147. Chapter 1: Benefits Of The Atonement.

Chapter 1 Benefits Of The Atonement. The second division of soteriology has for its subject the salvation in Christ. The supreme aim of his mission was to save us (Luke 2:10-11; John 3:16-17; 1 Timothy 1:15; 1 John 4:14). This fact gives propriety to our representative formula, the salvation in Christ.

However, the subject is much broader than the mere idea of salvation. There are great facts of the salvation which embody fundamental truths of Christian theology, and which must be separately treated. We may instance justification and regeneration. Besides, there are other benefits of the atonement than an actual salvation. There must be prior unconditional benefits, else the actual salvation could not be possible. “We are not saved in a mere mechanical way, or by the operation of an absolute grace, but as free agents, and on a compliance with divinely instituted terms. Therefore we must possess the moral ability for such a compliance. But we have not such ability simply on the footing of nature. Our moral state is in itself, or simply as consequent to the Adamic fall, without power unto the repentance and faith necessary to salvation. Therefore we must be the recipients of certain unconditional benefits of the atonement, certain gracious helps whereby we may be able to meet the terms of the salvation provided in Christ.

Thus arises the question of unconditional benefits of the atonement, benefits prior to the actual salvation, and preparatory to its attainment. There is specially the question of a gracious free agency. There are other initial benefits which are purely unconditional in their mode. We thus assume a division of the benefits of the atonement into two classes: a class of immediate benefits, and a class of conditional benefits. This distinction will help us to clearer views of the economy of salvation.

I. Immediate Benefits. By immediate benefits of the atonement we mean such as are without any condition in our own agency. So far as the present point is concerned, this is their distinction from the benefits which are so conditioned.

1. The Present Life.—Death was the penalty of disobedience in the Edenic probation. “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:17). This must have meant a physical death, as well as a moral or spiritual death. Indeed, if we make any distinction, the former must be accepted as the primary sense. Such is clearly the meaning of other texts which relate to the more direct consequences of Adam’s sin (Romans 5:12; 1 Corinthians 15:21-22). The penalty of disobedience in the Edenic probation must have meant the physical death of our progenitors. The execution of the penalty according to the terms of the law would have precluded the existence of the race. Our progenitors would have died in the day of their transgression. There is no apparent reason for any delay of judgment except the intervention of an economy of redemption. Without such an economy there are weighty reasons why they should not have been spared. The propagation of the race in a helpless moral ruin, as naturally consequent to the Adamic fall, could not be reconciled with the goodness of God. It follows that the redemptive mediation of Christ is the ground of the existence of the race. An economy of grace anticipated the judicial treatment of the first sin. Eve thus received the promise of a seed which should bruise the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15). There is deep meaning in this promise. It unfolds into the annunciation to Mary and the birth of a son who should be called Jesus, the Son of God (Luke 1:30-35). No special question of theodicy arises at this point; none which did not arise in the treatment of the primitive probation and fall of man. While existence may become an evil, in itself it may still be a good. Many a blessing of the present life may become an evil; many a blessing does become an evil. It is not therefore an evil in itself; it is still a good. The evil arises from a wrong use of it. Such use is avoidable. We cannot call that an evil which has in it the possibility of much good, and which can become an evil only by a wrong use. Probation underlies our secular as well as our moral life. If the economy is right in the former it cannot be wrong in the latter. A probationary economy in our secular life arises necessarily from our personal constitution. We cannot separate the two. If we would exclude the probation we must deny the personality of man and subject him to the dominance of mechanical forces. This would despoil him of all the better powers of his nature which are active in his secular life, and which may render that life happy and noble. Moral probation is, indeed, a far deeper reality; but by so much moral is man the loftier in his nature. Nor can we any more separate a moral responsibility from the moral constitution of man than we can separate a secular responsibility from his personal constitution. The vindication of providence in our moral probation lies in its possibilities of good—the good of moral worth, and the good of holy blessedness forever. Such are the possibilities of that existence which we receive as an immediate benefit of the atonement in Christ.

