"The car"Therefore

befooled by the old-fashioned preaching, and that they are not guilty of Adam's sin! We have known three of them, in speedy succession, before the same congregation, to make this the burden of their cheery, disenthralling song. What can be the aim of all this unless it is to imply that there is no other Scripture sense of sin and guilt but that which is strictly personal and literally voluntary? and that there is little or no meaning in such passages as these: "And were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." (Eph. 2: 3.) nal mind is enmity against God." (Rom. 8: 7.) as by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation." "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners." (Rom. 5: 18, 19.) Yea, we have heard a very popular preacher, on the text, "Come unto me all ye that labor," &c., tell his impenitent hearers that they should not expect, at this day, to feel the deep and pungent convictions for sin which were formerly common, since the offers of mercy were now made so plain, and were so well understood, that no one could separate them in his mind from the conviction of ill-desert!

Thus the New theology flows naturally from the seminary and newspaper fountains, through all the streams, and into all the gardens of the Lord. It is no wonder that church creeds are so often, of late, stripped of their Calvinistic articles, and the innovation openly justified by the argument that creeds were only designed as tests of incipient Christian character, and not as outlines and standards of Scripture doctrine. No. wonder the distinguishing principles of the Gospel are so little preached and understood! No wonder the old-fashioned invitation to the sacrament of the Supper is now so often modified to include all that choose to consider themselves Christians! No wonder there is such a readiness to welcome into church fellowship, and to patch up hopes for the doubting ones who cannot conscientiously say that to them, "Old things have passed away, and all things have become new"! It is but the carnal policy, more or less distinct, of Mr. Worldly Wiseman in opposition to plain old Evangelist. He would not indeed have Christian go back to the City of Destruction; neither would he have him encounter all the perils, reproaches, toil,

and conflict of a pilgrimage in the old straight way. He would have him, by all means, send for his wife and children and live in a pleasant respectable way in the beautiful village of Morality in the great town of Carnal Policy.

In fact there is nothing but a return to, and a faithful application of, the homely, outspoken, primitive theology of the unchanging Bible which can rescue the Church from the mournful laxness of discipline which is now opening wide the doors of the Church to the world, and thus virtually turning the Church out of doors. Nothing but this God-given and Heaven-blest old way of the Fathers that can correct the prevailing, insane desire for exciting, showy Union meetings, and for superficial, Union literature which dilutes the Gospel and debauches the taste of the Church, leading it to clamor for the preaching which will draw, like a theatre, the masses of the people.

It is not true, as is so flippantly said, that the churches sufficiently understand the distinguishing and controlling doctrines of the Gospel; and the shepherds will have a solemn account to render therefor. What Christian understands enough of Christ and his Cross, which is but another expression for the whole cluster of Christian principles, and which alone the Apostle determined to preach and teach? Disguise it as we may, it is a fearful sign of the prevalence of new and perverting theology that multitudes in the churches are profoundly ignorant of the teachings of the Scriptures concerning the divine way of justifying lost sinners. Though there are no themes so interesting to healthy and vigorous minds, we ask what proportion of the congregations, or even of the churches, can give you any clear definition of what is meant by Regeneration, Justification, Adoption, and Sanctification? How many can enumerate the divine attributes, and not be stricken dumb when told that they believe three persons to be one person, and one God to be three Gods? How many can converse intelligently about the office-work of the Holy Spirit, the ground of the Christian hope of Perseverance, or the state into which the race fell by the sin of our first parents? And if these and their kindred subjects are so poorly comprehended, what hope may we reasonably indulge that Christians will stand fast, when new and plausible errors spring up, and that they will not be "carried about by every wind of

doctrine"? What hope that, ere long, we shall not have, in every church, the talkative Mr. By-ends with all his numerous relations; "and in particular my Lord Turn-about, my Lord Time-server, my Lord Fair-speech; also Mr. Smoothman, Mr. Facing-both-ways, Mr. Any-thing; and the parson of our parish, Mr. Two-tongues, was my mother's own brother, by father's side; and to tell you the truth, I am become a gentleman of good quality; yet my great-grandfather was but a waterman, looking one way and rowing another, and I got most of my estate by the same occupation."

