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NOTES ON CURRENT OPINIONS AND EVENTS.

The Presbyterian says the times are not propitious for such review and amendment of the Reformation Theology as Prof. Candlish proposes in an article on this subject in the last Presbyterian Review. When the thing to be done is right and true, the times are always propitious. Let the truth shine out, though the heavens fall. Nothing will fall but clouds.

MODERN OPINION.—The Christian Union is about right when it says that the doctrine of eternal punishment, as it survives among intelligent Christians, has been reduced to one or the other of these two forms: 1. Either the punishment of the wicked is to be final extinction of being, or 2. Their suffering will be perpetuated because of their perpetual continuance in sin.

But in neither of these forms has the doctrine come down to us from the fathers. The Westminster Standards teach plainly that the sinner is sentenced to endless and unspeakable torments for the sins of this life. If the Christian Union is right, and its statement can hardly be disputed, then it is high time that even their most orthodox adherents should call for a revision.

CANON WILBERFORCE.-Many good people believe that by so much as any man, and especially any minister, holds the larger hope, by that much the gospel loses its power over his life and in his preaching. The recent visit of this distinguished clergyman to Philadelphia has shown how false is this idea. Canon Wilberforce was a warm friend of Charles Kingsley. And we are sure, both from occasional remarks in his addresses, and from what we have been credibly informed, that he is on the same ground with Kingsley in respect to the wider hope,- -a position beyond our own. And yet seldom have we ever heard a man preach the gospel with greater simplicity and fervor, and manifestly from a heart conscious of the indwelling presence of Christ, and full of love to Him and to lost men. And this was the impression made upon even the most orthodox among his hearers.

CHRIST'S DESCENT INTO HELL.-But "now that He ascended, what is it but that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth ?" Did He descend only into this world, or only beneath it into the grave? No; it is an ancient article of the Christian creed, that "He descended into Hades," supported by Ps. xvi. 10, and St. Peter's interpretation in Acts ii. 27, 31. In ascending, "He led captivity captive," (Ps. lxviii. 18; Eph. iv. 8). Does that mean that He raised to heaven, or Paradise, all or some of the righteous dead who had been imprisoned in a lower place in Hades? It may be so; but we have a record of even a lower descent than that—to the prison of disobedient spirits. What for? To preach to them—and it seems to preach the Gospel. "For this cause was the Gospel preached, even unto the dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit" (1 Pet. iii. 19, 20, iv. 6). This is connected with the statement "that Christ hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us unto God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit; in which also He went and preached to the spirits in prison,” etc. (iii. 18, 19), as if to intimate that one purpose of His being put to death was that He might penetrate into the world of the dead, and take possession of it, and even from that depth recover unjust and disobedient spirits to God. "For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that He might be Lord both of the dead and living" (Rom. xiv, 9).

See we not, then, how deep He went down that He might open an upward path to God? not, indeed, into the second death-the death of the soul; into that Christ never went down, and out of it there is no way up. But no soul of man has yet fallen into that second death; for it comes not till after the resurrection and judg ment; and into the shadow-land between the two deaths has not Christ gone down, even to the prison of disobedient spirits, that He might, even from that depth, cleave an ascent to life and light? Yes, if Christ is the propitation for the whole world (1 John ii. 2), it must surely follow that the whole world has some opportunity to profit by that propitiation.—The Rainbow.

PROF. GEORGE P. FISHER ON PROBATION AND MISSIONS. In the Independent of March 17th, Prof. Fisher contributes an article to the

solution of this problem, which leaves it after all insoluble. The article traces calmly and fairly the growth of a wider hope, beginning with the disintegration of the old Calvinism by the admission into it of a hope for the salvation of all infants,-which hope was soon so enlarged as to include a few devout heathen, and now embraces a large class who are brought within its pale under a theory of "implicit faith." The theory of a future probation he regards as a substitute for this, having equal if not superior claims to acceptance. But he finds but little warrant for any of these phases of the larger hope, either for infants or heathen, in direct statements of Scripture. They are all "extra-Biblical opinions, depending mainly for support on views taken of the spirit and drift of the gospel." He believes, indeed, that this furnishes good and sufficient ground. But it is vague.

