HKB
of life and advancement, and indicate a larger increase in the future, which may be realized with a zeal in operation like that which has effected the change already noted.
Of the theological changes realized since the opening of the present century, what shall we say? and all of them indicating an approach to this very faith of which we are speaking. When Murray and his contemporaries entered upon their work in America, the old Calvinistic theology had almost undisputed sway here; and for fifty years afterwards it was more or less so. But since 1830 up to the present time, including the middle of this century, the advancement in theological thought has been as marked as have these other changes and signs of progress to which we have alluded. True, Arminianism came in with the Methodistic movement, and made vigorous warfare upon the old theology, with its "five points" so tenaciously adhered to. But Methodism held fast that abominable dogma, eternal punishment, and failed to see God's purposes any more effective in the final salvation of souls than did Calvinism with its full assurance of the salvation of "the elect" only. The Arminian deity seems to have had no fixed purpose as to the number of the finally redeemed. Though he foreknew, he was not pleased to ordain, or in the words of Dr. Adam Clarke: "I conclude that God, although omniscient, is not obliged, in consequence of this, to know all that he can know."[18] The God of Calvin, though having a determinate will, appeared as a tyrannical sovereign; the God of Arminius, as lacking in purpose and in power. The one made the salvation of a certain number sure; the other left all in uncertainty, because so much depended solely on the will of the creature. The two systems summed up, however, amounted to Universalism. The one affirmed that every soul for whom Christ died would be saved; the other, that Christ, "by the grace of God, tasted death for every man."[19] Opposed as were the two sects representing these theologies, in the beginning, they have settled down into quite a fraternal compromise during the last half century. Pulpit exchanges are free among their ministers, and, although here and there some of the old peculiarities of Calvinism occasionally find utterance, the statement of a noted Congregationalist minister seems to express the thought of both parties, "Election means, whosoever will; reprobation, whosoever wont."[20]
It was in face of what were deemed the main errors of both these theologies that Universalism stood forth as the vindicator of God the just and merciful Father of all his children, their Judge and Saviour, through Christ who gave himself a ransom for all, and whose own expressive statement of the result of his ministry was, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."[21]