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Salvation.

Recapitulation of the Five Theoretic Modes of Salvation. AS GIVEN BY W. R. ALGER. *

HE first theory is this :-When, by the Fall of Adam, all men were utterly lost and doomed to hell for

ever, the vicarious sufferings of Christ cancelled sin, and unconditionally purchased and saved all. This was the original development of Universalism. It sprang consistently from Augustinian grounds. It was taught by a party in the Church of the first centuries, and afterwards repeatedly condemned as a heresy by Popes and by Councils, and was revived by Kelly, Murray, and others. We are not aware that it now has any avowed disciples.

The second conception is, in substance, that God, foreseeing from eternity the Fall of Adam, and the consequent damnation of his posterity, arbitrarily elected a portion of them to salvation, leaving the rest to their fate; and the vicarious sufferings of Christ were the only possible means of carrying that decree into effect. This is the Augustinian and Calvinistic theology, and has had a very extensive prevalence among Christians. Many Church creeds still embody the doctrine; but in its original uncompromising form it is rapidly fading from belief. Even now, few persons can be found to profess it without essential modifications so qualifying it as to destroy its identity.

The third plan of delivering souls from the doom supposed to rest on them, attributes to the vicarious sufferings of Christ a conditional efficacy, depending upon personal faith. Every one who will heartily believe in the substitutional death of Christ, and trust in His atoning merits, shall thereby be saved. This was the system of Pelagius, Arminius, and

* The Editor, although he does not endorse all the views of the Author, takes this opportunity of commending his work to all discriminating students of the Bible, as one of the most interesting and instructive works extant on theology.

Luther. It prevails now, in the so-called Evangelical Churches, more generally than any other system.

The fourth received method of salvation,—assuming the same premises which the three foregoing schemes assume, viz., that through the Fall all men are eternally sentenced to hell, -declares that by Christ's vicarious sufferings power is given to the Church, a priestly hierarchy,-to save such as confess her authority and observe her rites. All others must continue lost. This theory early began to be constructed and broached by the Fathers. It is held by the Roman Catholic Church, and by all the consistent portion of the Episcopalian. A part of the Baptist denomination also, through their popular preachers, if not in their recognized symbols, assert the indispensableness of ritual baptism to salvation.

The fifth view of the problem is, that no soul is lost or doomed except so far as it is personally voluntarily depraved and sinful. And even to that extent and in that sense it can be called lost only in the present life. Death emancipates every soul from every vestige of evil, and ushers it at once into heaven. This is the distinctive doctrine of some modern Universalists. It is disappearing amongst its recent earnest advocates, who as a body will, undoubtedly, exchange its arbitrary conceptions for more rational conclusions.

The sixth and final scheme of Christian salvation teaches that, by the immutable laws which the Creator has established in and over His works and creatures, a free soul may choose good or evil, truth or falsehood, love or hate, beneficence or iniquity. Just so far, and just so long as it partakes of the former, it is saved; as it partakes of the latter it is lost, that is, alienates the favour of God, forfeits so much of the benefits of creation and of the blessing of being. The conditions and means of repentance, reformation, and regeneration are always within its power, the future state being but the unencumbered, intensified experience of the spiritual elements of the present, under the same Divine constitution and laws. This is the belief of the Unitarians, Restorationists, and the general body of believers known as "liberal Christians."

Salvation by purchase, by the redeeming blood of Christ; salvation by election, by the independent decree of God, sealed by the blood of Christ"; salvation by faith, by an ap propriating faith in the blood of Christ; salvation by the Church, by the sacraments made efficacious to that end by the blood of Christ; salvation by nature, by the irresistible workings of the natural order of things declared by the teachings of Christ; salvation by a resurrection from the dead miraculously effected by the delegated power of Christ; salvation by character, by conformity of character to the spiritual laws of the universe, to the nature and will of God, revealed, urged, exemplified by the whole mission of Christthese are the different theories proposed for the acceptance of Christians.

Outside of Christendom we discern, received and operative in various forms, all the theoretic modes of salvation acknowledged within it, and some others in addition. The creed and the practice of the Mohammedans afford a more unflinching embodiment of the conception of salvation by election than is furnished anywhere else. Islam denotes fate. All is predestinated, and follows on in inevitable sequence. No modifying influence is possible. Can a breath move Mount Kâf? The chosen of Allah shall believe; the rejected of Allah shall deny. Every believer's bower is blooming for him in Paradise. Every unbeliever's bed is burning for him in hell. And nothing whatever can avail to change the persons or the total number elected for each.

