exactly alike in the end. Whose earnestly embraces
the theory, and meditates much upon it, and reasons closely, will
be likely to become an Antinomian. It overlooks the loud,
omnipresent hints which tell us that the present state is
incomplete and dependent, the part of a great whole, the visible
segment of a circle whose complement overarches the invisible
world to come, where future correspondences and fulnesses will
satisfy and complete present claims and deficiencies. We reject
this scheme, as to its distinctive feature, for all those reasons
which lead us to accept that final view to which we now turn.

The theory of Christian redemption which seems to us correct,
represents the good and evil forces of personal character,
harmonious or discordant with the mind of God, as the conditions
of salvation or of reprobation. Swedenborg, who teaches that man
in the future state is the son of his own deeds in the present
state, says he once saw Melancthon in hell, writing, "Faith alone
saves," the words fading out as fast as written, because
expressive of a falsehood! It is not belief, but love, that
dominates the soul, not a mental act, but a spiritual substance.
According as the realities of the soul are what they should be,
just and pure, or what they should not be, perverted and corrupt,
and according as the realities of the soul are in right relations
with truth, beauty, goodness, or in vitiated relations with them,
so, and to that extent, is the soul saved or lost. This is not a
matter of arbitrary determination on one hand; and of helpless
submission on the other: it is a matter of Divine permission on
one hand, and of free, though sometimes unintelligent and
mistaken, choice on the other. The only perdition is to be out of
tune with the right constitution and exercise of things and rules.
That, of itself, makes a man the victim of guilt and wretchedness.
The only salvation is the restoration of the balance and normal
efficiency of the faculties, the restoration of their harmony with
the moral law, the recommencement of their action in unison with
the will of God. When a soul, through its exposure and freedom,
becomes and experiences what God did not intend and is not pleased
with, what his creative and executive arrangements are not
purposely ordered for, it is, for the time, and so far forth,
lost. It is saved, when knowledge of truth illuminates the mind,
love of goodness warms the heart, energy, purity, and asp