The modern theory vital and historical. holds to verbal inspiration: mechanical not spiritual; dual- istic, intellectualistic; infallibility. SOME CONSEQUENCES OF THE THEORY. Moral consequences: accepts authority of lower ideals, prin- ciple of retaliation, imprecatory psalms; defense by pre- millennialists. Involves denial of authority of Jesus. Religious consequences: Jewish nationalism as against THE PREMILLENNIAL USE OF THE BIBLE.. Arbitrary and unhistorical use: to support idea of inter- mediate kingdom and of "two returns," in treatment of The larger democracy. The social creed of the churches. The larger program of the church to-day, a Christianized world, rejected. The church is not God's agent for saving the world but will itself be lost. Adventist denunciation of the church; a divisive influence, dogmatic and intolerant. The kingdom of God a moral-spiritual rule, demands knowl- edge, requires revelation. Revelation is seeing what God Revelation back of the Bible; not communicated ideas but God's self-showing and self-giving in life of man. This experience divine in source, human in form, growing; dis- tinction between experience and its expression. THE NATURE AND USE OF THE BIBLE.... The Bible a record of this experience and must be used for its religious value, with recognition of variety, progress, The double task in study of the Christian hope: to deter- "Keys" for interpretation. Emphasizing the mechanical and trivial. A true predictive element. The external and absolute rule; the inner and moral rule. In the latter sense the kingdom means life, salvation. A kingdom of the spirit but must control all life; not merely THE KINGDOM as a New anD FREE HUMANITY. . The Kingdom means redemption, creation, making a new THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE OUTER WORLD.. The Old Testament hope of a transformed nature. The moral meaning of the external world. The change as Progress made. Only the beginnings but mankind sees the THE WAY OF CONFLICT AND CRISIS.. Opposed to the kingdom of good is a realm of evil: in hu- The large task, the long road, the high calling. Definite advance. The present crisis: the meaning of the new I. WAS JOHN WESLEY A PREMILLENNIALIST?. Wesley does not discuss premillennial ideas. His positive teachings exclude them: no pessimism; the Kingdom is to come by the gospel and the work of the Spirit; confi-. dence as to progress; no intermediate kingdom. The fundamental opposition of Methodism to premillen- INTRODUCTION ONE of the most aggressive campaigns in religious propaganda is being carried on to-day in behalf of the premillennial doctrine. Outside of certain circles, however, this fact is little appreciated and very little attention has been paid to the movement as a whole. Most people think of it vaguely as a curious teaching about the end of the world. The intellectual leadership of the church always has been opposed as a whole to this doctrine, and the tendency is to regard this teaching as hardly worthy of serious discussion. Still others have avoided the question because they are averse to religious controversy. A deeper reason for indifference may be the fact that the church, occupied with practical affairs, has lost the realization that its supreme concern is with its message of truth, and that its practical life will be shaped by the great ideals that lie back of it. The result in any case has been that the flood of Adventist writings has been met by very little effort on the other side either by way of meeting error or of constructive treatment of the important questions involved. The last fifty years have brought a new situation in the development of a premillennial propaganda that is undenominational and yet organized and aggressive, at times almost tending to become a church within our churches.. Previous to this time systematic work in spreading this teaching was limited to special church organizations like the Plymouth Brethren and the Seventh-Day Adventists. More recent Adventist organizations have |