even the Reformed Church being split into two wings, one of which is rationalistic; while the professedly orthodox party, if represented by Pressensé, cannot be regarded as strictly so. The nominal Protestant Church in that country can hardly be taken into account except as it contains a remnant that waits for the consolation of Israel. The population is largely made up of Romanists and skeptics.

In

Cross the channel and take a brief survey of Great Britain. Had England heeded her great reformers— Jewel, for example-she would have been purged of Popery, but it is well known that she was very inadequately reformed. For some time the type of the Protestant faith was mainly Calvinistic; but from the restoration of the unprincipled Charles II, when, as Bishop Burnet intimates, almost the whole nation got drunk, the Church of England began her recession from Calvinism and lapsed into Arminianism. Bishop Butler's time religion was, as he tells us, studiously banished from society, so that it was a breach of good manners to allude to it in polite circles. Deism reigned. Then came what is called the Great Revival under Wesley and Whitefield, which, no doubt, to a considerable extent, wrought a restoration of experimental religion, especially in the middle and lower classes. But it should not be forgotten that through the same movement was originated a powerful organization which has vastly increased the propagation of the Arminian system of doctrines in Britain and America. To the extent to which that system involves a departure from the pure doctrines of Scripture, as they were formulated in the early Protestant creeds, a large section of Protestant Christendom now participates in that defection. It deserves notice that the latest type

of Arminian doctrine, as may easily be proved by citations from leading theologians, has gone down far below that of Wesley, both in England and America. A somewhat recent convocation in England denied the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures.

The Presbyterian Church in England was almost destroyed by defection into Unitarianism. As now resuscitated, whatever may be its doctrinal posture, it is numerically too small to affect our general estimate of the signs of the times in the sphere of doctrine. The attitude of Congregationalism in England may be gauged from the fun made of the orthodox sermon of Dr. Goodwin, of Chicago, not long since preached by him before a Congregationalist convention in London, by the most prominent minister of that denomination in that city. Charles Spurgeon—and I cannot mention his name without groaning out a lamentation that that great evangelical light, that brilliant star in Jesus' right hand, has ceased to shine in the centre of civilization-Spurgeon withdrew from the English Baptist Union because of his conviction of its latitudinarianism in doctrine-what he expressively termed its "downgrade" tendency.

In Wales the doctrinal attitude of other denominations being left out of account, that of the Calvinistic denomination may be measured by the late call to the theological school of a rationalistic professor from a Presbyterian Seminary in this country.

Scotland, notwithstanding her persecutions in the past for maintaining the pure religion, and notwithstanding her bitter experience of the evils of moderatism, is exhibiting evidences of a relaxing hold upon her glorious standards. Very loose speculations are winked at in the Established Church, and the General

Assembly of the Free Church not long since whitewashed those teachers of false doctrine, Dr. Dods, of Edinburgh, and Dr. Bruce, of Glasgow, in spite of their impeachment by the faithful Presbytery of Dingwald, sending the Highlanders back in disappointment to their northern glens; and while these witnesses for the truth are discountenanced, Henry Drummond is tolerated in his heretical vagaries. Are these not ominous signs in old Scotia's sky?

Of the doctrinal condition of Protestant Ireland, in the general, I am not prepared to speak advisedly. The Presbyterian Church in that country some time ago came nigh being overwhelmed by an eruption of Socinianism under the lead of the insinuating Montgomery, from which peril she was, with God's blessing, saved by the noble stand for truth made by the heroic Henry Cook. She has for years been passing through a great conflict upon the field of worship, but, under the wholesome guidance of such theologians as Robert Watts, of Belfast, and his compeers, she seems to be still holding her ground of conformity with the standard of Scripture truth as erected in her venerable doctrinal confession.

Let us now come nearer home in our review. In America the Protestant Church, in its purest form, had its origin in New England. President Edwards preached his celebrated sermons on the "Work of Redemption" in 1739, about a century and a half ago. He then used these words: "Another thing in which things are altered for the worse from what was in the former times of the reformation, is the prevailing of licentiousness in principles and opinions. There is not now that spirit of orthodoxy which there was then; there is very little appearance of zeal for the myste

rious and spiritual doctrines of Christianity; and they never were so ridiculed and had in contempt as they are in the present age." After speaking of the prevalence of "Socinianism, Arminianism, and Deism," he goes on to say: "Now there is an exceeding great decay of vital piety; yea, it seems to be despised, called enthusiasm, whimsy and fanaticism. Those who are truly religious are commonly looked upon to be crackbrained, and beside their right mind; and vice and profaneness dreadfully prevail, like a flood which threatens to bear down all before it." Since Edwards's time, Unitarianism has been organized in a denominational form and has been enthroned in the Athens of America and at Harvard University. The Arminianism which Edwards deprecated has more and more gained foothold in New England; Universalism has taken organized and aggressive shape, and future probationism and rationalistic views of the inspiration of the Scriptures have established a centre of distribution at that great school of Congregationalism, Andover Theological Seminary, founded, chartered, and endowed for the inculcation of orthodox views.

In other parts of the country Protestantism, with alternate revivals and declensions, has almost universally diffused itself. But it has broken asunder into numerous fragments, into sects, denominations, and subdivisions of denominations. And let it be remembered that as all these differing bodies cannot possibly be equally orthodox, orthodoxy has necessarily suffered in proportion to their multiplication. Arminian doctrines, not restricted to any one denomination, but more or less existing in all, have spread from sea to sea. High church exclusivism, not confined to one sectarian organization, has steadily advanced. The pulpit, that

great mouthpiece of divine truth, is more and more suppressing its testimony to the future punishment of sin-the eternal sanction of God's moral government. The verbal inspiration of the Bible is generally denied, and that gone, the great bulwark of Protestantism is down. A common outcry is raised against doctrinal preaching a sure presage of growing defection and coming wrath. A clamor like the noise of many waters is lifted up against the enslaving tyranny of creeds and confessions, which means, Down with God's authority, and Up with man's! In short, the demand is made that the glory of God-His own last end and the end of the whole creation-must give way to the happiness of the sinner, and the sovereignty of the free, untrammelled human will must take precedence of the will of Him who shakes the universe with His nod.

The Presbyterian Church, which has usually been regarded as the chief conservator of the orthodox faith, is beginning to yield to the paralyzing influence of the fell, rationalistic spirit, and to bow to the dictates of science, falsely so-called, the higher criticism, the sophistries of and the shout for the universal Fatherhood of God and universal love. Witness the extraordinary developments in the Briggs case. Will she give way? If she does, the phalanx with locked shields that moved with resistless force against the hosts of error is disintegrated, scattered, defeated.

Such are some of the signs of the times in the doctrinal sphere of the church, portending the night before the Millennial day. There are some, as in the day of Israel's great reformer, who are faithful among the faithless found; their loyalty they keep, their love, their zeal. Few they are, but they are the seed corn of