promise made to fallen man, and it reaches its highest octave in the last line of the Apocalypse. But love as an essential part of our theology cannot be found in the Westminster Confession, nor is there a line in it which says that Christ died for all mankind, while Law and Fate and Necessity crop out in almost every line. The Committee were instructed to so revise the Confession as not to impair its Calvinism! Have they done it? Has Calvin gone through this fiery ordeal with no smell of fire on his robes? We think not. The Committee, in their efforts to uphold Calvin and at the same time propitiate those who were clamorous for Revision, have only enlarged the scope of election, by striking out some men and angels are predestinated to everlasting life," and inserting, "a great multitude, whom no man can number."

This does not satisfy the honest revisionist. The numbers who were saved or lost, have never cut any figure in this question. It is not a question of mathematics. The fact that God has foreordained from all eternity one human soul to dishonor and wrath, and that Christ had made no atonement for that soul, lifts the question to a higher plane. Christ teaches that a good shepherd may care more for one lost sheep than for the ninety and nine who were safe in the fold. It would be a poor comfort to a bereaved mother to tell her, in the agony of her grief over her lost child, that there were ninety-nine of other people's children who were saved. So this compromise, while it strikes at the Calvinism of the creed, does not satisfy the earnest revisionist.

Again, the Committee, after due deliberation, has admitted to salvation, all infants, instead of only "elect infants." This is very kind to the infants, but it strikes a death-blow at the logical consistency of the doctrines of Calvin.

There is an irrepressible conflict in the Westminster Confession between its teachings on reprobation and the Atonement that Christ has made for every human soul. The Confession teaches that the elect alone are redeemed by Christ, and that Christ died alone for the elect, while there gleams from every page of the Gospel the glorious announcement that Christ died for every man and the words, "Whosoever will" and "Come," were the keynotes and inspiration of every sermon of Christ or His Apostles. Here the house is divided against itself. Which of these doctrines will prevail?

The Presbyterian minister is more than half of the time on the defensive, trying to explain how it is, if Christ died to save all mankind, that He " passes by" some, and ordains them to everlasting "dishonor and wrath." This has been a great impediment to progress from the beginning.

A desire to stand by the traditions of men has had the effect to paralyze the strong arm of Presbyterianism. The penitent sinner

does not want to argue on the great questions of sin and foreordination and election; he simply wants Christ.

We ask this Assembly to give our ministers something that they really believe; something that will be as fire shut up in their bones, and then they will make the continent tremble in their warfare against sin and all unrighteousness.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

MIDDLETOWN, CONN., June 3d.

DEAR SIR: My thanks for June number of "W. of R." Do me the favor to read my article in Christian Union of May 21st, also Dr. Abbott's sadly weak criticism thereon.

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My name is "Daniel" and so pardon me for venturing to prophesy that you one day will be compelled to alter your creed. Please remember, natural generation can create no new immortal essence in animals or man, no spirit. To have immortality we must be begotten, born again from above. The finally impeni. tent are like the beasts that perish,' utterly destroyed, root and branch," as chaff," " "consumed to ashes,' tares," "be as though they had not been," "destroyed from the presence of the Lord" who is omnipresent; go therefore into nowhere, annihilated. Man is declared by God Himself as "dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return." This immortal spirit of yours is unscriptural, utterly. You quote the Bible as of authority, yet discard the most emphatic teaching that denies your theory. Satan told dear, confiding Eve, "You shall not surely die, but become as gods." Gods are immortal, and theologians constantly pat the old tempter on the back and say, "right, old fellow; we are by nature immortal just as you said."

Wishing you may attain the truth,

D. H. CHASE.

In this letter we have a familiar instance of the conditionalism which refuses all compromise. In the June number referred to, we showed how these Scriptures this brother quotes are satisfied by regarding them as descriptive of the end of the evil personality into which sinful man develops, but not of that essential nature in man which molds him in the image of God, and which must survive all changes of personal manifestation until it reaches the goal of divine manhood. Our doctrine therefore did not imply that every man possesses immortality apart from Christ, or has a

separate immortal spirit, but that the immortal Spirit of God was at work in every man building up for Himself an eternal habitation, and that every man would contribute to such habitation only those elements of his personality which were surrendered to the control of the divine Spirit and were fitted for His use. The personal being and self-consciousness of a sinful man could never therefore be recovered in toto, but only as entering into and forming part of the perfected being and self-consciousness of the ultimate divine and immortal man. Such a view concedes to conditionalism its essential truth of immortal life only in Christ, and yet saves us from the dishonorable supposition that myriads of God's creatures, made in His image, shall "be as though they were not," and that His provision to raise them from the dead results in no higher issue than that He will kill them over again with an everlasting destruction. If they were dead, and this be all, why raise them again from the dead?