2. Gracious Help for All.—There are two profound relationships of mankind: one, to the Adamic fall; the other, to the atonement in Christ. As through the one there is a universal corruption of human nature, so through the other there is gracious help for all. It is only on the ground of such a universal grace that the actual moral state of the race can be placed in harmony with the accepted doctrine of native depravity.

What would be the moral state of the race if left in subjection to the unrestrained or unrelieved consequences of the Adamic fall? The answer is given in the doctrine of total depravity, a doctrine so uniformly accepted and maintained by orthodox Churches that it may properly be called catholic. The doctrine is, that man is utterly evil; that all the tendencies and impulses of his nature are toward the evil; that he is powerless for any good, without any disposition to the good, and under a moral necessity of sinning. Such is the moral state of mankind as maintained in the doctrinal anthropology which may properly be called Augustinian. On this question Arminianism differs little from Augustinianism, so long as man is viewed simply in his Adamic relation.

If the moral nature is utterly corrupt, and there is no relieving or helping grace of the atonement, there can be no tendencies to the good, no response of our nature to the motives of the good. It is difficult to see how in such a state there could be any sense of moral duty, or any conscious incentives to morality and religion, or any law of moral integrity in our commercial or civil life, or any of the amenities and charities which bless and beautify our social life. From a nature totally corrupt, and wholly without relief or restraint, only evil could proceed. Such a nature would be demonian, and the life of the race proceeding from it utterly evil. The life of the race is not such in fact. In saying this we do not forget the enormities of moral evil in the world. Much of this evil, however, is consciously committed against a light clearly visible to the moral eye, and against the remonstrances of conscience; so that even here there are manifestations of a moral restraint which could not spring from a nature totally corrupt. Further, these enormities of evil are not the instant product of our nature, but the outcome of a habit of evil-doing; a habit strengthened by long practice, and through which the restraints of conscience have been stifled and the native tendencies to evil intensified. And, despite all these enormities, the history of the race is replete with the evidences of a moral and religious nature in man. That he is morally and religiously constituted is affirmed by the most scientific anthropology. There could be no proof of such a constitution without the activities of this nature; but these activities are manifest in all human history. There is a conscience in man, a sense of God and duty, a moral reason which approves the good and reprobates the evil. Only thus can man be a law unto himself (Romans 2:14-15). These facts of our moral and religious nature are practical forces in favor of the good and against the evil. They are such in the absence of spiritual regeneration. Our social life is not wholly conventional and heartless; our commercial life, not wholly secular or selfish; our civil life, not without many examples of moral integrity. This has ever been true, even of heathen countries.

What is the conclusion? We must either replace the doctrine of total depravity by a Semi-Pelagianism or admit a gracious help for all men as an immediate benefit of the atonement in Christ. Arminianism readily accepts the latter alternative, and leaves to any who reject the theory of such gracious help the difficult, indeed the impossible, task of adjusting the doctrine of total depravity to the moral and religious facts of human history. The Wesleyan Arminianism has not left in any doubt its position on this question. The question itself is so cardinal in our system of theology that we here cite a few leading authorities in order to set our position in the clearest light.

We begin with Mr. Wesley himself. “For allowing that all the souls of men are dead in sin by nature, this excuses none, seeing there is no man that is in a state of mere nature; there is no man, unless he has quenched the Spirit, that is wholly void of the grace of God. No man living is entirely destitute of what is vulgarly called natural conscience. But this is not natural; it is more properly termed preventing grace. Every man has a greater or less measure of this, which waiteth not for the call of man. . . . Every one has some measure of that light, some faint glimmering ray, which sooner or later, more or less, enlightens every man that cometh into the world. And every one, unless he be one of the small number whose conscience is seared as with a hot iron, feels more or less uneasy when he acts contrary to the light of his own conscience. So that no man sins because he has not grace, but because he does not use the grace which he hath.”^[757] Elsewhere Mr. Wesley declares that through the atonement every soul receives a capacity for spiritual life, and an actual spark or seed thereof.^{[758] [757]} Sermons, vol. ii, pp. 237, 238.

