Congregationalists and Future Probation
By Editor
At the recent meeting of the American (Congregational) Board at Worcester, Mass., Dr. R. R. Meredith, in his speech October 12, made the following statement regarding the views of the Congregationalists touching the future probation theory (see Independent of October 19):— “Do you want to tell me that this board represents the Congregational Churches of the United States in the idea that the untold millions of the heathen are going down from the darkness and degradations and irresponsibility of their awful condition on earth to eternal, conscious misery? We do not believe that doctrine. [Loud applause.] To my mind, and to the minds of the people to whom I have preached, it is as far beyond the bounds of rational belief as its intrinsic atrocity is beyond the bounds of exaggeration. [Applause.] We believe that they, as all men, are in the hands of the Divine Father, and he has not been pleased to tell us what he is going to do with them; and it is a libel on God to represent them as going out of their darkness and irresponsibility into eternal conscious perdition. We do not believe anything of the kind in the Congregational Churches.” While we agree with Dr. Meredith's protest against endless misery, we do not believe that God has left us in ignorance concerning the fate of those who reject the spiritual light which comes to them. "The wages of sin is death," is the language of the Scriptures. "As many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law." "They shall be as though they had not been." They chose death, and God gave them their choice.