The upshot of this, according to the Evangelical creed, is that the
great majority of the world is to be permanently lost. Only a few,
those who are converted or those becoming members of the true Church,
connected with it sacramentally or in some way, only the few are to be
saved, and the great majority outcast forever.
This, in substance, makes up what has been called the gospel; and those
who claim that they are preaching the gospel are preaching these things
as true. I am well aware and I would not have anybody suppose that I
overlooked it that this creed is undergoing very striking and marked
changes, and that a great many of those things which some of us look
upon as more objectionable are being left out of sight, and not
preached, as they used to be, though they still remain in the creeds.
I am aware, for example, that what it is to be orthodox or evangelical
has been reduced to very low terms as compared with those which I have
just set forth; that is to say, reduced to very low terms in certain
quarters. For instance, Dr. Lyman Abbott, of Brooklyn, tells us that we
need not believe in the infallibility of the Bible any more; that we
need not believe in the old-time Trinity; that we need not believe that
Jesus was essentially different from a man; we need not believe in the
virgin birth, unless we find it easy to accept it. But the two things
which he tells us we must believe in order to be orthodox, or
evangelical, are that in some way, though he does not define how, the
Bible contains a special message from God to the world, and that in
some way Jesus particularly and specially represents God, and that he
reveals him to men, so that, when he speaks, he speaks with authority,
as representing divine truth.
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