Probation has of late years come to be one of the mooted theological questions. For many years after the Reformation, or the establishment of Protestantism, this doctrinal point, like all other doctrinal points, was supposed to have been finally settled, and all discussion of it foreclosed by ecclesiastical edict. To contend for the possibility of a probationary period after death was unpardonably heretical, and, if persisted in, brought excommunication and anathema from the Protestant Church quite as pronounced and irrevocable as ever issued from the Pope of the Roman Church. Nor has this day yet passed entirely away.
It is not strange that Calvin and Luther, coming as they did from the intolerant atmosphere then surrounding the Roman Church, should have brought with them much of the dogmatism and religious severity to which they had been bred. They had this religious habit to outgrow. It is perhaps more strange that their modern followers should, many of them, in the matter of intolerance, yet adhere so tenaciously to the religious habit of the founders of their sects.
Unitarianism and Universalism experienced scarcely less of this intolerance than their predecessors, in taking their decided stand against these edicts of Calvin and Luther, yet they were successful in reaching the better reason and hearts of millions of sincere Christian people, with the happy result of disenthralling them from this phase of doctrinal misconception. Nor has this result been confined to these denominations. The agitation of this question by the thinkers within them, met a ready response from many members of other denominations, setting them to investigating the Scriptures from the standpoint of this "larger hope;" and we deem it safe now to say that a large majority of those yet maintaining nominal connection with the Evangelical churches, so-called, repudiate the doctrine of non-probation and its kindred doctrines. A school of ecclesiastics, however, yet cling with traditional tenacity to the formulated theories, and are intolerant of any suggestions of departure therefrom. Let the question be but hinted at in the ecclesiastical assemblages, and the tocsin of war is instantly sounded. Many who yet look to professional theology as their Scriptural guide are thus held in a thraldom of doubt and fear from which they would gladly be freed if, through the dictates of their conscience, they could be.