The radical fallacy in Mr. Chase's view lies in his assumption that regeneration imparts to men a new and essential element of being they never had before. He says natural generation can create no new, immortal essence in animals or men, nor spirit." True, but neither does regeneration create de novo this essence. Nowhere, in all the realms of life, do we know of any new life begotten, except there be a germ capable of being quickened by it. This germ must be of kindred character with the life imparted. There must be therefore a divine element in human nature, or it would be incapable of regeneration. A dog or a horse could not be the subject of this change.

Our claim is that if there be this god-like element in man-this capability of appropriating and assimilating life from God-it must be due to spirit, and therefore divine, for" God is spirit" (John iv, 24 Gr.). And if divine, it must be essential and indestructible. And it must hold on in its way toward perfect personal expression. It may in its progress take on imperfect and temporary (evil) forms of manhood. These must perish from the way. Herein is place for what is true in conditionalism. But the divine germ must continue its development through rebirth in the flesh until it becomes receptive of quickening power from

the Son of Man to fashion its vessel of manhood into the likeness of His glory.

In a second communication the same correspondent has this further to say:

You and I are professed truth-seekers, longing to purge our gold of all alloy. Hence I write again. Should you see evident error in my views, please show. Every created being is constitutionally mortal, for "GOD ONLY HATH IMMORTALITY, dwelling in light unapproachable," etc. Therefore Jesus Christ lives by the Father just as certainly as we do, and not by reason of any supposed immortal germ" originally lodged in Him. "He became flesh," but did not come from heaven as a "spirit" and enter into the fœtus prepared in St. Mary's womb. 'I am He that liveth and was DEAD." Had He any immortal part in His constitution, that, being deathless, He could not assert truthfully "and was DEAD," and He was the Way, the TRUTH and the Life." He is the second Adam, our model, perfect man, our noble Brother; "tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin." Unless His Father, by exerting supernatural power, had resurrected Him, He would have "perished" eternally, just as would "all who fall asleep in Him," as St. Paul assures us.

The Bible, so far as I see, gives no statement that every man and woman possesses an immortal germ. The late, devoted toil of physiologists compels even the most Christian of them to own their failure to find one trace of work done by a soul or spirit or immortal germ in man's constitution. They consider "that which is born of the flesh is flesh." Mental manifestations are absolutely dependent on purely material conditions.

To this we reply, that the remark we made above about regeneration applies also to resurrection. No being could be raised to life unless he were capable of being so quickened. Such capacity implies the possession of a spiritual essence which survives the shock of death. We assert of this essence that it is capable of again being personalized in human nature, and that it will appropriate the personal qualities of the former man so far as they are fit for its use.

This helps to explain the mystery of incarnation. The Christ, the Logos, is eternal. Not as a separate spirit," but as God, who is spirit, the Christ, who is God revealed, entered into human nature and was found in fashion as a man. He was not, there

fore, a "created being" and "constitutionally mortal," although the manhood He assumed was mortal. In essence the Christ was immortal, while in person, as the man Jesus, He was mortal. It was not possible that the Christ should "perish eternally." He was incapable of death, but the person of Jesus in which the Christ dwelt could suffer and die. But the manhood of Jesus was perfected by the Christ-nature in Him, who appropriated it and glorified it as the vehicle of His eternal life. The Son of Man became the image or form in which the eternal Son of God is forever personalized.

It is, therefore, only as any personal son of man partakes of His nature that he becomes immortal as a man. He possesses, indeed, an immortal essence of being which makes him potential of this high dignity. It may be erroneous to speak of this potentiality as an "immortal germ." We know too little of this mystery of life to choose our terms here with confidence.

But the point of view from which we look at this whole subject is entirely different from that of our correspondent. He asserts that physiologists are unable to find a single trace of the work in man's constitution "of a soul or spirit or immortal germ." We assert that every vital movement or effect that physiologists are able to observe is due to the presence in the outward frame of an inward man, call it what you please-soul or spirit. He declares that "mental manifestations are absolutely dependent on purely material conditions." We believe, on the contrary, that what we call material conditions are but the outward manifestations of mental states. The prior and primordial substance in this universe is spirit. Back of all outward existing things or creatures there is spirit which gives form and life. And so the deepest thing in man's constitution is spirit-not necessarily as yet perfectly personalized. The personal man we see and know may be unworthy of its permanent abode, and so may perish from the way. But the deepest meaning of the incarnation of God in human nature is that His Spirit means to make of man a temple suited to His indwelling. And this end He must pursue until that nature in every case reaches the goal of perfect manhood and becomes the personal image and Son of God.