rejoicing in the God of their salvation.

IV. Who Are Proper Communicants?

Manifestly, none should approach the Lord's Table who do not abandon all other hopes and expectations, and trust solely in Christ for their salvation. The table is spread for the disciples of Christ, the blood-bought and redeemed children of God who have turned from sin, and accepted Christ as their Savior, and are joined to Him by a living faith. This would exclude: 1. All out and out unbelievers, - all profane rejecters of Christ.

2. It would exclude all who deny the true Deity of Jesus Christ, and consequently reject His atonement. The very service proclaims faith in the sacrificial, atoning death of Christ, and faith in His blood as the only remedy for sin. Those who have not this faith could not with any propriety come to the Lord's Table; and it is passing strange that they should even desire to come. They could not help eating and drinking unworthily, and it would only deepen their condemnation.

3. People who are wedded to the world, and in love with sin, and have never forsaken it by hearty repentance, and do not solemnly purpose to do so, - all such shut themselves out from the blessed feast, by their own conscious unfitness of heart.

4. The table of the Lord is to be approached with grateful love, and gladness of heart, by every devout, prayerful and believing soul. It was designed for them, to strengthen their faith, to encourage their hopes, to quicken their life, and renew their strength.

The table belongs to the Lord, and not to any man, or any church; the Lord's true children, all who are in Christ, of whatever name or persuasion, have a right to come and sit at their common Master's table, and thus profess their faith and their love.

5. From the words of its institution we may conclude that it was to be celebrated with reasonable frequency. No specific rule as to time is given. But it is safe to say that he, who habitually neglects the Communion of the Lord's Supper, grieves that gracious Savior who spread the feast, disobeys His command, and spiritually starves his own soul. And what is more, it sadly dishonors Christ in the eyes of a Christ-rejecting world.

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PART VI -- ESCHATOLOGY

CHAPTER I -- THE SECOND ADVENT AND THE MILLENNIUM

The Millennial Doctrine has been a veritable "troubler in Israel." It has risen and declined, risen and declined, again and again through the Christian centuries. One cannot write a Systematic Theology and avoid the subject. In a general way Christian thought has been divided into Premillennialism and Postmillennialism.

In my own theological reading and study I have been compelled to take the Postmillennial side. But in this theology I have invited my dear friend Dr. Chapman to state the other side, which I have also done, presenting the arguments of the champions of the Premillennial view. I want my readers to hear both sides and form an intelligent opinion.

THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS PREMILLENNIAL

By J. B. Chapman

The Scriptures so clearly teach that Jesus Christ is coming back to this earth upon which He suffered and died for the sins of men that there has practically been no dispute in the Church as regards the fact. There has, however, been discussion as to the time of His second coming as related to other occurrences connected with the conclusion of man's day of grace.

In the twentieth chapter of Revelation there is mention of a thousand years in connection with the second coming of Christ and the triumph of His people, and in other portions of both the Old and New Testaments mention is made of a day or time of wonderful triumph for God and righteousness in the future. In fact it is instinctive for a Christian to believe that at last "the seed of the woman"

shall bruise the serpent's head, although it shall bruise His heel. And so there has all along existed in the Church a hope for a "golden day" when Christ shall reign from the rivers unto the ends of the earth and righteousness and peace shall be universal. And from the Latin word for thousand has come our word Millennium, which has become the synonym among Christian writers and thinkers for that golden day of their future hope.

There are those who believe that the golden day of Christian triumph shall be ushered in by the power of the gospel as preached by the ministers of Christ today, and that following such a triumph Jesus will return to the earth the second time to enter upon the kingdom thus prepared for Him. And because they place the coming of Jesus after the Millennium they are called Post-Millennialists.

Then there are those who hold that there can be no golden day until Jesus comes, and that His coming is now imminent, and does not await the conversion of the people of the earth. And because these place the second coming of Jesus before the Millennium they are called Pre-Millennialists. This latter is our own view of the subject, to which we have adhered for thirty years.

While the prophetic portion of the Bible has always held interest for some, still it has been the last fifty years in which the very unusual concern has been marked. Men of various schools of theology and of various stages of intellectual development and mental caliber, have spoken and written on the subject until a mass of literature difficult to catalogue has been produced, and not a few have been discouraged by the dogmatism of zealous promoters of private fancies regarding certain phases of the theme.

But it happened with our Lord that His greatest foe was a member of His family of friends, and it often happens that friends of orthodoxy are more effective in promoting heterodoxy than heretics themselves. We would therefore state in the very beginning that we do not and never have taken any stock in "date setting," or held any brief for the defense of those who in their zeal for the mysteries of the future have become wise beyond what is written. To be a pre-millennialist one is not bound to endorse all the pre-millennarians or to defend the fancies of those who hold intact the essentials of the doctrine itself. And, further, we would by no means judge the body of a man's theology by his position on the millennial question: he might be orthodox on this and heterodox on the sin question, on the truth of Scriptural holiness, or on any other essential truth of the gospel. On the other hand, one might be heterodox on the millennial question and yet be orthodox on the way of sin and of holiness. Millennarianism cannot be said to be the "touch-stone" of orthodoxy as is truthfully said regarding the deity of Christ and of spiritual regeneration.

There are many phases of the subject of course, but we think it fair to let the division come just where the words indicate that it does come and account all who believe that the millennium will come before Jesus comes the second time as post-millennialists and all who hold that Jesus must come before there is a millennium as pre-millennialists. We do therefore make this the line of distinction. And following this distinction we would admit a wide margin of thinking in either school without demanding a new classification. It has been suggested by those who find it difficult to embrace all the implications of either of the schools mentioned that they constitute a new and third school known as nil-millennialists. But this we think is not possible; for if there is to be a day of triumph for God and righteousness it must come either before or after the second coming of Christ, and it is inconceivable that a Christian should be an ultimate pessimist. All, then, who think on this subject are either post-millennialists or pre-millennialists.

Sometimes it is suggested that there is a further distinction between the two schools with regard to the purpose for which Jesus will return to the world. It is said that the post-millennialists believe that He will come for judgment alone, while the pre-millennialists hold that there will be further redemptive ministries connected with His work after He comes. But even this distinction is involved and included in the basis consideration of the time of His coming. For naturally those who believe that a very desirable state of affairs will exist at the time of His coming could conceive of nothing more that He should do than to judge the quick and dead in matters pertaining to everlasting awards and punishments. But those who believe that Jesus will come at a time when conditions among men are very far from good, not to say ideal, are bound to continue the redemptive processes somewhat or else close the affairs of men in the midst of deepest gloom.

Therefore, we think the whole question is stated when we ask, Will Jesus Christ come back to the world the second time before there is a millennium or golden age upon earth? And in answering this question in the affirmative we think ourselves justified by the following considerations: I. In describing the conclusion of the present, gospel age, both Jesus and the apostles spoke in terms of grave concern. Jesus asked, "When the Son of Man cometh shall He find faith on the earth?" Implying, we think, that faith would be relatively scarce and weak. Paul spoke of the same times as being marked by the presence of much form of godliness along with a denial of the power of godliness. These statements had reference to things ecclesiastical and religious. Then both Jesus and the apostles spoke of deplorable social conditions at the time of the end. For they told how there would be disobedience to parents and how there would be marrying and giving in marriage (a probable reference to lax marital practices), abounding iniquity, traitorous dealings between men and a general lawlessness in human affairs. And as regarding political conditions they foretold limes of confusion, war and trouble among and within nations leading right up to the return of the Lord. And we think there is significance in the fact that the parable of the virgins which has its application to the imminence and suddenness of the Lord's coming says that the cry was made

"at mid-night."

II. While we would not attempt exhaustive quotation in proof, we think there is no disputing of our statement that the Church in the days of the apostles and in the centuries immediately following their day was looking for the Lord to come in the glory of His second advent. There is of course some answer in the fact that He did not come then, but we think the fact that for several generations the ministers and laity alike cherished the hope that He would appear in their day is proof that those with and nearest to Jesus understood Him to say that He was coming and that He might come very soon. It was only after the Church became pretty well established- after the close of the pagan persecution-that ministers and members alike began on a large scale to identify the Church as the kingdom and to believe and teach that the kingdoms of the world would become the kingdom of God by means of the individual conversion of men through the preaching of the gospel. And there is a strong argument for the purity of a faith which can trace its pedigree to the earliest Christians.

III. In almost every century of the Christian era good men have come to the belief that "the coming of the Lord draweth nigh." These were not necessarily the only holy men of their times, but their experiences show that, instinctively, in times of great trial when earthly hopes are dim, Christians turn to the hope of the Lord's return. Christian philosophers argue for the existence of God from the natural disposition of men everywhere to worship, and they argue for the immortality of the soul from the fact that in every nation and in every age even untutored men have clung to the idea of a hereafter. If these arguments are valid, and we think they are, then the fact that in times of world weariness Christians turn their eyes toward the second coming of Christ has weight also.

IV. There is an argument in analogy. Jesus occupies a trinity of offices: prophet, priest and king.

He appeared as the "Teacher come from God" after the wisdom of the wisest had sought the way to God and had not found it. He fulfilled the highest demand of His priestly position by His death upon the cross after every sacrifice beside had been offered and every form of priesthood had, broken down. Now it would be in exact agreement with this order if He should enter upon His kingly dignity after the empire of man has failed. When every form of human government has been tried (as we think it has been now and has broken down) none has succeeded as the opposite position might require, Jesus should become King of kings as well as Lord of lords.

V. The truth of God always stands in the practical test, and the doctrine of the imminent second coming of the Lord stands such a test. In the early days of the Church Christians were taught that if they suffered with Christ they should also reign with Him. And in the times of their stress they were told, "Be patient, brethren, the coming of the Lord draweth nigh." And in later times, and noticeably so in our own times, the imminent coming of the Lord is an encouragement to sacrifice and the most earnest endeavor to preach the gospel to all the nations in order to gather out a people for His name and thus hasten the coming of the Savior. We think that this "blessed hope" is peculiarly adapted to keep the courage of the Church high when the results toward world evangelism seems disappointing. In fact this is one of the very uses made of it by the apostles.

They warned that there would be those who would say that all things continue as they have from the beginning, and that there is no occasion for special hope or fear. But Christians were to stand fast in the confidence that the Lord will suddenly, and so far as the world is concerned unexpectedly, return from heaven to rapture His saints and judge the ungodly.

VI. While we know that often the ways of God are past finding out, and that it does not devolve upon us to say why God does many things as He does, yet we believe that the doctrine of Christ's pre-millennial coming does commend itself to such as would piously try to follow the plans and workings of a good God in His redemptive dealings with the lost race of man. This doctrine presents a full vindication of Jesus Christ without necessitating untempered judgment upon men. It keeps the redemptive purpose always in the forefront, and brings on the happiest conclusion imaginable for such an unhappy world as sin has made of the one God gave us.

VII. And finally we hold that the only serious objections which can be filed against the doctrine of the Pre-millennial coming of the Lord pertain rather to the incidentals than to the fundamentals of the thesis. Teachers of this precious doctrine have often tended toward literalism in their interpretation of the future state and experiences. They have often appeared to present personal notions as of equal force with the facts of revelation. They have sometimes seemed to dwell upon prophecy to the shadowing of the privileges of the present day of grace. They have now and then entered details into the picture with too much air of certitude. They have at times become enmeshed in their descriptions of millennial order to the confusion of the principal exhortation:

"Therefore be ye also ready for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh."

But with all the considerations before us, we believe that Jesus and the apostles and the Church of the first three centuries of the Christian era taught that Jesus would come back to the world in the glory of His second advent before the millennium of peace and joy should be ushered in. We believe this hope of the imminent coming of the Lord has been the instinctive solace of good men in every age in times of stress and world weariness. We believe the analogies connected with the offices of Jesus Christ suggest that He shall enter upon His kingship at the end of world failure at empire, just as He entered upon His prophetic and priestly tasks at the end of man's failure in these spheres. We believe the doctrine of the imminent second coming of Jesus stands the practical test by inspiring the highest motives for personal holiness and for the effective evangelism of others.

We believe the doctrine of the Lord's pre-millennial second coming works out happily in connection 'with the revealed redemptive scheme of God for lost mankind. We believe the only serious objections to the thesis are and must be raised to its incidental details and not to its fundamental implications. We believe that the conditions existent now in the world are such as the Scriptures declare will exist at the time of the Lord's return, and that it is therefore the privilege of all believers to look up, lift up their heads, and stand in constant readiness for the glorious appearing of the heavenly Bridegroom of the Church, the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe that the next red letter day on the calendar of the ages is the sudden and glorious appearing of the Son of God in the clouds, and that those who are washed in His blood and filled with His Spirit may and shall go out to meet Him with a shout.

PREMILLENNIAL TEACHING IN DETAIL BY THEIR OWN AUTHORS

I. Jesus will come again visibly in person.

"This Jesus which was received up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye beheld Him going into heaven (Acts 1:11). For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God" (1 Thess. 4: 16). There is no controverting these plain statements. He will so come in like manner as He has gone. We are not to water down such words as these with anything short of a return precisely corresponding in its method to the departure: as the departure was visible, corporeal, literal, personal and local, so, too, will be His return from heaven to earth. And He will come as He went, a visible manhood, only thronged amidst the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. This is the aim that He sets before Him in His departure: He goes in order that He may come back again" (Dr. Maclaren).

II. THIS WAS THE HOPE AND EXPECTATION OF THE EARLY CHURCH.

"The second advent of Christ so clearly predicted by Himself and by His apostles, connected as it is with the Consummation of His Kingdom, was the object of longing expectation to all early Christians. So great is the glory connected with that event that Paul describes in Rom. 8: 18-23, the whole creation as looking forward to it with earnest expectation? Compare Phil. 3: 20; Tit. 2: 13.

So general was this expectation that Christians were characterized as those who love His appearing, 2 Tim. 4: 8, and as those who wait for Him/ Heb. 9: 28" (Charles Hodge, D. D.).

"The earnest expectation of the Lord Jesus became one of the marks of early Christian piety. This return was promised by the Savior, and it became the settled hope and expectation of Christians that He would return. 2 Pet. 3: 12; Heb. 9: 28. And with earnest prayer that He would quickly come, John closes the volume of inspiration" (Rev. 22: 20). - BARNES.

III. HIS COMING MAY BE NEAR.

"Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is. For the Son of Man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch. Watch ye, therefore; for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at evening, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning; lest coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you I say unto all. Watch." Mark 13:33-37, also Luke 12:35-46; Rom. 8: 23; 1 Cor. 1:7; Phil. 4: 5; 1 Thess. 1: 9, 10.

IV. CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES WILL SIT UPON LITERAL THRONES.

Christ will have the throne of David. Isa. 9:6, 7. "His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and of peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it, with justice and righteousness from henceforth, even forever." Luke 1: 32; Ezek. 21: 25-27. It will be upon the earth. Jer. 23: 5, 6. "He shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute righteousness in the land. In His days Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is His name wherewith He shall be called: Jehovah our Righteousness." He shall have a kingdom (Dan. 7: 13, 14). And rule over it with His saints (Dan. 7: 18, 22-27). All kings and nations shall serve Him (Psa. 72: 11; Isa. 49: 6, 7). The kingdoms of this world shall become His kingdom.

Zech 9: 10; Rev. 11: 15. They shall come and worship the King. Zech. 14: 16; His throne shall be in Jerusalem. Jer. 3:17. The Apostles shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt. 19: 28; Luke 22: 28-30). The temple in Jerusalem will be rebuilt. Ezek., chapters 40-48. All the nations of the earth shall go up to Jerusalem year by year to worship the King, and to offer sacrifices. Zech. 14: 16-21.

V. THE PRESENT AGE.

The word for "age" is usually and improperly translated "world." The following are examples,

"The harvest is the end of the age." Matt. 13: 39. "Lo! I am with you always even unto the end of the age" (Matt. 28: 20). "Be not conformed to this age" (Rom. 12: 2). "The god of this age hath blinded the minds of them which believe not" (2 Cor. 4: 4). "Christ gave himself for our sins that He might deliver us from this present evil age" (Gal. 1: 4). It stands, of course, in contrast with the age to come; and in the New Testament the present period of time has a significant character of evil, of self-denial, suffering, trial for the people of God, until that age to come shall burst upon their gladdened view. There is not even a hint from the first of Matthew to the last of Revelation that this significant character will be changed during the entire age in which we live, or until the second advent of Christ.

Jesus tells us that the tares and the wheat grow together until the harvest," and "the harvest is the end of the age." In the world ye have tribulation (John 16: 33). Where is there an intimation in the teaching of our Lord that this state of things will be changed, and that His followers shall become so numerous and victorious that they shall no longer bear the cross? Can a line be pointed out in any of the epistles which gives promise of a day when the saints must no more through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God? Each continent, nay, each state is an aceldema, a field of blood, covered with human bodies slain in battle. Crime and cruelty and vice that might shame the wild beasts, blacken all pages of the world's history. The sea roars in rebellion and wrath against the wickedness of man. The lower animals wage ferocious war with one another; and look where we may; we behold confusion, disorder and unrest. . . . Contrast this with the time when 'Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more' (Isa. 2:4; Isa. 11:6; Isa. 33: 24; 35: 1. It is obvious that the present age is under the age-rulers of darkness" (Eph. 6: 12).

VI. THERE IS NO BASIS OF HOPE IN THE TRIUMPHS OF THE GOSPEL, AND THE

PRESENT MEANS OF GRACE.

There is not a line in the New Testament which shows that the gospel is to be preached for the conversion of all nations: this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come."... So far is it from being true that light breaks in amid the stumbling, the betrayal of one another, the mutual hatred, the rise of false prophets, the destruction of many, the abounding of iniquity, the waxing cold of love, things go from bad to worse, until there shall be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, nor ever shall be." . . . "This know also that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, etc. (2 Tim. 3: 1-5). "There shall come in the last days scoffers," etc. (2 Pet. 3:3). The parables of the kingdom in Matt. 13, do not teach the world's conversion. The parable of the Sower, the parable of the Tares and the Wheat, of the Mustard seed, of the Leaven, the Treasure hidden in the field, the Pearl, the Net of fishes, - there is not a hint in the seven of the conversion of the world, but rather only partial success, and a mixed state, growing worse and worse to the end of the age.

VII. ANTICHRIST.

"The early Church, perhaps without exception, believed that the predicted Antichrist is to be a person, the embodiment of human blasphemy and wickedness." "He is not the Devil, but one of the human race, in whom the whole of Satan shall dwell bodily ... for he is the Man of Sin,' 'the Son of Perdition,' " "Popery does not answer to the inspired description." "We expect at the end a personal embodiment of Satan, with Satan's power to work miracles. He will be a counterfeit Christ. He is to personify the godless culture of these last days, possessing rare intelligence, being a scholar of fine attainments, 'understanding dark sentences' (Dan. 8: 23). He is to exult in the strength of his intellect, for he shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvelous things against the God of gods. As a man of transcendent genius, as a statesman of great ability, a politician of matchless skill, and a soldier born to command, he will give triumphant expression for a time to the lawlessness that already pervades society, children becoming more and more restless under parental authority, servants hating their masters, workingmen plotting against their employers, subjects rebelling against their rulers, citizens seeking the overthrow of their governments, and the criminal and licentious and infidel classes increasing with appalling rapidity. Both a God-defying world and an apostate church, Papal and Protestant, are busily engaged in preparing the way for the advent of the Antichrist who will be destroyed by Christ at His coming."

VIII. ISRAEL.

"From Moses to Malachi, and from Matthew to Revelation there is abundant and unvarying testimony that the literal descendants of the literal Abraham and Isaac and Jacob shall be literally restored to their own land, and rejoice once more in their covenant relations to Jehovah, as the head of the millennial nations. The passages affirming this are so numerous that they would make a good-sized book." "The divine procedure is as follows: First, the call of Israel; second, the call of the Church; third, the setting aside of both for unfaithfulness; fourth, the personal return of the Lord; fifth, and the salvation of all Israel; sixth, the salvation of all gentiles, at least in outward confession; seventh, the millennial kingdom of a thousand years." "If any of thine be driven out unto the utmost parts of the heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee: and the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he shall do thee good and multiply thee above thy fathers" (Deut. 30: 4, 5). "Thy people also shall be all righteous; they shall inherit the land forever" (Isaiah 60: 21). Of Jerusalem God says: "It shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more forever" (Jer. 31: 31-40; Jer. 33: 15-26; Ezek. 11: 16-20; Hosea 3:4, 5). "The great world empires have tried to crush Israel for 2,500 years. But all this is but the out-working of Jehovah's plans "till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth" (Isaiah 62: 7).

IX. THAT BLESSED HOPE.

"'Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ" (Titus 2: 13). "The Second Coming of Christ is said to be mentioned 318 times in the two hundred and sixty chapters of the New Testament, and it occupies one in every twenty-five verses from Matthew to Revelation." It is a blessed and comforting hope because, 1. Only then can nature cease her travailing throes "and the desert blossom as the rose" (Is. 35: 1).

Then "the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands" (Isa. 55: 12).

2. It will bring blessing to the lower animals. "They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Isa.

11:6-9).

3. It will bless civil governments. "He shall judge among the nations and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares," etc. (Isa. 2:4).

4. It will bring redemption to scattered Israel. "To the daughter of Zion and to the daughter of Jerusalem it is said": "The King of Israel, even the Lord, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more" (Zeph. 3: 15-20).

5. Consider its bearing on sickness. "The inhabitants shall not say, 'I am sick' - Isa. 33: 24. There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed." "For as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and my elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands" (Isa. 65: 20-22).

6. Its bearing on the state of the dead. "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him." 1 Thess. 4: 13-18. Where in bereavement shall we find such comfort as in His words, "Surely I come quickly. Amen"?

7. Its bearing on the conversion of the world. "It is when Israel is back in their own land, and know that their Messiah is in the midst of them, and they shall never be ashamed, -the promise is fulfilled; 'It shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh'" (Joel 2: 28).

"It is when He returns and builds again the tabernacle of David that the residue of men seek after the Lord and all the gentiles" (Acts 15: 14-17).

X. IT IS THE ONLY HOPE.

1. Christianity has utterly failed in the very countries where churches were planted by the apostles and their successors, to the number of hundreds and thousands. These churches have been enriched by the blood of the martyrs and then have disappeared from the earth.