^[758]Works, vol. v, p. 196. On this question Mr. Fletcher is thoroughly at one with Mr. Wesley. He says: “We readily grant that Adam, and we in him, lost all by the fall; but Christ, ‘ the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, Christ, the repairer of the breach,’ mightier to save than Adam to destroy, solemnly gave himself to Adam, and to us in him, by the free everlasting Gospel which he preached in paradise. And when he preached it he undoubtedly gave Adam, and us in him, a capacity to receive it, that is, a power to believe and repent. If he had not, he might as well have preached to stocks and stones, to beasts and devils. It is offering an insult to ‘ the only wise God ‘ to suppose that he gave mankind the light, without giving them eyes to behold it ; or which is the same, to suppose that he gave them the Gospel without giving them power to believe it.” “Out of Christ’s fullness all have received grace.” “We maintain, that although ‘without Christ we can do nothing,’ yet so long as the ‘day of salvation’ lasts, all men, the chief of sinners not excepted, can, through his free preventing grace, ‘cease to do evil and learn to do well,’ and use those means which will infallibly end in the repentance and faith peculiar to the dispensation which they are under, whether it be that of the heathens, Jews, or Christians.”^{[759] [759]} Works, vol. i, pp. 141, 142, 145. The position of Mr. Watson is the same: “But virtues grounded on principle, though an imperfect one, and therefore neither negative nor simulated, may also be found among the unregenerate, and have existed, doubtless, in all ages. These, however, are not from man, but from God, whose Holy Spirit has been vouchsafed to ‘the world’ through the atonement. This great truth has often been lost sight of in this controversy. Some Calvinists seem to acknowledge it substantially, under the name of ‘common grace;’ others choose rather to refer all appearances of virtue to nature, and thus, by attempting to avoid the doctrine of the gift of the Spirit to all mankind, attribute to nature what is inconsistent with their opinion of its entire corruption. But there is, doubtless, to be sometimes found in men not yet regenerate in the Scripture sense, not even decided in their choice, something of moral excellence, which cannot be referred to any of the causes above adduced; and of a much higher character than is to be attributed to a nature which, when left to itself, is wholly destitute of spiritual life. Compunction for sin, strong desires to be freed from its tyranny, such a fear of God as preserved them from many evils, charity, kindness, good neighborhood, general respect for goodness and good men, a lofty sense of honor and Justice, and, indeed, as the very command issued to them to repent and believe the Gospel in order to their salvation implies, a power of consideration, prayer, and turning to God, so as to commence that course which, persevered in, would lead on to forgiveness and regeneration. To say that all these are to be attributed to mere nature is to surrender the argument to the Semi-Pelagian, who contends that these are proofs that man is not wholly degenerate. They are to be attributed to the controlling influence of the Holy Spirit; to his incipient workings in the hearts of men; to the warfare which he there maintains, and which has sometimes a partial victory, before the final triumph comes, or when, through the fault of man, through ‘resisting,’ ‘grieving,’ ‘vexing,’ ‘quenching’ that Holy Spirit, that final triumph may never come. It is thus that one part of Scripture is reconciled to another, and both to fact ; the declaration of man’s total corruption, with the presumption of his power to return to God, to repent, to break off his sins, which all the commands and invitations to him from the Gospel imply.”^[760]

^[760] Theological Institutes, vol. ii, pp. 85, 86. We add a few references: Clarke:Commentary,John 1:9; Pope:Christian Theology, vol. ii, pp. 78-82; Raymond:Systematic Theology, vol. ii, pp. 316-319; Rosser;Initial Life; Mercein:Natural Goodness.

3. Capacity for Probation.—While the doctrine of a universal helping grace of the atonement fully adjusts the moral and religious facts of human history to the doctrine of native depravity, and thus saves the doctrine from an inevitable replacement by a Semi-Pelagianism, it also provides for the probationary state of the race. Man is fallen and corrupt in his nature, and therein morally helpless; but man is also redeemed and the recipient of a helping grace in Christ whereby he is invested with capabilities for a moral probation. He has the power of meeting the terms of an actual salvation. All men have this power. It is none the less real or sufficient because of its gracious source. Salvation is thus the privilege of every man, whatever his religious dispensation.

