quainted with the convenient forms of speech among theologians. But when Theology is the subject expressly treated, and that for the instruction of theological students, candidates for the gospel ministry, a sneer at technicalities, will be understood and passed for what it is worth. Our author shall speak for himself. "The following," says he, "is a succinct and true account of the matter: (viz: the justification of a sinner before God,) upon condition of the mediatorial death and work of Christ, (which work, of course, according to his own showing as above noticed, was obedience for Himself that could no more than justify Himself,) the penitent and believing soul is freely pardoned and received to favor, as if he had not sinned, while he remains penitent and believing, subject however to condemnation and eternal death, unless he holds fast the beginning of his confidence to the end of life." Language cannot possibly affirm, more clearly and pointedly, that the believer justifies himself by his own personal obedience. In doing so he departs, as wide as the poles, from those whose confession of faith he pronounces "fabulous and better befitting a romance than a system of theology." He carries out his doctrine boldly, and tracing the details of human obedience, makes each specific part a condition of justification before God." "Repentance, also, is a condition of our justification. "Faith in Christ is another condition of our justification." "Sanctification is another condition of justification.""" "Perseverance in faith and obedience, or in consecration to God, is also an unalterable condition of justification or of pardon or acceptance with God." Here, again, our author has lost sight of, or does not care to notice the distinction-so common and carefully made, among those whom he so charitably denounces as Antinomians-between the condition, and the indispensable evidences of a justified state. Faith, repentance, sanctification, perseverance in holy obedience, and maintaining our confidence and steadfastness in him unto the end, are all regarded as essential tokens or proofs of a gracious state, the evidences that pardon and acceptance with God are truly had, and that we are the children of his adoption. The difference is radical between these things, as traits of character, the accompaniments or results of justification, the offerings of love, and as conditions of justification. So far as the developements of holiness are concerned, the former is a much more efficient mode of securing them, than the latter. Our author's zeal here is out of place. He must not attribute, as do many of his followers, all the holiness abroad, to the influence of his system. As much conscientiousness, zeal and devotedness to God, with far more of fidelity to Jesus Christ and to covenant engagements, of humility, and far less of self-conceit, and 'Fin. Syst., III., p. 160. 2 III, p. 103. 'III, p. 106. 'III, p. 155. spiritual pride, and a vastly better morality, may be found among those whom he reprobates as Antinomians, than among modern theological quacks and pretenders to perfection. In all his extended attempt to apply his philosophy to the doctrine of justification by faith, he has not defined carefully the meaning in which he uses the word condition. This, in a work on systematic theology, to say the least, is a great defect. The word, it is well known, is variously used; sometimes to denote, "the state in which things are put or placed together;" sometimes "the qualities attributes or properties of persons or things whether good or bad;" either general or particular, accidental or inherent, physical or moral;" sometimes "the whole or partial circumstances under which anything is done or required to be done;" and at others, "the actions, services, or previous terms, which, it is agreed, or covenanted, bargained or stipulated, shall be performed by one party to entitle to or secure other things to be done by another party." In which particular sense he employs the word, it does not always appear; but the idea that "would most naturally" be suggested to the ordinary reader is the latter. It would seem, that he designed, occasionally, to use it as it is employed in philosophy. But even in this "sense," he is far from being explicit and careful in its use. In speaking of some accident, or circumstance, which is not essential to the thing, but which is yet necessary to its production, we are apt to say of it, that it is a condition without which, a sine qua non as light, is a condition of vision, without which, though a man have good eyes, he cannot see objects, and air, of life, without which, though a man have good lungs, and be in health, he cannot even breathe. Reconciliation to God, confidence in Him, repentance, love and holiness, may thus be styled indispensable to justification and salvation; but not at all in the popular sense of the term as meritorious terms or works or duties prerequisite and conducing to it. Those whom he condemns as Antinomians, admit and teach, that faith, repentance, love and new obedience characterize a justified state, and that as qualities, attributes, properties, indispensably necessary as evidences of the fact of justification, as its invariable accompaniments, they may, in the philosophic sense of the word, be called conditions; but they deprecate the use of the term, because this is not its popular sense, and is eminently calculated, to engender and foster a selfrighteous spirit, and to lead into dangerous practical error. Edwards says: "Here, if I may humbly express what seems evident to me, though faith be indeed the condition of justification, so as nothing else is, yet this matter is not clearly and sufficiently explained by saying, that faith is the condition of justification; and that because the word seems ambiguous, both in common use, and also as used in divinity. In one sense, Christ alone performs the condition of our justification and salvation; in another sense, faith is the condition of justification; and in anothet sense, other qualifications and acts are conditions of salvation and justification. There is a difference between being justified by a thing, and that thing universally, necessarily, and inseparably attending justification; for so do a great many things that we are not said to be justified by. It is not the inseparable connection with justification that the Holy Ghost would signify, or that is naturally signified by such a phrase." Our author's views of the nature of justification, determine his meaning of the word condition. It is in the sense, not of a sine qua non, that he uses it, but of things previously to be done by man, before God can perform His part; for he says, roundly, and without qualification, as his objection to a full and free present, immutable and eternal justification by God, inseparable from that faith in Jesus Christ, which changes the relation of the believer to the penalty of the law, and to its commanding power as a covenant of works,-that "it is Antinomianism"""impossible it should be true, for God is not the author of the moral law, and He cannot abrogate it, either as to its precept or to its penalty," "inconsistent