2. The Reformation was speedily followed by rationalism, and the country that gave birth to the former is now the home of the latter. Within an incredibly short time after Luther's departure; Jesus could have said to most of Protestantism, as He said to the church at Sardis, "I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead," While the missionaries have converted 3,000,000 in a century the heathen population has increased 200,000,000.

3. "The outlook at home is not much more encouraging. The populations outgrow the churches in all our great cities. The world's greatest city has church accommodation for but a quarter of its population and they are not half filled. A similar disproportion meets us everywhere."

4. "The professors in universities and theological seminaries who have the ear of the public and are most admired and applauded, seem determined to destroy the foundation of faith in the authority and certainty of God's word.'It is an open apostasy in the bosom of professing Christendom'."

5. "The pew is in a still more deplorable condition, if this were possible. The atmosphere is laden with the malaria of skepticism, as it is said to be charged with the microbes of deadly disease.

Current literature is saturated with infidelity, and news-paperdom is led by many who do not even accept the idea of a God!! What a pitiful minority of our church members support the prayer-meetings, have family worship, and exhibit in their lives the marks of a deep and fervent piety!"

6. "Society is leprous all over. The ideal of propriety held by society has no relation to the moral sense." "Our stage exhibits moral monstrosity to the edge of abomination." "It might be said that the nautch dance (performed by prostitutes) is modesty beside our waltz. ... It is a fact, gloss it over any how we may, that decent women have never dressed so indecently in our country as they do in fashionable life today. The sin of impurity is enough to challenge the Omnipotent wrath which buried Sodom."

7. Neither the United States nor any other nation in Christendom possesses the elements of stability. The vile immoralities of men in public life, the determined and desperate socialism pervading the working classes, the rapid increase of crime and licentiousness and vice in every form are surely rotting away the foundations on which alone empires and republics stand. The masses hate the Church with bitterest hatred. There is an absolute necessity for the personal coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to save an apostate Church and a Godless, undone world. Never has any former age terminated in more complete disaster and ruin than that which confronts the professing Christian body in this dispensation of the Spirit. The Coming of Christ is the sole hope of the world."

XI. IT WAS THE BELIEF OF THE EARLY CHURCH.

This expectation is expressed by all apostles in terms which fairly admit of no other interpretation.

It is found in Paul (Rom. 13: 11, 12; 1 Cor. 7: 29-31; Phil. 4: 5; 1 Tim. 6: 14). The same expectation is expressed in the epistle to the Hebrews, 10: 25-27; ih the epistle of James 5: 3, 8; in the epistles of Peter; 1 Peter 4: 7; 2 Peter 3: 3; in the epistle of Jude 5: 8; in 1 John 2: 17, and in the Apocalypse (1:1-3;5:22;7:12, 20). That it was the expectation of the early Church can scarcely be doubted or denied.

POST-MILLENNIAL ADVENT THEORY

Definition, the post Millennial Advent theory is: The nations of the earth are to be evangelized and all are to be converted, who ever will be converted, in this Holy Spirit's dispensation, by the present means of grace. The millennium means the triumph of Christianity in this world, the gospel being the controlling influence in human society, and in civic and national life. It will be followed by a brief but terrible apostasy, in the midst of which Jesus will come (after the millennium) with His holy angels to raise all the dead, and to judge and sentence the whole moral universe. This is our Lord's second and only future coming in this sense. Those who accept this view are Post-millennialists.

Post-millennialists feel obligated to carefully obey the laws of interpretation: among which are the following:

1. There is the law of non-contradiction. Inspired Scripture must be interpreted in harmony with itself. It cannot be correctly interpreted when it is forced to plainly contradict itself.

2. No vast, complicated and far-reaching doctrine of Scripture can be built on a single text or passage of Scripture.

3. No doctrine can be built on highly poetic, figurative, or symbolic language, if it is not also supported elsewhere by plain prose.

4. Manifestly, the Christ - taught and Holy Spirit - inspired writers of the New Testament are the best interpreters of the Old Testament, and of the meaning of its rites, ceremonies and symbols.

5. Jesus' plain statements are the ultimate authority on all questions of truth and doctrinal interpretation, from which there can be no appeal. His words brush aside all human contradictions.

Any teachings, or theories, or notions that conflict with what He has said are nothing but the chaff and rubbish of human fancies and speculations. "Heaven and earth shall pass away," said Jesus, but my words shall not pass away."

Post-millennialists as they "search the Scriptures" find just one passage of Scripture that mentions a millennium (which means a thousand years). The phrase occurs six times in six verses in the beginning of the twentieth chapter of Revelation. This is one of the most figurative and symbolical passages in the most figurative and symbolical book in the entire Bible. If the vast system based on this passage is true, we might expect to see the glorious coming of God breaking through the heavens in overwhelming glory, and the risen bodies of the saints going out to evangelize the earth.

Now, what are the facts?

I. There is in the passage no mention of the advent of Christ. Is it possible that John should see the mighty angel, and the key, and the chain, and the Devil, and yet not see the Son of God Himself?

Alford says: "Aggelos (angel) in this book never means Christ." Dr. Steele adds: "Thus far in the Apocalypse there is not the slightest intimation that Christ has made His Second Advent in visible form."

In chapters 19-21 Christ wars against the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies, but the assumption that this is a literal battle fought on the earth by Jesus in Person, riding on a white horse, with a sharp sword going out of His mouth, is absurd and unendurable literalism. John saw these things in vision in the opened heaven, and he says he "saw the armies which were in heaven"

The Scriptures are unanimous in making heaven the fixed abode of Christ, until He shall come to judge mankind at the last day. It was not till after the millennium passage that John saw Christ on the great white throne "From whose face the earth and the heavens fled away."

II. There are no raised bodies of saints or martyrs in this passage. He saw the "souls of them that had been beheaded" just as in chapter 9: 6 he saw "the souls of them that had been slain for the word of God" It was in heaven that he saw them. This fact virtually excludes the idea of seeing risen bodies. - Moreover, after the millennium, when the resurrection was reached, John did see the rising bodies: "The sea gave up its dead."

III. Post-millennialists feel that there is a total lack of evidence that these martyrs reigned with Christ on the earth. The vision has thus far been located in heaven. So say the noble commentators, Bengel, Wesley, Moses Stewart, Clarke, Barnes, Agar Beet, of England, Dr. Whedon, Daniel Steele, Henry Cowles, Dr. Hodge, and a host of others. "In heaven and not on earth!" . . . It is clear that John did not mean to teach a literal resurrection of the martyrs; but that there would exist at the time of the thousand years, a state of things "as if," "as if" the martyrs were raised from the dead.

Their principles would be revived; their moral spirit would inspire the hearts of living men, as if they themselves had come back to earth. So Arch-bishop Whately wrote: "It may signify not the literal raising of dead men, but the raising up of an increased Christian zeal and holiness, - the revival in the Christian Church of the Spirit and energy of the noble martyrs of old, even as John the Baptist came in the spirit and power of Elias."

This is no far-fetched interpretation! It is the very language of the noble martyr Huss, who said of himself, "I am no dreamer: but I maintain this for certain, that the image of Christ shall never be effaced. It shall be painted in all hearts by much better preachers than myself. The nation that loves Christ shall rejoice at this, and I awaking from among the dead, and arising so to speak from my grave, shall leap with great joy." - In like manner, a brief, addressed by Pope Adrian, to the Diet at Nuremburg contains these words: "The heretics Huss and Jerome, are now alive again in the person of Martin Luther." These quotations justify the contention that the revival of the principles and spirit of the martyrs might, in the highly figurative language of Revelation, naturally be called a resurrection, when no literal resurrection from their graves was meant.

IV. The Post-millennialists feel driven to this interpretation to preserve the harmony of the Scriptures-the law of non-contradiction! For if we admit that a literal resurrection is taught in this passage, rising a thousand years before the general resurrection, then it appears to contradict Jesus, and a score of other passages, - all in perfect agreement, and seems to make utter confusion of the Bible on this and many other subjects. For instance, 1. In John 5: 28, 29, Jesus said: "The hour cometh in which all that are in the tombs shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done ill, unto the resurrection of judgment." Now that is the decision of the Omnipotent Son of God who knows the future, and tells us nothing untrue! Four times in the very next chapter He describes four good men who believe on Him and have eternal life, and of each of them He says, "I will raise him up at the last day!"

Chapter 6: 39, 40, 44, 54.

Jesus said to Martha, "Thy brother shall rise again." Martha saith unto Him, "I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day" Where did Martha learn that? Unquestionably she learned it in her own home, from Jesus' own lips, as she sat with her brother and sister at His feet, and looked up into His blessed face. Those six passages, all from the lips of Jesus, prove to a demonstration that all the good shall be raised up at the last day. And I dare to suggest that there is no later day than the last day for anybody to be raised! In the second chapter of Romans, St. Paul teaches the same truth, - "A day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God upon every man that worketh evil, but glory and honor to every man that worketh good, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men, according to my gospel, by Christ Jesus." One day of resurrection and judgment for good and bad alike! Of course Paul and Christ agree! And Post-millennialists think it is passing strange and even incredible that, if there are several resurrections and judgments, there is not elsewhere in all the New Testament one hint, one intimation, or one allusion of them.

V. Post-millennialists hold that, if Rev. 20: 1-7, describes a literal resurrection, then all must be literal, - a literal angel, a literal serpent, a literal chain, a literal pit, and literal thrones, and, mark it! a literal resurrection of only beheaded martyrs. Other martyrs who were killed by torture, or burned at the stake, or eaten by lions in the ampitheatre can not be included, much less all the righteous dead. No fair biblical interpretation can pick out one of these terms and make it literal, and read into the other terms what you please. There is an utter absence of all general terms, such as abound elsewhere concerning the resurrection of all, or of any of the righteous at the beginning of the millennium.

VI. Post-millennialists hold that the Old Testament nowhere supports the idea of two gospel dispensations. It very minutely describes one dispensation worked by the power of truth and the presence of the Holy Spirit, - the Gospel preached by Jesus and His apostles. The prophets describe it in scores of glowing passages, as blessedly successful; but they are silent as the grave about a second one, entirely different, with risen saints and preachers to convert the world.

VII. Post-millennialists accept what Jesus said about Himself as King, and about His kingdom, as absolutely true. He said to Pilate, "I am King," not "I am going to be King in two thousand years"

(John 18: 37). He further said: "My kingdom is not of this world": - it is a kingdom of truth and spiritual life in human hearts, that cometh not with observation (Luke 17: 20, 21 and John 18: 36).

He never led us to believe that His kingdom would be like other kingdoms, with Him on a throne in Jerusalem, with a cabinet of advisers, and generals, and admirals, and secretaries, and governors of provinces, and hundreds of thousands of office-holders, - a kingdom of this world with imposing splendor and external magnificence.

VIII. Post-millennialists accept what Jesus said about the expediency of His personal absence from the world (John 16: 7). He plainly taught that His visible presence anywhere would not be so helpful to His Church as the invisible but universal presence of the Holy Spirit in all Christian hearts. He never spoke one syllable about the insufficiency of the Holy Spirit and the gospel, and the present means of grace to win the world and establish His kingdom. He never intimated that His preachers and teachers and missionaries should go in the power of the Holy Spirit, with the gospel and the means of grace, and labor in vain, because all these Christian instrumentalities were never intended to succeed! God inaugurated these means and they will succeed!

IX. Post-millennialists believe that the Church, which is His Bride, will be complete when Jesus comes the next time. He comes for His bride, the Church, to celebrate the marriage, and "she will be ready." 1 Cor. 15: 23, 24; Eph. 5: 25-27; 2 Thess. 1: 10; 1 Thess. 3: 13; John 6: 39, 40. Dr.

Daniel Steele offered a prize to any one who would point out one text that declared that there would be another conversion after Jesus comes the next time. Nobody has named the text.

X. Post-millennialists believe what the Bible says that when Jesus comes the next time "Then cometh the end." 1 Cor. 15: 24. All the hopes and promises and warnings of the Bible look forward to that event as the last in the great drama of redemption. 1 Peter 1:13; 2 Tim. 4:8; Phil.

3:20, 21; 2 Thess. 1:7-10; 2 Peter 3: 10. Jesus came the first time to redeem mankind: the next time He will come to judge the race, and pronounce its rewards and penalties.

XI. Post-millennialists believe that when Christ comes in person the next time this world will be destroyed by fire. So said Paul in 2 Thess. 1: 7-10. "The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire . . . when He shall come to be glorified in His saints." So said Peter: 2 Peter 3: 10-12. "The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night: in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth, also, and the works that are therein shall be burned up." So also said John in Rev. 20: 11. "And I saw a great white throne and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away: and there was found no place for them." "And there was no more sea" (21: 1). This earth will be a wrecked world, as dead and barren as the moon.

Thus the Scriptures teach us that the righteous and the wicked shall be judged together at the end of the world's history, at the coming of Christ. Matt. 12:36; Matt. 13:38-43; Matt. 16:27; Malt, 25:31-46; John 5:28, 29; John 6:39, 40, 44, 54; John 12; 48; Acts 17:31; Rom, 2:5-16; 1 Cor.

3:13; 1 Cor. 4:5; 2 Cor. 5: 10; 2 Tim. 4: 1; 2 Peter 2: 9; 2 Peter 3: 3, 7; Jude 6, 7; Rev. 20: 12, 13; Matt. 11: 24; Luke 11: 32; Rom. 14: 10-12. Now of these twenty-one passages nineteen speak of a definite, specific judgment, or judgment-day. Fourteen tell us that all will be judged, "the world,"

"all nations," "all," "each one," "every one," "the quick and the dead." Seven of these passages tell us that it will be at Christ's coming. If ever language expressed, or could be capable of expressing the doctrine of a simultaneous and universal resurrection and judgment, at the coming of Christ, it is found in these passages.

We give a brief positive statement of the Post-millennial view. It will help to an understanding of the Scriptures to observe that Jesus spoke of "His coming" in four senses, or with four different purposes.

1. He comes for the purpose of taking His people to Himself at their death. In that sense He said: (John 14: 1, 2) "I go to prepare a place for you ... I will come again and receive you unto myself: that where I am there ye may be also." See Luke 23: 43; 16: 22-25; Phil. 1: 23. The Revelation of John everywhere locates departed saints with Jesus even then. Hence spiritually, the idea that His coming and receiving His people to Himself refers to the final judgment is untenable. It must therefore refer to His coming at the death of each individual saint" (Cowles). This may be by angelic ministration. John Wesley speaks in his journal of Jesus coming for such and such a saint at their death. It is common to Christian thought.

2. In a second sense of "coming," Jesus comes to His people in the manifestation of His presence by and through the Holy Spirit. Thus we must explain John 14: 16, 18, 23. "I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you." John 14: 28. "I come unto you." Also Rev. 3: 20.

3. In the third class Jesus speaks of Himself as "coming in power," or "in His kingdom" in the sense of bringing desolating judgments on Jerusalem: and He makes this fearful visitation of retributive justice a type and pledge of His final judgments of the whole race. The standard passages are Matt. 16: 27, 28; with Mark 8: 38; and Luke 9: 1; and Luke 9: 26, 27; also Matt. 24: 29-34 with its parallels Mark 13: 24-30 and Luke 21: 31, 32. That these have a remote reference to the final judgment is unquestionable; but primary reference to a long anterior coming of a similar character. It may be difficult whether to locate some passages in class three or four. This coming, however, is wrought by providential agencies.

4. "Of passages in the fourth class the standard one is Matt. 25: 31-46, where He comes to judgment. Probably Matt. 26: 64 may be classed with it. This and this only, is a coming in person, visibly manifested before the universe. None of these passages can be fairly interpreted to promise and prove a visible coming, yet future but long prior to the general judgment, for the purpose of inaugurating a visible reign on earth. They do not mean such a coming. Hence the doctrine of a visible coming and reign on the earth has no foundation in the recorded words of Christ. So far as His words are concerned, it is a theory without a bottom. Nothing that Jesus has said contains the doctrine, or gives it the least support" (Cowle's Commentary, John, pp. 389-392).

The Common Church Doctrine, as stated by Dr. Charles Hodge, is the following: First, There is to be a second, personal, visible, and glorious advent of the Son of God.

Second, The events that are to precede (not follow) the advent are: (1) The universal diffusion of the Gospel: or, as our Lord expresses it, the ingathering of the elect: this is the vocation of the Christian Church, (2) The conversion of the Jews, which is to be national. As their casting away was national, although a remnant was saved; so their conversion may be national, although some may remain obdurate. (3) The coming of some peculiarly hostile power called Antichrist.

Third, The events which will attend the Second Advent are:

(1) The resurrection of the dead, both of the just and of the unjust.

(2) The general judgment. (At which all will be present.)

(3) The end of the world (it being consumed by fire).

(4) The consummation of Christ's kingdom. - (Vol. Ill, p. 792).

3. The so-called millennium will be brought about, not by the visible return of Christ to set up a temporal throne and kingdom, but by the Holy Spirit restraining the power of Satan in some unknown way, and by giving unwonted efficacy to all the ministrations of the gospel, and the means of grace. What if the power of the Papacy to corrupt and delude mankind, and to oppose the spread and reception of the gospel were set aside; and along with it should come to an end the power of the Mahometan system to fetter and enslave mankind; what if all the direct influence of Satan in causing or perpetuating slavery, war, intemperance, lust, avarice, greed, oppression of the poor, skepticism, and social injustice were checked and stayed, and the heathen nations were evangelized! Would it not justify the language of Scripture that Satan was bound with a chain? And what if at the same time, a marvelous and unwonted power of the Holy Spirit should send vast waves of ever-recurring revival power around the earth, converting and sanctifying uncounted multitudes of people throughout the entire world! What if the spiritual condition that occurred in Northampton, Mass., during the ministry of Jonathan Edwards in 1745 should spread from town to town, from land to land, from continent to continent! Might it not be said that the millennium had come?

"Presently," says Edwards, "a great and earnest concern about the great things of religion and the eternal world became universal in all parts of the town, and among persons of all degrees and ages: all the conversation in all companies and upon all occasions, was about these things only, unless what was necessary for carrying on their ordinary business. They seemed to follow their worldly business more as a duty, than from any disposition they had to it. The only thing in their view was to get the kingdom of heaven, and every one appeared pressing into it: the engagedness of their hearts in this great concern could not be hid: It appeared in their countenances. The work of conversion was carried on in a most astonishing manner, and increased more and more: souls did, as it were, come by flocks to Jesus Christ. From day to day, for many months together, might be seen evident instances of sinners brought out of darkness into marvelous light. This work of God, as it was carried on, and the number of true saints multiplied, soon made a glorious alteration in the town: so that in the Spring and Summer following, in the year 1745, the town seemed to be full of the presence of God: it never was so full of love and joy, and yet so full of distress as it was then. There were remarkable tokens of God's presence in almost every house. It was a time of joy in families on account of salvation being brought to them: parents rejoicing over their children as new-born, and husbands over their wives, and wives over their husbands. . . . Our young people when they met were wont to spend their time in talking of the excellency and dying love of Jesus Christ, the gloriousness of the way of salvation. . . . God has in many respects gone out of, and much beyond, His usual and ordinary way. The work in this town and some others about us has been extraordinary on account of the universality of it, affecting all sorts of people, sober and vicious, high and low, rich and poor, wise and unwise. A loose and careless person could scarcely find another in the whole neighborhood: and if there was any one that seemed to remain senseless or unconcerned, it would be spoken of as a strange thing." Now who shall say that the Holy Spirit is not able to repeat such a state of things in ten thousand towns around the world, and keep on doing it? It would by no means be so "far beyond His usual and ordinary way," as would be the setting up of a visible and temporal government, with Jesus on the throne at Jerusalem!

4. The Scriptures warrant us in saying that that blessed period will have the following characteristics:

(1) It will be characterized by the universal spread of the gospel (Isaiah 11: 9; 25: 7).

(2) By the universal sway of Christianity and Christian principle in the governments of mankind (Psalm 2: 8-11; Zech. 9: 10; Matt. 28: 19).

(3) By universal peace (Isaiah 2:4; Micah 4: 3; Isaiah 11: 6-9).

(4) By great spiritual power and glory (Isaiah 66: 8; 60: 22).

(5) By the return to Christ of Israel (Rom. 11: 26-29; Zech. 12: 10; 13: 1).

(6) The ascendancy of truth and righteousness in human affairs (Rev. 20:4-6; Psalm 72: 11, 17; Zech. 14: 9; Isa. 60: 12). "Religion," says Edwards, "shall be uppermost in the world in every respect."

(7) There will be a great increase in the population of the globe. Let wars cease, and intemperance cease, and the sinful habits that now shorten life, be conquered by sanctification, and there must be a vast increase in the human race.

(8) There will be an increase in the diffusion of intelligence (Dan. 11:4).

(9) There will be great temporal prosperity. The resources of nature are by no means exhausted.

"Godliness is profitable for all things, having the promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come." Matt. 6: 33; 1 Tim. 4: 8. The world will be opulent beyond any dream of man, when its peoples cease wasting in extravagance and vice, and wisdom and virtue develop the resources of the earth.

5. Yet we are not to suppose that all will be converted. There will still be hearts that are strangers to saving grace. There will still be on earth the remains of wickedness and corrupt human nature.

Many will be constrained by the religious influences everywhere surrounding them, to fall in with the spirit of the age, catching apparently its holy impulses: but they will never come savingly under its holy power. There will still be a tendency to sin in the human soul, just as there is now. And when Satan is released from his enforced restraint, thin portion of mankind will gladly throw off the moral bonds that have held them, but were always irksome, and will lift the standard of revolt against Jesus. Satan will be able once more to rouse their enmity, and lead them in one more desperate effort to destroy the spiritual kingdom of Christ.

But in the hour of their seeming victory, when faith in Christ seems rarest and feeblest, and opposition to Jesus seems most defiant and successful, - suddenly Jesus will come, "with a mighty shout," "with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God." All the dead will rise, and all the moral universe will assemble for judgment. And this world, the scene of man's sin and shame and of his redemption, will go up in flames.

* * * * * * *

CHAPTER II -- THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL

To escape the troublesome prospect of eternal punishment, many seek refuge in the doctrine of annihilation. It becomes, then, more than ever necessary to discuss in our age the truth of the immortality of the soul. Some have sought relief in materialism, holding that matter is all, and mental facts have an adequate ground in matter, and it is their actual source. But this is a wholly unproved and unprovable hypothesis. A spiritual nature in man is the only adequate ground of mental facts. The phenomena of matter cannot be expressed in terms of spirit; neither can the phenomena of spirit be expressed in terms of matter. Materialism therefore cannot account for the facts of mind. Matter may change and some form of it may be obliterated; but the self-conscious, personal soul lives on, surviving all changes, and superior to all accidents and environments. Is it too much to infer that a deathless spiritual mind, ever abiding in simple unity of essence, is the only possible explanation of this abiding self-consciousness?