We hold fully the helplessness of man for any religious duty simply on the footing of nature. Such is the doctrine of our article of religion on this question.^[761] But, with this doctrine of native powerlessness for any spiritual duty, we hold the doctrine of a universal helping grace. This we have pointed out, and also verified by our best authorities. The necessary grace for the present probation is an immediate benefit of the atonement, and the possession or the privilege of every man. This is the Arminian position.

^[761]Article viii. Of Free Will. The subjects of a probationary economy must have the power necessary to the fulfillment of its requirements. There can be no probation without such power. The possibility is excluded by the very nature of the economy. Probation is a testing economy in which certain blessings are conditioned on specified duties. “Where there is no power to fulfill such duties there can be no probation. It follows that, if our present life is a probation in which salvation is attainable on specified terms, we must possess or have in reach the power necessary to a compliance with such terms. Therefore, if we hold the doctrine of native depravity, we must either admit a universal helping grace of the atonement or deny that the present life is probationary with respect to our salvation. Such denial must imply two things: a limited atonement, with a sovereignty of grace in the salvation of an elect part, which for them precludes a probation; and a reprobation of the rest which denies them all probational opportunity for salvation. Arminianism readily accepts the issue at this point; but the present section is not the place for the treatment of the questions involved.

4. Infant Salvation.—The actual salvation of all who die in infancy is an immediate benefit of the atonement in Christ. The fact of such an infant salvation is no longer a question in any truly evangelical Church. There may be instances of individual dissent, but the predominant faith of such Churches holds firmly the actual salvation of all who die in infancy. There is no need to make an issue where there is nothing in dispute. Happily, on this question there is no longer any dispute among evangelical Churches.

It is true that the Scriptures are not explicit on what is thus accepted in a common evangelical faith. They neither affirm the fact of such a salvation nor explain its nature. Yet when we view the question of fact in the light of the divine love, the universal grace of the atonement, and the clear intimations of Scripture, we are not left with any reason to doubt the actual salvation of all who die in infancy. There is profound meaning for this truth in the words of our Lord: “Verily I say unto you. Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). There is like meaning in his other words: “Sufferer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me; for of such is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14). When St. Paul sets in comparison or contrast the consequences of the relations of the race respectively to Adam and Christ, and proclaims the superabounding grace of the atonement in Christ, his words must mean the actual salvation of all who die in infancy (Romans 5:12-21). If it be not so, then there is an infinite depth of evil consequent to the sin of Adam which is never reached by the redeeming grace of Christ, and its superabounding fullness, which forms the climax of this great text, can no longer be true.

While infants are neither guilty of Adam’s sin nor guilty on account of an inherited nature, yet are they born in a state of depravity, which is in itself a moral ruin and a disqualification for future blessedness. In these facts lies the necessity for their spiritual regeneration. This regeneration is the work of the Holy Spirit; and it is a work provided for by the atonement in Christ, as are all the offices of the Spirit in the economy of salvation. Thus it pleases God that dying infants shall be saved through the redemptive mediation of Christ; and thus shall the song of salvation through the blood of the Lamb be forever theirs in all the fullness of its gladness and love. Here is an immediate benefit of the atonement through which very many of the race shall come to the blessedness of heaven.^[762]

^[762] Hibbard:The Religion of Childhood; Gregg:Infant Church Membership; Mercein:Childhood and the Church; Cook:Christianity and Childhood.

II. Conditional Benefits.

1. Meaning of Conditional Benefits.—That is a conditional benefit which is attainable only on some specified or appropriate personal action. The meaning will be the clearer if we observe the distinction between immediate and conditional benefits. For the possession of the former no personal action is required, while for the attainment of the latter such action is required. We are born with mental faculties, and may have providentially the best educational opportunities; but the attainment of scholarship is possible only through a proper use of our faculties and opportunities. So there are benefits of the atonement which come to us without any action on our part; but there are other great benefits, such as constitute an actual salvation, which are attainable only on an observance of the divinely specified terms.

