at inheritance, by a
perception of contingent conditions, yielding a twofold fate of
bliss and woe, poised on the perilous hinge of circumstance or
freedom. Almost as often and profoundly, indeed, as man has
thought that he should live hereafter, that idea has been followed
by the belief that if, on the one hand, salvation gleamed for him
in the possible sky, on the other hand perdition yawned for him in
the probable abyss. Heaven and Hell are the light side and shade
side of the doctrine of a future life. Few questions are more
interesting, as none can be more important, than that inquiry
which is about the salvation of the soul. The inherent reach of
this inquiry, and the extent of its philosophical and literary
history, are great. But, by arranging under certain heads the
various principal schemes of salvation which Christian teachers
have from time to time presented for popular acceptance, and
passing them before the mind in order and in mutual lights, we can
very much narrow the space required to exhibit and discuss them.
When the word "salvation" occurs in the following investigation,
it means unless something different be shown by the context the
removal of the soul's doom to misery beyond the grave, and the
securing of its future blessedness. Heaven and hell are terms
employed with wide latitude and fluctuating boundaries of literal
and figurative meaning; but their essential force is simply a
future life of wretchedness, a future life of joy; and salvation,
in its prevailing theological sense, is the avoidance of that and
the gaining of this. We shall not attempt to present the different
theories of redemption in their historical order of development,
or to give an exhaustive account of their diversified prevalence,
but shall arrange them with reference to the most perspicuous
exhibition of their logical contents and practical bearings.

The first scheme of Christian salvation to be noticed is the one
by which it is represented that the interference and suffering of
Christ, in itself, unconditionally saved all souls and emptied
hell forever. This theory arose in the minds of those who received
it as the natural and consistent completion of the view they held
concerning the nature and consequences of the fall of Adam, the
cause and extent of the lost state of man. Adam, as the federal
head of humanity, represented and acted for his whole race: the
responsibility of his decision rested, the consequences of his