Such a

the law for righteousness to every one who believes. faith in the soul of man is the fruitful source of all religious life and activity. It is defined in Heb. xi, 1, as an assurance of things hoped for, an evidence or conviction of things. which are not seen. By means of this the hungering and thirsting spirit of man takes hold on God. Whether it be exercised in the heart of Paul, or Abraham, or Rahab, or Jephthah, or Socrates, or Gautama, its inmost essence and spirit consists in an assuring trust of the soul in things hoped for and unseen. We know of no word of God which forbids the belief that any and every sinner, whether Jew or Gentile, whether blessed with Christian light or dwelling in heathen darkness, who exercises such a faith shall be saved. Such faith is the saving condition, as the atonement of Christ is the saving ground of any man's attaining unto life eternal.

IV. Sufficient light for the exercise of such saving faith is given to all who know enough to choose good and refuse evil. We need not encumber the discussion with the question of children dying in irresponsible infancy, or of idiots, or of that large company of human beings, to be found alike in Christendom and heathendom, who seem as little capable of moral judg ment as the unthinking animal. The above proposition is warranted by the following considerations:

1. Man is a religious being. There is no nation or people that has not some religious system, or some method of seeking to nourish the spiritual life. There is a universal consciousness of dependence on some higher power, together with a sense of obligation and moral desert. To this fact Paul refers when he speaks of the heathen showing the work of the law written in their hearts. Rom. ii, 15. What may be known of God is manifest in them, because God has shown it to them. Rom. i, 19. John's gospel (i, 9) also declares that the eternal Word ministers some measure of the true light to every man coming into the world. The sacrifices, rites, ceremonies, pilgrimages, and speculations noticeable among the scattered nations are additional evidences of man's religious nature and longings. He must have a most unworthy and unscriptural view of the fatherhood of God and the wisdom of Christ who supposes that the hundreds of thousands of millions of such religious beings who have never been permitted to hear the Gospel message of sal

23-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. V.

vation are beyond the drawings of the Father (John vi, 44) and the saving power of Christ.*

mans.

2. Noble sentiments of faith and piety have had manifold expression among peoples unenlightened by the Hebrew and Christian revelations. Paul cited a Greek poet as declaring that men are God's offspring. His tribute on Mars Hill to the religious devotion of the Athenians is memorable. Their devotions doubtless contained many elements of superstition and dread of unseen demoniac powers (deioidamovía), but in its essential nature perhaps no worse than some of the superstitions cultivated by Romish Christianity. The piety of Socrates and the lofty sentiments of Plato have been the admiration of generations of Christian scholars. The poetry, the history, and the philosophy of the Greeks are permeated with religious thought. The writings of Cicero and Seneca evince the profound conceptions of religion entertained among the RoThe sacred books of the ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, and Hindoos tell the same story of faith and striving after God. The "eightfold path" of the Buddhist consists of right belief, right judgment, right utterance, right motives, right occupation, right obedience, right memory, and right meditation. The careful reader of universal history will observe among all these nations, and others, evidences of a devout yearning after God, and even where the forms of worship are degrading, and deserving of the severest denunciations of God's law, they may nevertheless embody the assuring faith of countless pious souls who never knew any other way of formal approach unto God. The seeker after truth, possessed of the substance of such a faith, needs only the glorious vision of God in Christ to be changed into the same image, from glory to glory. 2 Cor. iii, 18. It may be that all such souls receive the transforming vision of Christ at death, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and so have no need of any further probation.

*There are always some hasty talkers who respond to this with the question, "If the heathen can be saved without the Gospel, why send it to them, or what need even of the Christian dispensation?" Never was this question better met than by the retort of Jolin Fletcher: "If sinners could be saved under the patriarchal dispensation, what need was there of the Mosaic? If under the Mosaic, what need of John's baptism? If under the baptism of John, what need of Christianity? Or, if we see our way by starlight, what need is there... of the rising sun?"-Works, vol. i, page 41.

