Biblical eschatology: its relation to the current Presbyterian standards and the basal principles that must underlie their revision: being a review of the writings of the Presbyterian divine, L.C. Baker

Front matter

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Pil

Rev. Henry T. Cheever.

Part First

A Glance at the Common Eschatology of Christendom— A Scriptural View of Last Things Suggested by L. C. Baker — The Ultima Thule of Legitimate Discovery in the Realm of Eschatology — Theology to be True must be Progressive — A Criticism from Lowell — Questions Proposed for Solution — Historical Sketch of the Movement for Revision in the Presbyterian Church — A Brief Abstract of the Author's Views of Resurrection — A Notable Debate in West Jersey Presbytery — Liberal Opinions of the Minority — Honest and Rational View of a Protesting Presbyter — Able Defense by Mr. Baker— The True Gospel of Resurrection and the Pauline Scheme and Order thereof — View of Dr. Gordon's Ecce Venit. — Pp. 1-28.

Vi CONTENTS.

Current Eschatology of Christendom, section second.

The Divinity of the Reformation injuriously called Calvinism — Not an Ism, but the Divinity of St. Paul and his Master — Resurrection a Recovery from the Death State — Teaching of the Old Testament as to Redemptive Resurrection — Royal Priesthood of* the Elect — Consensus of Theologians as to Old Testament — Oh, the Generations Old, over which no Church-bells Tolled — Mystery of Mysteries Viewed by Tayler Lewis — In Six Days of Creation — Power of a Right Principle — Dogma to be Interpreted by Light of Scripture, not Scripture by Light of Dogma-Observation of Gladstone that Popular Theologies must be Shaken down and re -adjusted to the Eternal Standard— Views of Bishop Butler, John Robinson and the Poet Longfellow — The Missionary versus the Mediaeval Theology — Conflict of Theologies in the American Board — The Holding of a Permissible Hope as to the Heathen — Not to be Made a Disqualification to Foreign Mission Service — Dr. Storrs' Presumptive Assent to Redemptive Resurrection — Charitable Construction of his Diplomatic Language — Dr. Noah Porter on the Liberalizing of New England Theology by Modern Missions — The Same Modifying Influence at Work in Presbyterian Theology — The True Ground of Immortality not Inherent, but that in Christ all shall be made Alive — Weight of Scripture Testimony that Man as to Body

I and Soul is Perishable — Failure in this Life not necessarily Final and Remediless — What follows a Correct View of Redemptive Resurrection — A Conquering Gospel for Missionaries of the Cross — Redemptive Resurrection both in the Old Testament and the New — Tennyson's Lament that Agnostics should fail to find their Souls' Craving for Truth Satisfied by Christianity

CONTENTS. Vll

— How to Meet the Infidelity of Ingersoll — The Current Eschatology: How to be Clarified — Dogmas Proven to be Hindrances instead of Helps — How to Interpret Signs of the Times — Luther's Contempt for the u Grubbing Theologians" of his Day— The Key to God's Plan of Redemption — A Necessary Condition to Harmony with Science — Priestly Position of the Church toward the Human Race — The Revival of Faith a Sine Qua Non to Victory — A Gem from Horatius Bonar, Hymnist of the Millennium — An Instructive Brief of Personal Experience — Teaching How the Purpose of God to Redeem the Human Race is made Dependent upon the Co-operation of the Church — Expectant Nations Cry for the Message of Grace — The Question, not Can the Heathen be Saved without the Gospel ? — But can we be Saved if we do not Give the Gospel to the Heathen ?— Pp. 29-79.

PART THE SECOND. The New Eschatology Explained

The Logical Basis of Revision and the New Theology — Dogma of Eternal Torment already Undermined — Inconsistent with a True Knowledge of God — Runs Counter to the Primary Hope of Scripture — The Principle of Redemptive Resurrection Furnishes a Key to Right Understanding of all Scripture — Accounts for Certain Dominant Ideas in the General Faith of Mankind—Accords with the Bible Teaching Concerning the Solidarity of the Race — Resurrection of Judgment not a Resurrection unto Judgment — Only one Form of Immortal Life Possible to Man and that in the Likeness of Christ— The Dead Repeated in the Living— The Living Inclusive of the Dead.— Pp. 79-94.

Vlll CONTENTS.

