leveling politics of the day. Shall we not fix it once for all in our minds that salvation is the right of no man; that a “chance” to save himself is no “chance” of salvation for any; and that, if any of the sinful race of man is saved, it must be by a miracle of al- mighty grace, on which he has no claim, and, contem- plating which as a fact, he can only be filled with wondering adoration of the marvels of the inexplicable love of God? To demand that all criminals shall be given a “chance” of escaping their penalties, and that all shall be given an “equal chance," is simply to mock at the very idea of justice, and no less, at the very idea of love.
The universalism of all the divine operations looking to salvation is as vigorously asserted in the Lutheran scheme as in the Arminian, but with, if possible, even less logical success—on the supposition, that is, that the evangelical principle of dependence on God alone for salvation is to be preserved. Indeed, the leaven of sacerdotalism taken over by Lutheranism from the old church, in its doctrine of the means of grace, from the first fatally marred even the purity of its univer- salism, transmuting it into a mere indiscrimination, which is something very different; and has among the modern Lutherans given rise to very portentous de- velopments.
The old Lutheranism, alleging that the honor of God required that he should do all that he does look- ing to the salvation of man to and for all men alike, asserted that therefore Christ has died to take away
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the sins of the whole world, and, provision having been made in the means of grace for the effective ap- plication of his sacrifice to all men, these means of grace (with the mind especially on the proclamation of the gospel in which they culminate), have actually been conveyed to all men without exception. Of course it is not in point of fact true that the gospel has been actually proclaimed to all men without excep- tion; and an effort was accordingly made to cover up the manifest falsity of the assertion by substituting for it the essentially different proposition that at three historical stages (namely, at the time of Adam, at the time of Noah, and at the time of the apostles), the gospel has been made known to all men then living, “апа,” it is added, “if it became universal іп those three generations, then it has also come indirectly to their successors.” The futility of this expedient to conceal the circumstance that in point of fact the gospel has not actually been conveyed to every single man who has ever lived (and nothing less than this can satisfy the demands of the case), is too manifest to require pointing out; and we cannot be surprised that the contention itself has ceased to be made. “More recent orthodox theologians in our church," the historian (the Norwegian divine, Lars Nielsen Dahle) goes on to tell us,” say simply that “the uni- versality of the call is a necessary presupposition, a postulate which must be assumed on the ground of the testimony of Scripture regarding God’s universal saving-will on the one hand, and of the Scripturally, [ 103 ]
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established truth on the other that this saving will cannot be realized for the individual unless God’s call actually reaches him; but how this happens, we can- not say, for it is a fact that at the present day it has only reached comparatively few, or at most a minority of mankind." Thus Professor Johnson writes:” “Тһе universality of this call of grace we must, in opposition to every particularistic view of it, main- tain as a postulate of the faith, even if we are unable to show how it actually does reach every individual." It is an unsolved mystery.
The Lutherans, therefore, in attempting both to tie saving grace to the means of grace and to give it an actually universal diffusion, have brought them- selves into a difficulty at this point from which the Arminians, who make the universality of the sacri- ficial work of Christ and of the consequent gift of sufficient grace independent of all earthly transac- tions so that men are all born in a state of redemption and grace, are free. The ultimate solution which has been found by modern Lutheranism, in which Dahle himself concurs, consists in the invention of a doc- trine of the extension of human probation into the next world, the famous doctrine miscalled that of a "second probation," for it is not a doctrine of a second probation for any man but only the doctrine that every man that lives must have the gospel presented winningly to him, if not in this life then in the life to come. By the invention of this doctrine the Luther- ans have provided themselves for the first time with.a
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