2. The Conditionality of Salvation.—Our position is this: The actual salvation of the soul is not an immediate benefit of the atonement, nor through an irresistible operation of divine grace, but is attainable only on a compliance with its appropriate terms. We possess or may possess the requisite gracious ability for such compliance, with power to the contrary. Otherwise, the present life could not be probationary with respect to our salvation. If it is thus probationary, then is our actual salvation a conditional benefit of the atonement. Our secular life is clearly probationary. Mostly, our condition is determined by the character of our personal conduct. To say that we have nothing to do with our secular estate would be to contradict the common experience and judgment of mankind. That some are born to wealth and others to poverty, some to opportunities for success and others in adverse conditions, means really nothing against our position. These matters are merely incidental; and, after their fullest recognition, it is still manifestly true that our secular estate is determined by our personal conduct. We see the verification in the fact that many with the best natural opportunities make for themselves a mean and miserable life, while many without such opportunities, and even against strongly opposing conditions, make for themselves a prosperous and happy life.^{[763] [763]} Butler:Analogy, part i, chap. ii.

It hardly need be observed that the view here presented is thoroughly scriptural. “He also that is slothful in his the view of work is brother to him that is a great waster” (Proverbs 18:9). As such wasting surely brings poverty and misery, so does a slothful or idle life; “and an idle soul shall suffer hunger” (Proverbs 19:15. See Proverbs 20:4; Proverbs 24:30-34). The doctrine of St. Paul is the same: “He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully” (2 Corinthians 9:6). The illustration is here taken from the field of agriculture, but the principle is the same in every sphere of human labor. As our secular life is thus probationary, so may our moral and religious life be probationary with respect to our future destiny. This is a proposition which Bishop Butler has maintained with great force of logic^[764] On this question nothing remains to be added to his argument. We, however, are more directly concerned with the question of the conditionality of the salvation in Christ; a salvation which includes our future blessedness. This is a question which must be decided in the light of the Scriptures. On the face of the Scriptures nothing seems plainer than this conditionality. It will suffice that the question be tested by a few pertinent texts. We shall adduce such as couple our forgiveness and salvation with certain divinely specified acts or forms of action required of us. Texts which exclude from the salvation all such as refuse or omit the required action are equally in point.

^[764]Analogy, part i, chaps, iii-v. The great commission in which our Lord charged his disciples to preach the Gospel to all men seems in itself entirely sufficient for the proof of our position (Mark 16:15-16). Very naturally, in this commission the condition necessary to the attainment of the salvation which the Gospel should proclaim is definitely named: ‘‘He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” The faith is conditionally necessary to the salvation. This truth is emphasized by the assertion of the consequences of unbelief: “But he that believeth not shall be damned.” Such, indeed, is the teaching of Christ and his disciples from the beginning of his ministry until the conclusion of theirs. Thus Christ went forth and preached the Gospel of the kingdom of God: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the Gospel” (Mark 1:15). So, when the disciples were first sent forth with the message of the Gospel, “they went out, and preached that men should repent” (Mark 6:12). Such was the doctrine of St. Peter in his memorable sermon on the day of Pentecost: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:38. See also3:19; 26: 20). Thus the attainment of the salvation in Christ is continuously coupled with our observance of divinely specified terms.

Let us turn again to the decisive words of our Lord: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Here faith in Christ is conditionally necessary to the attainment of the salvation which he provided. This same truth is directly emphasized by other words of our Lord. “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18). There is still further emphasis: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36). We may here add the testimony of St. Paul, as given in his doctrine of justification or the remission of sin. In his doctrine justification is intrinsic to the salvation in Christ, but is attainable only on the condition of faith. That such is the doctrine of St. Paul is so well known that a mere reference to a single passage will here suffice (Romans 3:19-26).

We may group a few other testimonies. “And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him” (Hebrews 5:9). No proper interpretation of these words can omit the truth of a conditional relation of obedience to Christ to the final salvation of which he is the author. We give by reference another passage in which the same truth is clearly set forth, that our present conduct, especially in its relation to Christ, is conditionally determinative of our future destiny (2 Thessalonians 1:3-10). Thus as we obey or obey not the Gospel of bur Lord Jesus Christ, so shall our destiny be one of blessedness or one of misery. The decisions of the final judgment come to the same point. These decisions turn upon the character of our conduct in the present life (Matthew 25:31-46; John 5:28-29; Romans 2:6-16; 2 Corinthians 5:10; Galatians 6:7-8; Revelation 22:12).

