BOOK NOTICE.

Evening Star, Issue 7621, 25 May 1888, Page 1

BOOK NOTICE.

Poal-Morlem Salvation: A Review of Dr Salmond's pamphlet; 'The Reigo of Grace,' by George Aldridgc, of Auckland. Mills, Dick and Co., Dunedin. Here we have again history repeating itself in regard to the ever important question, " What is truth ?" and just as the awful and disgraceful extent to which the dogma of salvation by penance was carried to, brought about the other extreme, so it appears that, after the dogma of eternal torment has been very generally believed ia for about the past fifteen hundred years, several men of repute in the Episcopalian, Independent, and Baptist churches daring the past thirty years have made advances towards the belief that all will ultimately bo saved; and, since one of our professors has' published a pamphlet advocating the belief that there is a probability of all or nearly all being saved after death, this has brought out the said review. The design of the reviewer is hereby put in the last part of his preface, thus: "If in this review the writer can persuade his readers to examine the Scripture testimony on the nature and destiny of man, he » certain that, in the light of divine revelation oh these themes, the old brutal teaching of eternal misery, and the seductive but delusive doctrine of the larger hope, will vanish from their minds along with the lying dogma of natural immortality; and with the true conception of man as a mortal, perishing creature will come the true conception of God's provision for him, the gift of eternal life—immortality." " Creed, revision, and reconstruction," says the Professor, is " fast becoming clamant duty," while the reviewer " believes that creed abolition is a more pressing need," which appears to the writer to be a more sensible view of the question, as all evangelicals are agreed upon the Bible being a Divine authority, and that the one party will not recognise tie other's creed, and vke versa. But the burden of Mr Aldridge's charge against the Professor is that he (instead of fiving a Divine authority) has drawn upon is own imagination for his conclusions; but as we could not do justice to the reviewer unless we give his own words, we quote from page 8 : "On the question of the future of mankind, nothing can be known outside the Bible. Direct revelation is the only source of knowledge. The sooner the entire discussion is brought to this point the sooner will truth oe reached. Men are talking themselves blind about a possible salvation after death, and against the doc trine of eternal misery, and are apparently ignoring this evident fact—that no sentiment, guess, or surmise will give us ground to proceed upon. The Bible has revealed the future, and every discussion should begin from it as the true starting point." The most surprising part of the pamphlet is the statement that (after the Doctor writes immortal soul or its equivalent four times) the word soul and spirit occur over 1,600 times in the Scriptures in the original tongue, and at the same time the words immortal soul and never-dying spirit not once. This statement was so different from what the writer had been taught that, after turning over one of the largest concordances printed, he found the fact just as the reviewer had stated. That a person should come amongst us for the past three months making known these doctrines (in the most public manner possible), which are so very different to what we have been taught, holding himself open to be questioned, answer* ing every question to the satisfaction of his audience, and at the same time sticking close to the Scriptures, surely shows that we may have something to learn, and that from the Scriptures, regarding the futurestate of the human family. The only difficulty that the reador may have appears to be that, since the author has given the authority of Jeremy Taylor and Martin Luther, "in all the interpretation of Scripture the literal sense is to be presumed and chosen, unless there be evident cause to the contrary," as there is no guide to let us know when this evident cause comes in. Before concluding the author declares, In addition to the non-immortality of the soul, that there is no scriptural authority for man being conscious between death and the resurrection ; that there is no possibility of re* pentance after death; and that the deolanu tion in respect to the doom of the wicked are to be taken in their literal sense. The pamphlet ia forcibly written, and speaks out straight and plain upon a subject that has given most people a good deal cf anxious thought. There are only twentyeight pages of it, and it can be gene through in a single evening.— (Communicated.)