What the actual Deist stands for is law. He con- ceives that God commits his universe, not to unfore- seen and unprepared caprice, but to law; law which God has impressed on his universe and to the guid- ance of which he can safely leave his universe. That is to say, even the Deist conceives God to have a plan; a plan which embraces all that happens in the universe. He differs with the Theist only as to the modes of activity by which he conceives God to carry out this plan. Deism involves a mechanical conception of the universe. God has made a machine, and just because it is a good machine, he can leave it to work out, not its, but his ends. So we may make a clock and then, just because it is a good clock, leave it to tick off the seconds, and point out the minutes, and strike the hours, and mark off the days of the month, and turn up the phases of the moon and the accompanying tides; and, if we choose, we may put in a comet which shall appear on the dial but once in the life of the clock, not erratically, but when and where and how we have arranged for it to appear. The clock does not go its own way; it goes our way, the way which we have arranged for it to go; and God's clock, the universe, goes not its way but his way, as he has ordained for it, grinding out the in- evitable events with mechanical precision.
This is a great conception, the Deistic conception of law. It delivers us from chance. But it does so, only to cast us into the cogged teeth of a machine. It is, therefore, not the greatest conception. The
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THE PLAN OF SADVATION
greatest conception is the conception of Theism, which delivers us even from law, and places us in the immediate hands of a person. It is a great thing to be delivered from the inordinate realm of aimless chance. The goddess Tyche, Fortuna, was one of the most terrible divinities of the old world, quite as terrible as and scarcely distinguishable from Fate. It is a great thing to be under the control of in- telligent purpose. But it makes every difference whether the purpose is executed by mere law, acting automatically, or by the ever-present personal con- trol of the person himself. There is nothing more ordinate than the control of a person, all of whose actions are governed by intelligent purpose, directed to an end.
If we believe in a personal God, then, and much more if, being Theists, we believe in the immediate control by this personal God of the world he has made, we must believe in a plan underlying all that God does, and therefore also in a plan of salvation. The only question that can arise concerns not the reality but the nature of this plan. As to its nature, however, it must be admitted that a great many differing opinions have been held. Indeed pretty nearly every possible opinion has been announced at one time or another, in one quarter or another. Even if we leave all extra-Christian opinions to one side, we need scarcely modify this statement. Lines of divi- sion have been drawn through the Church; parties have been set over against parties; and different types
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THE DIFFERING CONCEPTIONS
of belief have been developed which amount to noth- ing less than different systems of religion, which are at one in little more than the mere common name of Christian, claimed by them all.
It is my purpose in this lecture to bring before us in a rapid survey such of these varying views as have been held by large parties in the Church, that some conception may be formed of their range and rela- tions. This may be most conveniently done by ob- serving, in the first instance at least, only the great points of difference which separate them. I shall enumerate them in the order of significance, pro- ceeding from the most profound and far-reaching differences which divide Christians to those of less radical effect.
I. The deepest cleft which separates men calling themselves Christians in their conceptions of the plan of salvation, is that which divides what we may call the Naturalistic and the Supernaturalistic views. The line of division here is whether, in the matter of the salvation of man, God has planned simply to leave men, with more or less completeness, to save themselves, or whether he has planned himself to inter- vene to save them. Тһе issue between the naturalist and the supernaturalist is thus the eminently simple but quite absolute one: Does man saves himself or does God save him?
The consistently naturalistic scheme is known in the history of doctrine as Pelagianism. Pelagianism in its purity, affirms that all the power exerted in saving man
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THE PLAN OF SALVATION