18 T. S. King, Endless Punishment Unchristian and Unreasonable, p. 65.
qualifying it as to destroy its identity.
The third plan of delivering souls from the doom supposed to rest on them attributes to the vicarious sufferings of Christ a conditional efficacy, depending upon personal faith. Every one who will heartily believe in the substitutional death of Christ, and trust in his atoning merits, shall thereby be saved. This was the system of Pelagius, Arminius, Luther. It prevails now in the so called Evangelical Churches more generally than any other system.
The fourth received method of salvation, assuming the same premises which the three foregoing schemes assume, namely, that through the fall all men are eternally sentenced to hell, declares that, by Christ's vicarious sufferings, power is given to the Church, a priestly hierarchy, to save such as confess her authority and observe her rites. All others must continue lost.19 This theory early began to be constructed and broached by the Fathers. It is held by the Roman Catholic Church, and by all the consistent portion of the Episcopalian. A part of the Baptist denomination also through their popular preachers, if not in their recognised symbols assert the indispensableness of ritual baptism to salvation.
The fifth view of the problem is that no soul is lost or doomed except so far as it is personally, voluntarily depraved and sinful. And even to that extent, and in that sense, it can be called lost only in the present life. After death every soul is freed from evil, and ushered at once into heaven. This is the distinctive doctrine of the ultra Universalists. It is disappearing from among its recent advocates. As a body they have already exchanged its arbitrary conceptions of "death and glory" for the more rational conclusions of the "Restorationists." 20
The sixth and final scheme of Christian salvation teaches that, by the immutable laws which the Creator has established in and over his works and creatures, a free soul may choose good or evil, truth or falsehood, love or hate, beneficence or iniquity. Just so far and just so long as it partakes of the former it is saved; as it partakes of the latter it is lost, that is, alienates the favor of God, forfeits so much of the benefits of creation and of the blessings of being. The conditions and means of repentance, reformation, regeneration, are always within its power, the future state being but the unencumbered, more favorable experience of the spiritual elements of the present, under the same Divine constitution and laws. This is the common belief of Unitarians and Universalists, the latter alone teaching it as a sure doctrine of Revelation.
Salvation by purchase, by the redeeming blood of Christ; salvation by election, by the independent decree of God, sealed by the blood of Christ; salvation by faith, by an appropriating faith in the blood of Christ; salvation by the Church, by the sacraments made efficacious to that end by the blood of Christ; salvation by nature, by the irresistible working of the natural order of things, declared by the teachings of Christ; salvation by a resurrection from the dead, miraculously effected by the delegated power of Christ; salvation by character, by conformity of character to the spiritual laws of the universe, to the nature and will of God, revealed, urged, exemplified, by the whole mission of Christ; these are the different theories
19 Adams, Mercy to Babes. (A plea for the baptism of infants, that they may not be damned.)
20 Adin Ballou, Universalism and Restorationism Moral Contraries, 1837.
proposed for the acceptance of Christians.