New Eschatology Explained.

section second

Questionings as to the How and When of the Resurrection of Judgment — An Old Belief Giving Way to a Better Understanding of the Divine Wisdom and Goodness — Dr. Doerner's View that America will yet have a Theology of its Own in Advance of that of Europe — Three Predominant Modes of Thought in Christendom — The Eclectic Eschatology Combines in One the Chief Points of Excellence in the Three — What will be Saved and what will be Lost—The Innate Consciousness of God — The Hidden Mystery Shrouded — How to be Revived — The Sine Qua Non of Spiritual Progress — The Secret of Permanent Happiness — The Dual Nature of Man — How Mortal and Immortal — A Fundamental Fallacy — Endless Being and Endless Enmity with God Irreconcilable — Christ must Reconcile all Things unto Himself and Become All in All — Difference between Remission of Sins and Remission of Penalty — The Bond of Dependence between the Living and the Dead — The First-born and Later-born Alike before God in the Matter of Final Salvation — Priestly Work of the Saints Carried into Eternity — The Version of the Gospel that will Win — A Mistake in the Location of Future Probation — No Ground for Future Hope except it be beyond Judgment — The First Chapter of Life Closed in Judgment — The Second Chapter to have its Own Experience and Issues — Ferment of Opinions in the Church Harmless if Allowed to Expand — Dangerous if Confined — The Tree of Christianity Swelling in all its Buds — The Heresy of One Age the Orthodoxy of the Next — The Spirit and Work of Foreign Missions Swelling within the Heart of the Church — The Type of Eschatology to Convert the World with — The Goal toward which the Processes of Redemption are Working — This Earth to be Peopled by Redeemed Humanity

CONTENTS. IX

— Emancipated from Sin and Death — Transformed into the Image of the Great Emancipator — The Philosophy of Man's Complex Nature — The Old Man and . the New Man — The Double Character marked by a Double Name — The Old Man Given over to Death that the New Man may be Raised up in Power — Spiritual Transformation by Natural Laws — The only Element in Man's Being that is Essential and Immortal — Salvation the Soul Transfused and Pervaded by the Spirit of God — The Crown of Immortality Won on the Arena of Earthly Life — Natural Basis of the Doctrine of Resurrection — Spirits of the Dead Indestructible while Continuity and Self- consciousness as Men may be Interrupted — The Flesh not only the Abode of a Dominant Soul, but it may be the Harbor in which Homeless Spirits of the Imperfect Dead Seek Shelter and Recovery — Room for the Prayer, Angels and Ministers of Grace Defend us — One Chain of Life Binds the Race Together, both the Living and Dead — A Mystery Involved in the Constitution of Man— Self - conquest and Sanctity of the Living Tend to Restore the Dead — Summary of Teaching as to the Nature and Method of Resurrection — Distinction between the Spirit of Life and the Conscious Being it Animates — A Testing by the Gospel the Privilege of All — Resurrection of Judgment Equivalent to Re -incarnation — A Philosophy of Resurrection — Unsearchableness of the Ways of God — Derzhavin's Sublime Apostrophe to the Creator.— Pp. 79-141.

Part Third

ESCHATOLOGY OF THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE. SECTION FIRST.

Christ the Teacher as well as Exemplar of Resurrection — Evidence that Christ Tarried Awhile in the Psychic Realm after His Resurrection — From Resurrection to

X CONTENTS.

Ascension in the Form of Psychic Manhood— Thenceforth in the Purely Spiritual State until the Second Coming — In all Things Made Like unto His Brethren — The Source of Demoniacal Possession — Saving the Lost Through the Agency of an Elect Seed of Blessing. —Pp. 142-154.

Section Second

Importance to the Church of a New Line of Evangelizing Effort — Facts Concerning an Alleged Decline of Interest in the Church — Not Faith, but Theologic Forms, Losing Their Hold on Men — Effect upon the Ministry of such a Loss — Necessity of a Change of Base — How to Correct the Age-long Errors that have Crept into Theology — The Liberty of Prophesying not to be Fettered — Needed Corrective of the Holy Spirit — A New Departure in the Doctrines of Redemption and Retribution — Exaggerations not Justified Either by Reason or Scripture — Enlarged Meaning Attached to Seed — Science a Help to Scripture Exegesis — Atonement not a Governmental Device, but the Expression of Infinite Love — Solemnity and Sublimity of the Battle of Life — Harmony between the Laws of Life and the Methods of God in the Seen and Unseen World — Glorious Possibilities of the Future Through the Power of God in the Church — God's Light and Love Like the Latent Light and Heat in Oil — The Expression of Love in the Provision of Resurrection — The Church Viewed as the First- Fruits— Consequent Responsibility to the Race — A Reasonable Lament and the Ground Thereof— Th3 Holy Spirit to be Honored by the Church as its Perpetual Guide— Intellectual and Spiritual Atrophy of a Manacled Pulpit — The Common Traditional Mistake of the Apostate Church of Rome and the Reformed Churches— The Principle of Redemptive Resurrection cannot be

