probation, here nor hereafter, either for infants or adults. All unregenerate men die under the abnormal action of sin; and all need the saving virtue of Christ's redemption. Without it they are hopeless. But through the preaching of the gospel there will be a manifestation of the Mediator to all, both to infants dying in infancy and to the heathen. This manifestation of the Mediator is real and mighty here; it will also be real and mighty hereafter. So far forth there is hope for all who have not, by the renunciation of the supreme good, made final and irreversible choice of moral evil." This rapid analysis does but scant justice to a masterly paper. It is not a mere criticism of Dr. Prentiss's essay, but a positive and scientific development of important principles. We venture to offer a few additional comments upon this discussion. 1. Dr. Prentiss shows conclusively that there has been a great change in Protestant belief, particularly in the Reformed or Calvinistic churches, respecting the salvation of infants. Only ignorance, or something much less excusable, will question this historical fact.1 1 This change of belief is not generally understood. Even so well informed a theologian as the late Dr. Hodge does not seem to have been aware of it until Dr. Krauth published his essay on "Infant Baptism and Infant Salvation in the Calvinistic System." Dr. Prentiss points out that the tenet that unbaptized infants are lost is recognized in the Augsburg Confession, the first Protestant Symbol, and still a standard of the Lutheran Church. The Westminster Confession affirms the salvation of "elect infants." "If . . . a single one of the Westminster divines believed that all who die in infancy are elect, and consequently saved, he never, so far as is known, avowed such belief." It seems to be supposed, however, that it is a calumny to affirm that there was any prevalent belief among Calvinists in the actual condemnation of any infants. The direct implications or assertions of such belief on the part of eminent theologians are passed by in silence. It cannot, at any rate, it is supposed, have been a part of current theology and popular Orthodoxy. How far this is from being correct may be made clear by an extract from what was once a widely circulated treatise of practical piety in this country and in England. The author is Rev. Michael Wigglesworth, A. M., "Teacher of the Church at Malden, in New England.” He died in the seventy-fourth year of his age, had been a Fellow and Tutor in Harvard College, and was called from Cambridge to Malden, where, as Cotton Mather says, he "was their faithful pastor for about a jubilee of years together." His Day of Doom, from which we quote, "has been often reprinted," says Mather, "in both Englands, and may, perhaps, find our chil dren till the Day itself arrive." The copy before us is marked "The Sixth Edition, enlarged, with Scripture and Marginal Notes." Boston: 1715. "Then to the Bar, all they drew near who dy'd in infancy, And never had or good or bad effected pers'nally, But from the womb unto the tomb were straightway carried, (Or at the last e're they transgrest) who thus began to plead : "If for our own transgression, or disobedience, We here did stand at thy left hand, But Adam's guilt our souls hath spilt, "Not we, but he ate of the Tree, whose fruit was interdicted: "O great Creator, why was our Nature 2. Neither the traditional nor current beliefs of a particular branch of the Christian Church can claim, unsupported, to represent the faith of "Behold we see Adam set free, and sav'd from his trespass, Whose sinful Fall hath split us all, And brought us to this pass. Canst thou deny us once to try, or Grace to us to tender, When he finds grace before thy face, that was the chief offender? "Then answered the judge most dread, But what you call old Adam's Fall, "He was designed of all Mankind to be a publick Head, A common Root, whence all should shoot, and stood in all their stead. He stood and fell, did ill or well, not for himself alone, But for you all, who now his Fall, and trespass would disown. "If he had stood, then all his brood In God's true love never to move, "Would you have griev'd to have receiv'd Would you have said, we n'er obey'd, It ill befits with benefits, us, Lord, so to reward. 64 Since then to share in his welfare you could have been content, You may with reason share in his treason Hence you were born in state forlorn, "You think if we had been as he We to our cost would ne're have lost Had you been made in Adam's stead your selves and yours have brought. "Am I alone of what 's my own O if I am, how can you claim You sinners are, and such a share I do confess yours is much less, "A Crime it is, therefore in bliss the easiest room in Hell. The poet then proceeds to describe, in language we will not transfer, the pronouncing of sentence by the Judge, and its fearful execution upon “great and small,' -a sentence whose "lightest pain" is "more than intolerable," and least infliction sufficient to consume the soul, “if God did not prevent." In contemporaneous renown," says Professor Tyler (History of Amer. Lit. ii. 23), far above all other verse-writers of the colonial time, was Michael Wigglesworth, .. a poet who so perfectly uttered in verse the religious faith and emotion of Puritan New England, that, for more than a hundred years, his writings had universal diffusion there, and a popular influence only inferior to that of the Bible and the Shorter Catechism." Of The Day of Doom Professor Tyler remarks: "This great poem... had