Love's Final Victory / Ultimate Universal Salvation on the Basis of Scripture and Reason

by Horatio

THE DEPARTED MORE AMENABLE.

Explain it as we may, we have always to remember that there are myriads of human beings living now, and other myriads who have departed, who had no chance to know the way of life. Will not the God of all mercy and of all resource provide them with a chance on the other side of death? The mere accident of death makes no change in them. And who knows if the departed may not be more amenable to good influence then, than now? I have heard of heathens who heard the Gospel but once, and they received it, and were saved. It may be so with poor lost souls who had no opportunity on this side of time.

One thing I cannot understand; and that is, the liberal terms in which men at times express themselves, who yet profess the narrow orthodox view. I do not say they are insincere; but it does seem as if they deliberately ignored their own creed, and that they spoke for the time out of the conviction and sincerity of their hearts. Just now, glancing through a certain magazine, I have come on an instance of this kind. The writer is a professor in a so-called orthodox Seminary. I leave any fair-minded reader to say if his utterances are at all in harmony with his professed orthodoxy. Here are a few of his sentences, selected almost at random from a long article:

"In this swift day of unmatched opportunity, the Church is laboring, perplexed and heavy, over its message." That is true enough. And I think the secret of the Church being "perplexed and heavy" is, that preachers must have an inward, unspoken conviction that their message of a limited salvation is unworthy of God, and unsuited to the needs of the world. No wonder the Church is "perplexed and heavy!"

Again this author says: "Men want to know that all the lines of diverse human life converge into one infinite, beneficent hand." But if that "infinite, beneficent hand" has cast by far the greater part of the human race into eternal torment, it is no wonder if thoughtful men are "perplexed and heavy."

Yet the writer of this article believes in universal love. He says: "Men want to see that their single life, so lost alone, is vitally bound into the bundle of universal love." So the author's instinct is better than his creed. He professes to believe in universal love. That is surely all right. But notwithstanding that, he professes to believe that untold millions of the human race are in endless suffering.

In another place he says: "Men long to be assured that this is no universe of short, fortuitous details." He also says: "The Kingdom of God is too great for less than universal participation." Is this not universalism? Yet, if the author were asked, would not his creed require him to repudiate such an idea?

Again, this author says: "A few years ago science and human thought were accepting an account of life which let a man fall like a beast in the field, or a tree in the wood. To-day that explanation satisfies no one. It is agreed that the meaning of life can be complete only in terms of spirit and immortality." Is not the old doctrine of reprobation here utterly denied? Yet that old doctrine of reprobation stands in the creed of the orthodox church to-day.

One more quotation will suffice. Speaking of the divine plan, the author says that it is "a plan so complete that no sparrow falls beyond it, that no act falls fruitless, that there shall never be one lost good, that no living soul made in God's image can ever drift beyond His love and care." Is not this a flat contradiction of the author's orthodox creed? We believe that all he claims is absolutely true. But is he candid? Why has not the church the courage to expunge the old fatalism from her creed, and present to the world a statement that she really believes? I am persuaded that such candor is the desideratum of the world to-day.

To a thoughtful mind, the most evangelical preachers are at times unintelligible, and even contradictory, on such themes. Take this extract from a sermon by Mr. Moody, published some time ago. He says "Christ will return to the earth, for he has bought it with his own blood, and is going to have it. He has redeemed it; and the Father is going to give it to him."