The doctrine of man's immortality may be argued from analogy, instinct, reason, and revelation.

All unite in showing the utter improbability of annihilation.

I. What does Analogy make probable? There is no instance of annihilation in the strict sense of the word. All physical sciences proceed on the principle that, with all the infinitude of changes and transmutations of form that take place throughout the universe, no portion of matter is reduced to nonentity; there is a change only in its relative state, not annihilation of its entity, the termination, not of being, but of a particular mode of being. The iceberg floats out into the sea and decomposes, and disappears, but lives again in the water of the sea. The tree is consumed by fire, but reappears in the ashes and the ascending vapor and smoke. The pond of water in the field seems to be destroyed; but it has simply mounted into the air to hang over the plain in the rain cloud. Precisely so there is no phenomenon of actual death to indicate the annihilation of that spiritual entity we call the soul." Our ignorance of its future would be no proof of its destruction, or cessation of being.

1. The nature of the mind affords a presumption of its immortality. As a simple spiritual existence it is not subject to dissolution or death, in the manner of compound or organic existences. Nothing in any instance of dissolution or death can exemplify the extinction of the soul of man. Its extinction must be a virtual annihilation; but there is no natural evidence of such a destiny of the soul, but much against it.

2. But we do not rest our argument against annihilation merely on man's natural immortality. Such an argument might be made that is practically unanswerable. "A creature formed in the image and after the likeness of the eternal and invisible God; possessed of a spiritual essence, by its origin and qualities indefinitely lifting him above the rest of the animal creation; holding personal intercourse with the manifested Deity; laid under sacred charge of fidelity to the gift of life that was in him, - a creature so represented is virtually affirmed to have been made for incorruption; and, by the necessity of things, he must himself have been aware that this was his sublime prerogative and destiny. By his very nature he cannot have been ignorant that he belonged to the sphere of the immortal; that his closest affinities were with God and spiritual beings; that the everlasting was his province and goal; that in fact, either on earth or elsewhere he was heir to an existence coeval with the life of the Immortal One whose child he was" (Wood's "Annihilation and Universalism," p. 22).

If no atom of matter is annihilated, how infinitely improbable is the soul's extinction, when the superiority of its substance is considered! Defilement of character may entail loss of happiness and well being, but does not destroy the spirituality of its essence. And for God to extinguish its being is immeasurably more improbable than that He should annihilate unthinking matter. The conclusion must be that nature, consulted on this subject of the annihilation of the soul whether good or evil gives no hint of it, but puts up a mighty presumption against it.

3. God only has absolute, self-sustained existence and immortality. All creaturely existence is dependent upon Him. With such dependence upon God, in whom we live and move, and have our being, the question of our continued existence or extinction must be viewed in the light of His purpose. The soul is naturally free from the laws of dissolution and death, and. it may survive death or any other future change and live on, and live forever. But in view of our absolute dependence on God, the question of immortality turns on His pleasure concerning us. "The question is not whether God can annihilate the soul He has created, but will He? Looking at power abstractedly, He has the natural ability to do many things, which we are assured He will not do. By the immortality of the

Soul we do not mean that we know God has no power to end its existence, but that it cannot be ended by any power of its own or of any other creature, and that God wills its ceaseless continuance. Such immortality granted, it becomes a foundation stone of an argument for eternal punishment. "But, not granted, the doctrine of endless punishment, proved by the testimony of Scripture, remains, and becomes the foundation stone of an argument for the immortality of the soul" (Wood's "Annihilation," p. 27).

II. An argument for immortality is drawn from the instinct of man. The primal fact that meets us in this discussion is the general belief in immortality, among all men in all ages. It may be called the universal belief, because it has prevailed in the popular mind without any question. It has been called in question here and there by some theorist or speculating infidel who has followed his logic instead of his instinctive judgment; but, in general, philosophers as well as others have held, even without revelation, the doctrine of immortality. There must be sufficient reason for such a belief. It must be (1) An instinctive faith; or (2) An intuition of reason; or (3) An inheritance from an original revelation. On no other ground can its universality be explained. But from whichsoever source, it had a divine origin, which makes it an expression of His purpose concerning us.

Now we may account this general belief as quite conclusive evidence of the fact. It must spring from natural promptings of the soul, or from such innate indications of the fact of immortality that men naturally accept it. If there be no life hereafter it is difficult to see why men should be so constituted as to anticipate it. And if the anticipation is false and misleading, how could we justify such a constitution as the work of a wise and benevolent God? These considerations make the universal belief in immortality a practical proof of it. But reason comes along and greatly fortifies this primal instinct of the soul, giving additional evidences upon which the belief securely rests.

III. The voice of reason.

1. "We have," says Fairchild, "what may be called the Metaphysical argument, drawn from the existence and nature of mind as follows: Whatever exists will continue to exist unless some cause or force appears which tends to destroy it. The soul exists, and the only thing to outward appearance that threatens its continued existence is death. But death, so far as we can ascertain, operates only to dissolve the material organism; the mind being immaterial does not fall under its power. Proof of this immateriality of the soul is involved in the first elements of our knowledge; in the different attributes of matter and mind as revealed in perception. We have, as given in consciousness, the perceiver, the subject, the me, and the thing perceived, the object, the not-me.

The materialistic philosophy is a pure assumption, setting aside this primary fact of consciousness.

Death, therefore, acting on the material organism, affords no presumption of the dissolution of the spiritual essence, which thinks and feels. The presumption of the continued existence of the soul must still stand. Beyond this the metaphysical argument cannot carry us. Other causes might intervene to destroy the soul, causes which lie beyond our knowledge. We cannot prove its indestructibility, but there is a balance of presumption in favor of its continued existence"

(Theology, p. 49, 50).

2. As we have observed, God being the original of the soul, and of the intellectual powers with which it is endowed, it is reasonable to think that He intends for it the opportunity of a development and attainment commensurate with its powers. It is unreasonable to think to the contrary. For, without such opportunity, these marvelous powers can have no adequate and appropriate end. But the present life affords no such opportunity, being too brief and uncertain.

Here the most favored can only begin the intellectual life of which we are capable. With the many there is hardly a beginning. When can it be otherwise? From the necessities of the case, the mass of mankind must be the productive toilers. Only the few can be students. Surely there is a better day ahead for these starved and hungry minds. A world of brawn must give place to a world of brain; a world of physical toil to a world of thought. God has prepared some better thing ahead for the race He has created in His own likeness.

3. Man is morally constituted. Back of all conduct is the ever-present "I ought" of the soul, putting each of us under moral obligation and responsibility. So high and exacting is this law of duty that no one can attain a perfection of life above His sense of obligation. Conscience requires us to hold our own ease, our comfort and enjoyment subordinate to the good of others and the higher ends of life. It puts duty before pleasure. It makes moral character or virtue more important than meat or drink, or happiness or life itself. It leads us to sacrifice animal enjoyments for the good of our spiritual nature, present enjoyments for future good, the present certain good of this life for the hoped for good of the life to come, our own good for the good of others, whom we shall never meet and never see this side the eternal world. Such a principle of action is not in harmony with the idea that "death ends all." "This demand upon every moral being," says Fairchild, "for self-sacrifice should carry with it the pledge of continued existence, of a real blessedness, not thus forfeited.

In a world wisely and righteously constituted a moral nature is a charter of immortality." Many believe this is such a world. They try to live a life on a moral plane, above the plain of self-gratification, strive earnestly, strive persistently, and through great sacrifice and the loftiest moral heroism, attain a noble character. They come to the end of life in possession of the divinest graces- and die! "Shall such attainments perish in death? Shall the unyielding fidelity, the enduring fortitude, the conquering heroism, the pure flame of love, the charity which makes glad the heart of many, the graces which bless the vision of angels and merit the benediction of God-shall all these perish in the hour of death? NO: reason and religion, the character of God and the interests of the moral universe, answer, "No!" There must be another life in which such graces shall still live, and such souls receive the reward of the heavenly Father, "Who is not unrighteous to forget their work and labor of love" (Heb. 6: 10) (Miley, Vol. II, p. 428).

4. Even the fact of sin points to a future, as surely as does a life of virtue. Sin itself bears witness to the godlikeness of our endowments, and the sacredness of our moral obligations. The consciousness of sin is anticipative of future retribution. Men become monsters in crime and receive little or no punishment in this life, and die in the very act of committing some awful deed of sin. Such a life is a sure prophecy of a future state of retribution. Divine equity confirms the anticipation of the awakened conscience.

5. Reason further observes that there is in man's nature a passionate desire for continued existence.

This well-nigh universal aspiration for immortality persists through all stages and conditions of life. Nothing can repress it but the hopeless sense of an irrecoverable forfeiture of future well-being from a career of willful sin. But Milton represents even Satan as saying: "Who would lose, though full of pain, this intellectual being; these thoughts that wander through eternity?" And the nobler the life, the fuller of holy activities, the wider the sweep of spiritual vision, the nearer the approach to Christ in character, the closer the likeness to the divine, the more ardent is the longing for immortality. There is a shrinking from extinction of being, a dread of ceasing to be. It is found in every normal constitution, quite apart from the fear of death which involves pain, and the apprehension of possible retribution.

Such an aspiration is a prophecy of the future. It seems to answer no purpose with regard to this life; it is, therefore, reasonable to suppose it a divinely implanted craving which foretells a future existence.

6. Reason further discovers in man a capacity for indefinite progress, and a corresponding ambition for advancement in all knowledge and excellence. This, too, is full of significance. Every individual is conscious of an incomplete development, and feels that he is not all that he might have been, or might yet become. Those that have achieved the most know in their inmost souls that they have been only children playing on the shore of a boundless ocean of possible achievement.

The most fruitful life, at its close may be typified by the broken column so often seen in our cemeteries that might have been built higher, to pierce the skies, if there had only been more time.

Well, eternity will furnish the time and the opportunity. A creature that is to perish in death should naturally become all that he is capable of in this life, reach the limit of his being, and the full scope of his powers. The brute does; but not so with man. He always departs life with plans unfinished, with hopes unrealized, with self-appointed tasks undone; but with capacities unexhausted and amply capable of going on. Henry Buckle wrote a noble "History of Civilization," and departed life with the second volume only half completed. He died, with the pathetic cry on his lips, "O my book, my precious book is not finished!" This fact bears witness to the greatness of man, and suggests a field of endless opportunity hereafter for this child of God and heir of eternity.

7. Furthermore, there is a vitality and persistence in human affection that gives promise of life after death. It is observed that parental affection in brutes ends with the rearing of the young; it has no further purpose and fails. With man it is different. His natural affections do not wane, but strengthen with advancing years; and are often strongest in old age, in the end of life. In the Titanic disaster, before the monster ship went down, the aged Mrs. Strauss, wife of the New York multi-millionaire, refused to leave the ship, preferring death with her husband to life without him.

One other woman did the same. Those women, standing on the deck of that ill fated steamer, clasped in their husbands' arms, voluntarily choosing death rather than separation, speak volumes for the immortality of the soul. Such loves are too sacred to be limited to a brief earthly life; they are an abiding prophecy of a life to come. "Without such a hope they would be a burden laid upon human nature without apparent reason." They find their only interpretation in the reality of an endless life.

8. The value of faith in immortality is an evidence of its truth. We all need it as an abiding force in this life. It seems to be essential to the highest human character,-to that self-control and restraint of passion which lead to a well-ordered life and the highest human good. Society needs it, to prompt men to all those holy philanthropies that sweeten life and relieve the sorrows of the poor and unfortunate. Without this faith, life itself seems cheap, and scarcely worth living, and the motives that prompt us to live for others and for God are immeasurably lowered.

The state needs this faith to inspire that heroic patriotism which sacrifices all on the altar of the country's good, having "respect unto the recompense of future reward." The noblest characters of history, - the soldiers who have gladly died that nations might live, the statesmen of loftiest patriotism, the benefactors of abounding charities, the missionaries of most saintly character and largest service, have all been moved and made by this sublime faith. Even Jesus, "for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross." Infidelity on this point does not beget great souls. Like the corn of wheat, men must die for others in order to live. And what can be the source of such consecration and devotion, but the sublime hope of a future life?

9. Again, as Fairchild has beautifully expressed it, "human character in its best attainment, is too costly a product to find its extinction in death. It is brought to its best estate through trial and hardship and self-sacrifice - a long course of discipline, the work of a life-time. It would seem but a poor use of so valuable and costly a product, to obliterate it when it has reached its completeness. There is nothing so costly or so valuable as a perfected human soul. Why should it be thrown away in the hour of its perfection? The hardship and discipline of life, by which this training is secured, cannot be justified but in the light of a continued existence" (Theology, p. 52).

10. The imperfect exhibition of God's moral government in this world demands to be supplemented hereafter. We live in a world of mixed providences. The good and evil dwell together. It is often unwise to separate the tares from the wheat. Evil men do not always have the punishment they deserve, and, for the time being, it is not always best that they should. The good are not always vindicated and rewarded here. They may go down in seeming disgrace and defeat.

"Right forever on the scaffold; wrong forever on the throne. But that scaffold sways the future; and behind the dim unknown, standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own." Herod and Nero on the throne: John the Baptist and St. Paul in the dungeon, and at the block. Hut still God reigns, and has all the future to display Himself. "Justice and judgment are the habitation of His throne." Herod and Nero will meet their desert: John and Paul will have full reward. But eternity is a necessary factor in the problem, if sin is to be punished, and righteousness rewarded, and the justice of God vindicated. The good are sustained and blessed by this hope: the wicked are oppressed with fear, - "with a certain fearful looking for of judgment." But the hopes and the fears are alike groundless, unless both the righteous and the wicked are heirs of eternity. Granted this, all will at last be well. The tangled skein of human affairs will be finally unravelled to the perfect satisfaction of an onlooking moral universe.

On such grounds as these reason brings in her verdict that man is destined to live forever. "The considerations presented sustain the doctrine of natural immortality; that is, of immortality as an attribute of the human soul, - the common birthright of man, rather than a special appointment or gift of God to a class of men" (Fair-child's Theology, p. 53.

IV. The Voice of Scripture.

When philosophers have undertaken to settle this question theoretically, they sometimes speculate themselves into doubt. Then Scripture comes in to dispel the doubt and "bring life and immortality to light." We come to the Book and ask what light God has given us on the subject. We do not ask in vain. Though there are comparatively few texts directly declaring man's immortality,, yet the spirit of it pervades the Book from beginning to end/ Miley concludes with these words: "Its truth is ever present in both Testaments, but with the clearer unfolding in the New. Without the truth of immortality the deepest, divinest verities of Christianity must be denied. No place can remain for a divine incarnation in the person of the Son of God, or for an atonement for sin in the voluntary sacrifice of Himself. If we are to perish utterly in the event of death, we need no salvation from a future wrath, no Savior who shall bring us to future wrath, no Savior who shall bring us to future blessedness. Hence it is that the central truths of our Christian soteriology mean the immortality of the soul" (Vol. II, p. 429). Thus it is that the whole Book is fragrant with the odor of this blessed truth.

But let it not be supposed that there are not many texts plainly bearing on the subject even in the Old Testament. Note some of them:

1. "And Enoch walked with God; and he was not; for God took him." This good man's translation doubtless had a meaning and a lesson for the men of his time, and they understood what it meant, and interpreted it as we do, - an evidence that he was pleasing to God (Heb. 11: 5).

2. Gen. 37: 35. "I will go down to Sheol to my son mourning." He meant that he would go to the world of spirits.

3. Gen. 25: 8. "And Abraham gave up the ghost . . . and was gathered to his people." Gen. 35: 29.

"And Isaac died, and was gathered unto his people." Gen. 49: 33. "And Jacob yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people." These phrases do not refer to burial, but to the fact of joining the spirits of the departed.

4. Numbers 23: 10. "Let me die the death of the righteous and let my last end be like his!" This means, "Let my final destiny be like his."

5. 2 Sam. 12: 23. "But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me." David expected to go to his child in the realm of departed spirits.

6. Ps. 73: 24-26. "Thou wilt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee. My flesh and my heart faileth, God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."

7. Eccl. 12: 7. "The dust returneth to the earth as it was, and the spirit returneth unto God who gave it."

8. 1 Sam. 28: 7. The belief in familiar spirits and the tendency to consult them is a demonstration of belief in a future life.

9. Isa. 14: 9-11. "Sheol from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming; it stirreth up the dead for thee. All they shall say art thou become like unto us?" Verse 16, "They that see thee shall gaze at thee . . . saying. Is this the man that made the earth to tremble?" This represents the reception which the cruel king of Babylon shall receive when he descends to the realms of the dead.

Such passages are numerous and prove that the belief in a future life was common to men in the ancient world. The inscriptions on the tombs, and the writings found in the mummy cases show that a future existence was the accepted doctrine of the Egyptians.

1. This is offered in Hebrews, eleventh chapter, as the explanation of the heroes of faith. Moses

"had respect unto the recompense of the reward." "For he endured as seeing Him who is invisible." "These all died in faith, not having received the promises but having seen them afar off, and embraced them and confessed that they were pilgrims and strangers on the earth. . . . They desire a better country, that is an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God for He hath prepared for them a city." This is the inspired explanation of their noble lives of faith.

2. The New Testament further interprets the Old in a most convincing way. Jesus refuted the Sadducees, in Luke 20: 37, 38. "But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed . . . when he called the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is not the God of the dead but of the living; for all live unto Him."

The Pharisees believed in immortality, and were the ruling sect, to which St. Paul and the great bulk of the people belonged.

3. Luke 23: 43. The dying thief was assured that that day he would be with Christ in paradise.

4. St. Paul was in a strait betwixt the two (life or death) having the desire to depart and be with Christ (Phil. 1: 23).

5. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16: 19-31) shows plainly what Jesus believed and taught. The thought that all lived after death was the background of all his teaching.

6. So true was this that the Apostle Paul writing to Timothy (2 Tim. 1: 10) said of "Our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and incorruption to light through the Gospel."

7. Acts 7: 59. The martyr Stephen, when in the agonies of death, uttered the solemn prayer, "Lord Jesus received my spirit."

8. Matt. 17: 3. "And behold there appeared unto them Moses and Elias, talking with Him." These men had already spent many centuries in the spirit world.

9. 2 Cor. 5: 6-8. "Being therefore always of good courage, and knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord (for we walk by faith, not by sight); we are of good courage, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord."

By "absence from the body," he manifestly means the separation of the soul from the body at death.

Consequently, the souls of the pious dead are with the Lord; which clearly implies, that they are subjects of uninterrupted immortality. This passage is of itself sufficient to settle the question of the soul's conscious existence after death.

Moreover, as Dr. Clarke observes. "There is not the slightest intimation here, that the soul sleeps, or, rather, that there is no soul; and when the body is decomposed, that there is no more of the man till the resurrection. I mean, according to the sentiments of those who do condescend to allow us a resurrection though they deny us a soul."

ANNIHILATION DOCTRINE

Opposed to this consenting voice of Scripture is the teaching of Annihilationists. The following are some of their fundamental principles.

1. That man is wholly material. We have shown that this is but an unproved hypothesis. It is a species of infidelity, adopted by Atheists.

2. That death, as a penalty of law, consists in the annihilation of man.

3. All pass into an unconsciousness or non-existence at death, from which they will be raised at the resurrection.

4. After the general resurrection the wicked will again be annihilated, or blotted out of conscious existence the second time, which they call "the second death," or "eternal destruction." The future punishment will not be an endless preservation in misery but a total destruction or annihilation."

5. "That there is now no hell or place of torment in existence." "The fire of hell is not yet kindled, and will not be until after the wicked are raised from the dead, and the processes of the great judgment are completed."

6. "The righteous, after they are raised from a state of annihilation, shall be endowed with endless life, and rewarded with eternal blessedness in heaven."

They support these principles by a peculiar meaning given to the words "death," "destroyed,"

"perish," "life" and "destruction."

Upon these words we remark.

(1) The word "death," when applied to the soul does not mean annihilation, or ceasing to exist, but means separation from God, a loss of the bliss and holy state for which God destined the soul.

Natural death and spiritual death are two things totally different. The phrase, "like the beasts that perish," is quoted. But the phrase plainly means no more than that those who indulge their lusts, who live only for this, and take no thought for the future, are like the beasts which are devoid of reason.

(2) Annihilationists argue, that "destroyed" and "destroy" and "destruction" means annihilation. Let us see if they do. "The king of Babylon shall destroy this land": "the land was destroyed by flies."

"O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself." Job said: "Thine hands made me, yet thou dost destroy me."

Did the king of Babylon annihilate Palestine? or the flies annihilate Egypt? or did God annihilate Job? or did Israel annihilate herself?

(3) "Lost." "I have found my sheep that was lost." "I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." "My son was lost, and is found." Were the sheep, and Israelites and the son annihilated?

(4) Perished. The world that then was "perished." Was it annihilated? We are still living on it.

"Lord, save us, we perish." Were they afraid of annihilation?

(5) Lose. "He that saveth his life shall lose (annihilate) it, and he that loseth (annihilateth) his life for my sake shall find it." Nothing is needed but such a substitution to show the folly of their interpretation. It is its own refutation:

(6) They quote. "He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the "Son hath not life" (1 John, 5: 12). They assert that this teaches that one has eternal life only in Christ. It is true; but they confound "eternal life," with "eternal existence," two things which are entirely distinct and which have no necessary connection. "Eternal life" is a term used in Scripture to express a super-added gift, granted to a being previously endowed with an undying soul. Christ is essentially "the eternal life." "I give unto them eternal life." It is a Divine quality of life. They had existence before.

"When Christ who is our life shall appear," etc. "Life, therefore, implies all the blessings of salvation which we have in Christ. He that hath the Son hath eternal life and blessedness in Him."

So men who have not Christ and die in their sins, have not eternal life; but they do not cease to have eternal existence" (Wood's "Annihilation and Universalism," pp. 99, 100).