There is one theory of salvation scarcely heard of in the West, but extensively held in the East. The Brahminic and the Buddhist thinker relies on obtaining salvation by knowledge. Life in a continual succession of bodies is his prediction. His salvation is to be freed from the vortex of births and deaths, the fret and storm of finite existence. Neither goodness nor piety can ever release him; knowledge alone can do it. An unsullied intellectual vision and a free intellectual grasp of truth and love can alone rescue him from the turbid sea of forms and struggles. As a lump

of salt is of uniform taste within and without, so the soul is nothing but intelligence. If the soul be an entire mass of intelligence, a current of ideas, its real salvation depends on its becoming pure and eternal truth, without mixture of falsehood or of emotional disturbance. He must free himself from virtues as well as from sins; for the confinement of fetters is the same, whether the chains be of gold or of iron. Accordingly, the Hindu, to secure emancipation, planes down the mountainous thoughts and passions of his soul to a desert level of indifferent insight. And when, in direct personal knowledge, free from joy and sorrow, free from good and ill, he gazes into the limitless abyss of Divine truth, then he is sure of the bosom of Brahm, the door of Nirwana. Then the wheel of the Brahmanic Ixion ceases revolving, and the Buddhist Ahasuerus flings away his staff, for salvation is at. tained.

The conception of salvation by ritual works based on faith, -either faith in Deity or in some redemptive agency,―is exhibited all over the world. Hani, a Hindu devotee, dwelt in a thicket, and repeated the name of Krishna a hundred thousand times each day, and thus saved his soul. The saintly Muni Shukada said, as it is written in the most popular religious authority of India, "Who even ignorantly sings the praises of Krishna undoubtedly obtains final beatitude." The repetition of the names of Vishnu purifies from all sins, even when invoked by an evil-minded person, as fire burns even him who approaches it unwillingly. Nothing is more common in the sacred writings of the Hindus than the promise that "whoever reads or hears this narrative with a devout mind shall receive final beatitude." Millions on millions of these docile and abject devotees, undoubtingly expect salvation by such merely ritual observances. One cries, "Lord!” “Lord!" Another thumbs a book, as if it were an omnipotent amulet. Another meditates on some mystic theme, as if musing were a resistless spell of silent exorcism and invocation. Another pierces himself with a red-hot iron, as if voluntary pain endured now could accumulate merit for him and buy off future inflictions.

It is surprising to what an extent men's efforts for salvation seem underlaid by conceptions of propitiation, the placation of a hatred, the awakening of a love, in the objects of their worship. In all these cases salvation is sought indirectly through works, though not particularly good works. The savage makes an offering, mutters a prayer, or fiercely wounds his body before the hideous idol of his choice. The Fakir, swung upon sharp hooks, revolves slowly round a fire. The monk wears a hair shirt, and flagellates himself until blood trickles across the floor of his cell. The Portuguese sailor, in a storm, takes a leaden saint from his bosom and kneels before it for safety. The offending Bushman crawls in the dust and shudders as he seeks to avert the fury of the fetish which he has carved and set in a tree. The wounded brigand in the Apennines, with unnumbered robberies and murders on his soul, finds perfect ease to his conscience as his glazing eye falls on a carefully treasured picture of the Virgin; and he expires in a triumph of faith, saying, "Sweet mother of God, intercede for me!" The Calvinistic convert about to be executed for his fearful crimes, kneels at the foot of the gallows and exclaims, as in a recent well-known instance,"I hold the blood of Christ between my soul and the flaming face of God, and die happy, assured that I am going to heaven."

It is all a terrible delusion, arising from a perverted sentiment and degraded thought. Of the five theoretical modes of salvation taught in the world,-Election, Faith, Works, Knowledge, Harmony,-one alone is real and divine, although it contains principles taken from all the rest and blended with its own.

There is no salvation by foregone election; for that would dethrone the moral laws and deify caprice. There is no salvation by dogmatic faith; because faith is not a matter of will, but of evidence, not within man's own power; and a thousand varieties of faith are necessitated among men. There is no salvation by determinate works; for works are measurable quantities whose rewards and punishments are