, Murray, and others. We are not aware that it now has any
avowed disciples.

The second conception is, in substance, that God, foreseeing from
eternity the fall of Adam and the consequent damnation of his
posterity, arbitrarily elected a portion of them to salvation,
leaving the rest to their fate; and the vicarious sufferings of
Christ were the only possible means of carrying that decree into
effect. This is the Augustinian and Calvinistic theology, and has
had a very extensive prevalence among Christians. Many church
creeds still embody the doctrine; but in its original,
uncompromising form it is rapidly fading from belief. Even now few
persons can be found to profess it without essential modifications,
so

18 T. S. King, Endless Punishment Unchristian and Unreasonable, p.
65.

qualifying it as to destroy its identity.

The third plan of delivering souls from the doom supposed to rest
on them attributes to the vicarious sufferings of Christ a
conditional efficacy, depending upon personal faith. Every one who
will heartily believe in the substitutional death of Christ, and
trust in his atoning merits, shall thereby be saved. This was the
system of Pelagius, Arminius, Luther. It prevails now in the so
called Evangelical Churches more generally than any other system.

The fourth received method of salvation, assuming the same
premises which the three foregoing schemes assume, namely, that
through the fall all men are eternally sentenced to hell, declares
that, by Christ's vicarious sufferings, power is given to the
Church, a priestly hierarchy, to save such as confess her
authority and observe her rites. All others must continue lost.19
This theory early began to be constructed and broached by the
Fathers. It is held by the Roman Catholic Church, and by all the
consistent portion of the Episcopalian. A part of the Baptist
denomination also through their popular preachers, if not in their
recognised symbols assert the indispensableness of ritual baptism
to salvation.

The fifth view of the problem is that no soul is lost or doomed
except so far as it is personally, voluntarily depraved and
sinful. And even to that extent, and in that sense, it can be
called lost only in the present life. After death every soul is
freed from evil, and ushered at once into heaven. This is the
distinctive doctrine of the ultra Universalists. It is
disappearing from among its recent advocates. As a body they have
already exchang