(7) They use another passage: "God only hath immortality." But this evidently means-God only hath immortality in Himself, - absolute, independent, underived. Ours is derivative and sustained by God. If we take this passage absolutely, and accept their interpretation, it would rule out, not only the immortality of the wicked, but also of saints and angels as well. It is argued that if man has immortality why is he encouraged to seek for it as in Rom. 2:7? This answer has been given: This Greek word Aphtharsia occurs eight times in the New Testament. Twice it is rendered "sincerity,"

and has no reference to body or soul. In the other six passages it refers, not to the soul, but, as Parkhurst remarks, to the body. It has nothing therefore to do with the undying nature of the soul, but with the incorruptibility of the glorified body. In 1 Cor. 15, it is translated four times

"incorruption" (Wood, Ibid., p. 101).

Annihilationists hold that at the resurrection the soul and the body will be reunited, and that "ages after ages both will be utterly consumed and annihilated in hell." By the second death the sinner ceases to exist.

Mr. Randles answers: "If a first death does not involve extinction, why should the second? The rashness which declares it to be extinction is, in our judgment, a sinfully presumptuous definition of a word around which the Book leaves an awful haze." . . . Eternal death as the penalty of sin, in the shape of annihilation, is an intelligible idea, but that would not be eternal punishment. The death itself, in the sense of nonexistence, would be eternal; but the punishment would be its own limitation. It must cease when there is no longer a being to receive it. We can as well conceive of a man punished a thousand years before he begins to be, as a thousand years after he has ceased to be." "Is there not something strangely incongruous in the idea of an eternal prison eternally empty, and an eternal fire without anything to burn. . . . Jesus tells us to "fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell"; and assures us that in the place of torment, "They shall be tormented day and night forever and ever. ... If the punishment be thus eternal, the word "destroy" can not mean annihilation of being, for then the punishment would cease" (quoted by Wood, pp. 101-104).

Adam Clarke says: "The first death consisted in the separation of the soul from the body for a season; the second death in the separation of body and soul forever. The first death is that from which there may be a resurrection; the second death is that from which there can be no recovery.

By the first the body is destroyed during time; by the second body and soul are destroyed through eternity. Thus the sentence of the second death not only withholds all countenance from the theory of annihilation, but it is in several points directly opposed to it."

(8) They claim that the Scriptures support the doctrine of annihilation, by denying consciousness after death. In support of this they cite Psalm 146: 4, "His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish." The word "'thoughts" in the text mean purposes, or expectations, as it is given in the margin of Revised Version. It refers to the purposes or plans of this life, which do end with death.

(9) Eccl. 9: 5 and-passages that call death a sleep, are similar, and may be easily explained. The dead are oblivious to what transpires here, and no change can come to their future destiny.

Moreover sleep is such an image of death, that in all languages and in all ages, death is called a sleep. It is simply a figure of speech.

(10) "David is not ascended into the heavens." So he has not, in his compound nature, soul and body. His body still awaits the resurrection.

So we might go on examining their proof-texts. "The Scripture proofs," says Mr. Randles,

"adduced in favor of the doctrine of annihilation consist in passages twisted from their proper design and from their natural harmony with the analogy of faith, a process by which Scripture may be made to teach anything. It is triumphantly affirmed that hundreds of passages are contained in the Bible in favor of the notion under review. Hundreds, yes, thousands; if they may be, like most of these already considered, disjointed, distorted, and accommodated to suit the purpose of the advocate; and the same claim might be made by the most unscriptural doctrine that ever sought shelter under Biblical phraseology."

Archbishop Whately said: "In that state of existence which is to have no end, I shall still be as capable of enjoyment, and of suffering as now, and probably much more so." . . . "If we are all destined, as we are, to live forever, it is possible that the angels, good and evil, are now respectively what we shall be here after, the one part now safe from falling and eternally blessed, the other hopelessly lost."

Prof. J. Agar Beet, that great exegete and dear Christian man, in his "Last Things" tries to be so cautious and fair that he has suffered for it. He has taxed himself to stand so straight that many of us think he has leaned over backward. Yet here are some of his sentences: "The results of our research into the teaching of Paul, expressed in the words I have rendered destruction, corruption, death (are these). Of these terms, the first two are used also to describe injury of any kind, so serious as to render worthless the injured object. They are frequently used where there is no thought of the annihilation of the object injured or lost. This proves that annihilation is no part of the meaning conveyed by these words (pp. 152, 153). The third term 'death' must be interpreted by the conception of the dead prevalent when the New Testament was written. This conception did not include extinction of consciousness. . . . Beyond the assertion of their utter ruin, we have little information from the pen of the Apostle touching the state of the ruined ones. We have nothing asserting, or suggesting that they will be, even ultimately, annihilated, or that their consciousness will ever cease" (p. 153).

"Although life beyond the grave, is the gift of Christ to those who receive him, we saw that, since the life that He gives is much more than existence or consciousness, the loss of that life by no means implies loss of conscious existence" (p, 154).

"Outside the metaphor (of five) we are considering, the New Testament contains, as we shall see, no hint whatever that the unsaved will ever cease to be. Now metaphor, unsupported is a most uncertain basis of doctrine." "If punishment be final, this of itself is sufficient to justify the use of the metaphor of destruction by fire" (p. 164).

Professor Hyde asks, what is immortality? He answers: "No mere future existence, but that endless duration which belongs probably to the soul as spirit and to man, whether righteous or wicked, yet is brought to light only in the Gospel, and is secured with its blessings, only in union with Christ."

"Its survival after death is a doctrine that pervades the whole system of Scripture" (Laidlaw).

"There is no evidence that immortal existence was lost by sin, and is restored by faith. The presumption is that men will not only live hereafter but live forever" (Janet).

"The human soul is by its very idea imperishable. No force of nature reaches the spirit. Nor can the soul be the author of its own death" (Dorner).

"Our dissatisfaction with any other solution is the blazing evidence of our immortality" (Emerson).

"Annihilation, no matter by what tremendous catastrophe preceded, cuts off the consequences of transgression, and makes the ways of the Lord unequal, who indeed 'trieth the righteous,' but does not 'plentifully reward the proud doer.' This insidious doctrine of conditional immortality by destroying one of the two eternal sanctions of an eternal law, dulls the edge of remorse, weakens the sense of guilt and postpones the necessity of repentance" (Randles).

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CHAPTER III -- THE INTERMEDIATE STATE

The question of an intermediate state refers to the condition of the dead between death and the resurrection. It is a question that grows out of the Christian religion, which reveals a future life. As all Christians believe in the resurrection of the body and a future judgment, they all believe in an intermediate state. It is a state of which we know nothing now, since we have no experience of the life of the soul apart from the body. Comparatively little is said about it in the Word of God, because the Book was not written to gratify idle curiosity. It has a far more serious purpose. But there are hints and facts dropped here and there, which arouse the mind to thought, and lead to necessary logical deductions, which are not without value to us.

I. Is there an intermediate place? For an immortal being a somehow involves a somewhere. In other words, there is a realm of the dead, or spirit world, - a temporary receptacle of souls, at least for the wicked; and a place somewhere for the righteous, where they come to a knowledge of themselves and of Christ, which they did not have on earth.

The Old Testament tells of Sheol-rendered hades in the Septuagint. It means the underworld. In the popular thought of the Jews, it was the common receptacle of the dead without any distinction of character, but divided into two compartments; one a place of happiness for the good; the other place of misery for the evil.

This is no authority for us, however; it is simply a question of fact, as to the teaching of the Word.

1. The Bible assumes that soul and body in man are two distinct substances, united in a vital union to constitute man, as we know him, one individual person. It further assumes that the seat of this personality is the soul. The soul is the self, the ego, of which the body is the organ. It assumes that the soul continues its conscious existence after its separation from the body. This we have seen to be the teaching, and spirit of the whole Bible. The dead do not cease to be; they have a conscious activity. They are, however, before the resurrection, in an unclothed, bodiless state. The parable of Dives and Lazarus, the words of our Lord to the dying thief, the prayer of dying Stephen, all throw light on the continued consciousness of the dead, and there being a place for them, and the fact of a separation between the righteous and the wicked.

2. It is the common Protestant doctrine that the souls of all who shall be saved, are made perfect in holiness, at their death. (This is not denying that many may be sanctified before death). But all infants and unfortunates, and all who die in a state of justification, but have never really understood that it is their blood-bought privilege to be sanctified here and now, and "live in holiness and righteousness all their days," and so have not willfully rejected sanctification, will be sanctified, at death. All such must be made "meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light."

It may be asked, what sanctifying power is there in death? And can one be made sanctified and holy in a moment? To the first question we answer, none whatever. Death is no more than a door through which one passes from time into eternity. To the second question we answer. Certainly: One can become sanctified and holy in a moment, even in this life, and most assuredly, in death.

The objection supposes that the salvation of a soul is the result of a natural process; but as it is a supernatural work, and sanctification is obtained by an act of God, the objection has no force.

The conversion of Saul was most sudden. The justification of every man is equally sudden; and so must every man's sanctification be, since each is the result of an instantaneous act of God.

3. They immediately pass into a condition of endless blessedness. This is taught in many Scriptures. "I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth; yea, saith the Spirit that they may rest from their labors; for their works follow with them." The simple meaning of this seems to be that those who die in the Lord are from that moment onward in a state of blessedness; because they cease from their labors and enter into the rewards of the righteous. The results of their holy earthly activities follow on to gladden their hearts.

4. Paradise, as the word is used by Christ and His Apostles, is the place where Christ now is, and where He manifests His presence and glory. It is commonly thought to be the place where the holy dead abide with their Lord (Luke 23: 43; 2 Cor. 12: 2-4; Rev. 2: 7. "Whether it is the place where He will finally establish His kingdom; and whether all the redeemed, clothed in their resurrection bodies, shall there be gathered together, is a matter of which we have no knowledge, and in which we need take no interest. All we need to know is that it is where Christ is; that it is a place and state in which there is neither sin nor sorrow, and where the saints are as exalted and happy as they are now capable of being. Whether any, in obedience to patristic usage, choose to call this paradise a department of Hades, is a matter of no concern. All that the dying believer need know is that he goes to be with Christ. That to him is heaven" (Hodge, Theology, Vol. Ill, p. 728). In 2 Cor.

5: 2 the Apostle says: "We know, that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." In Phil. 1: 23, he says: "I am in a state betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better, nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you." These passages seem to teach three things unmistakably: (1) There is a place already prepared for the saints; (2) The condition of the holy is better in the next life than in this; (3) He was confident that as soon as he departed, he would be with Christ. The change for the better takes place immediately after death.

5. Corresponding to Paradise for the good, there is a place in Sheol or Hades for the bad, where, in conscious misery, they await the decisions of the coming judgment. The natural consequences of sin, - the reproaches of conscience, the embittering memories, the gnawings of wicked but unappeased desire, the goadings of remorse, - may all be felt there, in a most abundant harvest.

Even though the positive punishments of God that follow the judgment are not yet inflicted.

II. Characteristics of This Intermediate State. In our foregoing discussion it has already necessarily been observed, that this state is one of conscious existence, and of great joy to the saved, and great misery to the lost. We now further observe.

1. It is not a state of probation.

(1) "The Scriptures make no announcement of any probation after the present life. The merest suggestion of another probation is all that can be properly claimed. As to any explicit utterance in favor of a second probation, there is a dead silence of the Scriptures. How is this? Probation with its privileges and responsibilities greatly concerns us. No period of our existence is fraught with deeper interest. The Scriptures are replete with such views of our present probation. They constantly press it on our attention as involving the most solemn responsibilities of the present life, and the profoundest interest of the future life. In a future probation there must be a renewal of all that so deeply concerns a present probation; yet there is not an explicit word respecting it, such silence of the Scriptures is utterly irreconcilable with the reality of such a probation."

(2) "The urgency with which the Scriptures press the importance of improving the present opportunities of salvation deny us all hope of a future probation."

A few texts will make this position fearfully sure: "Eccl. 9: 10."Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave whither thou goest." John 9: 4. "The night cometh, when no man can work." John 12: 35, 36. "Then said Jesus unto them, yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you; for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have the light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light." Heb. 2: 1-3. "Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?"

The many texts which assure us of salvation on our repentance and faith, but either directly or by implication deny it to us on the refusal or neglect of such terms, equally affirms the same truth."

John 3: 14-16, 18, 36 (Miley, Vol. II, pp. 435, 436).

(3) The representations of the judgment do not hint at a second probation. We are always told that we are to give an account for the "deeds done in the body." 2 Cor. 5: 10. "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad." Such a text makes it certain that destiny turns on the conduct of the present life.

If there be a future probation, one might suppose that it would continue at least till the judgment.

But there is not in all the announcements of judgment any reference to deeds done in the future life.

Such facts are conclusive against another probation.

(4) "There are," says Fairchild, "natural reasons for the termination of probation, in the tendency to fixedness of character. The work of probation is at length accomplished. The man becomes settled in virtuous or in sinful character. The limit is reached beyond which nothing in the nature of change is to be expected; indeed there are indications that that limit is sometimes reached in the present life. The good man of established character we do not expect to change, and in the case of the man confirmed in wickedness there is little hope.

A providential termination of probation is conceivable, and seems to be indicated in the order of events. It would involve a change of conditions, a withdrawing of God's grace and the influence of the Spirit, the motives by which men are led to repentance; a leaving of men to their own chosen way of sin. It is possible, and probable, too, that such a termination of probation may be needed among the moral forces of God's kingdom. If every one could look forward to assured opportunity of reaching the natural limit of probation, there would be danger of procrastination. There is divine wisdom in the uncertainty of life. Life is less likely to be wasted, than if every man could calculate with assurance upon his fourscore years; (and what if each of us was absolutely sure of an endless probation in eternity! Who would be likely to ever repent?) And so the termination may be wisely made uncertain. If probation terminates with this life, it is as uncertain as life itself; and this seems to be the drift of the Scriptures. We can only demand that God should deal justly with every man according to his works; in the way of a justification of God, we can ask no more" (Theology, p.

328).

(5) But it is objected, that Jesus preached to the spirits in prison. The two passages supposed to bear on the subject are 1 Pet. 3: 18-20 and 1 Pet. 4: 6, practically one passage. 1 Pet. 3: 18-20.

"Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God; being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the Spirit; in which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which aforetime were disobedient, when the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah." 1 Pet. 4: 6. "For unto this end was the Gospel preached even to the dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit."

These passages are very obscurely written, and have been variously interpreted. One of the points of interest in it is, - when was this preaching done? And, another is by whom was it done?

A very common interpretation has been that the preaching was in the days of Noah to the spirits then alive upon the earth, but who are now in prison; preaching done perhaps by Noah himself, whom Peter calls "a preacher of righteousness" (2 Pet. 2:5). "No argument, therefore," says Barnes, "can be derived from this language to prove that Christ went and personally preached to those who were confined in Hades."

Another view is that Christ in the interval between His death and resurrection descended into the spirit-world and preached the Gospel to the disembodied antediluvians. Hyde says "We cannot help believing that our Lord preached there as a herald to 'the spirits in prison' once disobedient antediluvian sinners, then in custody, awaiting judgment." (Irenaeus, Clement, Tertullian, Calvin)

"He may have preached on their once having been disobedient." (Green, Thayer, Bartlett) "While yet He went and preached," a local transfer, not in Noah's day nor before Christ's incarnation, for the antithesis is not between the body of Christ, and the pre-existent Spirit of Christ, or Spirit of God, but between Christ as "put to death in the flesh," and as made alive in the higher spiritual nature after death (Alford, Huther, Ellicott, Farrar, Fairbairn, Reuss, Schaff, Weiss, Patton).

"There is a general agreement now among critical expositors that the passage relates to an experience of our Lord's human soul after death." Chambers.

After admitting so much, Hyde is compelled to add: "A case so unique and isolated is to be taken as exceptional. What happened after our Lord died, and before He ascended, was evidently abnormal. No prominence is given to it. No general inference can be drawn from it. Now that He has ascended and reigns in glory, His mission to Hades is over. By no means would He offer grace (and mercy) to those who live and die impenitent. Least of all should we presume that He must give a personal knowledge of Himself, either here or hereafter to those whom He would fairly test and judge. . . . Did He not bear witness rather to a finished redemption, or to God's power and grace, in the glory of His own resurrection?" (A New Catechism, pp. 154, 155).

Miley's conclusion is this: "Some of the best commentators say that the words, "He went and preached," mean simply, "He preached." But how? Not in person, but by the Spirit. And to whom?

To those who were disobedient in the time of Noah. It may have been that Christ preached to them by the spirit, either through His strivings with them or in the preaching of Noah. Hence the assumption that Christ went and preached in Hades has slight warrant in this text. That He there preached the Gospel has no warrant. Further the narrow limits of His preaching, what or wherever it was, allows no ground for the assumption of a common preaching of the Gospel to the dead.

Indeed the obscurity of the text, and the uncertainty of its meaning, which appear in the diversity of its interpretation, allow it no doctrinal weight in favor of a future probation" (Vol. II, p, 438).

The critical student will notice that (1) The passage stands alone: (2) It does not make it plain, when He preached; or (3) where He preached; or (4) how He preached; or (5) what He preached.

No great and far-reaching doctrine can be built on such a solitary and obscure passage. This explains why such a calm and judicial mind as Fairchild concludes thus: "The passages are too obscure, and of too doubtful interpretation, to furnish a satisfactory foundation for the doctrine of continued probation, without other decisive Scripture support. The silence of the Scriptures is significant. Paul in 1 Thess. 4: 13, 14, comforts those whose friends are asleep in Jesus, but utters not a word of comfort to those whose friends have died without hope" (Theology, p. 325).

(6) The intermediate world is not a Purgatory. As these verses are the only ones in the New Testament on which the Romish Doctrine of purgatory is supposed to rest, it is proper to consider that here. Purgatory, as a doctrine is peculiar to Roman Catholicism, and has no place in the creed of any other Church. "According to this doctrine, Christians are divided into two classes, the imperfect and the truly good. The former have impurities which must be cleansed away, and venial sins which must be expiated in penal suffering, in order to a meetness for heaven. Even the truly good, while free from the guilt of mortal sins, yet have the deserts of temporal punishment, which must be expiated. Purgatory provides for both classes, as in its penal and purifying fires both may attain to a fitness for heaven. But it provides only for such as the Romish Church recognizes as Christians; therefore it has no connection with the doctrine of a second probation.

"It is a part of the doctrine that purgatory is, in some respects, subject to the Church. By prayers and alms and masses its penal sufferings may be mitigated or the hour of release hastened. The doctrine has been a fruitful source of revenue, a mighty power of oppression and extortion, which has not remained unused. . . . The doctrine is openly false to the soteriology of the Gospel, according to which we are saved, completely saved, from the guilt and pollution, through the blood of Christ and the sanctification of the Spirit" (Miley, Vol. II, p. 438).

Barnes observes on the passage: "There is no specification of the place where this prison is; no intimation that it is purgatory, - a place where the departed will undergo purification; no indication that their condition can be affected by any thing we can do; no intimation that those particularly referred to differ in any sense from the others who are confined in that world; no hint that they can be released by any prayers or sacrifices of ours. The essential ideas of purgatory are not to be found in the passage; there is not the slightest hint that they can be released by any prayers or offerings of those who dwell on the earth" (Com., Vol. X, p. 179).

(7) It is argued that justice demands a second probation for the heathen. "This argument," says Miley, "is more plausible against any doctrine or system of doctrines which denies the possibility of their salvation. We have no responsible part in any such issue, as we hold no such doctrine. The question before us is, not the reasons which may be urged in favor of a future probation of the heathen, but the sense of the Scriptures respecting such a probation." St. Paul seems to settle the matter with the distinct teaching that no such probation is needed. He lays down some principles of the divine government. A distinction is made between the heathen, and those who are under Jewish economy, and those also who are under the Christian economy, as respects the degree of guilt and the severity of punishment. But he makes no distinction as to their being amenable to the same judgment for the deeds of the present life, or the determination of their final destiny for the same.

1. Even the light of nature would make them responsible and afford a basis for judgment. Rom. 1: 20. "For the invisible things of Him from the creation are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and God-head; so that they are without excuse."

Paul's reasoning is that there is no necessity for continued probation for the heathen; they know their duty, and may be justly judged according as they walk in view of it.

2. Then he declares the divine equity; because God "will render to every man according to his deeds: ... to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile; for there is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without law, shall also perish without law; and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law. For when the Gentiles which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves; which show the works of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness" (Rom. 2: 6-16). In other words, those who walk conscientiously, living up to the light they have, God can accept; and those who sin against the light they have, and know, God must condemn; and their own, consciences and moral judgment will ratify His condemnation . . . "in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my Gospel." Such is the doctrine of St. Paul: and it is impossible to read into them any second probation for the heathen world, or any need of one.

(8) In reference to a probation for infants, the Scriptures are utterly silent; they afford not even a hint. Infants are moral beings, and as such must somewhere form moral character, and to that extent must have a probation. By the prevenient grace of a sovereign God they may be often removed from earth to keep them from the evils that would have overcome them had they lived. The same grace can sanctify them in the article of death so that they shall enter the future life free from the bias to sin. "They may thus be received into the society of the redeemed and made to enjoy their influence and to share their experience to such an extent that they shall be carried safely through to established character without sin. This is conceivable and it is permitted to Christian hope. Infants thus surrounded will be in a different case from that of our first parents in Eden. They will be under the influence and guidance of those who have experienced sin and salvation."

(9) The necessity of any probation lies in the fact that moral beings must form their own character.

They cannot be made at once by creative power what God wishes them to be; but must develop this by the exercise of their own moral responsibility. "We have reason to think that a degree of temptation, trial and hardship is favorable to the formation of strong character; and that the blessedness of heaven will be safer to men after such an experience. The experience of Eden proves that it would not be safe without the discipline" (Fairchild).

Now when characters have been formed in this life, and men have proved by their choices, both to themselves and to others, what they prefer to be, what is the need of another probation. What we are morally is no accident. We have become what we are, by struggle with temptation and environment, by conflict, in view of outward evil and inward propensity, by our voluntary attitude to grace, by our obedience or disobedience to the inner voice. Hence there is no necessity for a new probation; and if there be need of two, why not of twenty, or two hundred? Why not a probation world without end? The idea is subversive of all moral government.

