[203] Romans, iii. 28.
Some of the early Fathers maintained that the interference and suffering of Christ, in itself, unconditionally saved all souls and emptied hell for ever;[204] but this theory never became popular. According to St. Augustine and, subsequently, Calvinian theology, the benefits of the atonement are limited to those whom God, of his sovereign pleasure, has from eternity arbitrarily elected, the effect of faith and conversion being not to save the soul, but simply to convince the soul that it is saved. A third theory—that of Pelagius, Armenius, and Luther—attributes to the sufferings of Christ a conditional efficacy, depending upon personal faith in his vicarious atonement, whereas those who for some reason or other do not possess such faith are excluded from salvation. A fourth doctrine, which early began to be constructed by the Fathers and was adopted by the Roman Catholic and the consistent portion of the Episcopalian Church, declares that by Christ’s vicarious suffering power is given to the Church, a priestly hierarchy, to save those who confess her authority and observe her rites, whilst all others are lost. Certain sectarians, like the Unitarians, or those “liberal Christians” who do not feel themselves tied by the dogmas of any special creed, are the only ones among whom we meet with the opinion that a free soul, who by the immutable laws which the Creator has established may choose between good and evil, is saved or lost just so far and so long as it partakes of either the former or the latter.[205]
[204] Alger, History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, pp. 550-552, 563. Farrar, Mercy and Judgment, p. 58 sq.
[205] Alger, op. cit. p. 553 sqq.
According to the leading doctrines of Christianity, then, the fates of men beyond the grave are determined by quite other circumstances than what the moral consciousness by itself recognises as virtue or vice. They are all doomed to death and hell in consequence of Adam’s sin, and their salvation, if not absolutely predestined, can only be effected by sincere faith in the atonement of Christ or by valid reception of sacramental grace at the hands of a priest. Persons who on intellectual or moral grounds are unable to accept the dogma of atonement or to acknowledge the authority of an exacting hierarchy, are subject to the most awful penalties for a sin committed by their earliest ancestor, and so are the countless millions of heathen who never even had an opportunity to embrace the Christian religion. Luther was considered to have shown an exceptional boldness when he expressed the hope that “our dear God would be merciful to Cicero, and to others like him.”[206] In the Westminster Confession of Faith the Divines declared the opinion that men not professing Christianity may be saved to be “very pernicious, and to be detested”;[207] and in their Larger Catechism they expressly said that “they who, having never heard the gospel, know not Jesus Christ, and believe not in him, cannot be saved, be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature, or the laws of that religion which they profess.”[208] This doctrine has had many adherents up to the present time,[209] although a more liberal view in favour of virtuous heathen has obviously been gaining ground.[210] Even in the case of Christians errors in belief on such subjects as church government, the Trinity, transubstantiation, original sin, and predestination, have been declared to expose the guilty to eternal damnation.[211] In the seventeenth century it was a common theme of certain Roman Catholic writers that “Protestancy unrepented destroys salvation,”[212] while the Protestants on their part taxed Du Moulin with culpable laxity for admitting that some Roman Catholics might escape the torments of hell.[213] Nathanael Emmons, the sage of Franklin, tells us that “it is absolutely necessary to approve of the doctrine of reprobation in order to be saved.”[214]
[206] Farrar, op. cit. p. 146.
[207] Confession of Faith, x. 4.
[208] Larger Catechism, Answer to Question 60.
[209] Farrar, op. cit. p. 146 sq.
[210] Prentiss, ‘Infant Salvation,’ in Presbyterian Review, iv. 576. For earlier instances of this opinion see Abbot, ‘Literature of the Doctrine of a Future Life,’ forming an Appendix to Alger’s History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, pp. 859, 863, 865.