3. According to the Scriptures, there have been many outside of the light of Hebrew and Christian revelation who possessed sufficient knowledge of God to render him acceptable service. The Pharaoh of Abraham's time, who was plagued because of Sarah, manifestly had some fear of God before his eyes, for his action in the case was a severe rebuke to the duplicity of the Hebrew patriarch. Gen. xii, 10-20. The same fact appears yet more strikingly in Abimelech. Gen. xx. But how great must have been Melchizedek, king and priest of the most high God, who blessed Abraham and received from him. tithes of all the spoil he had taken! Gen. xiv, 18-20; compare Heb. vii, 4. Jethro, prince and priest of Midian, was another similar character. IIe rejoiced in the triumphs of Israel, blessed Jehovah, and recognized in the miracles of the exodus the proof that Jehovah was greater than all gods (Exod. xviii, 11), but he did not receive his religion from Moses. Rather, Moses and Aaron were glad to follow his counsel, and he ranked above them. both as a patriarchal priest, and officiated at the offering of burnt-offerings and sacrifices. Exod. xviii, 13–27. The story of Balaam is proof both of the faith of the king of Moab in the power of God, and of God's special revelations to a heathen soothsayer. It did not follow that either the king or the prophet made good use of his opportunities. On the other hand, Rahab's faith, confessed in Josh. ii, 9-11, and extolled in Heb. xi, 31, shows how another heathen, having like opportunities, improved them. The prophecy of Isaiah (xliv, 28, xlv, 1-4) concerning Cyrus recognizes him as God's anointed shepherd and servant to do his pleasure; and, if we except the divine names employed, Cyrus's procla mation in Ezra i, 2-4, evinces no more reverence for God than numerous inscriptions of other ancient Oriental monarchs which are at this day legible on the rocks of the far East. The repentance of the Ninevites at the preaching of Jonah showed an active faith in God without conversion to the religion of Israel.

With such examples of heathen penitence, faith, and piety in the Old Testament, we need not wonder at such a devout Roman soldier as Cornelius, fearing God with all his house, giving much alms, and praying to God continually. Acts x, 1. His religious knowledge had probably been helped by contact with Judaism, and the Gospel word was not altogether unknown

to him (verses 36 and 37); but he was evidently without clear Gospel light, and needed the ministry of the apostle to set him fully free. Like another centurion, mentioned in Luke vii, 2-9, his devout feeling had prompted him to the best use of his opportunities, and had developed a faith which Christ himself extolled. By a heavenly vision Peter became convinced that "God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is acceptable to him." (R. V. verses 34, 35.) This is an unqualified universal proposition. Cornelius, like many a longing heathen, needed clearer light and better knowledge, but in the absence. of these he adhered devoutly to the truth he had; and such a faith may be as well imputed for righteousness as that which prompts the most pious Moslem to pray five times a day, or the papist to count his beads, adore the crucifix, and bow before the image of the Virgin.

The obvious doctrine of Paul in Rom. i, 19, 20, and ii, 14, 15, is, that the heathen, who have no written revelation like the Jew, are not without any revelation. They have an inner revelation "written in their hearts," their own conscience testifying to the same, and their moral judgments (λoyoμoí) accusing or excusing them. The conscience is the sure exponent of the moral sense, and wherever it witnesses in a human heart a sense of freedom from condemnation, there is "justification of life." But the opposite character, whose conscience condemns him, sins and perishes without the written law.

The condition of salvation is not a matter of knowledge, of comparative enlightenment, but of faith and obedience to that measure of light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. That light is vastly different in Paul and in the barbarian who saw the viper fasten on his hand; but God may infallibly discern in the pitiable savage such an assurance of things hoped for, such a conviction of things not seen, as to grant him repentance unto life on the ground of the same unlimited atonement which Paul preached, and through which he also hoped for salvation.

Milton S. Terry

THE SECOND PROBATION DOGMA.

The "probation" of man, as terms are now used, may denote a trial to decide whether he shall fall from holiness into sin, or whether he shall rise from sin into holiness. It may signify the probation before apostasy of all mankind in Adam; or of each individual subsequent to apostasy under the plan of redemption. In the first instance the probation relates to perseverance in holiness; in the second, to accepting the mercy of God in salvation. In the older theology "probation" was employed only in the first sense. In the later, especially since the days of Bishop Butler, the second meaning has become common. This is the sense intended when the "Second Probation Dogma" is discussed.

The question is, whether the sinful and impenitent heathen. will have the offer of forgiveness through faith in Christ made to them after death.

In answering this question, the following preliminary remarks must be made. First, the heathen is not entitled to such an offer, because his sin is voluntary. There is no difference between heathendom and Christendom, in respect to the fact of guilt before God. "Every mouth is stopped" when this charge is made. Rom. iii, 19. The only difference relates to the degree of guilt. But a criminal is not entitled to the offer of pardon. Secondly, the fact that Christ's satisfaction is infinite does not oblige God to offer its benefits to every individual. Sinful man did not make this atonement, and therefore has no claim upon its expiating virtue. It belongs to the Author of it, and "he may do what he will with his own." Matt. xx, 15. God has commanded his Church to say to every creature, "Repent ye, and believe the Gospel" (Mark i, 15), but he has not bound himself to do the work which he has assigned to them, or to supplement their unfaithfulness by a second preaching of the Gospel in the future life. God "now commandeth all men every-where to repent." Acts xvii, 30. And all men, evangelized or unevangelized, who repent will be forgiven through Christ.

These preliminary propositions are necessary in order to show the true state of the case as it respects the heathen. It does not differ in kind from that of the nominal Christian. The