2. And so we may regard the intermediate state as one of fixed character. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus seems to be especially clear on this point. "And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, that they which would pass from hence to you may not be able, and that none may cross over from thence to us" (Luke 16: 26). The question of character and destiny was settled beyond any change. The desire of the rich man that his brethren be warned while they lived, because there would be no help after death, and the response. "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, if one rise from the dead," all tend to confirm the lesson. There is enough light in this world to make a fair probation; and after death there will be a change neither of character nor destiny. There is no promise here, or in any other Scripture of any opportunity hereafter to retrieve the moral losses of this life. "The redemption of the soul is precious; and it ceaseth forever" (Ps. 49: 8). "The wicked is thrust down in his evil doing; but the righteous hath a refuge in his death" (Prov. 14:32).

Prof. Hyde, closes his discussion thus: "The whole drift and bearing of Scripture amounts to this, that the season for our being saved is limited; that the mistakes and failures of this life are not to be rectified in the next; that there are time and space for repentance here; not hereafter; that the Gospel as preached on earth, is God's ultimatum of mercy; that the harvest of souls has its fatal now, after which there is nothing but a cry of horror and despair. To human view the hour of death is the final limit of salvation. Nor will men be likely to improve even the most precious opportunity, unless they can be made to realize that, if lost or wasted, it will never return" (2 Cor. 6:2; John 8:21, 24; Rev. 22:11) (New Catechism, p. 155).

* * * * * * *

CHAPTER IV -- THE RESURRECTION

We necessarily had considerable to say incidentally about the resurrection when discussing premillennialism. We now consider the subject more fully, repeating as little as possible what has already been said.

I. Consider the doctrine. By the resurrection of the dead we mean that the body, which we inhabit at death, will in some sense be revivified, and reinhabited by the immortal spirit. If it is not, in some proper sense, our earthly body raised to life again, then there is no resurrection of the body.

The resurrection body would be a new creation. If there is to be a resurrection, something must be resurrected. We touch here a very difficult subject, peculiarly difficult because we all know so little about it. The thing we try to discuss, none of us have ever known or seen; it becomes largely an interpretation of words of revelation.

1. Let it be distinctly understood that the whole subject is purely a doctrine of Divine revelation.

Reason does not discover it or even suggest it; to her, indeed, it seems incredible. To those therefore who have no other guide than the light of nature affords, the doctrine is wholly unknown.

It is peculiarly an asset of Christianity. When St. Paul delivered his first address at Athens, he stood before the most intelligent audience that could be gathered in all the world. And as he

"preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection" they contemptuously called him a "babbler," and said, "May we know what this new teaching is, which is spoken by thee? For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears." Without the Bible it is strange enough to the mind of man.

2. There is no proof of such a resurrection except in the Scriptures.

(1) No one has ever returned to us clothed upon with his resurrection body, so that it might be critically examined and reported on by a learned committee of scientific men.

(2) It cannot be proved, though men have tried to do it, by primary assumptions which imply or require it. a. As that a body is necessary to the future life of the soul. We are not warranted in making any such affirmation; much less that such a body must consist of the matter of our present body. The same organic elements that compose our bodies are abundantly found in nature all around us, and, perhaps, would do quite as well. b. That character can be expressed only through the body, and hence that the resurrection body must be the same in order to such expression in the future state. But both these propositions can be successfully controverted and are pure assumptions without any proof, c. It is assumed that the body shares in the deeds of the present life, and therefore must be resurrected in order to share with the soul in its rewards or punishments. This, too, is a mistake that indicates great confusion of thought. The body is purely the instrumental agent of the personal mind, and has no responsibility for its acts. It would be as reasonable to punish the knife as to punish the hand that held it and the arm that drove it to the heart of the victim. The mind was the real assassin, d. It has been assumed that there must be a resurrection that we may recognize again those whom we have known and loved and lost. The sentiment may be truly respected while the inference is denied as utterly invalid. We do not deny the recognition, but the assumed necessity to it. If it be true, then none of the dead know each other now, since none are yet resurrected. Recognition is as possible on other grounds as on identity of matter. We meet and recognize a friend that we have not seen in forty years; though not one particle of the body that we knew is left in him. This is conclusive proof that identity of matter is not necessary to recognition.

(3) Analogy does not prove it. We point to the metamorphosis of apparently dead nature of winter to the luxurious vegetation of the spring; the transformation of the chrysalis into the butterfly; the change of the decayed seed into the plant. These beautiful changes afford illustrations and presumptions in favor of a resurrection; but none of them prove it. Analogy never proves anything.

These exceptions we are making to common arguments for the resurrection are highly proper. For we should not base so precious a doctrine on untenable grounds. Its true and only ground is in the Scriptures. To the common statements of the doctrine science can make 'unanswerable objections.

And reason stands by in helpless impotence. Yet there still may be a sufficient reason; and there must be, since the resurrection of the body is clearly taught in the Scriptures. When God speaks, reason bows to what it does not understand, assured that the power of God is able to execute the purpose of His holy will.

II. The Resurrection denied by several classes of thinkers.

1. It is denied by those who take the word resurrection always in a figurative sense, expressing the rising of the soul from spiritual death to spiritual life. At the grave of Lazarus Martha said to our Lord. "I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day." It is impossible to twist these words, which Jesus did not contradict, into harmony with any figurative resurrection.

2. The resurrection of the body is denied by the Swedenborgians, who hold that the resurrection occurs at the time of death. The theory is that man has in this life two bodies, an external and internal, a material and a psychical body. The former remains in the grave never to rise again. The other, - an essence, which is neither the body nor spirit but something between them, goes forth with the departing spirit, and immediately invests it as its future habitation. Such is the only resurrection; and it takes place at death. Mr. Bush says: "A spiritual body is developed at death.

By spiritual in this connection, we mean refined, subtle, ethereal, sublimated. By the development of a spiritual body we mean the disengagement, the extrication of that physical part of our nature with which vital and animal functions are, in the present life, intimately connected. ... It is a tertium quid, an intermediate something between the cogitative faculty and the gross body." (Anastasis p.

78).

This is a nice theory to contemplate, and quite ingenious; but if it were all true (which none can prove) it still would not answer for the resurrection of the body, which the Scriptures assert. It must therefore be dismissed as a mere fancy, incapable of proof.

3. "It is denied by those who assume that the soul as pure spirit, cannot be individualized or localized; that it cannot have any relation to space, or act or be acted upon, without a corporeity of some kind; and who, therefore, assume that it must be furnished with a new, more refined, ethereal body, as soon as its earthly tabernacle is laid aside. The resurrection body, according to this view also, is furnished at the moment of death." This too, contradicting Scriptures, must be classed as a human speculation.

4. The doctrine of the resurrection is further denied by all rationalists. "Rationalism, wherever it prevailed, swept the whole doctrine away. Reason does not teach the doctrine, and cannot explain it; therefore, it has no title to recognition. Deistical rationalists admitted that the doctrine was taught in the Scriptures, but this was to them only an additional reason for denying their divine origin. The more moderate rationalists, who admitted the Bible to be a revelation of the truths of reason, or of natural religion, explained away all that it teaches concerning the resurrection, making it refer to the rising of the soul from a state of sin to a state of Holiness; or, as relating not to the resurrection of the body, but to the continued life of the soul in a future state." (Hodge Vol.

111. p. 789).

5. "Modern pantheistic theology ignores the doctrine of a resurrection. It does not even admit of the existence of the soul after the dissolution of the body. The race is immortal, but the individuals of which it is composed are not."

6. "Scientific Materialism admits of no other resurrection than the reappearance of the same chemical elements which now form our bodies, in the bodies of future plants, animals or men. The lime in our bodies may help to form the bones of those who come after us. Thus philosophy and science, when divorced from the Bible, lead us only to negations, darkness, and despair" (Hodge, Ibid).

III. The Divine Word plainly teaches the Resurrection. We need not labor to collate all the passages, a few will be amply sufficient.

1. John 5: 28, 29. "Marvel not at this; for the hour cometh, in which all that are in the tombs shall hear His voice, and shall come forth, they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done ill, unto the resurrection of judgment." In the twenty-first and twenty-fifth verses Jesus is talking of His power to raise to spiritual life those who are dead in sin; but in verses 28 and 29, He talks about raising all those physically dead from their tombs.

2. Rom. 8: 11, "But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead, dwelleth in you, he that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies through His Spirit that dwelleth in you."

3. 1 Thess. 4: 14, "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with Him." Only the righteous dead are here spoken of, because they only were under consideration; but Jesus said all in the tombs should rise together.

4. Acts 24: 15, Paul announces his "hope toward God . . . that there shall be a resurrection both of the just and unjust."

5. Rev. 20: 12, 13, "And I saw, the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne; and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged every man according to their works." This is manifestly a universal resurrection.

6. The great standard passage on the subject is 1 Cor. 15. It is the most complete discussion of the resurrection, in the entire Bible. There is, in Paul's view, the same necessary connection between the resurrection of Christ and that of mankind, that there is between the fall of Adam, and the death of his descendants. As surely as in Adam all die, so surely in Christ shall all be made alive. In verses 12-23 the doctrine is maintained. It is so connected with the resurrection of Christ that the latter is at once the pledge and sample of the former. "But now hath Christ been raised from the dead, the first fruits of them that are asleep" (verse 20). "For since by man came death, by man also came the resurrection of the dead" (verse 21).

In verse 35, objections are anticipated: "But some man will say, how are the dead raised up? And with what manner of body do they come?" These questions embody two objections to the resurrection; one against its possibility; the other, against its desirability. The objector assumed that the doctrine involved the resurrection of the body. If it was a mistake Paul should have corrected him. This, however, he does not do, but assumes it in his answer, considering both questions together with special attention to the second. He calls attention to the plastic nature of matter, and the marvelous transformations of which it is susceptible. He says the man who assumes that the future body must be exactly like the present body is a fool. The two are no more alike than a seed and flower, a clod of earth and a star, the earthly and the heavenly. "All flesh is not the same flesh. . . . There are also celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial . . . one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It (the natural body) is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body" (verses 40-45).

To the objection that our present bodies are not adapted to the future state of existence, he answers.

Granted, but that is nothing against the truth of the doctrine. It is true, "brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality" (verses 50-53).

IV. We do not know in what the identity will consist. Many theologians have taught very gross views of the resurrection which are unbelievable and even repulsive. In their misdirected effort to defend the faith in the resurrection of the body, they have done much to discredit it. As an example,

"Augustine seems to have thought that all matter which at any period entered into the organism of our present bodies would in some way be restored in the resurrection body. Every man's body, however dispersed here, shall be restored perfect in the resurrection. Every body shall be complete in quantity and quality. As many hairs as have been shaved off, or nails cut . . . shall return into the body, into that substance from which they grew" (Hodge, Vol. Ill, pp. 775, 776).

Such conceptions are disgusting.

Now identity may be of two kinds-absolute, and proper. The former requires every atom of which it is composed at any given time; the latter is consistent with very much less, possibly with no atoms at all. When we affirm the resurrection of the body in which we die, we simply mean, in perfect harmony with Scripture, that there will be in some sense a proper identity. Even Paul himself, while arguing for the resurrection daringly affirmed, "Thou sowest not the body that shall be" (v. 37).

Just in what the identity will consist, none of us can now possibly know. "Behold, I tell you a mystery!" (v. 51). It is enough to believe that the resurrection body will sustain some relation to the present body; but just what relation we do not know. Let us all be honest enough to confess our utter ignorance of the matter, and cease to read our idle speculations into the Divine revelation, which are certainly not there.

Identity is a most elastic term. A cubic foot of ice is so much solid water. Melt it into a liquid.

How changed! Heat it until it expands 1,700 times its original size, and becomes steam. Let that disappear and become the original gases of which water is composed. In all these changes into solid, liquid, vapor, and invisible gas, there is an identity preserved through it all. But how changed!

Many persons assume that sameness of substance is essential to the identity between our present and future bodies, and the idea is pressed to the utmost extreme. But this is the lowest and grossest form of identity. St. Paul nowhere intimates that the gross material of which our earthly bodies are composed will compose the body of the resurrection, He teaches precisely the opposite. And if we open our eyes to the various forms of identity, we are prepared to accept his teachings. The Apollo Belvidere once lay dormant in a strata of marble. A block of it was quarried, in the heart of which is every particle of the future statue; but the Apollo is not there. By care and toil there appears at last the immortal Apollo. Now let this be reproduced in plaster, or bronze, or in another piece of marble; let the size be enlarged or reduced; yet an instructed and admiring beholder exclaims, Ah!

here is the Apollo Belvidere! How beautiful! The identity is recognized immediately. And yet there is not one atom in it that constituted the original Apollo. In this instance, the identity consists in the form, the expression, the informing idea that constitutes the Apollo.

Take another illustration: "When you look into a mirror the image reflected remains the same, but not the substance; for that is constantly changing with every new reflection. The soul here-in forms the body. The character is more or less visibly impressed upon the face. We know the former by looking at the latter. Now, if the soul has power thus to illuminate and render intelligent the gross material of our present frames, why may it not hereafter render its ethereal vestment so expressive of itself as to be at once recognized by all to whom it was ever known."

Identity in living organisms is higher still. The acorn and the oak are the same; but in what sense?

The infant and the man are the same through all the stages of life; boyhood, manhood, and old age; the substance of the body, however, is in a state of perpetual change. Physiologists tell us the change is complete every seven years. Here, then, is an identity independent of sameness of substance. Our future bodies, therefore, may be the same as those we now have, although not a particle that was in the one should be in the other.

The object of these remarks on the different kinds of identity is not to explain anything. It is not intended to teach wherein the identity of the earthly and the heavenly consists; whether it be an identity of substance; or of expression and idea, as in works of art; or in the uninterrupted continuity of the same vital force, as in the plant or animal; or whether it is a sameness that includes all, or is different from all. We affirm nothing. The subject is left where the Bible leaves it. The object aimed at is two-fold; first, to show that it is perfectly rational for a man to assert the identity between our present and our future bodies, although he is forced to admit that he does not know wherein that identity is to consist. And, secondly, to stop the mouth of gainsayers (Hodge, Vol. Ill, pp. 777, 778).

Men ridicule the resurrection, asking if infants will be raised as infants, and the aged will be wrinkled and decrepit, and the maimed will be minus their members, and the deformed will be condemned to eternal deformity, and the cancer-eaten will rise with bodies half-consumed. The Bible teaches nothing of the kind. It only teaches the resurrection of the body. Whether it is to be the ideal which God had for each body, its perfected development, unmarred by disease or sin, or some spiritual body, somehow related to it, and of which that physical body was only the germ and type, the holy Word does not inform us. And where it is silent, it is folly for us to speak. We can therefore pass by the speculations of men, some crude, and some very beautiful, and fall back in faith on what the Word of God positively says about it.

V. The Resurrection Body.

1. It will not be the body (in every sense) that was put in the grave. 1 Cor. 15: 37, "Thou sowest not that body that shall be."

2. It will not be a body of flesh and blood. "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God" (v.

50). This means (1) that the bodies of the resurrection will be specially suited to the state of existence in which they are to live and act. (2) That our present bodies of flesh and blood are not adapted to that future state. (3) That what is unnecessary to that future existence will cease with the present existence. "They neither marry nor are given in marriage but are as the angels of God."

Sexual functions and organism, having finished their work, will be needed no more. If blood be no longer our life, we shall have no need of organs of respiration and nutrition. Such remarks might be extended to eating and drinking, and sleep and rest. The animal necessities of the present life will all be unknown.

3. It will not be a body of corruption. "It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption" (v. 43).

"Neither doth corruption inherit incorruption" (v. 50). That body that shall be, will not be liable to sickness or decay, or disorganization, or to the loathsome corruption of the grave. It will be free from all possible accident to its strength or beauty and be blessed forever with the vigor of an eternal prime. Our present bodies are a marvel of divine wisdom, and are perfectly adapted to the environments of the present life; but in that future that awaits us, the soul shall be awake to more pure and elevated enjoyments than these, and such bodies as we have here would impede our progress, and detract from our comforts, and be ill-adapted to the holy employments and spiritual enjoyments of that eternal life, Nothing is corruptible in the pure atmosphere and eternal health of heaven,

4. It will not be a mortal body. "This mortal must put on immortality" (v. 53). Incorruption is negative, immunity from decay. Immortality means perpetuity of life. The righteous will be at once changed and invested, as Enoch and Elijah were, with incorruption and immortality, the deathlessness and eternal youthfulness of the angels of God. "And death shall be no more; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore; for the former things are passed away"

(Rev. 21: 4).

5. It will not be a body of weakness. "It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power" (v. 43). How weak we are! In the fullness of our vigor, and at the height of our power, the accident of a moment may lay us low in utter helplessness. "How little we can effect! How few are our senses! How limited their range! But we do not yet know in what ways, or in what measure our power is to be increased. It is probable that however high may be our expectations on this subject, they will fall short of the reality; for it doth not yet appear, it is not revealed in experience or in hope, what we shall be. We may have new senses, new and greatly exalted capabilities. Instead of the slow and wearisome means of locomotion to which we are now confined, we may be able, hereafter, to pass with the speed of light, or of thought itself, from one part of the universe to another. Our power of vision, instead of being confined to the range of a few hundred yards, may far exceed that of the most powerful telescope. These expectations can not be extravagant, for we are assured that it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive what God hath prepared for them that love Him"

(Hodge, Vol. Ill, p. 783). To have the ability to think, and study and toil without food or weariness, or rest or sleep, ah, what a boon for every earnest soul!

6. It will not be a body of dishonor. "It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory" (v. 43). After death, our poor bodies are hurried away to burial as offensive things, their honor departed, and their beauty vanished and gone. "We all do fade as a leaf." "As the flower of the grass he shall pass away." But it shall be raised in glory. This means radiance, dazzling luster, which excites admiration and delight. The bodies of the saints are to be fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body. We shall be like Him when we see Him as He is. More than this cannot be said; what it means we know not now, but we shall know hereafter. When Jesus was transfigured, "His face did shine as the sun; and His raiment became white and dazzling." His disciples fell to the ground, overcome by the excess of His glory; and when He comes again the second time, the heavens and the earth shall flee away at the sight of the insufferable radiance. "And we shall be like Him!" Let it suffice us to know that as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

7. It will not be a natural body. "It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body" (v. 44).

The word "natural" refers to "animal life." The apostle is here saying that the future body will not be chiefly related to the animal soul, and the animal nature. It will not need that which is now necessary to the support of animal functions. It will not be sustained in that way, i. e., by breath and food and sleep. These will all cease, with the death of the body.

The future body will be related to the spirit, - pneuma, a spiritual (pneumatikon) body. It will be so much like a spirit as to be independent of food, or nutriment; independent of physical organization of flesh, and blood, and bones, of veins and arteries and nerves; and it will live as spirits live, by the sustaining power of the indwelling Spirit of God.

But what do we know of such a body? - a body without physical parts, or animal qualities or functions? Absolutely nothing. It is wholly beyond our experience. The wings of our imagination weary trying to rise to such an exalted conception. Faith reels and almost faints in her attempt to follow the revelation of this excess of future glory.

8. But it will doubtless be a body that will retain the human form, and be a glorified likeness of what it was on earth. This will insure us a recognition of our friends in heaven. "If the future body is to be the same with the present, why should not that sameness, whatever else it may include, include a certain sameness of appearance?" When Moses and Elijah appeared on the mount of transfiguration they were at once known by the disciples. The redeemed are to sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. What joy will it give them unless the patriarchs can be recognized?

We are assured that our cup of happiness will be full, and we shall be satisfied. But would we be satisfied, if our social and parental and domestic loves must all perish at the grave's mouth?

David, weeping over his dead son, exclaimed: "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." It is the abiding hope of all noble and bereaved hearts. Does God create such deathless hopes to mock them? Do the tendrils of affection twine about the person loved, until they demand infinity for their field, and eternity for their duration, all to be swallowed up in the abyss of annihilation? It cannot be. God hath reserved some better thing for us and for them, whom we have loved and lost awhile,

Memory is another pledge of future recognition. The Bible leads us to believe that we shall retain all our faculties, memory among the rest. If this were not retained, there would be no continuity to our existence, nothing to connect the future life with the present. There would be a bridgeless chasm of separation between the two, and we should enter the other world as newly-created beings, with no consciousness of our past. We could not praise God for His redeeming love, for we would not know from what we had been redeemed. The past would be a blank, and we could not understand the meaning of our judgment, our rewards, or our penalties. We cannot suppose such a condition for a moment. But if memory survives, it will doubtless be quickened into perfection. "The books will be opened." This involves the memory of all scenes and persons, and social relations, of all the ties of affection and gratitude, of all the feelings and emotions that have ever thrilled the heart or affected the life. It will make recognition, not only possible but certain in the future life.

All this is foreshadowed and foretold by the universal longing and expectation of men. It is the common faith of mankind which is itself evidence of a corresponding reality awaiting us in the eternal world.

It may have been noticed that comparatively little is said in the Bible about the kind of body the wicked shall have in the resurrection. But "all that are in their graves shall come forth, they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of judgment" (John 5: 28, 29). "There shall be a resurrection both of the just and unjust" (Acts 24: 15). "Some to everlasting life; and some to shame and everlasting contempt" (Dan. 12: 2). The abhorrent, sin-cursed body with which they shall rise is not described. "The bodies of the unjust shall be raised to dishonor." Westminster Confession: "For them there will be no glorious body.

They will be dragged from their graves to the judgment, and their bodily appearance will correspond with their spiritual degradation." Our present body is as the seed of our future body. ...

It illustrates by a vivid figure the perpetuity of our bodily life, as proved by the resurrection of Christ. Each sin against the body is no longer a stain on that which is itself doomed to perish, but a defilement of that which is consecrated to an eternal life" (Westcott).

* * * * * * *

CHAPTER V -- THE JUDGMENT

The next event subsequent to the resurrection is the general judgment. This event will terminate the remedial dispensation, put an end to time, and usher in eternity, with the unchanging destiny of men and angels.

The Book that gives us our theology, teaches that God is the Judge of the moral universe. Nations, angels and men, must face His judgment. Nations are judged and punished in time. At the end of time "He hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness, by the man whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised him from the dead" (Acts 17: 31).

The Bible everywhere teaches that God is a Judge; that He will avenge the poor and the oppressed; that He will review the conduct of all moral beings; that He will reward the righteous and punish the wicked. It is the day when the infinite righteousness of God will be revealed to the universe; and the character of every man will be manifest to himself and to others, his life reviewed, and the measure of his merited reward or punishment determined. The aggregate results of every life will then be gathered up, and the rewards or penalties will be announced, and the destinies of all will be sealed forever.

Like every other doctrine of Scripture, this one has been opposed and rejected by different classes of teachers.