for a hundred years a popularity far exceeding that of any other work, in prose or verse, produced in America before the Revolution. The eighteen hundred copies of the first edition were sold within a single year, which implies the purchase of a copy of The Day of Doom by at least every thirty-fifth person then in New England, -an example of the commercial success of a book never afterwards equaled in this country. Since that time the book has been repeatedly published; at least once in England and at least eight times in America, the last time being in 1867” (ib. p. 31). Allibone refers to two editions in England, — one published in London, the other at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. the Christian Church, or Orthodoxy. The dogma of infant damnation is no part of catholic Christianity, or the historic faith of the Church. Irenæus, who represents beyond any other man the beliefs of the Church in the century following the Apostolic Age, affirms the salvation of infants as though it were undisputed. Even when the prevalent belief was darkest, there were many who took a more Christian view. 3. The prominence given by Drs. Prentiss and Gerhart to the question about infants is justified by history, as well as by the direct reasons they advance. It is convenient for men, whose easy-going and superficial opinions are disturbed, to resort to agnosticism, or the cry of "speculation" or cui bono? but there never has been a period of progress in anthropology or soteriology, when the bearing of positions taken upon infants and young children did not have to be considered. Children exist, and have their divine rights and compassions, and something is known about them and their relation to Adam and to Christ. 4. We agree fully with Dr. Gerhart in his view of the importance of recovering to preaching and theology the biblical doctrines of the second coming of Christ and of his universal manifestation. 5. We are unable to agree with these honored brethren and eminent Christian teachers in their rejection or disparagement of the doctrine of Probation. It is not surprising that the very word probation now finds disfavor with intelligent and devout students of the Scriptures. Like the phrase "moral government," it has been used to designate a relation of the soul to God so one-sidedly apprehended, so forced out of its true connections, so over-wrought and strained, as to become unreal and practically false. Theology has been verily guilty in this matter, and needs to humble itself and bring forth fruits meet for repentance. Dr. Gerhart's and Dr. Prentiss's articles supplement each other and administer a timely rebuke to the self-sufficiency and provincialism and ignorance of much current theology. But it does not follow, because an idea has been taken up in a pagan or Pelagian form, that it has no truth in it. We concede that the ordinary conception of probation has been derived from natural theology ; that it came in with an Arminianism which was not evangelical and with the apologetics of Bishop Butler, that it has been made to do too much work, that it has been twisted out of its place in biblical and evangelical dogmatics. But it does not follow that it is to be discarded or minimized. It may need simply to be stated in terms of the gospel, — to be Christianized. It is not wise, in our humble judgment, for Christian theology to turn its back on Bishop Butler. It is not necessary to repudiate a doctrine which has given seriousness to preaching and life, which has its roots in the moral order of the universe as we come in present contact with it, and which has a just and salutary power over the human reason and conscience. Dr. Prentiss traces the conception to the discussions of the age of Deism. It is much older in Christian theology. Irenæus, or his Latin translator, uses the very word, and in a blind and groping way feels after the very thing, a probation on gospel and not merely legal, or even paradisiacal terms. And the deistic, unchurchly, and unevangelical thought of the eighteenth century embodied a truth which, in our opinion, it has been the merit of the New England theology to conserve, how ever ill adjusted it has remained, namely, that of free personality. Dr. Prentiss, in his disparagement of probation, will find himself logically driven back to the old Calvinism of the Presbyterian standards, and of the Rev. Mr. Edgar, from which our Edwardean and New School fathers revolted. Dr. Gerhart claims that "moral probation implies that the subject is constitutionally in a normal state and ethically good, possessing adequate ability to sustain a right relationship to God in the face of all solicitations to the contrary." We do not question that the New School theology, in its use of the term, has sometimes given occasion for the belief that it so conceives of probation. But neither unimpaired power nor uncertainty of issue is necessarily involved in probation. We have before us, as we write, a copy of an unpublished manuscript of the elder Edwards, in which he discusses this question : "Since Christ has been in a state of probation, and has passed through a time of trial in behalf of the elect, why is it requisite that they should be in a state of probation after Him? And again he writes of "the offer of a Saviour or a probation," making the two phrases equivalent. Jonathan Edwards was not lax in his views of original sin or man's need of divine grace, nor wavering in his doctrine of certainty. The word probation may be abused, but we are not satisfied to substitute