JUDGMENT
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JUDGMENT DAT
inquire into the degree of a man's positive belief. A general, hearty belief in Christianity is to be regarded by the Church, not as its starting-point, but as its high- est perfection. To begin with a strict creed and no effi- cient Christian institutions is the sure way to hypocrisy and unbelief; to begin with the most general confession of faith imputed, that is, as a test of membership, but with vigorous Christian institutions, is the way most likely to lead not only to a real and general belief, but also to a lively perception of the highest points of Chris- tian faith. In other words, intellectual objections to Christianity should be tolerated when they are com- bined with moral obedience ; tolerated, because in this way they are most surely removed ; whereas a corrupt or disorganized Church, with a minute creed, encoiu-ages intellectual objections; and if it proceeds to put them down by force, it does often violate the right of con- science, punishing an unbelief which its own evil had provoked, and, so far as human judgment can see, has in a great measure justified. In primitive usage, a her- etic was not properly he who did not believe what the Church taught, but he who wilfully withdrew himself from its society, refusing to conform to its system, and setting up another system of his own."
To most Protestants, however, this plan seems very defective. Kegarding the Christian Church as a soci- ety created by divine institution, it possesses all the authority which Christ meant to convey through his apostles to their successors, and of the exercise of which the apostles have left examples. They deem it to be incontrovertible that these successive teachers in the Christian Church were intended to be inter^jreters and expounders of the sacred book; that they are invested with authority in relation to the doctrines of holy Scrip- ture ; and that, as a mere acknowledgment of the truth of Scripture is not a sufficient security for soundness of faith, it is lawful for the Church to employ additional guards to that '•■ form of sound words" which it is re- quired to hold fast and to defend. It is one thing to say that the Bible is the rule of faith, and another to say that it is the judge to determine what that ride is. The latter it can as little be as the code of civil law can exercise the functions of the judge ; it forms, indeed, the rule of judgment, but it does not itself pronounce judg- ment. Hence the twentieth article of the Church of England declares that "the Church hath autliority in matters of faith." So the Westminster Confession, " It belongeth to synods and councils ministerially to de- termine controversies of faith." See Rogers, Reason and Faith ; Wilson, Apostolic Fathers ; Elliot, Delineation of Romanism (see Index) ; Litton, Church of Christ, p. 77 sq. (E. de P.)
JUDGMENT, The Last, the sentence that will be passed on our actions at the last day, when the everlast- ing designs of God concerning this lower creation shaO be accoraphshed, an eiid put to time, and the destinies of the human race fixed for eternity. This is one of the peculiar doctrines of revelation, a doctrine of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There were, indeed, some hints of it in the Old Testament; but it is in the New Testament that we have it frequently and particularly declared and described, with the circumstances with which it wiU be attended. It is a doctrine, too, which is entirely agree- able to reason, which fully concurs with revelation in directing our minds to a state of retribution, there being no alternative, if we hold not the truth of a judgment to come, but the holding that the creation is not under a moral government. For, on the one hand, there is no doubt that we live imder a retributive government, and that cognizance is taken of our actions by an invisible but ever-present Being, whose attributes render him the determined foe of vice, and tlie steadfast upholder of righteousness. On the other hand, there has been an irresistible demonstration, from the experience of all ages, that no accurate proportion is at present main- tained between conduct and condition. The wicked triumph in their iniquity, while virtue is despised ; her
humble votaries are borne down by the gloom of adversi- ty, or reared in the midst of sorrows and tears. In every age of the world, therefore, men have been perplexed by what seemed opposite evidences as to the superintend- ing care of a wise and beneficent Being. The only way to escape the difficulty is an appeal to the future ; for either the idea is erroneous of one living under a moral government at all, or that moral government must have another scene of display where its impartiality shall be vindicated, and every tliscrepancv removed. See Fuller, Works, ii, 78, lOG, 152, 211, 367," 392, 437, 841, 859, 871, 883, 90G ; \ivi\g\\t,Theolo<jy ; Irv'mg, Argument for Judg- ment to come. See Judgment Day. (E. de P.)
Judgment Day, a term generally used to desig- nate that important day which is to terminate the pres- ent dispensation of grace; at the end of the world, when time shall be no more, and the eternal state of all men be unchangeably fixed (2 Pet. iii, 7).