Fifty Notable Years: Views of the Ministry of Christian Universalism During the Last Half-Century; with Biographical SketchesAdams, John G. (John Greenleaf)
Religion
Fifty Notable Years: Views of the Ministry of Christian Universalism During the Last Half-Century; with Biographical Sketches
Adams, John G. (John Greenleaf)
Universalism; Universalist Church -- Biography; Universalists -- Biography; Universalists -- United States -- History
"The Bible meets us squarely upon the deepest and the highest
question which the finite intellect has the right to ask: What,
having made us at all, is God's moral attitude toward us? When he
thrust into space this quivering ball of pain and error, did he mean
well enough by it to justify the deed? Profounder than all our
philosophy, wiser than all our protest, comes the sublime and
solitary answer: 'He so loved the world that He gave his only Son.'
This magnificent reply, which theology has distorted out of its
grand and simple proportions, to which science has refused its
supreme reasonableness, the true human heart and the clear human
head have accepted. The contortions of faith and the malice of doubt
have almost equally united to shake the hold of this great
re-assurance upon the world. The world will have it in spite of
both. The world will have it, because it is the best it can get; and
by all the iron laws of common sense it will keep the best till God
or man can offer it something better."
Even so. Amen!
At the present time the orthodoxy of Andover Theological Institution
is assuming new and strange aspects. During the recent discussions
respecting the invitation to Dr. Newman Smyth to accept a
professorship at the institution, this avowal on the part of the
professors still in their places there is given to the public:--
"It cannot be denied that the doctrines of eternal punishment and of
the judgment have lost their proper place in the teachings of the
pulpit. That method alone can restore them to a reflective age which
refuses to put into them more than our Saviour left in them, and
which brings them into accord with the knowledge of divine truth
which the spirit of Christ is ever developing in his Church.
Christianity educates men to ever higher, broader, more truthful
conceptions of God. The questionings of to-day in Christian hearts
respecting the doctrine of eternal punishment are a consequence of
the elevating and spiritualizing power of the Gospel. The Church
should seek out positions that can be held. It should be in advance
of its enemies."
This change, it is affirmed by the Andover professors,--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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