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July 3, 1912] THE
IS THIS UNIVERSALIBM?
A vigorous writer of our sister church, the
Methodist Episcopal, South, having lately expressed
himself thus, "Methodists have never
taught regeneration in infancy, but that regeneration
in the full Christian sense take*, place
only as, in conscious need, the soul cleaves to
Christ as a personal Saviour." Another strong
writer of the same church takes him to task and
calls this erroneous teaching. The discussion is
of interest as showing how strongly Arminianism
looks in the direction of universalism. If, as
the second writer referred to maintains, all infants
are regenerated at birth or preceding birth,
then salvation is for all, or srrace is no more
grace. A regenerated person is a saved person,
whether that regeneration takes place in infancy
or in maturity, or the Spirit's work is vain. It is
of the Spirit that one is born again. And if all
are regenerated in infancy, "at birth, or preceding
birth," as our brother olaims that his
church teaches, then all are saved. "We are certainly
not prepared to believe that any church
possessed of as splendid an evangelistic soint
and composed of as earnest students and followers
of the blessed Word of God as is that sister
church will allow itself to be put in such an
attitude.
Here is the argument which the writer uses
to show that the brother whom he criticizes is
guilty of "erroneous teaching:"
"1. One Rev. John Wesley, A. M., 'Sometime
Fellow of Lincoln College. Oxford.' wrote: 'It
is certain our Church supposes that all who are
baptized in their infancy are at the same time
born again; * nor is it an objection of
any weight against this, that we cannot comprehend
how this work can be wrought in infants.'
(Ser. xiv., iv., 2). Observe that this sermon xiv
is one of those designated officially and specifically
as part of the Standards of Doctrine of
the Methodists, and this man, John Wesley, was
certainly a Methodist. We may not agree with
Mr. Wesley in this indorsement of the teaching
of the English Church relative to the manner or
occasion of infant regeneration; and we are not
discussing this question; but I cite this passage
to show that the first and chief Methodist believed
and taught the fact of infant regeneration.
"2. One Rev. John Fletcher, a co-worker of
Wesley, and a famous Methodist, wrote: 'I have
proved the justification of infants from Rom.
b:18: "As by the offense of Adam, judgment
same upon all men to condemnation; even so by
the righteousness of Christ, the free gift came
upon all men to justification of life"?
this justification comes upon all men in their infancy.'
(IVth Check, Letter x. I. Cf., Equal
Check Pt. I, second Head?a footnote.)
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the Methodist Episcopal Church, has written:
Another of the benefits, then, accruing to infants
through the atonement is that they are
justified, are in a state of salvation, which is not
different from the same state in an adult believer.'
(Christianity and Childhood, p. 110.)
"4. Our own Methodist Discipline distinctly
^ays: ' All men, though fallen in Adam, are born
into this world in Christ the Redeemer heirs of
life eternal and subjects of the saving grace of
the Holy Spirit.' (Par. 664 ) If these words
do not mean that all men are born into this
world in a state of regeneration, they do not
mean anything
"Saying nothing of the teaching of such men
as Fletcher of Madeley and Bishop Cooke, how
?&n Brother Lipscomb face the words of Methodism's
founder and the Discipline of his own
Methoditet Episcopal Church, South, and say:
'Methodists have never tamrht rpcrpnomtinn in
infancy T' Soma Methodists, like himself, may
not have ever taught it, following the Calvinists,
who have until now. stoutly refused to teach it;
but from Methodism's very beginning Methodists
have taught the Regeneration of Infants. The
Presbyterians are beginning to teach it. The
General Assembly of the Southern Presbyterian
( hureh, just adjourned, 'have handed down to
the Presbyteries' a clause'of the confession which
runs thus: 4 Being elect, all infants dying in in
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE S <
fancy are saved, and regenerated through the
Spirit of Christ. As Methodists cannot see the
justice of regenerating dying infants and leaving
living infants unregenerate, they have put
into their confession a clear and unequivocal
statement that all infants, 'though fallen in
Adam,' are regenerated by 'the saving grace of
the Holy Spirit.'
"I have entitled this article Infant Salvation.
Following tbe general teaching of Methodism and
of the New Testament, I cannot conceive of salvation
without regeneration (Cf. John iii, 3, 5,
7). If the baby, dying, is saved, as all confess
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take placet Only in the hour and article of
death, as some have thought? Does any intelligent
Methodist believe this? I think not.
Such a belief would invest death itself, that
comes by sin, with somewhat at least of a saving
function. Nothing could be more utterly absurd.
Well, then, if not in death, when does regeneration
or salvation take place? Logically and
scripturally, Methodism in her Discipline?so
far as the Southern Church is concerned?and
through ber wise teachers, generally, declare
that it is at birth, or preceding birth."
RECOVERY OF JEWELS.
We may think of a dump heap where by some
unusual concurrence of circumstances a parcel
of precious stones have been thrown by a careless
or criminal hand, and where they have long
liiixi uuiiuenuea ana unsougnt as a part of the
rubbish incident to the practical affairs of life.
Such is the treament accorded many precious
souls who may be in near contact with the
Church in its zeal for saving what it conceives
to (be the more promising and savable elements
of humanity. Our Master's ministry has a lesson
for us here, for those whom he pitied and
saved, many were not only of the lowliest, but
lowest in the moral scale.
