not proper to call him an unbeliever, or to class him with unbelievers.

Consequently, the question, Is there salvation after death? is the same as the question, Is there regeneration after death? In other words, Is the present dispensation of the Spirit, by which the new birth is effected, continued into the next life? The whole question respecting a "second probation" turns upon this question.

There is not a passage in Scripture which, either directly or by implication, teaches that the Holy Ghost will exert his regenerating power in the soul of man in any portion of that endless duration which succeeds this life. On the contrary, his regenerating function is represented as confined to earth and time. The affirmation, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man" (Gen. vi, 3), proves that the dispensation of the Spirit is not everlasting; and the accompanying statement, "Yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years," implies that it is exterminous with man's mortal life. Accordingly, our Lord makes death to be the critical point in man's history. He says to the Pharisees, "If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins." John viii, 21, 24. This solemn threatening, which he twice repeats, loses all its force if to die in sin, or unregenerate, is not to be hopelessly lost. He teaches the same truth in the parable of Dives. The rich man asks that his brethren may be exhorted to faith and repentance before they die, because if impenitent at death, as he was, they will go to hades, as he did, and be punished forever. The Old Testament teaches the same doctrine: "The wicked is driven away in his wickedness [at death]; but the righteous hath hope in his death." Prov. xiv, 32. "When a wicked man dieth his expectation shall perish." Prov. xi, 7. "If thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it; if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity." Ezek. xxxiii, 9.

Still further proof that death is the deciding point in man's existence is found in those effects of regeneration which have been spoken of. Faith, repentance, hope, and struggle with remaining sin are never represented in Scripture as occurring in the future life. After death the regenerate walks by sight, not by faith; has fruition instead of hope, and is completely sanctified. Faith, repentance, hope, and progressive sanctifica

tion are described as going on up to a certain point denominated "the end," when they give place to sinless perfection"He that endureth to the end shall be saved "-the end of this state of existence, not of the intermediate state. "We desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end." "Christ shall confirm you unto the end." "Whose house are we if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope unto the end." In all such passages the end of this mortal life is meant. And to them must be added the important eschatological paragraph (1 Cor. xv, 24-28), which teaches that there is an "end" to Christ's work of mediation and salvation when "there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins." Heb. x, 26.

The large amount of matter in Scripture which teaches that the operation of the Spirit in the new birth and its effects. belong only to this life cannot be invalidated by the lonely text concerning Christ's " preaching to the spirits in prison," a passage which the majority of exegetes, taking in all ages of the Church, refer to the preaching of Noah and other "embassadors of Christ;" but which, even if referred to a personal descent of Christ into an under world, would be inadequate to establish such a revolutionizing doctrine as the prolongation of Christ's mediatorial work into the future state, the preaching of the gospel in sheol, and the outpouring of the Holy Ghost there. For the dogma of a future probation for all the unevangelized part of mankind is radically revolutionizing. It is another Gospel, and if adopted would result in another Christendom. For nearly twenty centuries the Church has gone. upon the belief that there is no salvation after death. All of its conquests over evil have come from preaching the solemn. truth that "now is the day of salvation." 2 Cor. vi, 2. It has believed itself to be commanded to proclaim that “after death is the judgment" of sin, not the forgiveness of sin. But if the Church has been mistaken, and there is a probation in the future life for all the unevangelized of all the centuries, and it is announced, as all the truth of God ought to be, then the eternal world will present a totally different aspect from what it has. Heretofore the great hereafter has been a gulf of darkness for every impenitent man, heathen or nominal Christian, as he peered into it. Now it will be a darkness through which

gleams of light and hope are flashing like an aurora. The line between time and eternity, so sharply drawn by the past Christianity and Christendom, must be erased. A different preaching must be adopted. Hope must be held out instead of the old hopelessness. Death must no longer be represented as a finality, but as an entrance for all unevangelized mankind upon another period of probation and salvation. Men must be told that the Semiramises and Cleopatras, the Tiberiuses and Neros, may possibly have accepted the Gospel in hades. Children in the Sabbath-schools must be taught that the vicious and hardened populations of the ancient world-of Sodom and Gomorrah, of Babylon and Nineveh, of Antioch and Rome-passed into a world of hope and salvation, not of justice and judgment.

It is objected by the advocates of a future probation that the denial of the salvation of the heathen after death means that only a few of mankind are saved. This is an error. While the Scriptures confine the regenerating work of the Spirit to this life, they represent the subjects of it as "a great multitude which no man can number, of all nations, and kindreds, and tongues." Rev. vii, 9.

