His Son will not be deemed worthy
of all acceptation. If this is so, the doctrines suitable to the
initial stage of the Christian life will be--(1) the doctrine of
baptisms and of laying on of hands, and (2) the doctrine of the
resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgment. Repentance and faith
accept the gospel of forgiveness, which is symbolised in baptism, and of
absolution, symbolised in the laying on of hands. Again, repentance and
faith realise the future life and the final award; the beginning of
piety reaching forth a hand, as runners do, as if to grasp the furthest
goal before it touches the intermediate points. Yet every intermediate
truth, when apprehended, throws new light on the soul's eschatology. In
like manner civilization began with contemplation of the stars, long
before it descended to chemical analysis, but at last it applies its
chemistry to make discoveries in the stars.

This, then, is the initial stage in the Christian character,--repentance
and faith; and these are the initial doctrines, baptism, absolution,
resurrection, and judgment. How may they be described? They all centre
in the individual believer. They have all to do with the fact of his
sin. One question, and one only, presses for an answer. It is, "What
must I do to be saved?" One result, and one only, flows from the
salvation obtained. It is the final acquittal of the sinner at the last
day. God is known only as the merciful Saviour and the holy Judge. The
whole of the believer's personal existence hovers in mid-air between
two points: repentance at some moment in the past and judgment at the
end of the world. Works are "dead," and the reason why is that they have
no saving power. There is here no thought of life as a complete thing or
as a series of possibilities that ever spring into actuality, no thought
of the individual as being part of a greater whole. The Church exists
for the sake of the believer, not the believer for the sake of the
Church. Even Christ Himself is nothing more to him than his Saviour, Who
by an atoning death paid his debt. The Apostle would rise to higher
truths concerning Christ in the power of His heavenly life. This is the
truth which the story of Melchizedek will teach to such as are
sufficiently advanced in spirituality to understand its meaning.

But, before he faces the rolling wave, the Apostle tells his readers why
it is that, in reference to Christian doctrine, character is the
necessary conditio