1. It is practically set aside, by those who resolve it into the future state of rewards and penalties, and say that this is all the judgment day there will ever be.

2. Another view of the judgment day is that it is a process now in progress. The Jew expected that when the Messiah came, the severest judgments would be visited upon the heathen, while Israel would be greatly exalted. This would be the Day of Judgment. In like manner some now hold that the Day of Judgment covers the whole period between the first and second advents of Christ.

3. Another unscriptural view is that there are certain immutable laws, either independent of the will of God; or dependent on His voluntary constitution, which execute themselves. They inevitably secure the happiness of the good, and the misery of the bad; every day is a judgment day, and we get our heaven and hell as we go along. And this is all there is of judgment or heaven or hell.

4. There is the theory of premillennialists. With them "to judge" is to reign; the day of judgment is a protracted future dispensation to commence with the second advent of Christ, and to continue during the thousand years of His personal reign upon the earth. Seiss says: "The judgment of God is the administration of the government of God." Any of these theories seem to be trifling with the solemn utterances of the Word of God about the great Day of Judgment.

In discussing this subject we will consider:

I. The Certainty of a General Judgment. On no other subject is the mind of man more agreed. We are not more sure of the existence of God, than we are sure that we must give an account to Him for the conduct of life. It is one of the great primary truths of reason which we cannot get rid of, that we are on trial here, and that God will judge us and assign us retribution hereafter. The need of such a judgment may be proved:

1. By the justice of God. We are living here amidst mixed providences. The wicked cannot display themselves unless they are allowed some freedom to develop their characters, and gratify their unholy ambitions, and selfishness, and greed, and lust, at the expense of others. So it comes about that the good are often wronged by the wicked; the weak are the prey of the strong; the holy are victimized by the selfish, and our earthly society is full of anomalies and inequalities, which seem to be a necessary part of a system of probation for free-moral agents. It has always been so from the beginning. If Cain nursed murderous passion, innocent Abel must be the victim. If the sons of Jacob express their characters in conduct, the heart of innocent Joseph must be wrung with anguish, and he must endure for years a living death. The good are often left to struggle with poverty, and pine in affliction. The illustrious saints, "of whom the world was not worthy," were exposed to penury and want, and the violence of the ungodly. They "had trial of mockings, and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonments; they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, they were tempted, they were slain with the sword; they went about in sheep skins, in goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, evil entreated, wandering in deserts and mountains and caves, and the holes of the earth" (Heb. 11: 35-39). And while they were thus suffering, their proud oppressors "set their mouths against the heavens," and gave loose reins to their appetites and passions, enjoyed outward peace, and passed their days in the possession of all earthly good. There were no bands in their death; their strength was firm; they were not in trouble as other men; neither were they plagued like other men; their eyes stood out with fatness; they had more than heart could wish." It was all painful to contemplate. But all the time "justice and judgment were the habitation of God's throne."

Some day, He will assert Himself, and avenge His elect. Wrongs will be righted. Retribution will come on apace, justice will be meted out. Innocence will be vindicated. Goodness will be rewarded, while the damnation of the wicked will not slumber. All this is demanded by the justice of God, and it will surely come to pass.

2. By the dictates of Conscience. We all have a divinely implanted monitor and judge in our own nature, which passes sentence upon ourselves, and anticipates the final judgment of God. "If our heart condemn us not, we have boldness toward God" (1 John 3: 21); but if conscience determines our conduct to be wrong, then we have shame, and a sense of guilt and a foreboding of the censure of God. It is not merely the fear of condemnation in the present life by others. The sin may be secret, - wholly unknown to men. It may be sin committed long ago. But the nearer we approach our end the more impressive are the reproaches, and the more dreadful the forebodings. It is then, especially, that the sinner reflects with horror upon his past life, and dreads the consequences of his evil doings. But why should the consciousness of an evil action make a man fear when no one knows it but himself? Why should a life spent in sin fill one with horror as it draws near its close?

There is only one explanation. The voice of conscience is prophetic of the judgment seat of a just and holy God. The foundation for a future judgment is laid in man's memory and conscience.

Coleridge says: "This perchance is the dread book of judgment, in whose mysterious hieroglyphics every idle word is recorded." But if we can forget, God cannot. "The air itself is one vast library, on whose pages are forever written all that man has said, or woman whispered." (Babbage). If, therefore, there is a just God, and conscience is not a delusive faculty, there is a judgment awaiting us all, where it will be well with the righteous and ill with the wicked.

3. But it is the Scripture that reveals a general judgment before an assembled universe. Matt. 11: 24, "I say unto you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the Day of judgment, than for thee." Matt. 12: 41, 42, "The men of Nineveh shall stand up in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and, behold, a greater than Jonah is here. The Queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation and shall condemn it." " . . . Explain unto us the parable of the tares. ..." The enemy that sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the world. The Son of man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom, all things that cause stumbling, and them that do iniquity, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father" (Matt.

13:36-43). Matt. 25:31, "When the Son of man, shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit on the throne of His glory; and before Him shall be gathered all the nations; and He shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats," etc. Heb. 9: 27, "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." Rev. 20: 12, 13, "And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne; and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged every man according to their works." Such passages and many more are sufficient to show that God has appointed a day in which he will judge the world.

II. The Solemn Attendants and Transactions of the Judgment. Here we are wholly dependent upon the Word of God for our knowledge of events. Not reason nor imagination, but revelation alone is capable of guiding us to the truth.

1. The following events immediately precede the general judgment. "The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God" (1

Thess. 4: 16). And then, "All that are in their graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth"

(John 5: 28, 29). "The sea shall give up the dead which are in it; and death and hell shall deliver up the dead which are in them" (Rev. 20: 13). "Then also shall the living be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" (1 Cor. 15: 52) and pass from the mortal to an immortal state.

Furthermore, Christ "shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet; and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heaven to the other" (Matt. 24: 31).

"And before Him shall be gathered all nations"; and He shall place the righteous on His right hand, and the wicked on His left (Matt. 25: 32). "I saw the dead small and great stand before God" (Rev.

20: 12). These are the chief events that precede the judgment.

2. Christ is to be the judge. "The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son; that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father" (John 5: 22, 23) "and hath given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of man" (v. 27). Peter, in Acts 10: 34-43, says that God, "Anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power; had

'raised' Him from the dead, and 'showed Him openly/ and 'commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify, that it is He which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead."

St. Paul tells the Athenians that God "hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance to all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead" (Acts 17: 31). In 2 Cor. 5: 10, he says: "We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ." In all the graphic pictures of the judgment in the New Testament, Christ is represented as being the Judge. He is perfectly qualified for this place, for He is Omniscient and Infinite. He knows what is in man; He is related to man; He has suffered for man; His nature is united to humanity. He has measured the force of every temptation, borne all our griefs and carried all our sorrows. Who is so fitted as He to be our judge?

This is part of His infinite exaltation that the universe is to stand before Him to be judged. Judas that betrayed Him, the soldiers that smote Him with clenched fists, the rulers that cursed Him in their hate, and Pilate that sentenced Him, will all be there to be judged. It is the joy of believers and their ground of confidence that He who loved them and gave Himself for them, and washed away their sins in His own precious blood, will be on the great white throne to judge them in that great day of final account.

3. The judgment is to take place at the time of the resurrection and the second coming of Christ.

Therefore it is not a process now in progress; not something that occurs at death; nor is it a protracted period prior to the general resurrection, as some Premillennialists affirm. The Bible knows absolutely nothing of three more personal advents of Christ, -one at the rapture of His bride; a second to inaugurate His millennial reign; a third to judge the world. This is the fanciful fiction of men, but not the sober truth of God. He who came in the flesh, "shall appear a second time, apart from sin to them that wait for him, unto salvation" (Heb. 9: 28). They who expect any more comings are laboring under a delusion. "For the Son of man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and then shall He render unto every man according to his deeds" (Matt. 16: 27), Matt. 25: 31-46, sets forth the coming and the whole process of the judgment. In 2 Thess. 1: 7-10, it is taught that when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, it will be for the double purpose of taking vengeance on them that know not God, and of being glorified in all them that believe. In 2 Tim. 4: 1, we are told that Jesus "shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom" St. Paul tells us in the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians that at the last trump our vile bodies will be changed like unto His glorious body, and Phil. 3: 20, 21, we are told that it will occur when Christ comes from heaven. Thus it is infallibly taught that the final judgment will take place at the second coming of Christ.

4. The persons to be judged. The moral beings to be judged are angels and men. That angels will be there is taught in 2 Pet. 2: 4, "God spared not the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell, and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment." This is repeated in Jude 6,

"and angels which kept not their own principality, but left their proper habitation, He hath kept in everlasting bonds, under darkness unto the judgment of the great day!'

But at the same time will be assembled all the children of men, from Adam down to the last born of his descendants. All will be there. In that vast assembly, ranks and distinctions will be unknown. Rank and dignity and high-birth will be forgotten. Men of talents and the feebleminded will stand on a common level and have something else to think of besides their gifts. The great will be without their ensigns of honor, and the humble without their marks of abasement; moral distinctions alone will be regarded. The oppressor and the oppressed will be there; the former that his violence may be returned upon his own head; the latter that his wrongs may be redressed. The learned and the illiterate, the bond and the free, the high and the low, the rich and the poor, - will all be there touching elbows, like men crowded together in a city mob. They must all meet the inspection of the omniscient eye, and hear the decision of that voice from which there is no appeal.

Not one of the righteous will there be overlooked and neglected; not one of the wicked will be able to hide from the searching gaze of his Judge.

5. The things to be judged. We are distinctly told that men are to be judged "for the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or bad"; "according to their works"; "the secrets of the heart." "For God will bring every work into judgment, with every hidden secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil'.' (Eccl. 12: 14). The judgment will not be decided by hypocritical professions or pretensions, or on the appearance or reputation which they sustain among men, but on their real character in the sight of God. "God will not be mocked, and cannot be deceived." Our actions will all pass in review, also "every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the Day of Judgment; for by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." Moreover, the thoughts must pass in review. "The thoughts of the righteous are right,"

while "the thoughts of the wicked are an abomination to God" (Prov. 12: 5, 15: 26). They have a moral character which cannot be ignored, and therefore they must tell on the destinies of men.

Things must be made to appear before the universe as they actually appear to God, whose moral judgment is infallible. Moral conceit will shrivel in the white light of the judgment. Self-deception will vanish. Man will at last see himself as he is. Memory, with awful fidelity, will reproduce the past with all its enormities of evil, not a sinful line missing from the picture, nor a shadow of impurity left out. In such a judgment who could stand without the help of an atoning Christ, and his guilty past is put under the blood?

6. The rule of judgment. Men are to be judged according to the light they had, and in view of which they put forth their moral acts. (1) Those who have had no Bible will be judged by the light of nature. St. Paul declared: "When Gentiles which have no law do by nature the things of the law, these, having no law, are a law unto themselves; in that they show the works of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness therewith, and their thoughts accusing or else excusing them; in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men, by Jesus Christ" (Rom. 2: 14, 15). (2) The Jews who have Moses and the prophets will be judged by Old Testament light. It is quite sufficient, if they will faithfully use it, to lead them to Christ and salvation. Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and Daniel managed to live very reputable lives by the light of it. So also did a multitude of others. It is not the quantity of light, but the fidelity in following what one has that decides the destiny. (3) Men in Christian lands will be judged by the light of the Gospel. Jesus plainly stated the principle: "The servant that knew his Lord's will and did it not, shall be beaten with many stripes; but he that knew it not shall be beaten with few stripes" (Luke 12: 47, 48). "And to whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required." How great will be the account which those will have to render who live under the Gospel dispensation. If the Gentile who sins against the light of nature is justly punishable; if he "who despised the law of Moses died without mercy, of how much sorer punishment will he be thought worthy who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing and hath done despite unto the spirit of grace?" (Heb. 10: 29). It is an awful thing to live in impenitence and sin willfully in the blazing light that streams from Calvary!

7. The time of the judgment. When it will take place is beyond the knowledge of any finite mind. It has not been revealed and will not be. "Of that day and hour knoweth no man; no, not the angels of heaven" (Matt. 24: 36). But "the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night" (2 Pet. 3: 10).

But the time of the event is certain and perfectly known to God; for He "Hath appointed a day in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained" (Acts 17:31). Hence the Day of Judgment is spoken of as "the day of the Lord" "the great and terrible day."

We are told this much that it will be at the time of the Advent of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the end of the world!

8. It is certain that at death, men have a preliminary judgment, and partially enter upon their eternal destiny. The parable of Dives and Lazarus, and Jesus' words to the dying thief make this sure. St.

Paul had a desire "to depart and be with Christ." "Why then," it may be asked, "should there be another general judgment?" There are several reasons, which justify such a day.

(1) We believe the chief reason is that the eternal righteousness of God may be vindicated before the entire universe. There is a perfect wail of complaint against God rising to His throne continually. People clamor against His goodness, find fault with His Providences, censure the principles of His government, criticize His laws, and condemn His rewards and penalties. They even dare to take issue with His plan of grace, by which He attempts to save men from death and hell. God has borne all this with infinite patience through long millenniums. But He has appointed a day in which the accusers and the accused shall meet face to face, and he shall be vindicated. It will be more a day of manifestation than a day of decision. The scoffing throng that have so long impeached God's goodness will have a chance to feel the awful majesty of His holiness. The wretched sinners that in malignant hate put Jesus to death, and despised His atoning blood, will have an opportunity to look upon the supernal glory of Him whom they have crucified. It will reveal the immeasurable wickedness of men to themselves; it will make the blackness of their guilt apparent to everybody else. The infinite righteousness of God's wrath against those whom He condemns will be manifest to all.

"The Judge of all the earth," clothed in the habiliments of heavenly light, and seated upon "the throne of His glory" will summon before Him the multiplied millions of our race, to receive their final allotments. In the decisions of that tremendous day, His wisdom, justice, goodness and truth will shine out in overwhelming radiance, and be acknowledged by every moral creature. All holy beings shall exclaim with united voice: "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." "Hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth!"

(2) When a man dies his entire moral history is not concluded. His influence lives on after him, and he must have the credit for it, whether good or bad. St. Paul's life is still a mighty influence for good in the world. Even "Abel though dead yet speaketh." The influence of Martin Luther still voices itself in Protestantism. Tom Paine and Robert Ingersoll are still at work damning souls, and will be to the end of time. John Wesley was never more active than now, and Catherine Booth lives on. The record of any soul cannot yet be made up, and hence reward or retribution cannot be complete. It is therefore fitting that there should be a general judgment at the close of the history of our race.

9. The final declaration of the Judge concerning those on His right hand that they are righteous will be seen to be true by all. Their glorified spiritual bodies will be the index and reflection of their holy spirits, - a perfect and conclusive evidence to every beholder. The declaration to those on His left hand that they are wicked will be not less manifest. Their repulsive spiritual bodies will bear mute but decisive testimony to the incorrigible sinfulness of their depraved hearts. There will be no need of witnesses, as in human courts; since every character will infallibly report itself, and be perfectly transparent to all. Memory will accurately marshal the sins of the past with all their attendant circumstances, and report all the stubborn refusals to accept pardoning mercy and sanctifying grace. When the Judge shall speak the final word, "Come, ye blessed of my Father" the universal response will be "Amen!" When He shall speak the sentence, "Depart, ye cursed," again shall come from terror-stricken and hopeless lips, "Amen! My damnation is just; I wickedly refused to accept eternal life as a gift!" The conscience of every lost soul will ratify the sentence of the Judge, and acknowledge the rectitude of the Divine decision.

10. At that judgment-bar will also appear the unholy angels, who "kept not their first estate, and who are reserved in chains and darkness, unto the judgment of the great day" Little is said concerning the subject matter of their judgment. But it doubtless relates to two things at least. First, at some time in the past, before our race was created, they willfully broke away from the bonds of love and loyalty that bound them to their Creator's throne, voluntarily renounced their allegiance to the Most High, and turned away from a life of holiness to grovel in rebellion and sin. Second, they have banded themselves together in a confederacy of hate against God, to destroy this race of man that was made in His image, and which is the peculiar object of His love. For these wanton and needless sins they will be condemned, and sent to that hell which was prepared for the Devil and his angels.

11. The Day of Judgment will be the dying-day of this sin-cursed world; the day in which its groans of dissolution will be heard, its knell sounded, and its obsequies celebrated with awful grandeur. No sooner will the sentence of the Judge be pronounced than the consuming fire of the Lord will go forth from His presence, and the earth will be wrapped in a winding sheet of flame.

The prophets have spoken it and no word of Scripture will be broken. "Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old as a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed" (Ps. 102: 25, 26). "Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath; for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment"

(Isa. 51: 6). "Heaven and earth shall pass away; but my words shall not pass away" (Luke 21: 33).

"But the day of the Lord will come as a thief; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up" (2 Pet. 3:9-13). As Dr. Timothy Dwight, the elder said: "All the works of man; his palaces, towers and temples; his villages, towns and cities; his wonderful displays of art, his haughty piles of grandeur, and his vast labors of defense and dominion, will be lighted up in a single blaze, and vanish forever. Nor will the desolation be limited to the works of men. The earth on which they stand; the hills and the mountains, the valleys and plains; the lakes, the rivers and the ocean will all in a moment become a blazing ruin. The very elements with which they are composed will melt with fervent heat; and the world itself, so long the seat of sin and sorrow be finally destroyed."

Even scientific men tell us that stars once clearly visible in the firmament, after a brief period of unusual splendor, have disappeared; to all appearance they have been burnt up. This earth was once in a state of fusion; and there are causes now in operation which are adequate to reduce it to that state again, whenever God sees fit to put them into operation. "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth are passed away" (Rev. 21: 1).

"The present order of things is but a temporary platform for the passing drama of man's probation; and when the drama is over the platform will be swept away, to give place to the glorious and abiding reality, for which it is a needful preparation" (Agar Beet, "Last Things," p. 169). See also argument XVI on Premillennialism.

* * * * * * *

CHAPTER VI -- ETERNAL BLESSEDNESS OF THE RIGHTEOUS

It now is our pleasant task to say somewhat about the blessedness of heaven. It being altogether desirable, as the reward of well doing, men have not been tempted to write against it, nor have they shown any marked divergence of opinion respecting it. Heaven is the place of final rest and reward for the righteous, when, after the resurrection and the general judgment, they enter into the full blessedness of their final state.

I. What the Scripture reveals. The following passages may be taken as samples of the teaching of the Bible. "I shall behold thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake with beholding thy form" (Ps. 17: 15). "Thou wilt guide me with thy counsel and afterward receive me to glory" (Ps. 73: 24). "In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also" (John 14: 2, 3). "The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord"

(1 Thess. 4: 16, 17). "And I heard a great voice out of the throne, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He shall dwell with them, and they shall be His peoples, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God; and He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall be no more; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, anymore; the first things are passed away" (Rev. 21: 3, 4). "Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that if He shall be manifested, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is" (1 John 3:2). "The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with all manner of precious stones. . . . And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; each one of the several gates were of one pearl; and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass. And I saw no temple therein; for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are the temple thereof. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine upon it; for the glory of God did lighten it, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb. . . . And there shall in no wise enter into it anything unclean, or he that maketh an abomination and a lie; but only they which are written in the Lamb's book of life. And he showed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the midst of the street thereof. And on this side of the river and on that was the tree of Life, bearing twelve manner of fruits, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no curse any more; and the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be therein; and His servants shall do Him service; and they shall see His face; and His name shall be on their foreheads. And there shall be night no more; and they need no light of lamp, neither light of sun; for the Lord God shall give them light; and they shall reign forever and ever" (Rev. 21: 19-22: 5).

II. We learn from these passages that heaven is a place. This may conflict with the opinions of some who theorize Scripture away, and make heaven only a state of character. But heaven is a dwelling place as well as a state of mind and heart. Moral beings are to live in a somewhere, as well as in a somehow. It is unphilosophical to think otherwise. It would be difficult to conceive of spiritual beings clothed upon with their spiritual bodies, and not have some, rallying place. There is a capacity in them for localization, a capability for a material habitation. Even God, the infinite Spirit, localizes Himself, to assist us in our thought and worship. He teaches us to pray, "Our Father who art in heaven." Jesus said, "I go to prepare a place for you." Such language cannot mean less than that there is some place which is peculiarly the residence of God and that thither Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us. He surely did not give us such a picture of material glory, and a residence of more than earthly splendor, and awaken in the breasts of the homeless wanderers of earth, a longing for home, only to mock it at last.

Moreover the Savior taught that the company of the redeemed would be one vast assembly. He said: "They shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God" (Luke 13: 29). The writer to the Hebrews says: "Ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first born, who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the? Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect" (Heb, 12: 22, 23). However much figurative language there may be in these representations, yet this idea of place is the pervasive atmosphere of every Scripture that speaks of heaven. It is essential to any helpful thought on the subject.

III. The location of heaven. Where this place may be is often the subject of much speculation. Some have conjectured that this earth will be ultimately fitted up as the abode of the glorified. We are indeed told that there shall be "a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness."

This assertion is too restricted to assume so much, about which God has revealed so little. Three passages seem to negative the supposition entirely. "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory that I had with thee before the world was." "And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world and I come to thee." "Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am" (John 17: 5, 11, 24). The Apostle Paul said, that "Christ ascended up, far above all heavens" (Eph. 4: 10). Whither then, Christ ascended to be glorified with the Father, there shall His disciples be with Him, and there is heaven. Beyond these facts we know nothing of its location; but it seems not to be this world.

"A question closely connected with this is, whether the heaven of our race is to be the heaven of the universe. Only the inhabitants of this world, and the angelic hosts, are brought to view; but is there to be some grand gathering place of the universe, a grand center where all of the children of God, from all worlds, shall gather? Some Christian astronomer has suggested that the central star round which our system seems to revolve must be the heaven of the universe. It is a sublime conception; but the settlement of the question is utterly beyond our reach" (Fairchild).

IV. Heaven is a place of transcendent glory. How much of reality enters into the Bible description of heaven we cannot know. But there is a massing together of objects of material splendor, - such as foundations of precious stones, and jasper walls, and gates of pearl, and streets of gold. The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it, and the throne of God is in the midst of it, symbol of government and authority. Out of this throne proceeds the river of water of life, on the banks of which grow the trees of immortality. It needs not the light of sun or moon; for the glory of God and of the Lamb shall bless it with eternal day. It all means, that God will use His infinite wisdom, and power, and creative skill to make a Capital for His universal empire worthy of Himself and His subjects. Making all allowance for figurative language, it cannot mean less than a place of unspeakable glory and grandeur; and that it is eminently fitted to afford delight to its holy inhabitants. The language of the description must necessarily be accommodated to human experience and power of comprehension; "but eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive" what the reality will be.

