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be face to face with social and political problems graver in character and more far-reaching in extent than any which have been

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      hitherto encountered." "To the thoughtful mind the out- look at the close of the nineteenth century is profoundly interesting. History can furnish no parallel to it. . . .We seem to have reached a time in which there is abroad in men's minds an instinctive feeling that a definite stage in the evolution of Western civilization is growing to a close, and that we are entering upon a new era."

      Utterances like these, repeated in sermons and lectures, in books, magazines, and the daily press, meet us on every side; all alike proclaiming a new age at hand. Whilst differing widely as to the final result, there is general agreement that we have come to the border line that separates two eras, that we have left the old behind us and are entering upon the new. This is in itself a most remarkable fact What is its significance? Why a new age? Are our old beliefs, our old institutions, outgrown? Are we about to break with the past, and take a sudden leap onward? What has aroused this general feeling of restlessness, this widespread discontent with the present, these eager anticipations of something better soon to come?

      In considering the significance of this fact, our attention is here given chiefly to its religious bearing, although a change in religion necessarily brings with it a change in every department of human thought and action. When the new age has fully developed itself, what religion will it give us? Will it be some new phase of Christianity, or an eclectic religion, or something distinctively new? Here the anticipations of men differ widely. Let us attempt to classify them.

      First, those Christians who believe that the Kingdom of God was established in the earth and the reign of Christ begun when He ascended into Heaven, or perhaps when the Roman Empire acknowledged Christianity. This is said by many, or most, in the Roman, Greek, and Anglican com- munions. They, therefore, look for no change in belief af- fecting essentially the creeds or rituals of the Church. As a

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      Divine Institution it is permanent, and this ensures the permanence of the present Christianity. No new religious era is to be looked for; its supposed signs are fallacious. The future will be as the past in all its main features till the Lord returns to final judgment.

      Secondly, those—chiefly to be found in Protestant bodies—who think but little of the Church as a historic institution, to be preserved unchanged, but believe that there will be a wider and ever-growing spread of Chris- tianity as a spiritual influence till the world is leavened. This class would retain for the most part the Protestant confessions of faith without any vital doctrinal or other changes. The new era they expect will come through a Christianized civilization, and the enlargement of Christen- dom to embrace all nations.

      Thirdly, those who, having the same expectations as to the spread and triumph of Christianity, affirm that it must have large modifications in order that it may be adapted to the present conditions of religious enquiry. It is amongst these that we find many leaders of modern thought. They affirm, to use the evolutionary phrase, that the organism must be adjusted to its present environment The Church, both as to its doctrine and polity and labours, must respond to the demands of the new age, and adapt itself to its needs. As to the extent of these modifications, there are wide diversities of opinion. Some would give up only those doctrines and rites which are most offensive to the spirit of the time; others would go further, and put away a large part of what has been regarded as distinctive in Christianity, that it may serve as a basis for an universal religion. But most have apparently no clear conception of what they must give up or retain.

      Fourthly, those in all sections of the Church who see clearly enough the rapid religious changes all around them, and feel the power of the growing revolutionary tendencies, and are greatly perplexed what to think of the

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      future, or what to da They ask anxiously: Where are the proposed modifications of Christianity to end? Is it true that we are at the beginning of a new and better age? Is it the light of a glorious dawn that is beginning to illumine the heavens, or the lurid gleam of far-off volcanic fires? They know not what to believe in the present, or what to expect in the future. Faith in God, in the Scrip- tures, in the Church, does not wholly fail, but they are disquieted in spirit and sad at heart

      On the other hand, there are many in Christendom, and apparently a continually increasing number, who affirm that mere modifications of Christianity, greater or less, cannot permanently save it Christendom has proved it for many centuries, and found it a practical failure. Its fundamental principles conflict with the growing intelli- gence of the world. We have come to a new age, and a new age must bring with it a new religion, not a revivifi- cation of the past; one based upon a new conception of God, simple, comprehensive, and fitted to be a world- religion. Some, indeed, think to make it eclectic, and to incorporate in it more or less of Christianity; but those of clearer vision see the impossibility of this, and affirm that Christianity must be taken as a whole, or rejected as a whole. Of these Renan is a sample, who says: "The future will no longer believe in the supernatural, for the supernatural is not true, and all that is not true is con- demned to die. The pure truth will triumph. Judaism and Christianity will disappear." In the same way speaks the learned Jew, Darmesteter: "All Europe is in quest of a new God, and seeking everywhere for the echo of a coming gospel.” And all those who, like Herbert Spencer, substitute an impersonal Force for a personal God, will have nothing of Christianity but its ethics. Of the attempts to formulate the new religion, we shall, later, have full occasion to speak. But in them all we shall see ample proof that Christianity, with its vital doctrines, the

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      Trinity, the Incarnation, Sin and Atonement, Resurrection and Judgment, must give place to some form of belief better suited to the modern conceptions of a Supreme Being, of the reign of Law, and of the goodness and dignity of human nature.

      It is almost inevitable that but few in a time of transi- tion like the present can have any definite conception whither they are going, for such a time is always one of obscurity and confusion. Christendom is a battlefield where the old elements and the new are struggling to- gether, assailants and defenders inextricably mingled. It is in such a transition period that the light of the pro- phetic word is indispensable to clear vision. Knowing what God has said of His purpose in His Son, and in humanity, and illumined by it, we may discern the signs of the times, and the real nature and significance of pass- ing events, and thus know the meaning of the present, and the goal to which it leads.

      Assuming here (what the examination of the Scriptures will soon show us) that the antichristian spirit, which has often had its partial representatives in the past, is to be finally summed up in a single person, who is distinctively the Antichrist—the last product of the antichristian tend- encies — we are brought to the vital question. What will be the relations of the coming new age to him? Do we see in its spirit and principles a preparation for him? We are taught by the Apostle Paul that “he shall sit in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." Are we to have a new religion in which the Saviour from sin can have no place, but will be supplanted by one who will present himself as the representative of a Divine humanity, and so an object of worship? It is the purpose of this book to answer these questions. To those who look upon the present tendencies as the harbingers of a new and higher evolution of Christianity, it will be both false and offensive. Why, they will ask, these pessimistic utterances? Why

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      dishearten the spirits of zealous men by forebodings of evil? Why speak of an apostasy when the Church is just arising into the full consciousness of its mission, and gird- ing itself anew for its accomplishment ? Why speak of an Antichrist when the world is honoring the Christ more than ever before?

      To those, also, on the other hand, who think that the world is outgrowing Christianity, and that there is no longer a place for the Church or its Head, and that humanity, freeing itself from its old and burdensome religious traditions, is entering upon a new and higher development, this book will be an offense; if it be not rather wholly disregarded

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