It ik a credit to Christian workers that increasing
effort 2s being made in behalf of those
who may be called the outcasts of society and
those who, though favored with religious opportunities,
have despised them and beceme hardened
in their apostacy from God and gone into
the far country of sinful indulgence. We do
well to remember that there are no limitations
upon the power of sovereign grace and that the
Master came to call sinners to repentance. Of
such classes the editor of The Advance writes,
and to such triumph of grace he bears tribute
in commenting on the text, "When he came
to himself."
"If Jesus had not said that, we would not
dare to say it. If we had looked upon that
young fool and ingrate in the swine field, we
would have said he only got 4 4 what was coming
to him," and it was all right. He was in his
natural company, anyway. He was not fit for
anything else, and it 44served him right."
But Jesus saw that down under the soil and
grime was something sweet, and beneath the sin
was something heavenly. He needed to be born
again, that was true, but to be born himself, not
somebody else. There was good stuff in him,
little as he looked it. He had not yet discovered
himself in all his moral and spiritual possibilities.
His conversion was not the changing
him off for an angel sent down from heaven to
taike his place. It was a work of God, a new
birth of the man, but it was at the same time
the emergence of the real man from his superimposed
vices. He was, bad as he was, he was
worth saving. And he was saved when he " came
to himself."
There is a strange hypnotic power in sin. We
all have seen in various psychic experiments the
power of mind over mind strikingly displayed.
We do not know ju3t what to call it, or what to
make of it?its phenomena so persistently refuses
to fit in with other categories of spiritual
existence as we know them. But the isolated
facts are there. The strong will dominates the
weak will. The subject becomes whatever the
master mind would have him be. In the powerful
and pathetic story of Trilby, we have thiB
brought out, and the tale is told of poor, broken<
3 U T H (711) 11
hearted Trilby made the drudge or the prima
donna at the word or beck of her master. So
Satan makes slaves of our mind and will until
One comes able to " break the power of reigning
sin" and restore the hitherto enslaved to himself?by
a divine interposition.
That was what happened to Saul of Tareus.
Underneath Saul the persecutor lay hid but real,
Paul the apostle; just as beneath the dissipated
Augustine, the pleasure-loving youth, lay Augustine
the great Christian theologian, and administrator.
In the "little monk, Luther," superstitious,
ascetic, heresy-hating, lay dormant the
real Luther?Luther, the reformer, and preacher,
and statesman?until the touch of God freed
the captive, and he came to possession of his
iceti powers unaer toe exercise of grace. Such
was in our own later time, the tramp printer, \
John B. Gough, until he came to himself in the
matchless orator who could and did move thousands
to high endeavor.
It was with St. Paul a favorite thought that
nobody knows yet what he really is?not even
under the quickening power of grace?but that
we shall be first revealed to our real selves and
to the world of spirits in another sphere of
action. Paul could thank God for the hints of
his real self; which came when God called him
out of darkness into his marvelous light. But
he still felt that he had "not yet apprehended."
There was more in him than had ever come to
the surface. He did not fully know what he
should be, but he knew that he should be something
larger, nobler, diviner, when he should,
under celestial skies, come to the full possession
and exercise of his own possibilities. Thus as
conversation is a coming to ourselves, eternity
to the saved will be perpetual and eternal, revealing
of ourselves, a constant unfolding of the
real self which came into existence when we befiran
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when we were converted, and which will be only
fully understood when we know as we are
known."
Speaking of "trends," "tendencies" or "obsessions,"
the department of sports presents
some shadows which future events are casting
before them. That several millions of our people
should every Sunday devote the day to witnessing
athletic or speeding contests, spending
hundreds of thousands of dollars on dissipation
and requiring the toil of hundreds of thousands
of employees in many vocations, does not fore
?J *? " ?
wut cuxy Kuuu ior me rurure. iteports are already
coming in of record-breaking throngs at
motor car contests, aviation meets and ball
games. When pages of sporting news in our
newspapers become a necessity, because the most
popular of all, the social, industrial and moral
character of the people is degenerating at headlong
speed. And when those grosser practices
known as race track gambling and pugilism are
taken as matters of course, the situation is an
imperious call to action on the part of all lovers
. of morality and social order. The religious press
has for some time been expressing serious concern
and pleading for a halt, but the tumult of
the crowds drowns their voices. The Advance
seems to think the word has been passed, "Let
the dance go on," and cannot be recalled, and
moralizes in this way: "It certainly is a curious
condition of things and suggests something rotten
in Denmark when a young auto driver can
"win" dttnnnn o ? ?
T ( uuj, a UCglU pi lZfCligilUtr
buy 'a pocket full of diamonds' as the result of
a slugging match, and the members of a ball
team retire on a competence at the close of &
single season of professional baseball. The winners
of auto races, prize fights and ball games
have not bettered a single living condition to
any living soul. When the 'revolution' breaks
loose, which is so often predicted, we hope that
'the pepul' who bear the axes and scatter the
petroleum will not content themselves with looting
the banks, but will give some attention to the
'courses' and 'fields' and 'rings' where the worst
elements of the community reap rewards for
which useless industry toils a life time in vain.''