If it be true that our personal compliance with certain specified terms is required in order to the attainment of salvation, that we have a gracious ability for such compliance, and also power to the contrary, these facts are in the closest accordance with the texts which we have presented. So much must be conceded, even by such as hold the doctrine of moral necessity and the absolute sovereignty of grace in the work of salvation. If it had been the definite purpose of our Lord and his apostles to teach the doctrine of a real conditionality of salvation they could not have expressed their meaning more certainly than in such words as we have cited. On the other hand, such words are entirely inconsistent with the contrary position. If no free personal action of our own has any conditional relation to our salvation why should such action be imperatively required, just as though it had such relation? If we are utterly powerless for any act of repentance or faith, or even for any act toward repentance or faith, why should we be required to repent and believe, just as though we possessed the necessary power? What is the ground of the severe condemnation and doom of all who refuse or neglect the required repentance and faith? If the first fact in the work of an actual salvation be a sovereign act of God in the regeneration of the soul, from which repentance and faith immediately spring, and which are else impossible, why should they be commanded just as though they were possible, and were actually conditional to our salvation? It certainly means much for our position respecting the conditionality of salvation—indeed, is conclusive of its truth—that it is in the completest accordance with so many practical texts which directly concern this question; while the contrary position is in their open contradiction.

3. The Great Facts of Salvation Severally Conditional.—We here require only a brief statement respecting each fact, since the conditionality of each is really included in our general treatment of the question.

Justification is declared to be by faith in a manner that clearly makes the latter conditional to the former. This relation can be denied only on the assumption that the faith is wrought in us by an immediate and absolute operation of God. But this is contrary to both the nature of faith and the meaning of the Scriptures respecting it. The faith by which we are justified is a personal act, and is so required under the sanction of moral obligation and responsibility. It is contradictory to all true ideas of such an act of faith that it should be the product of an absolute divine agency. No text of Scripture supports such a view. The prayer, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief” (Mark 9:24), can be answered without any such a divine operation. Unbelief is often helped by a clear presentation of the grounds of faith. So by a spiritual illumination or inner quickening God can help the soul to a stronger faith, while the faith itself shall still be a free personal act. There is nothing against this view in the words of St. Paul: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). The preponderance of exegetical authority is against the view that faith itself is the gift of God; but even if such a meaning were conceded, still the interpretation must accord with the nature of faith as a free personal act. We have just seen that, consistently with this fact, God may still give us a higher capacity for faith; but it is only as faith is a free personal act that we can be saved by faith. Take away this character of faith, and it becomes merely a part of a salvation which is wrought by an absolute divine operation, and the whole idea of salvation by faith disappears. Yet this is the central idea of the many texts which relate directly to this subject (Mark 16:15-16; John 3:16; John 3:18; John 3:36; Acts 13:38-39; Acts 16:31 : Romans 3:25-26).

Less is said in the Scriptures respecting the conditionality of regeneration, yet enough is said to leave us in no reasonable doubt of the fact. Regeneration is thoroughly distinct from justification in its nature, but is not distinct in its condition. “We are regenerated on the same act of faith on which we are justified. There are texts in which the former must be included with the latter, while only the latter is named. “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1). There could be no such peace were not regeneration an accompanying blessing of justification. Further, there is for us no regeneration without justification; therefore the former must be conditional as well as the latter. The words of St. John are in point: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born . . . of God” (John 1:12-13). Here the faith in Christ is clearly conditional to the regeneration whereby we become the sons of God. “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26). But if this gracious affiliation is so conditioned on faith, the regeneration whereby it is constituted must be conditioned in like manner.

Final perseverance and future blessedness, as related to the present question, are inseparably connected. The former, however, will be considered elsewhere. It seems clearly the sense of Scripture that future blessedness is a conditional attainment. He that endureth to the end shall be saved (Matthew 10:22). Unto them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, shall be rendered eternal life (Romans 2:6-7). Unto him who is faithful unto death will Christ give a crown of life (Revelation 2:10). Such is the pervasive sense of Scripture on this question. But there can be no such enduring, nor continuance in well-doing, nor faithfulness unto death, without free personal action. Therefore such action must be conditional to the attainment of future blessedness.