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If this were all the ground, it would be enough to create a doubt against the truth of the old dogmas, and to preclude the attempt to shut out from Christian confidence and fellowship those who cherish the larger hope. But it is manifest to us that the distinguished writer is yet in partial blindness upon this whole subject. A Jew of our Lord's day might just as well have pronounced the truth testified by Moses and all the prophets, that the Messiah should suffer, and be killed, and be raised again from the dead an 'extraBiblical opinion." It certainly did not appear upon the face of Scripture. Nobody believed it. No texts could be quoted in which it was unequivocally taught. And yet it was "Biblical'' in the sense that it formed the very marrow of all the Scriptures. And So with regard to the work of the Messiah, as raised up to be the Lord of both the dead and the living. When one comes to see what death means in the divine economy, as the wages of sin, and what resurrection means, as God's gracious provision of another life after this sentence against man has been executed, and he has served out his penal time of captivity in sheol, according to his deserts ;when he perceives the essentially redemptive character of this recovery, and adjusts his old ideas about final judgment thereto, then he will see that this "extra-biblical" hope is imbedded in all the older Scriptures, and that it enters into the very marrow of those glad tidings of great joy which shall be unto all people. And he will learn to distinguish between this "hope toward God that

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there shall be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust" (Acts. xxiv. 15), and the hope of those whom the God of all grace hath called unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus," and unto whom it is now given to believe on His name unto life everlasting. It is indeed true that a theory of future probation before resurrection and judgment will never find standing room in the clear light of biblical teaching, but must continue to float around in the mists of extrabiblical speculation. But a theory of restored life, according to the law "To every seed its own body," and of the opportunities which inhere in a recovery to the life and estate of manhood after judgment has been executed, and after resurrection, stands on the solid ground of all Scripture, and will finally prove the true dispeller of the church's present darkness and confusion upon this whole subject.

THE "INDEPENDENT" ON PROBATION.-The Independent continues its assaults on the Andover hypothesis, which it calls a groundless and harmful speculation. In the form in which a possible Future Probation is held by that school,-and it is the prevalent form-it is open to such serious objection. But when The Independent assumes that no form of this doctrine is consistent with the Gospel, or has any warrant in Scripture, it only shows that it has not ears to hear all that is contained in the Gospel, nor eyes to see all that Scripture reveals. The fact that such men as ex-Presidents Hopkins and Porter, President Dwight, Prof. Fisher, Newman Smyth, and a large number of the most prominent pastors and teachers in the Congregational body, either hold with Andover, or insist that some form of relief from the old doctrine is required by the Christian consciousness as now enlightened by the Spirit, should make it pause before it affirms that there can be no place in the Gospel for any doctrine that holds out to any class of men who die in their sins any sort of future hope. The Independent itself is forced to seek relief in another way still more pernicious. It would broaden the terms of salvation so as to admit many who have not known Christ nor believed on His Name unto life everlasting. Some of its school, like Joseph Cook, have invented the theory of a possible supreme revelation of Christ to souls in the article of death, or a 'probation after breath." Will that paper inform us in what re

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spect such a "speculation" is any less lawful than the one it writes so vigorously against, or has any more support from the Word of God? The Independent, however, ought to know, and so also should the Andover writers, that there is a doctrine on this subject which is no speculation, which finds ample warrant in the Scriptures, which preserves all their teaching about the sinner's damnation in hell after death, and which, so far as the salvation of his present endowment of life in manhood is concerned, closes his account then and there. It is the theory that after judgment for sin has been executed, after the law that "the soul that sinneth it shall die" has been vindicated, the grace of God has provided to take up again the case of lost man through a resurrection from the dead. Not, however, in any such way as to set aside His unchanging law, "To every seed his own body," or that men can enter into life in any other way than through that "salting with fire" which requires that all that is evil in the heart and life be consumed. Nor can resurrection defend against "a second death" such as have incurably confirmed themselves in evil ways. And yet, that even the "resurrection of judgment" is due to the redemptive work of Christ and belongs on the side of grace and not of wrath, is be shown to true (1) by the fact that the New Testament always places it on that side (Jno. v. 21-23; Rom. v. 12-20; 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22; Acts xxiv. 15): (2) by the fact that the Old Testament is full of such promises of future blessing to Israel and to nations who had gone down to death for their sins as can be fulfilled in no other way than through their resurrection from the dead. All that is needed to solve the difficulties of this subject is to see that, while God is a God of judgment, He who kills can also make alive (Deut. xxxii. 39), and that His Christ has been exalted to be Lord and Judge of both the dead and the living. Harm may indeed come to men from a false conception of this doctrine, or from the abuse of the grace of God involved in it. When have not men "turned the grace of our God into lasciviousness?" But has The Independent ever reflected upon the immense harm that has come to human souls through wrong conceptions of God, to know whom is eternal life,-horrid distortions of His character and ways, driving men into infidelity, and into a darkness of unbelief where all restraints upon the vices of this depraved human nature give way.

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