CONTENTS. XI

Safely Slurred— The Dead and the Living to be Viewed as under a Corporate Responsibility — Wherein lies the Power of Restoration and Recovery for the Human Race — Organic Connection between the two Wings of Humanity, the Dead and the Living — Central Positions that are Invulnerable— Absolute Inerrancy of the Bible not one of Them— But the Holy Scriptures an Adequate and Trustworthy Revelation from God — Rev. Dr. Ecob on the Obligation of Presbyterian Vows — A Defense of His Contention and of the Inherent Right of Reform.— Pp. 154-187.

The Basis for a New Theology in a New eschatology.

A Thesis by the Rev. L. C. Baker, Late Editor of Words of Reconciliation, Philadelphia — Broad Scriptural Theology of Chalmers and Howard Crosby — God is love — The Three Alternatives before the Church of To-day as put by the Christian Union. — Pp. 190-224.

Appendix

From the New York Evangelist of March 2, 1893.

Plea for Peace and Work with Signatures of Two Hundred Ministers of the Presbyterian Church — A Creed that can be Preached— Neither Tridentine nor Westminster Confession Fulfills the Test — Strength of the Argument for Revision — Preaching, Methods of Work and Activity to Conform to the Confession, or the Confession Itself to be Altered to Suit the Changed Condition of Affairs — Another Way of Peace by Rev. Dr. J. H. Ecob— Can Two Classes of Minds, Conservative and Progressive, Dwell Together in Peace ? — The Two Parties Need Each Other— Constitutional Recognition of Both Required— The Two Symbols therefore Revised and Unrevised to be Printed Side by Side — The One Brief, Scriptural, Irenic, Modern— The Other Historic, Dogmatic, Doctrinal, Theological, as it Stood from the Beginning.— Pp. 227-238.

Let us exclaim with heroic Luther, Scandal and offence ? ! Talk not to me of scandal and offence. Need breaks through stone walls, and recks not of scandal. It is my duty to spare weak consciences as far as it may be done without hazard of my soul. Where not, I must take counsel for my soul, though half or the whole world should be scandalized thereby.

Luther felt and preached and wrote and acted as beseemed a Luther to feel and utter and act. The truths which had been outraged he re-proclaimed in the spirit of outraged truth, at the behest of his conscience, and in the service of the God of truth. He did his duty, come good, come evil, and made no question on which side the preponderance would be.

S. T. Coleridge.

Introduction

To this somewhat unique volume no word of introduction is needed, other than its descriptive title-page. But a raison d'etre, if only reasonable, is always in place and always acceptable to the reader.

It was the original remark of an acute philosopher and master of human thought, that truths, of all others the most awful and mysterious, and at the same time of universal interest, are too often considered as so true that they lose all the power of truth, and lie bedridden in the dormitory of the soul, side by side with the most despised and exploded errors.

Now I do not claim for our author the merit or glory of an original discoverer in the unknown realm of Eschatology. But we do assert that he has fairly lifted up out of the dormitory, and has brought into the clear white light of intelligent observation, an important principle that opens the grim portals of gloomy medisevalism, and puts the key into all the rusty locks of traditional theology.

That principle is the neglected and misunderstood Gospel of Eedemptive Eesurrection. It is the prin-

VI INTRODUCTION.

ciple of an eternal benignant and redemptive plan and purpose and process in " The Resurrection of Judgment," " The Resurrection of the Unjust;" by which we can safely navigate the unexplored Ocean of Eschatology; ' Sounding on our dim and perilous way/ under the reign of law, and by the Nautical Almanac of Holy Scripture, until the Times of Restitution of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.