V. The "Nature of its blessedness. For the knowledge of this we depend partly on Scripture, and partly on reason, aided by the longings of our own troubled hearts. Among the sources of blessedness we may name.

1. The absence of all physical evils. It was not without a purpose that God told the toiling, suffering millions of earth that their spiritual and glorified bodies "shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more." "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." "There Jehovah shall be with us in majesty; and the inhabitant of that land shall not say, I am sick" (Isa. 33: 21-24). "And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain" (Rev. 21: 4). No innocent babies will be tortured by disease; no broken hearts will writhe in anguish; there will be no hollow-eyed, gaunt-faced, famine pinched sons and daughters of toil; no decrepit man, bowing under the weight of toilsome years; no emaciated frame or pallid face, or exhausted nerves that have become the inlets of agony, and the channels of fiery pain. All shall be possessed of the immortal youth, and perennial vigor of the eternal health of heaven.

2. Heaven will be a mental gain. The thirst for knowledge, which it is impossible to gain here, will there be satisfied. The facts, which here defy the sharpest scrutiny, will there be easily discovered.

The great soul-problems, that have vexed the thoughtful of all ages, will there find easy solution.

The strange mysteries of providence that have tortured the soul, and been shrouded in clouds and darkness, will there be unravelled, to the perfect satisfaction of every heart. What we have seen of God as through a glass darkly, we shall then see face to face. What we now know only in part we shall then comprehend in all its completeness. In the white light of eternity we shall have the perfect vision. "We shall know each other better, when the mists have rolled away"; and we shall know the angels, and know God and His Son Jesus Christ, "Whom to know is life eternal." What of knowledge by wearisome toil, we manage to acquire here, is often taken from us by forgetfulness; but there memory will cease to be treacherous, and what it acquires will be a gain for eternity. The faculties of the mind will all work with harmony and precision, and we can pursue our quest of knowledge with a scholar's zeal, without weariness or need of rest, through the ceaseless ages.

3. Heaven will bring a moral and spiritual gain. Though holiness is possible through grace, even here, and sanctification is the divinely appointed experience of every true child of God, yet there is need of constant watchfulness and constant exertion, lest we fall away from our grace, and even lose our first love. The very air we breathe is filled with the taint of vice. We are compelled to live and walk in the environment of wicked society. Solicitations to evil assail us on every hand, and sin seeks admission through every window of the soul.

The most subtle temptations assail us every hour, and Satan constantly spreads his snares for our advancing feet. The holiest of men while on earth are exposed to his fiery darts. He desires to have them that he may sift them as wheat, and brings to bear upon them all his dangerous devices. He even dared to assault the Son of God with his hellish machinations, and no disciple of His may hope to escape. But in heaven all this will be changed. Its pure air will carry no taint of corruption, no sound of evil, no echo of the footfall of hate. "There the wicked will cease from troubling." The enemy of all goodness, "The accuser of the brethren" can never mingle in its society or darken its streets. The redeemed shall walk there in a confirmed state of holiness, distressed by no fear of falling. Their robes shall be made "white in the blood of the Lamb," to remain unsullied forever.

The holiness of heaven means the absence of all that could mar its beauty or disturb its joy. Hence no suspicion of any end to the duration of bliss shall cast its shadow upon them, for they have divine assurance that "they go no more out forever!"

4. Heaven will bring social gain. It must be a social state, because this is our nature as God made us. Our character and our history have been developed, through our relation with other moral beings. This is an important element in life; we must lose ourselves and our identity, before we can find satisfaction in solitude. "In thy presence is fullness of joy. At thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore" (Ps. 16: 11). There will be a perfect gratification of all holy desires. One of them will be the desire of social intercourse with all holy beings, and with those whom we have personally known and loved. Heaven will be replete with loving fellowships. Our imperfect judgments of each other here, - our lack of appreciation of real personal worth, sadly mars our social enjoyment. Our estimates of each other are warped by prejudice, and lessened by fear and distrust, and colored by the opinions of others. But there we shall look at others with a clarified vision. Above all we shall find that all are holy, and we can safely honor whom God honors, and trust whom God trusts. There love will be supreme. Through their common union with Christ, saints and angels will form a happy brotherhood. We "shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, in the kingdom of God. We shall associate with Enoch, and Job, and Moses, and David and Isaiah and Daniel, and the glorious Apostles and the great souls of all the ages. "Yet the saints will have a joy and a song which the angels can share only by the power of sympathy, - the joy of salvation and the song of redeeming love." 5. Another joy of heaven will be its limitless progress, its endless development, and its fullness of joy. It must be a progressive state, because growth and progress are the law of our being. With endless life before us, and a wide field of action opened to us, no limit can be set to the acquisition of knowledge, or progress in character and blessedness.

Even the rest of heaven will not be a mere cessation from activity, but a holy and most zealous service, wholly exempt from weariness and the hardship common to earthly toil. It is our nature to be doing, achieving, and bringing things to pass. Those who have been earnest enough to get to heaven will want to express their gratitude by activity and responsibility in grateful service for their Lord. It is a natural condition of blessedness. Holy love will make all duty a holy delight.

Even here the saints may at times rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory (1 Pet. 1:8). But there the heavenly worship kindled by the open vision of God and the Lamb, ºhall be full of a holy rapture, such as earth can never know.

6. Another source of the blessedness of heaven will be its endlessness. Our fadeless joys will never be shadowed by a suspicion that they will ever end. The possibility that it could ever end would chill the felicity of every adoring angel and saint. But they feel "the power of an endless life," and the career on which they have entered will never be finished. Ages will run on like hours among mortals; but thousands of ages will make no approach to a termination. It will be as true of them as of God Himself, that their "years shall have no end."

Such a blessed hope is encouraged by the following Scripture expressions: "eternal life,"

"everlasting habitations"; "a house eternal in the heavens" (2 Cor. 5: 1). "A continuing city" (Heb.

13: 14); "eternal salvation" (Heb. 5:9); "eternal glory" (1 Pet, 5: 10); "the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (2 Pet. 1: 11).

Our capacities for holy enjoyment will expand with rapturous exercise. We shall learn to worship by worshipping, and to praise by praising, and to admire by beholding. In such a life with powers ever growing, and a future ever lighted with hope, the satisfaction of heaven will be perfect and its blessedness complete. The very excess of such glory and bliss is blinding to earthly vision. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived what it shall be."

"We know not, O we know not,

What joys await us there;

What radiancy of glory.

What bliss beyond compare!"

* * * * * * *

CHAPTER VII -- ETERNAL PUNISHMENT OF THE WICKED

This is perhaps the most solemn subject in the whole range of Christian theologies. It is very repugnant to the feelings of men. Reason and sentiment have been assaulted from every conceivable standpoint of human thought; but it still stands in the impregnable Word of God.

On no subject could the perversion of truth be more disastrous. While such perversion may neutralize the practical force of the truth and cultivate in sinners a false sense of security, yet it is utterly powerless to alter consequences, or in any way avert the doom of sin. Our only safety is salvation through Christ. We can, therefore, most wisely lay aside our sentiments, and prejudices, and preconceived notions, and let God teach us what He will.

I. Will rejecters of Christ be punished at all in the future world? A century ago Universalists held the "death and glory" theory. All punishment was restricted to the present life. All the judgment taught in the Scriptures, takes place in the present world. The sinner has his hell as he goes along, in exact proportion to the number and magnitude of his sins, as decided by Divine Justice. Then death brings blessedness alike to all. The opponents of this heresy pointed out its folly as inconsistent with reason and with fact.

1. It is certain that God does not wholly reward men according to their desert in this world. It is true in a general way that God so administers His government in this world as to show His preference for righteousness and His dislike of sin, so that it may be fairly inferred that "Godliness is profitable in all things having the promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come." This is necessary to encourage righteousness and to hold men back from a career of sin.

But the sinner is not always the most wretched here, nor the saint the most happy. Sometimes a husband or son is shouting in his hilarious debauches and carousals while his holy wife or mother is at home dying with a broken heart over this sin. Who does not know that notoriously ungodly men often live a long life in remarkable health and prosperity? They pile up their ungodly gains by oppressing the poor, while the pure and pious whom they are robbing, are suffering for the necessities of life, and some never draw their breath without pain?

2. Even Scripture affirms this. Job saw it and said: "Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea wax mighty in power? Their seed is established with them in their sight, and their offspring before their eyes. Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them. . . . They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance. . . . They spend their days in prosperity, and in a moment they go down to Sheol, and they say unto God, depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways. What is the Almighty that we should serve Him. And what profit would we have if we pray unto Him?" (Job 21: 7-15). The psalmist saw it and almost backslid over it: "As for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped. For I was envious at the arrogant, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no pangs in their death; but their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men. Therefore pride is as a chain about their neck, violence covereth them as a garment.

Their eyes stand out with fatness. They have more than heart could wish. They scoff, and in wickedness utter oppression. They speak loftily. They have set their mouth against the heavens. . . .

And they say: How doth God know? And is there knowledge in the Most High? Behold these are the wicked; and being always at ease, they increase in riches. Surely in vain have I cleansed my heart and washed my hands in innocency. For all the day long have I been plagued and chastened every morning. . . . When I thought how I might know this it was too painful for me; until I went into the sanctuary of God, and considered their latter end" (Ps. 73: 2-17). The good man found no relief, and no solution of the problem, save in the doctrine of future punishment.

3. "But," say the Universalists, "The wicked suffer the penalty of their sins in their conscience. To this there are insuperable objections; (1) there is not a line of Scripture to support the assumption.

(2) In the absence of a divine revelation, no man knows or can know enough to affirm what another man suffers for sin, or how much the broken law of God demands that he ought to suffer. (3) It is simply a daring theory that is contradicted by all human experience. A saint will suffer more in his moral feelings over an inadvertent error, than a hardened old sinner will suffer over a dozen flagrant crimes. Continuance in wickedness and increase of guilt, harden the heart, and make it more unfeeling in sin. The greater the guilt the less is the suffering from the seared conscience.

4. The dictates of reason are against it. If reason teaches us anything, it teaches us the reality of a moral government. The sense of duty and responsibility to a moral Governor is deeply wrought into the moral consciousness of our race. But this means that there is a divine equity, that God will be an impartial judge. Distributive justice must be impartial, and rewards and punishments must be meted out with even scales and an unbiased hand. If there be a failure of such justice in this life, there must be punishment in the next, unless the sins are confessed and forsaken, and cancelled by the atoning blood.

But, as we have seen, it is a matter of fact that justice is not impartially meted out to men in this life. In this world, punishment comes only in three ways, in mind, body, or estate. But all know that conscience can be temporarily hardened, and the moral sense so drugged by false notions, that the wicked are often at rest in a career of crime. In such a condition, there can be no such remorse and mental suffering as will secure an adequate punishment of sin.

We have seen that in men's bodies there is no ample and impartial recompense for sin in this world, visited upon us by any government, human or divine. There are deeply heinous sins for which human governments have no penalty. Justice often miscarries, and judges are blinded and juries corrupted, and rich scoundrels escape. Either health or sickness is no sure sign of character, and bodily sufferings are not in any proportion to virtue.

It is true, also that while in a general way business prosperity accompanies virtue, yet the basely, cruelly wicked are often the most prosperous, and have more money than they know how to spend, even in senseless pride and prodigality, while in the very sight of them the saints and the innocent are hungering for bread, So much of this nature is passing before our eyes continually that reason is forced to conclude that the present probationary life is not the sphere of distributive justice in which all men are rewarded according to their deserts,

Moreover this conclusion is greatly strengthened by the fact that men sometimes die in the very act of committing some great crime, without a single moment of opportunity in this life to suffer any sort of penalty. Nay, more; we read continually of men committing such crimes, and then adding to it the crime of suicide, to escape the punishment that awaits them. Their very death was criminal; and where and how do such persons bear any penalty in this life? Reason looks at all these facts and calmly decides that there must be punishment for unforsaken sin, and there are many omissions of it in this life which must be compensated for in the next. Hence there is need of a future retribution.

5. If there is none and all are saved us Universalism claims, then God's entire method of moral government is overturned, and the worst of sinners will be saved without any regard to grace or repentance or faith. The Scriptures teach the doctrine of salvation by faith in an atoning Savior, preceded by repentance and an utter turning away from sin. But if the old-fashioned Universalism is true then faith in Jesus is a no more sure passport to glory than the most inveterate infidelity. A devout saint dies trusting wholly in Jesus; a life-long blasphemer, and Christ-rejecter, and Spirit-grieving infidel, hoary in rebellion against God, dies at the same moment, cursing and defying God with his latest breath. They both open their eyes the next moment in holiness and glory. The absurdity of such a doctrine is infinite! But Universalists do not preach it now, - except at funerals!

II. The Voice of Scripture is Unmistakable. It emphatically declares that there is a future punishment awaiting the wicked. "They rise to shame and everlasting contempt" (Dan. 12: 2).

"They that have done evil unto the resurrection of judgment" (John 5: 29). "Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels" (Matt. 25: 31-46). "The Lord knoweth how

... to keep the unrighteous under punishment unto the day of judgment" (2 Pet. 2: 9). "But the heavens that now are, and the earth by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men" (2 Pet. 3:7). "At the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of His power in flaming fire, rendering vengeance to them that know not God, and to them that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus" (2 Thess. 1:7, 8). "He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life; but he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3: 36). "It is He (Jesus) who was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead" (Acts 10: 42). "He shall judge the quick and dead at His appearing and His kingdom" (2 Tim. 4: 1). But such a future judgment is meaningless unless it carries with it the idea and the fact of rewards and penalties. This means inevitable future suffering, not only after death, but after the judgment.

The Bible promises future happiness only for the righteous. In no text is there any promise to the wicked of future blessedness; but in many it is expressly denied them. When the righteous receive their future reward, the wicked shall meet a penal doom. On this question the Bible speaks with no uncertainty. "Then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity" (Matt. 7: 23). "The Son of man shall send forth his angels and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that cause stumbling, and them that do iniquity, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth; then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun, in the kingdom of their Father" (Matt. 13: 41-43). "Depart from me all ye workers of iniquity. . . . And they shall come from the east and the west and the north, and the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God" (Luke 13: 27-30). "Who will render to every man according to his works; to them that by patience in well doing seek for glory and honor and incorruption, eternal life; but unto them that are factious, and obey not the truth, but obey unrighteousness, shall be wrath and indignation, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that worketh evil" (Rom. 2: 5-12).

All this means that there will certainly be misery and pain for the wicked after death until the judgment, and pain and anguish, and the wrath of God after the judgment.

III. What shall be the Nature of this Punishment? Doubtless the terms in which the punishment of the wicked is described are largely figurative. But they give us an awful picture of the future state of the wicked.

1. It is called "the second death." Death is the distressing evil of the race. It is the last degree of punishment inflicted among men; it is full of dread, "surrounded with gloom and terror, and replete with agony." It is a source of torment to men through all ages, to think that this word enters into the picture of the sufferings of the lost is enough to fill the soul with horror, in contemplating it. A death that never ends! A death that never dies! Who shall dare to describe what lies back of such a figure of speech?

2. "Darkness!" "Blackness of darkness!" (Jude 13). "Outer darkness!" (Matt. 8:12). "Chains of darkness," and "mists of darkness!" which is "reserved forever for the ungodly" (2 Pet. 2:4, 7).

Egypt was punished a few days with a darkness so dense that "it might be felt"; and it filled the land with consternation. What would it be to have it prolonged into centuries and ages?

3. "Fire!" "The angels . . . shall gather them that do iniquity and shall cast them into the furnace of fire" (Matt. 13: 42). "The* fearful and unbelieving and abominable, and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, their part shall be in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death" (Rev. 21:8). "Into hell, into the unquenchable fire" (Murk 9: 43). "And in Hades, he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, Cool my tongue for I am in anguish in this flame" (Luke 16; 2, 1, 24). "Unquenchable tire" (Luke, 3: 17), "Suffering the punishment of eternal fire" (Jude 7).

This language seems to the reason of man to be certainly figurative. We do not teach that it is. But if it is, what can be the suffering of a soul to which the merciful and loving Jesus would apply such terms even in a figure? We may surely affirm that the words of Jesus must convey ideas conformable with the truth. God could not consent to make false impressions on the human mind by figurative language, any more than He could do it by the most literal and prosaic language. Nor could His goodness permit Him to awaken in the minds of His children needless terrors about perils and sufferings that will never exist. We may, therefore, be sure that the sufferings of the very wicked will be something horrible beyond our conception.

4. There are some natural sources of suffering which are adequate to justify the Scripture imagery concerning future torment.

(1) The punishment that comes from a sense of loss. The wicked shall realize that they have lost the comforts of this life forever. Happiness and ease and rest and hope are gone, NEVER TO

RETURN. All the blessed opportunities and means of grace are now among the things that were, never again to be. They also have lost hopelessly all expectation of any favor from God. They are to be driven away "from the presence" of the Living God, who shall say, "Depart from me ye cursed."

(2) There are all the forms of mental anguish that come to the lost, (a) Memory will harrow the soul with the thought of all the grace offered and the mercies rejected, and the divine love despised, and all the shameful features of every past act of sin. God will seem to point to every wicked detail, and say: "Son, remember!" (Luke 16: 25). (b) Conscience will arouse from her drugged sleep, and ply her scorpion-sting. Remorse will begin to eat away at the heart with consuming anguish, (c) Despair will be there, brooding over the heart, in its awful night of horror, suggesting that no voice of mercy or pleading of prayer will ever again be heard, nor ray of morning come, nor rest from weariness, nor balm for pain, nor hope of end in the lethe of eternal sleep, (d) The dismal surroundings and the worse society of that world of lost angels and men will be enough to strike abiding terror to the stoutest heart, (e) And over all will be a sense of the unending indignation of God, and the vials of His consuming wrath which will be poured out without mixture into the cup of their misery, who have stubbornly rejected Christ.

IV. Will the future punishment of the wicked be endless? People have turned to every quarter and grasped, like drowning men, at every floating straw of hope that there might be an end to the punishment of the wicked. A sure hope has never yet been found. There is a natural recoil of the sensibilities from the doctrine of endless punishment. And well there may be, since God Himself has shown such divine reluctance to inflict the awful doom. It showed itself in the gift of His Only Begotten Son, "that whosoever believeth on Him might not perish but have everlasting life." It voiced itself in all His compassionate yearning, and solemn warnings and earnest entreaties that men might repent of sin, and believe in Jesus, and so escape the eternal doom. But this natural recoil of human sensibilities from the truth of such a doctrine is no safe basis for an argument against it, however plausible it may seem.

The opposition to the doctrine gathers around two theories, - annihilation and universalism. They are at the two opposite extremes. And their advocates pay their compliments to each other, each denouncing the belief of the other as a delusion. Universalists speak of "the miserable doctrine of annihilation," "the mischievous heresy of annihilation"; annihilationists, on the other hand, speak of

"the rampant delusion of universalism"; "heretical universalism," as arbitrary as unreasonable, and as extravagant an assumption, as could enter into the mind of men." Then with amazing presumption they unite in asking us to give up the Scripture Doctrine of eternal retribution (Wood's

"Anni. & Uni.," p. 108). We have already considered the doctrine of annihilation, and shown that it is contrary to philosophy, reason, and Scripture. We therefore need only consider here the claims of universalism, or its objections to the doctrine of eternal punishment.

1. Universalism argues that future punishment will be remedial. It is asserted that the fires of retribution will purify, as well as punish, that the figures employed are intended to illustrate a refining chastisement, that a "second probation will be allowed the ungodly in the other world, resulting in a happy and glorious immortality." But we may well ask, where does the Scripture teach that retribution is regenerative? We read in Revelation that "Men were scorched with great heat; and they blasphemed the name of God which hath the power over these plagues; and they repented not to give Him glory" (Rev. 16: 9). "And they gnawed their tongues for pain, and they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores; and they repented not of their works" (10th verse). "Note the result upon these hardened sinners. They did not repent but only blasphemed God the more. When sin has thoroughly gained the ascendancy in (he heart, and the moral being gives himself up to sin, thence forward rebellion becomes a madness and a desperation, showing how baseless is the hope and how contrary to the laws of a sinning moral nature is the expectation that the pains of hell will bring sinners to repentance. It is a moral impossibility. In the present world it is far more often the case that love melts than that fear subdues. But wren even love loses its power, and is only despised, what remains for the desperate rebel but the visitations of judgment, the madness and woes of the lost!" (Cowles' Commentary).

"We are bound to point out," says Dr. Parker, "that nowhere in the sacred writings, is hell referred to as exerting a remedial influence on the criminal; if it does exert such an influence, it was an inexcusable oversight not to dwell upon the fact specifically. On the other hand, it is distinctly taught by Jesus Christ that "if men will not avail themselves of such moral advantages as are now at their disposal, they would not be persuaded though one rose from the dead."

Another fact that militates against the theory is that moral character tends to final permanence. The word has gone forth, which perhaps is a decree of God, as well as a statement of fact: "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he that is filthy let him be filthy still"; "He shall never see life."

"The wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3: 36; Rev. 22: 11). The present time, and so far as Revelation goes, the present time only is the day of grace and salvation, for the greatest sinner, and to fit him for the presence of God. But this day once passed, man's state is eternally fixed. The good never become bad, and the bad never become good. "Between them there is a great gulf fixed," which can never be passed.

The Bible speaks of those whose names are written "in the book of life." "And if any was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire" (Rev. 20: 12, IS). But if future punishment is remedial, and the doctrine of final salvation of all by restoration is true, then, instead of some being saved, and others lost, the names of all must be in the book of life, and all will be saved, the only difference being that some enter into life later than others. "In fact the doctrine of salvation of all by restoration reverses that glorious passage, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life," and makes it mean, "whosoever believeth not shall attain eternal life through perishing"

If this doctrine be true, 2 Thess. 1: 9 is untrue, for it declares that some "shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord." If this doctrine is true, what Christ said to sinners was not true: "ye shall die in your sins and whither I go ye cannot come" (John 8: 21-24). If this doctrine is true, then the words of the Lord Jesus, "ye must be born again," are not true. If believers and unbelievers are alike saved then it is not true, that "he that believeth not on the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on Him."