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In the first place, the Church generally understands the Bible to teach that all who die in infancy die regenerate. Probably all evangelical denominations, without committing themselves to the statements of the Westminster Conference respecting election," would be willing to say that all dying in infancy are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when and where and how he pleaseth."-Confession, x, 3. This is the regeneration and salvation of nearly one half of the human family. And it is all accomplished here upon earth, not in hades.

Secondly, the Scriptures teach the regeneration of a vast adult multitude, from Adam down, who came under the influence of the Holy Spirit in connection with the special revelation, in the antediluvian, patriarchal, Jewish, and Christian Churches. These are all regenerated before or at death.

Thirdly, the Scriptures warrant the belief that the Holy Spirit exerts his regenerating grace to some extent in adult heathendom, making use of the unwritten revelation as the means of convincing of sin, and that in the last day a part of God's redeemed people "shall come from the east and from

the west, and from the north and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God." Luke xiii, 29. These, also, are all regenerated before or at death. Since regeneration in the instance of the adult immediately produces conscious faith and repentance, a regenerate heathen is both a believer and a penitent. He feels sorrow for sin and the need of mercy. This felt need of mercy and desire for it is virtually faith in the Redeemer. For although the Redeemer has not been presented historically and personally to him, yet he has the cordial and longing disposition to believe in him. With the penitent and believing man in the gospel, he says, Who is the Lord, "that I might believe on him?" John ix, 36. Such a man is saved by and through Christ.

In addition to all this work of the Holy Spirit in the past in applying in these three ways the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, it must not be forgotten that the world has not yet witnessed the mightiest and most wonderful manifestations of his power. The Scriptures speak of an outpouring in "the last days" that will exceed any thing in the previous history of the Church. "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh," says God. Joel ii, 28. Vast masses of sinful men will be bowed down in deep conviction of sin. The Redeemer will take unto him his mighty power, and turn the human heart as the rivers of water.

Now, this is a great salvation. The immense majority of the race that fell in Adam will be saved in Christ "by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost." Titus iii, 5. And this regeneration is effected in every instance before "the spirit returns to God who gave it." The duty of the Church is to preach the Gospel to every creature, and to pray unceasingly for the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. Instead of starting a false hope for the salvation of the heathen by daring to reconstruct the plan of salvation, and to extend the dispensation of the Spirit into the future life, the Church should strengthen the old and true hope by doing with its might what its hands find to do, and crying with the evangelical prophet, "Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord." Isa. li, 9.

MGT. Shedel

THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH.

The heathen being salvable, and the Scriptures giving us no saving gospel for souls beyond one probation, the mission of the Church is to now bring the Gospel into contact with living heathen.

"I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church." In the Apostles' Creed the doctrine of the Church succeeds the doctrine of the Holy Ghost, and is, in fact, the creature of the Holy Ghost. Heathenism in the form of atheism repudiates the Creator; in the form of deism denies the Redeemer; and in the form of rationalism ignores the presence of the Holy Ghost in the Church. What is the Church? What is heathenism? For our purposes of discussion of duty it is enough to say that "the Church is the body of Christianity, and Christianity is the soul of the Church." The Church, as a fact, is the Christian religion organized; the Church as a spiritual entity, as a creation of God, is a body of individual believers whose hearts have been renewed by the Holy Ghost. Heathenism is either ignorance of or rejection of God as Creator, of Christ as Redeemer, of the Holy Ghost as sanctifier, and of the Scriptures as the revelation of God.

Religion is a universal fact, while Christianity is the only true religion. The end of all religious inquiries outside of Christianity is, What is truth? The beginning of Christianity is the assertion of Christ, "I am the truth." Christianity is Christ. Christianity is God manifest in the flesh. "Heathenism was the seeking religion, Judaism the hoping religion; Christianity is the reality of what heathenism sought and Judaism hoped for." And with this reality the Church is appointed to meet the seeking of heathenism. Plutarch says, "You may see states without walls, without laws, without coins, without writing; but a people without a god, without prayer, without religious exercises and sacrifices, has no man seen." Universal man must have religion, and the Christian Church is bound to determine what the character of that religion shall be, because it holds the powers and the commission to determine.

Universality in provision, in application, in appeal, in command, is stamped upon all of God's revealed purposes for the salvation of the race. The Jewish rabbis, who under the pat