It is a privilege and a boon, under the guiding hand of God, to have been only an humble pioneer in this direction. Let honor be to him to whom honor is due; and all the glory to the only wise God our Saviour. But it is not to be forgotten that saintly John Robinson of the Pilgrim Fathers " bewailed the fact that there were those in his day who followed, with no appeal beyond them, Luther and Calvin ; while he himself was confident that the Lord had more of truth and light to break forth out of His Holy Word."

That truth and light are now signally breaking forth ; and who can doubt that they will still be breaking forth, notwithstanding all that hinders, to the time of the end ?

Not seldom do the spirits Of great events stride on before the events, And in to-day already walks to-morrow !

I cannot better express the present situation and juncture of the great Presbyterian Church of North America than by a reference to the old Greek of

INTRODUCTION. Vll

Posidonius, in the Dialogue between Traveller and the notable statue of Opportunity at Athens, by Phidias. The statue significantly says, standing in impressive majesty by the market-place :

My name, I bear, throughout the world has flown; As Opportunity to mortals I am known.

Traveller: And who is she behind so sad of mien ?

Opportunity: Repentance is her name. Still is she seen To follow him, the wretch who weakly fails To seize me, when the timely hour avails Of noble action ! Thus she seems to teach, Be swift to seize the good within thy reach, Lest it be lost forever ! Ask no more ! E'en while I speak, away, away I soar !

The timely hour of visitation, yea, of noble action and Providential Reform, has come, in the order of Heayen, to the Ministry and Eldership of the great Presbyterian Church. We pray God that they may not ignore it, but be fully up to the pressing emergency and the Divine Call. So shall the ages bless them, and all the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord.

In the present attempted formulation of a rational and Scriptural Eschatology for the Presbyterian Church, let there be a devout and self-forgetting enthusiastic reliance upon the Holy Spirit. " Reason and Religion/' said Coleridge in his day, — and he might have added Theology too, — "are their own evidence. The natural sun is in this respect a symbol of the spiritual. Ere he is fully arisen, and while

Vlll INTRODUCTION.

his glories are still under veil, he calls up the breeze to chase away the usurping vapors of the night season, and thus converts the air itself into the minister of its own purification; not surely in proof or elucidation of the light from the heavens, but to prevent its interception."

The interceptive mists of error, prejudice, and tradition that at this day becloud our spiritual heavens, must now be swept away into darkness by the living principles that are actualized by ideas, and that contain in themselves what Lord Bacon calls an endless power of semination. These great ideas, that shine with the brightness of the firmament in the Scriptures of the Old Testament and the New, are like the fixed stars, which appear of the same size to the naked as to the armed eye; and their magnitude the telescope seems rather to diminish than to increase. They shine, too, from age to age with the same steady lustre when once the clouds are off.

But thanks be to God, the great Cloud-Compeller is now rending the firmament and rolling together the heavens as a scroll, that all flesh may see the glory of the Lord. And woe be to the man or the Church that would cover again the spiritual heavens with anything like the gloomy pall of the Dark Ages, or with the scanty modern mantle of poor, bloodless Agnosticism, sure of nothing, believing nothing,, doing nothing, and pitifully dazed and darkened in the eclipse of faith.

Theology and Eschatology are twin sisters that should dwell together, never apart, in a mutual min-

INTRODUCTION. IX

istry, like Martha and Mary. As it is a poor and shallow Theology that makes light of sin and retribution, or tries to explain away the stern and awful side of God's dealings with men, so is it a still shallower Eschatology that severs God's judgments from His love ; that divides the Almighty against Himself, and ignores the fundamental truth embodied in the reasoning of the Psalmist : Lord, unto Thee belongeth mercy, for Thou renderest to every max according TO HIS WORKS.

Xever should there be out of mind that essential article of faith in the Puritan creed of our Xew England Poet of Humanity and the Spirit, greatest and best of the Friends : *

Still Thy love, O Christ arisen, Yearns to reach the souls in prison : Through all depths of sin and loss Drops the plummet of Thy cross : Never yet abyss was found Deeper than that cross could sound.

* What Whittier insists on in all his lines is becoming the theology of the age: the supremacy of love and righteousness; self-sacrifice the law of life; humility the great virtue; social and political equality; the sacredness of the individual; service the universal and imperative duty; the redemption and perfection of society; absolute trust in God and consequent hope of immortality; the power and practicability of the precepts of Christ, and especially of the passive virtues; in short, the Sermon on the Mount to be taken as it reads and turned into actual life. To these doctrines Whittier not only adhered, but he championed them in nearly every page of prose or poetry that he wrote. These are the things upon which we are fast coming into agreement as the substance of theology. I call Whittier a teacher of theology, not merely because he*

X INTRODUCTION.