with forgiveness or pardon," renders it, "out of place for one who has once believed to ask for the pardon of sin," "a downright insult to God and apostacy from Christ," " wrong and impious," to do so, and at war with the whole Bible." "The Bible," he says, "in almost every variety of manner, represents perseverance in faith and obedience to the end, as a condition of ultimate justification and final salvation," confounding relations and things that differ. Not one of the passages he cites, without comment or attempt at exposition, to sustain these objections and positions, prove them at all. We have endeavored fully and faithfully to present our author's views, as they seem to us to stand in contrast with the Scriptures, and with the faith of the Reformed churches, and of the men of whom the world is not worthy. The manner in which his philosophy has effected and transformed his ideas of justification, and led him forward in ruthless censure and condemnation of "the faith once delivered to the saints," has been made apparent. Starting with his philosophical ideas of the nature and ground of moral obligation, and assuming the gospel to be a mere system of moral government, according to which, God treats with individuals, solely and exclusively, on their own personal responsibility, instead of its being a gracious constitution, providing for favors through a public or federal Head, he has obliterated, from his creed, the precious doctrine of justification by faith, through the righteousness of Christ, without the deeds of the law. Edwards' Works, Vol. V. p. 356. 2 Fin. Sys., III., p. 153. [To be continued.] 1848.] Skepticism in Relation to the Missionary Enterprise. 453 ARTICLE III. SKEPTICISM IN RELATION TO THE MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE. By JOSEPH P. THOMPSON, Pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle Church, New York THE great work which Christ has committed to his disciplesthe evangelization of the world-has been strangely delayed. It was prosecuted with vigor for the first three centuries; the gospel was carried into Armenia, Iberia, Arabia, Persia, and even India in the East; into Ethiopia and other parts of Africa; into Gaul and Britain in the West. But this primitive zeal in propagating the gospel declined, as Christianity became corrupted, and as the church was converted into a vast hierarchical organization, and eventually allied itself with the civil power. True, the numerical strength and the area of Christendom continued to increase. The downfall of the Roman empire, brought Christianity and civilization into contact with the tribes of the North, and several of the German nations became nominally Christian. Even during the dark ages, nominal Christianity continued to spread, chiefly in the North of Europe; occasionally, as in Russia, in the eleventh century, it was inaugurated as the religion of the state; and as the church became at length the great central power of the world. Here and there the pure gospel was kept alive; now and then, a sincere and devoted missionary would go forth and labor in the spirit of primitive times; but this long period witnessed mainly but the enlargement of the nominal church, and the extension of an ecclesiastical corporation; by no means the thorough evangelizing of the world; much less the conversion of mankind to the faith and practice of the gospel. The sixteenth century was the age of reformation; its powerful agitations were confined within the pale of Christendom; its work was renovation, not aggression; although the Romish church, weakened in many parts of Europe, embarked in various "projects of hierarchical ambition" in pagan lands. Loyola stands pre-eminent as a model of missionary zeal. The seventeenth century witnessed occasional incipient missionary movements, among the Swiss, the Dutch, the Swedes, the British, and the inhabitants of the North American colonies, which were rather the quickening of the church into life than the activity of life itself. The last century gave birth to numerous missionary associations, and reduced to system the work of evangelizing the world, then distinctly recognized as a Christian duty. The present century has carried out that system with increased zeal and energy, and on an enlarged scale; has multiplied benevolent associations, and the means of prosecuting the work of missions; and has established that work in the hearts of Christians as the great enterprise of the church. There are now in Protestant Christendom, upwards of twenty principal foreign missionary societies or boards, (exclusive of district, local and auxiliary associations); whose annual income exceeds $3,000,000; whose missionaries, numbering nearly 2,000, occupy 1,400 stations, employ 50 printing establishments and about 5,000 native and other assistants; while the missions combined exhibit some 200,000 converts in Christian communion, and a still greater number of children and adults in schools.1 Now all this is high-sounding, and seems like progress. It seems as if the church had indeed resolved to make the missionary enterprise "the glory of the age," and to bring it to a speedy consummation. Relatively, there has been progress-rapid, great and encouraging; and yet the evangelizing of the world, rightly viewed, is to be looked upon, rather as a work which has been and yet is retarded, than as a work progressing rapidly toward completion; as a work which ought long since to have been done, but which has been, and yet is unworthily delayed. How strange that after 1800 years, with the known will of Christ, that His gospel should be everywhere proclaimed, and with the facilities afforded in every age for doing that work, it should still be true, that the world, the great, preponderating mass of earth's inhabitants "lieth in wickedness," that, in the eloquent language of Foster, Christianity, after "laboring in a difficult progress, and very limited extension, and being perverted from its purpose into darkness and superstition, for a period of a thousand years," is "at the present hour known, and even nominally acknowledged by very greatly the minority of the race, the mighty mass remaining prostrate under the infernal dominion of which countless generations of their ancestors have been the slaves and victims-a deplorable majority of the people in the Christian nations, strangers to the vital power of Christianity, and a large proportion directly hostile to it, while its progress in the work of conversion, in even the most favored part of the world, is distanced by the progressive increase of the population."" Such a picture is widely different from that scene of millenial glory which many have supposed was about to be ushered in. A little cool arithmetic will suffice to dispel the dream of the conversion of the world in our generation, and to show us (in the words of the writer just referred to,) that "at the rate of the progress hitherto of genuine Christianity on the globe, thousands of years may pass away before These statistics are necessarily imperfect; they are chiefly derived from Hoole's "Year Book of Missions," for 1847. * Letter to Dr. Harris. Life and Correspondence, Vol. II. |