The last evidence of our drifting from the old standards which I shall mention, is found in the common confessions of church-members. The very mention of the themes of the Shorter Catechism in the presence of young, excitable America, creates laughter and ridicule. Imagine the Apostle Paul to arise and to go into our bookstores, our counting-rooms, our shops, and seriously introduce the doctrines which the early Christians so loved; and how quick the lip of the fast Christian of our day curls with sport or with scorn, while the author of the Epistle to the Romans turns pale and trembles with amazement to hear, "Why, you do not really puzzle your head with, or read on, these subjects nowadays, do you? Why, these old doctrines are dead and buried long ago. Nobody studies the Catechism now. Does your minister preach on such subjects? He must be two hundred years behind the times. There is but here and there an old fogy who cares a fig for that kind of Christian literature. It is extremely unpopular even in Puritan New England. Why, Sir, you are not awake to the times in which we live. Mind is active, ministers must be wide awake or they'll be left behind. Everything goes by steam now. We do not go to heaven in the lonely, slow, and toilsome way of former ages. They have a railroad, Sir, and go in cheerful crowds by steam, and have a good social time of it too. That old slough of despond has been entirely filled up by the liberality and public spirit of this wonderful age. The wicket gate was a very narrow and bigoted entrance, Sir; and it has been greatly widened and beautified. Bunyan's old friend, Evangelist, who used to give each Christian a roll to carry and to examine with so much care, is

now ticket-master, who gives to each passenger a neat card which he has only to hand to the conductor, Mr. Smooth-itaway. Instead of having to carry our bundles on our back, according to the ridiculous old fashion, we deposit them safely in the baggage-car, and receive checks as security that they shall be restored to us at the end of the journey. Yea, we have even persuaded Old Apolyon, who used to give such annoyance to pilgrims, to be our engineer, and a capital one he makes too. The famous Hill Difficulty, Sir, is tunnelled right through; and when we pass, as we do now and then, one or two of the obstinate, old-fashioned, grim pilgrims, who still persist in going the old way, our wide awake engineer puffs steam in their faces, to the great amusement of the happy passengers."

Surely, "Time is the greatest innovator; and if time of course alters things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?"

ARTICLE II.

WILL FUTURE PUNISHMENT BE MERELY THE RESULTS OF NATURAL LAWS?

WE Confess to "heresy-hunting" in this article. The charge often made is true of us in this endeavor. We hear and believe that the bulls of Bashan have come even unto the mountains that are round about Jerusalem. We have ourselves seen where the boar out of the wood has broken down the hedges, and wasted the vineyard of the Lord. With a frank avowal of our purpose, zeal, and expectation, we enter on the chase.

We confess, also, to an effort in this article for "a divisive movement" among the churches to such an extent, if possible, as to separate between the older theology of New England and certain modern innovations, called "improvements," in the condition of the lost. And if we succeed in bringing back

into favor some doctrines, "older than any now extant" in many pulpits, we shall have gained our end. We hope also to create and strengthen "demands for more stringent measures to guard the old Theology."

There is not a greater question now agitating the pews, the pulpits, and the theological world, than the condition of the impenitent dead. Something of piety, but far more of carnal reason and a deranged philanthropy, and most of all the restless enmity of the convict against the law, are moving a discussion of this question. The interest felt in it is wide and profound, and such anxiety is there in some evangelical quarters to break away from old fastenings, that the strain on creeds and ordaining councils is very great. The doctrine of Calvin, Edwards, and Griffin on this question, is not now popular and acceptable with many who call themselves Calvinistic and Edwardian. There is a feeling growing up with belles-lettres scholarship in the pulpit, and refinement in the congregation, that such a doctrine does not harmonize with the humanities and philanthropy of the age. It is esteemed abhorrent from a refined and tender piety. So it is suppressed by the preacher, while he gives attention to "practical" topics. He does not eject it from the creed of the church. That would alarm the older membership and suggest universalism. The dogma is retained, but as a country-parlor, that is never opened and aired for use. The doctrine is qualified and compromised in various ways. Some invent, as Olshausen in his "Commentary of the New Testament," so common and popular with the younger ministry, a second probation, and so lay broad ground for universal restoration. Some confound disciplinary with penal suffering in this world, as the author of Nemesis Sacra, who pleads for retribution here, and by a confused philosophy spreads the outlines of hope for the ungodly in the world to come. Others, perplexed by the vastness of the idea of everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, come out boldly for the annihilation of the wicked.

But the less suspicious and more agreeable form of weakening and wasting this doctrine of future retribution, is to limit and qualify its mode of administration by confining it to the action of natural laws. Thus God is withdrawn, positive punishment is