The greatest, the deepest, the most comforting word in the Bible, says Dr. Philip Schaff in the Andover Review, is the word God is love: "And the greatest fact in the world's history is the manifestation of that love in the person and the work of Christ. That word and this fact are the sum and substance of the Gospel, and the only solid foundation of Christian Theology. The sovereignty of God we hold in common with Jews and Mohammedans. The love of God is revealed only in the religion of Christ. It is the inmost essence of God and the key to all His work and ways. It is the central truth ivhich sheds light upon all other truths/'

He might have added, the Gospel of Kedemptive Eesurrection through the dying and rising of Christ, which this volume heralds and vindicates but current Theology still ignores, gives the keynote for the all-conquering Missionary Theology of this last decade of the Nineteenth Century.

This Evangelizing Missionary Theology is built upon the two fundamental principles and facts of Christianity, first, That God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everinsists upon these things, but because by the greatness of his gift as an inspired poet, and by the wise and gracious temper of his spirit, he has wrought these things into the minds and hearts of his generation. He induces religious faith by his own example and experience. For he is himself so heavily charged with it that its virtue goes out from him into all his words.— T. T. Munger, D.D. : The Religious Influence of Whittier.

INTRODUCTION. XI

lasting life; and second, All that are in the gn-vesshall hear His voice, and shall come forth by the power of Christ, to appear again befo- e God in the realm of the living.

Preached "To Every Creature" by elect-missionaries of the Cross baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire, and free to declare to the heathen all the Counsel of God — this simple yet sublime Missionary Theology will ring the paean of victory to the ends of the earth that has been made ready so wonderfully for present subjection to Christ, through all this closing Century of Providential preparation. Poetry invokes it in the optimist strains of Tennyson :

Ring out the old. ring in the new; Ring out the false, ring in the true- Ring out the want, the care, the sin; Ring in the Christ that is to win.

Let every honest reader, especially let every loyal Presbyterian — nay, more, let every fervent follower of the risen reigning and coming Messiah triumphantly take it up, and pass it on with an ictus of enthusiasm, until the sublime vision of the Evangelical Prophet be realized —

One song employ all nations, and all cry,

" Worthy the Lamb, for He was slain for us!"

The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks

Shout to each other, and the mountain-tops

From distant mountains catch the flying joy;

Till, nation after nation taught the strain,

Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round 1

1X11 INTRODUCTION.

To this swiftly coming issue, this longed-for consummation, the great Presbyterian Church may now largely contribute, by her consecrated wealth and her sanctified sons and daughters.

Be- vitalized by the in -dwelling Spirit, and her creed so harmoniously re-shapen and re-adjusted to the simple certainties of divine revelation, as to satisfy and hold in hearty loyalty all her present Presbyters, and to attract to herself a noble company of enthusiastic applicants for the privilege of preaching the "glorious gospel of the blessed God" under her sheltering wing — she will go forth among the peoples from conquering to conquer.

The Scriptures of truth interpreted by the Holy Spirit through the reverent studies of men of faith and prayer, her only inerrant guide : — her Eschatology so revised and simplified as to embrace only the proven verities of reason and inspiration; her controversies composed; her Presbyters united; her heresy-hunting over; her missionaries in pagan and Moslem lands given the endowment of power from on high, and preaching everywhere the risen reigning, coming Christ, and the pending resurrection, both of the just and of the unjust ; and great multitudes becoming obedient to the faith,*

*I cannot agree with the conviction of those who think that this new creation of faith will be only a repetition of what took place in the 16th or 17th century, and that the whole dogmatic system, and the entire mode of contemplating divine and human things, must

INTRODUCTION. Xlll

in answer to prayer that, as the great preacher put it who has so lately passed into the Heavens, is not conquering God's reluctance, but taking hold of God's willingness.

These are the conditions under which the Church of Augustine and Luther, of Calvin and Knox, of Chalmers and Guthrie and the Bonars in the Old World ; of Davies and Witherspoon and the Alexanders Hodges and Barnes of the New World, — is to do its noble part in the near conquest of Humanity for Christ.