for it the word opportunity. There is something more in the manner in which the gospel meets men than mere opportunity. They are dealt with as free, responsible, accountable agents, and they will be judged at the last day, not simply for having violated the moral law, but for having rejected the Redeemer. The word probation suggests, also, more plainly than does the proposed substitute, that opportunities may cease. In the constructive work now needed in eschatology we believe that the conception of probation will continue to fill an important and prominent place. Only it will be Christianized, its conditions being determined and the sphere of its operation widened in accordance with the greatness of Christ's atoning and redemptive work, and the revealed doctrine of his final coming to judge all men. Egbert C. Smyth. M. PRESSENSE ON THE ECCLESIASTICAL POLICY OF THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES. What are we to think of the attitude of the present Republican government of France towards the Roman Catholic Church, and does it signify opposition to intolerance and superstition, or intolerant opposition to religion? In the January number of the "Revue Chrétienne," that stanch republican and eminent Protestant, Edmond de Pressensé, has given his opinion most distinctly and energetically. "The manner in which this great reform" the separation of church and state "is approached is such that it is not possible for the most pronounced partisans of separation to applaud it. In fact, it is not the spirit of liberty and justice which presides over it, but the spirit of passion, and, above all, the outspoken hatred of all religion. Moreover, the method chosen to realize it is deplorable in every point of view. . “We affirm... that the separation of church and state is not aimed at by the majority of the Chamber as a grand liberal reform, intended to insure peace in the country, and better to guarantee the rights of conscience. . . . If we take note of the considerations advanced at the tribune in favor of the diminution of the budget of Worship,- something always presented as the preface to its suppression, we observe that, in lieu of being derived from those principles of political justice which ought alone to inspire the opinions of the representatives of the nation, they have had no other inspiration than antipathy to religion. And take good note that the discussion did not turn solely upon the Catholic Church, with her principles of intolerance and her long history of opposition to the liberties of the country. Even that would be going too far, for it is not the business of a parliament to take action of a doctrinal tendency. It ought to suppress abuses and strike at culpable or unconstitutional acts, but it exceeds its authority, when, because it detests the principles of a church, it attacks the church as such. But the Chamber of Deputies has gone much farther; it is religion in itself which its principal orators have had in view. In effect, what has been their chief argument against the budget of Worship? It is that all that was granted it was retrenched from the ministry of Public Instruction; that to favor worship was to favor superstition to the detriment of free science represented by the Department of Public Instruction. Let this be judged of by the fol lowing fragment of the discourse of M. Jules Roche, who, with harsh and biting talent, has played the principal part in this discussion: "There is,' says the orator, a budget which is intimately allied with the budget of Worship; it is the budget of Public Instruction, and it is not without profound philosophical reasons, belonging to the very nature of things, that the budget of Public Instruction has been so long associated and originally subordinated to the ministry of Worship. "These two budgets, in fact, according to the conception which one forms to himself of the laws which preside over the moral and intellectual development of communities, have one and the same end. The expenses for religion and the expenses for science, these are, speaking precisely, according to the two opposing systems, expenses which have for their object the moral and intellectual culture of the nation. During long ages, it was, in fact, of the various religions that humanity demanded its education and the laws of its morality; but the modern world reposes upon a different philosophical conception; the French Revolution has created a new right the right of man, it has proclaimed the independence of conscience, the sovereignty of reason enlightened by science, and all the progress made in this country during the past eighty years... is due to science. You see, then, plainly, that the two budgets, the two departments of the public service, cannot exist. The one is bound to decrease in proportion as the other increases, since everything which science gains she conquers from the supernatural. Whenever you wish to facilitate the progress of public instruction and of science, you ought, then, to demand the necessary means for this of the budget destined to the institution essentially hostile to this progress of science.' "An interruption from one of the most distinguished members of the Assembly, M. Paul Bert, formerly Minister of Public Instruction and of Worship under Gambetta, and now leader of the most influential section of the Chamber, one of the speakers most listened to, has struck the keynote of this discourse: The two budgets of Public Instruction and Worship,' said he ironically, 'may coexist, like the light and the shade.' |