If this doctrine is true, when it is said, "their end is destruction," it means their end will be blessedness and glory. If true, and if the worm die, the conscience instead of accusing will cease to convict.

If this doctrine is true, then the haters of Christ and the lovers of Christ, the most unholy and the most holy, shall spend an eternity of bliss together. If this doctrine is true then hell itself is a sure though rough and circuitous road to heaven.

If this doctrine is true, then we may commence proclaiming a gospel of hope for those who "die in their sins," and those who "crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame," although God Himself says, "it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance" (Heb.

6:3-6). "If we sin willfully after that we have received a knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of fire that shall devour the adversaries." In short the doctrine flatly contradicts Christ and God (See Wood's

"Anni. and Uni.," pp. 122, 123).

2. Universalism objects to the doctrine of eternal punishment on rational grounds, on reasons derived from our necessary sentiments, and convictions and intuitions, thus: "The doctrine is opposed to the divine character and attributes. The existence of everlasting evil under His government, - of sin and consequent misery, is repugnant to God's nature and character. It is opposed to the benevolence of God. The evil contemplated is a calamity beyond all finite comprehension, and God's goodness must be arrayed against it with unchanging and infinite purpose. He cannot tolerate it in His universe. The existence of such an evil is also opposed to His holiness, His moral purity, which is intolerant of sin. Sin is hateful and loathsome to Him; and how can He endure it forever in His sight, and under His power? If sin and misery are to exist forever in His universe, it implies a failure of His goodness and holiness, or of His power. Either He cannot, or He will not, prevent it." Such is the excellent summary which President Fairchild gives of Universalists arguments; and he answers them as follows: "This argument is purely speculative, an appeal to our instinctive judgment, in utter neglect of facts, The same a priori argument could be brought, in full force against the existence of sin and misery In the universe at all, for any length of time. Untold evil has existed in the world through all its history; and this fact as really impugns the attributes of God, as the existence of everlasting misery or evil. God cannot, or will not, prevent it.

Everlasting evil is only a continuance of what has been, and what is. As matters stand, the presumption is in favor of the continuance of evil. In advance of experience there would have been, in the human understanding, a presumption against the existence of any evil. Our experience has changed the presumption" (Theology, pp. 335, 336).

President Noah Porter of Yale, our old teacher, said: "Sin exists by the permission of God, at the same time that He is opposed to it, and desires most earnestly that men should abandon it. Why then does He suffer it to be? The only answer that can be given is found in the freedom which is essential to personality. God cannot exercise personal influences except with persons, and personality involves the possibility of perversion. If then sin is a fact, and God is good in permitting it and in punishing it, who shall say that He may not be good, should He permit a person to continue to sin and suffer? And I would submit that those who concede that God can permit sin which He hates, and the sinner whom He must punish to exist at all, cannot assert that God is morally bound not to create a being who He foreknows will sin forever (and suffer forever). (Nor can they say that He is morally bound to annihilate Him.) We may not know why God creates such a being, but we have no such moral insight as warrants us in saying that no reasons are possible which justify Him in doing it. The existence of sin in any being and for any time is the one comprehensive mystery; this is expressed in the problem, how could God create a being and suffer him to sin at all? When this has been conceded to be consistent with the Creator's goodness, we cannot assert on ethical grounds that He might not create a being whom He foresaw would sin and suffer forever. All of which we are ethically sure is, that He detests the sin, and that He has made the creature capable of sinning for some other reason than because he desires that He should sin.

Had the opponents of eternal punishment been asked, before sin existed, whether a perfect God could make a being in His own image, who would dishonor that image by sin, they would have said: 'No, a thousand times, No!' by the same logic which they use against the possibility of continued sin in the kingdom of God."

"Argument which proves," says Rev. Joseph Cook, "that sin will cease involves principles which prove that it would never begin. It has begun, and optimism must adjust itself to this fact of experience,"

Here is a passage from Dr. Bellows, a Unitarian or Universalist, which sounds strangely orthodox:

"We confess that our philosophy of man's perfect moral freedom casts very solemn and threatening shadows upon the future of willful and impenitent transgressors. We do not see how men can be made holy against their wills, or be less than miserable so long as they will not be holy; and our observation and experience of human willfulness in this world does not encourage us to hope that it may not continue for indefinite and practically dateless periods in new states of being."

How delusive these arguments are, whose chief stock is sentiment, and which appeal to the sympathies rather than to the moral reason and the Word of God, become quite apparent on a little sober thought, as Mr. Randles says: "Whatever feasibility might appear in the argument from God's goodness or benevolence, it vanishes as soon as we begin to carry out the same mode of reasoning to its legitimate results. If eternal punishment be impossible, because opposed to the Divine benevolence, punishment ages after ages must be equally impossible for the same reason.

Punishment has existed perhaps thousands of ages in the case of fallen angels. Strange that God's goodness has not brought it to an end! Clearly it is as difficult to reconcile the existence of any evil with supreme benevolence as it is to reconcile the continuance of evil. It is beside the mark to say that the difficulty is not with the existence of evil but with the eternity of evil. The mode of reasoning from our ideas of goodness to the non-eternity of evil, if sound, would be equally forceful against its existence. The only difference is one of degrees, not of principle. Tell us how to harmonize goodness with the allowance of pain for a moment, and we can then harmonize it with punishment abiding forever.

If liability to evil was a necessity of moral freedom, liability to perpetual evil may be equally so.

There is no denying that if God must forbid the eternity of evil because opposed to His goodness, He must also, on the same ground, have forbidden the entrance of evil into the universe, and its endurance to the present time."

The hardihood of Universalists is amazing when they argue, from the goodness of God, against the existence of evil in the future, in full view of the existence of evil through the unmeasured ages of the past. "The main difficulty," says Whately "is not the amount of the evil that exists, but the existence of any evil at all. I will undertake to explain to any one the final condemnation of the wicked, if he will explain to me the existence of the wicked? The existence of any evil at all in the creation is a mystery we cannot explain. It is a mystery, which may be cleared up in a future state, but the Scriptures give us no revelation concerning it. All we can say is that for some unknown cause evil is unavoidable."

We quote the above and the following from an English book (Wood's "Anni. and Univ.," pp.

83-90). Dr. Austin Phelps of Massachusetts says: "How do we know that the safety of the good in eternity, and throughout the universe of peopled space, does not involve by this law of retributive reaction the punishment of the wicked? How do we know that heaven and hell are not so bound together, in the meshes of moral government over free moral beings that one cannot exist without the other?

Sin matured, be it remembered, is no longer the silken and polite depravity which for the most part it assumes to be in the world. It takes on the form of demoniacal hostility to God, and to all holy beings. Consolidated in that mould of malign character, it voluntarily chooses to remain forever. It is energized by spiritual powers of which we in the body have no conception. We do not know what resources of temptation, of guile of direct assault and resistless conquest may be inherent in the very nature of a lost soul set free from the limitations of a sensuous body. Whatever the soul might have been as an heir of heaven, so great it must be perhaps as an heir of hell. The possibilities of spiritual beings are the same measured either way. Whatever its resources are, the lost soul holds them at the service of eternal sin. Heaven has once been thrown into consternation by them; angels kept not their first estate; there was war in heaven. Have you ever realized in your imagination the possibilities of satanic revolution through the universe, involved in that one fact of an angelic fall?

The practical question therefore, as it must present itself to the diplomacy of infinite wisdom, in adjusting the government of the universe, is this; shall devils and devilish men be let loose to prey upon the subjects of their hate forever? Shall heaven itself become hell? Is there not in all our hearts an instinct of upspringing and iron hearted justice, which, if the security of the good requires, by the law of retributive reaction, the eternal confinement of the incorrigibly wicked, says in mournful and tender yet firm and satisfied rejoinder, 'Amen and amen'? Did not St. John hear something like this, when he saw the smoke of torment ascending forever? 'I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia! for true and righteous are thy judgments. And again they said, Alleluia! And the smoke of her torment rose up forever and ever.'

"We are often asked, How can you bear to believe in an eternal hell? Why does it not craze you?

How can you call such a God as can create a hell benevolent? To us He seems satanic in His nature. Yes, your God is my devil."

Answer: "Whenever I go from my home to the city of Boston, I pass by a building which reminds me of the castle of Giant Despair. It is constructed of heavy granite blocks to the very roof. It is surrounded with lofty granite walls, and these are surmounted with iron spikes. I see doors of massive iron riveted with iron bolts. I see windows barred with iron. Behind these iron bars I have seen pale, despairing human faces, faces which have reappeared to me in my dreams. I know that underneath those walls, in a dungeon cell, there lives a man, manacled hand and foot, who has clanked his chains there for seventeen years. Sometimes more than five-hundred of my human brothers are locked within those walls of living death.

I have been told that over against a certain window there, on the opposite side of the street, there lives a pale-faced woman who never smiles. Every morning she places on her window sill a blooming flower, where a certain man behind those bars can see it, and can know that a loving woman is thinking of him. Yet I see in a turret on those walls, a man in uniform, with a rifle at his shoulder, who, if he sees that brother trying to clamber over the walls, and touch the hands of that loving woman, is instructed to shoot him down like a dog.

"Why do not I cry out against the malign power which keeps asunder that suffering wife and husband? Why do not I tramp the streets of Boston, pleading with the crowds to go with me and level that Bastille to the ground? Why do not I move heaven and earth against the infernal tyranny which has devised, and the cold hearted cruelty which tolerates that granite hell? What is it that sustains my human sensibilities and yours at the sight of such an anomaly of despair, in a world where robins are singing in the springtime and violets are blooming on the hillsides, and little children are laughing in their glee?

"Answer me this, and I will tell you what it is that sustains a benevolent universe in beholding, and a benignant God in devising, an eternal hell for the confinement of eternal guilt, And you must prove to me that it is not so, before you can charge God with satanic wrong in tolerating such a place as hell within the bounds of his dominions,

"The question which all such suspicions of God's rectitude bring back like a boomerang upon the inquirer is, what else shall God do with eternal guilt? Shall He forgive it? Shall He, by one grand act of amnesty, proclaim liberty to the damned, to the devil, to his angels, and to men like them?

But how would that help the matter, sin remaining unrepented of and unforsaken? Free grace proclaimed in hell forever would not quench for one moment its lurid fires, if sin were still regnant there. Sin is hell; 'Myself am hell' says Milton's Satan. Guilt is itself damnation. Again the question returns therefore, what else shall God do with it?'

Shall He give repentance and then forgive? But that is the very thing He has been offering from the first. Never will man or devil see the moment when he cannot repent if he would. But that is the very thing from which the incorrigible sinner recoils; he will have none of that; repentance means submission; better hell than that. Such is the relentless choice of the doomed one, doomed because self-doomed; doomed by the fearful omnipotence of his own free will. Nothing else which it is in God's power to offer does He spurn from him with such concentration of obdurate and vindictive resolve. His whole being revolts from it with the intensity, at last, of ages of accumulated and malign passion.

"Such is sin; once chosen and implanted and indurated in the very nature of man, by a life of abused probation, in which the grace of God has been scorned, and the blood of Christ outraged.

Once more then the question comes back unanswered. What else shall God do with it? Through all eternity that is the question which infinite benevolence will ask of an awestruck yet satisfied and adoring universe. 'What else shall God do with it?'

Such is the folly of the sentimental argument against the doctrine of eternal punishment based on the holiness and goodness of God. The glib tongue of universalism will one day be silenced in His awful presence. It will then be seen that God's goodness and holiness no less than His justice demand the abiding wrath of God upon the willful rejecters of His Son. God owes something to Himself, and to His government and to something in the way of protection to all the holy beings in the universe, as well as to those who are in determined and persistent rebellion against Him.

3. Universalists argue again, that sin in man can never call for endless misery, as a proper expression of God's sense of the evil. President Fairchild answers thus "If the experience of finite beings, as we find them in the world, in their sin and misery, is not repugnant to reason, a continuance in this condition cannot be, or even an increase of the misery if it be necessary. The difficulty in its essential force is involved in the facts which we know to exist; and these we must accept because they are facts. Endless guilt and misery are but a continuance of what is. The existence of misery without the guilt is not the question, but the existence of the two in combination. If the sin continues, the misery must follow it.

Again, guilt, that is unworthiness or ill-desert, is naturally everlasting. It is never done away and cannot be. Once incurred it attaches to the soul like its own personality. He who has sinned is forever after ill-deserving. If God shall find it necessary in the economy of His government to give some everlasting expression of His sense of that ill-desert, it will not be unreasonable. There is a presumption for the necessity of such an expression. The world needs evidence of God's disapproval of sin; and the same necessity which exists now, will probably continue. (It may continue forever.) If the evidence of such disapproval should be taken away, or set aside, one great source of motive fails. Motives derived from the consequences of sin, are needed now in the world; why not forever? If the lesson should pass from view, and nothing be heard of it for ages, there would be a loss of restraining motive; and how could we be sure that God's creatures would not lapse again into sin. We cannot, then, by any exercise of our own reason, reach the conclusion that punishment may not be endless."

4. It is further objected that, "If Satan is to be the author of eternal sin, and consequently of eternal suffering, he will have an eternal triumph and God will have an eternal defeat." Mr. Wood calls such language almost too flippant for quotation. Mr. Randles answers "If the endless continuance of moral or natural evil be a defeat of the Son of God, so was the commencement of evil, and so is the existence of evil through the course of time. But in reality neither is so. Is the majesty of law defeated when it binds and punishes a notorious criminal, because it does not make him cordially loyal? Is the national government defeated when it brings a murderous traitor to the scaffold or to lifelong imprisonment? The spirit of objection must have run mad when it descends to the puerility of calling the penal subjection of wicked men and fiends a defeat of the authority by which it is achieved" (Wood's "Anni. and Uni" p. 125).

The truth is all these arguments of unbelief dash in vain against this doctrine, as the angry waves of the sea break against a rock bound coast.

NOT SETTLED BY REASON

Men, as we have seen, have tried to overthrow the doctrine of eternal punishment, and tried in vain. But others have summoned reason in support of the doctrine, and with far better success. Yet the efforts are not wholly satisfactory to all minds, Both Miley and Fairchild decide that reason is incapable of deciding the question on either side. Fairchild says: "We may properly affirm that guilt is endless, that it never can be done away; and it is true that it deserves endless punishment.

But what sin deserves is one thing, and what it is right to inflict is quite a different thing.

Punishment is inflicted not on the ground of desert, but on the ground of its necessity to the good of the moral universe. Of that necessity reason cannot positively speak. We are not competent judges of the future necessities of God's kingdom.

Again, reason can affirm that if sin continues in the future life and becomes permanent, punishment, or consequent evil, must accompany it. But this judgment is hypothetical. As to the fact of the permanence of sin in the future, reason can make no positive assertion. At the most it can only give us a presumption.

"Reason, then, can neither set aside the doctrine of endless punishment, nor establish it. It gives us a probability in its favor, as the great majority of the world have decided. The question belongs strictly to revelation. God alone can know the necessities of His government in the future and what can wisely be done for sinners" (Theology, pp. 337, 338). Yet there are plenty of people, who cannot govern their twelve-year-old boy, who can tell you all about how God ought to govern a moral universe!

THE VOICE OF SCRIPTURE

It seems to be absolutely on the side of the doctrine in question. It tells us: 1. Matt. 25: 46, "And these shall go away into eternal punishment; but the righteous into eternal life." The same Greek adjective is applied to the saved and the lost, without a hint that it is used in a different sense.

2. In Mark 3: 29, we read, "Whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin."

3. In Mark 9:43, we read of "hell, into the unquenchable fire."

4. In Luke 3: 17, we again read of "unquenchable fire."

5. In John 3: 36, "He that believeth not the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on Him."

6. In John 8: 21-24, "Ye shall die in your sins, and whither I go ye cannot come."

7. 2 Thess. 1: 7-10, "Who shall suffer punishment, eternal destruction from the face of the Lord, and the glory of His might."

8. Mark 14: 21, "Good were it for that man if he had not been born."

9. "And they shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever" (Rev. 20: 10).

There is no fair exegesis that can explain away all these texts. Dropping all material figures, it is a suffering for sin, the sufferer's own sin, and not as a means of discipline, but in token of God's righteous displeasure, and in demonstration of His justice. Sinners are punished because the authority of God's holy law and the interests of His eternal kingdom require it. Even Theodore Parker, the Unitarian said, "The words of Jesus clearly teach the doctrine of unending penalty."

That there is eternal sin and therefore eternal punishment cannot be disputed. Be it an act of blasphemy, or a state of persistent impenitence, if unpardoned, it must be punished forever. The whole right-thinking moral universe may well ask the unanswered and unanswerable question,

"What else shall God do with it?"

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APPENDIX

A brief account of the authors of prominent Christian doctrines, for the quick use of students.

1. Gnostics or Docetae. First and second centuries. They denied to Christ the possession of a real body of flesh and blood. He had only a phantom body, and he died only in appearance. The incarnation was a sham. His atonement was an illusion. They taught that all sin was connected with physical matter, and physical sins did not harm the soul.

2. Ebionites. They denied the divinity of Christ and the divine incarnation. Essene Ebionites insisted on the law only for Jews. Pharisaic Ebionites insisted on the law for both Jews and Gentiles. They were a strongly Judaistic sect, living from the first to fifth century.

3. Sabellius. A Presbyter of Ptolemais, Egypt. Excommunicated A. D. 261. He taught that the Trinity was only a trinity of manifestations, first as Father; second, as Son; third as Holy Spirit, Same view held by Schleiermacher and Bushnell.

4. Arius, born A. D, 250; died, 336. He denied that the Son was co-essential and co-eternal with God. He was only the greatest created spirit.

5. Athanasius, born in Alexandria, 296 A. D. He defended the truth against the Arians. Was driven into exile three times. Once he hid in his father's tomb four months.

6. Appollinaris. Bishop of Laodicea. 362 A. D. He opposed Arianism, but went to an extreme in Christology. He taught that the Divine nature in Christ took the place of the rational human mind, or soul, and that the body of Christ was a spiritualized and glorified form of humanity.

7. Nestorius. Fifth century. The Nestorians held that Christ was two persons, not one. They denied the union of two natures in a personal oneness of Christ. There were two persons, the Son of God, and a human person. Between the two there was only Spiritual Communion.

8. Eutychius. Fifth Century. The Eutyehians held the deification of the human nature of Christ.

9. Augustine, born 353, Numidia; mother was Monica. Went to school in Carthage. Went to Rome 383, and to Milan 384, Baptized Easter 387. Died at Hippo 430. The great theologian of the Latin Church. Laid the foundation of Calvinism.

10. Pelagius, born in Breton 380. Was in Rome. Died 453.

Opposed by Augustine:

a. Adam would have died, without sinning,

b. His sin affected him only,

c. All children are born pure.

He taught:

d. Men do not die because of Adam's sin.

e. All infants are saved, baptized or not.

f. Both law and gospel lead to heaven,

g. Before Christ there were sinless men.

11. John Calvin. Born Noyon, 1509; died 1564. Developed Calvinism. Burned Servetus.

12. Laelius Socinus: Born 1525, Siena; died 1562, Zurich. Spiritual father of Unitarianism.

His nephew, Faustus Socinus: Born 1539; died 1604. Developed the system: Three parties.

1. Jesus is a God of an inferior nature.

2. Jesus was the greatest created Spirit (Arianism).

3. Christ was only a man.

13. Herman Arminius. Born 1560; died 1609. A martyr to truth. Leyden University gave its first D.

D. to Arminius. The founder of Arminianism, the winning theology of the world.

14. Grotius. Born at Delft, 1583; died, 1645. The father of International Law, and Governmental Theory of the Atonement. One of the greatest minds. Arrested, tried, condemned, imprisoned, banished. The fate of God's best souls.

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END OF VOLUME II

Document Outline

- Copyright

- FUNDAMENTAL CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY -- VOLUME II -- By Aaron Merritt Hills

- CONTENTS

- PART IV. -- CHRISTOLOGY

- PART V. -- SOTERIOLOGY

- PART VI. -- ESCHATOLOGY

- PART IV -- CHRISTOLOGY

- CHAPTER I -- THE PERSON OF CHRIST

- CHAPTER II -- THE INCARNATION

- CHAPTER III -- ERRORS IN CHRISTOI.OGY

- PART V -- SOTERIOLOGY

- CHAPTER I -- FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF MORAL 1AW AND GOVERNMENT-- ATONEMENT A FACT

- CHAPTER II -- NECESSITY FOR ATONEMENT

- CHAPTER III -- SALVATION WITHOUT ATONEMENT

- CHAPTER IV -- MORAL INFLUENCE THEORIES

- CHAPTER V -- THE SATISFACTION OR PENAL THEORY

- CHAPTER VI -- THE GOVERNMENTAL THEORY

- CHAPTER VII -- THE SUFFICIENCY AND EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT

- CHAPTER VIII -- OBJECTIONS ANSWERED -- BENEFITS OF ATONEMENT

- CHAPTER IX -- CALVINISM AND ARMINIANISM COMPARED

- CHAPTER X -- THE DOCTRINE OF ELECTION IN CHAPTER III -- CONFESSION OF FAITH

- CHAPTER XI -- REPENTANCE

- CHAPTER XII -- SAVING FAITH

- CHAPTER XIII -- JUSTIFICATION

- CHAPTER XIV -- CONVERSION OR REGENERATION

- CHAPTER XV -- ADOPTION AND WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT

- CHAPTER XVI -- SANCTIFICATION

- CHAPTER XVII -- SANCTIFICATION (continued)

- CHAPTER XVIII -- OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED

- CHAPTER XIX -- PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS

- CHAPTER XX -- THE CHURCH AND ITS SACRAMENTS

- CHAPTER XXI -- BAPTISM

- CHAPTER XXII -- THE LORD'S SUPPER

- PART VI -- ESCHATOLOGY

- CHAPTER I -- THE SECOND ADVENT AND THE MILLENNIUM

- CHAPTER II -- THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL

- CHAPTER III -- THE INTERMEDIATE STATE

- CHAPTER IV -- THE RESURRECTION

- CHAPTER V -- THE JUDGMENT

- CHAPTER VI -- ETERNAL BLESSEDNESS OF THE RIGHTEOUS

- CHAPTER VII -- ETERNAL PUNISHMENT OF THE WICKED

- APPENDIX

- END OF VOLUME II