It is for the living successors at this day of such men to advance the Kingdom of Christ with an inspired holy enthusiasm, on the providential lines of duty and devotion, by which the Master is so plainly leading :

Till, Lo ! There breaks a yet more glorious day:

The saints triumphant rise in bright array ;

The King of Glory passes on His way !

From earth's wide bounds, from ocean's farthest

coast, Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host, Singing to Father, Son and Holy Ghost !

return as it then existed. Well may the noble words of Luther be applied to those who cling to the old rotten posts of a scaffolding raised by human hands, as if they were needed for the divine building : When at a window, I have gazed on the stars of Heaven and the whole beautiful vault, and saw no pillars on which the

XIV INTRODUCTION.

Builder had set such a vault, yet the Heavens fell not in ; and that vault still stands firm. Now there are simple folk who look about for such pillars and would fain grasp and feel them. But since they cannot do this, they quake and tremble, as if the Heavens would certainly fall in ; and for no other reason than because they cannot grasp and see the pillars. If they could but lay hold of them, then the Heavens ( they think ) would stand firm enough. — Neander's History of the Planting and Training of the Christian Church, page 10, Vol. L

Henry Theodore Cheever.

Worcester, Mass., April, 1893.

BIBLE ESCHATOLOGY:

Its Belation to the Presbyterian Standards

and the Basal Principles that must

Underlie their Eeyision :

in three parts.

PART FIRST. Current Eschatology of Christendom

Man is a son of God on whom the devil has laid his liand, not a child of the devil whom God is trying to steal. — Phillips Brooks.

To see a thing and to express the thing exactly as one sees it, is the greatest thing in the world. — Ruskin.

Heresy is an error ; intolerance a sin ; persecution a crime. — Philip Schajps History of the Christian Church, Vol VII. page 693.

THE CURRENT ESCHATOLOGY OF CHRIS- TENDOM: ITS RELATION TO THE IM- PENDING REVISION OF THE PRESBY- TERIAN STANDARDS, AND THE PRIN- CIPLES UNDERLYING THAT REVISION: BEING A REVIEW OF THE POSITION AND PRINCIPLES OF THE PRESBYTE- RIAN DIVINE AND AUTHOR, REV. LEWIS C. BAKER. 1

There have been lately brought to light in that large and powerful Division of the Church in this country called Presbyterian, certain facts and tendencies of great pith and moment ; involving as they do the law of Christian freedom and progress, as well as the liberty of prophesying, and what John Bright termed the Right of Reform. They bear so

1 The Mystery of Creation and of Man, with Appendix upon the Eschatology of the Future. By L. C. Baker. J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia, 1886. Pages 232.

The Fire of God's Anger, or Light from the Old Testament upon the New, concerning Future Punishment. By L. C. Baker; Philadelphia, 1887. Pages 290.

Words of Reconciliation. Eight Volumes. A monthly magazine. L. C. Baker, editor and publisher, 2022 Delancey Place, Philadelphia.

strongly, moreover, upon certain vital points of doctrine and eschatology which are now commanding general attention, that open discussion of them can no longer be stifled or evaded.

In the State of New Jersey, an able, exemplary and tried Presbyter, a well-known and experienced author and editor, a citizen of no mean city, has in his own person innocently forced a question upon his peers, that must be met and gravely considered; not in the Presbyterian Church merely, but by Biblical Students and Theologians at large. A calm inquiry concerning it may lead to the conclusion that what to many minds is a novel view of resurrection as Redemptive in purpose and effect, in character and result, will be found to be the unifying principle of reconciliation between Counter Schools of Theology, if not the Ultima Thule of legitimate discovery in the obscure realm of Eschatology.

The late debates in the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of 1891-92 which have issued in a veto, by a vote of seven to one, upon the appointment of a learned Professor to a Chair in Biblical History in the Union Theological Seminary of New York, are but an exponent and proof of a profound movement that is going on throughout Christendom. Nor is it too much to say with reference to that movement, that the doctrine of the Resurrection as related to the future of the human race, is the keystone in the arch of the Christian Faith, if not the key itself to the solemn problem of human destiny.

It was not a mere random remark of the lamented Professor, Dr. Henry B. Smith, but it was the deliberate judgment of the wise Theologian himself not long before his death, " That what Eeformed Theology has to do is to Christologize Predestination and Decrees, Eegeneration and Sanctification, the Doctrine of the Church, and the whole of Escha-