ever this indispensability is made absolute. Thus what are called the Means of Grace are given the “necessity of means," and are made in the strict sense not merely the sine quibus non, but the actual quibus of salvation.
Over against this whole view evangelicalism, seeking to conserve what it conceives to be only consistent supernaturalism, sweeps away every intermediary between the soul and its God, and leaves the soul dependent for its salvation on God alone, operating upon it by his immediate grace. It is directly upon God and not the means of grace that the evangelical feels dependent for salvation; itis directly to God rather than to the means of grace that he looks for grace; and he proclaims the Holy Spirit therefore not only able to act but actually operative where and when and how he will. The Church and its ordinances he con- ceives rather as instruments which the Spirit uses than as agents which employ the Holy Spirit in working salvation. In direct opposition to the maxims of consistent sacerdotalism, he takes therefore as his mottoes: Where the Spirit is, there is the church; out- side the body of the saints there is no salvation.
In thus describing evangelicalism, it will not escape ' notice that we are also describing Protestantism. In point of fact the whole body of Confessional Prot- estantism is evangelical in its view of the plan of salvation, inclusive alike of its Lutheran and Re- formed, of its Calvinistic and Arminian branches. Protestantism and evangelicalism are accordingly
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THE PLAN OF SALVATION
conferminous, if not exactly synonymous designa- tion. As all organized Christianity is clear and em- phatic in its confession of a pure supernaturalism, so all organized Protestantism is equally clear and emphatic in its confession of evangelicalism. Evangelicalism thus comes before us as the dis- tinctively Protestant conception of the plan of sal- vation, and perhaps it is not strange that, in its im- mediate contradiction of sacerdotalism, the more deeply lying contradiction to naturalism which it equally and indeed primarily embodies is sometimes almost lost sight of. Evangelicalism does not cease to be fundamentally antinaturalistic, however, in becoming antisacerdotal: its primary protest con- tinues to be against naturalism, and in opposing sacerdotalism also it only is the more consistently supernaturalistic, refusing to admit any intermediaries between the soul and God, as the sole source of salva- tion. That only is true evangelicalism, therefore, in which sounds clearly the double confession that all the power exerted in saving the soul is from God, and that God in his saving operations acts directly upon the soul.
3. Even so, however, there remain differences, many and deep-reaching, which divide Evangelicals among themselves. All evangelicals are agreed that all the power exerted in salvation is from God, and that God works directly upon the soul in his saving operations. But upon the exact methods employed by God in bring- ing many sons into glory they differ much from one an-
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THE DIFFERING CONCEPTIONS
other. Some evangelicals have attained their evan- gelical position by a process of modification, in the way of correction, applied to a fundamental sacer- dotalism, from which they have thus won their way out. Naturally elements of this underlying sacer- dotalism have remained imbedded in their construc- tion, and color their whole mode of conceiving evan- gelicalism. There are other evangelicals whose con- ceptions are similarly colored by ап underlying naturalism, out of which they have formed their better confession by a like process of modification and correction. The former of these parties is represented by the evangelical Lutherans, who, accordingly de- light to speak of themselves as adherents of a “соп- servative Reformation”; that is to say, as having formed their evangelicalism on the basis of the sacer- dotalism of the Church of Rome, out of which they have, painfully perhaps, though not always perfectly, made their way. The other party is represented by the evangelical] Arminians, whose evangelicalism is a correction in the interest of evangelical feeling of the underlying semi-pelagianism of the Dutch Remon- strants. Over against all such forms there are still other evangelicals whose evangelicalism is more the pure expression of the fundamental evangelical principle, uncolored by intruding elements from without.
Amid this variety of types it is not easy to fix upon a principle of classification which will enable us to discriminate between the chief forms which evan-
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THE PLAN OF SALVATION