What is the Need of Furute Probation? [pp. 289-305]

THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. XLV. JUNE, I 887. No. 267.
WHAT IS THE NEED OF FUTURE PROBATION?*
PROGRESSIVE orthodoxy, in the sense of the Andover professors, contains a constant and a variable element; the constant
taken from dogmatic and historical Christianity, as they understand it, the variable being a development in the apprehension
and use of Christian doctrines. As Protestants, they take the
doctrines of the Reformation as being substantially the genuine
doctrines of apostolic and catholic Christianity; and their
specific form of Protestantism is the Puritan type, which gave
character and form to the primitive New England theology.
The Unitarian rationalism which arose and spread in Massachusetts was regarded as a movement of progress; but it had no
appearance of being a progressive orthodoxyi.e., a development
of the New England form of Calvinism. It was a renunciation
of the entire system, and a falling back upon philosophical
Theism, with an infusion of a diluted Christianity.
The Andover Seminary was founded for the purpose of
resisting the Unitarianism of Cambridge and maintaining the
old Puritan orthodoxy. A very strict and minute creed was
formulated, as an obligatory standard of doctrine for the instructors in the Seminary, and the tenure of the large property bequeathed by the founders was made to depend on the faithful
preservation of this doctrinal standard. The present controversy between Dr. Park and his adherents of the old school on
*Progressive Orthodoxy: A Christian Interpretation of Christian Doctrines. By the
Editors of the Andover Review, Professors in Andover Theological Seminary. Boston and
New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. i887.
Copyright. Ray. I. T. HacKER. 1887.