resurrection is not only taught in the Scriptures, but it is intimated in the natural world. (b) The saints will be raised in the likeness of Christ; but the wicked will awake unto shame and everlasting contempt. (c) (a) 1 Cor. 15:21, 22, 13-19; Acts 24: 15; Job 19:25, 26; Isa. 26: 19; Mt. 22:30; Acts 26:8; John 5:28, 29; 2 Tim. 2:18; Acts 26:8; Rom. 8: 11. (b) Job 14:7, 14, 15; 1 Cor. 15:36. (c) Phil. 3:21; 1 Cor. 15:53; 1 John 3:2; Ps. 17: 15; Dan. 12:2; John 5:28, 29; Mt. 25: 32-46. CHAPTER XVI.1 The General Judgment. As men do not receive the due reward of all their deeds in this life, there will be a general judgment, when time and man's probation will close forever. (a) Then all men will be judged according to their works; (b) the righteous will enter into eternal life, (c) and the wicked will go into a state of endless punishment. (d) (a) Acts 17:31; 2 Pet. 2:9; Mt. 11:24; 2 Pet. 3:7; Jude 6; Rev. 10:6; 1 Cor. 15:24; Mt. 12:41, 42; 25: 31, 32; 1 John 4:17; 2 Pet. 3:11, 12; Rev. 20:11, 12. (b) 2 Cor. 5:10; Rom. 2:16; Eccl. 11:9; 12:4; Mt. 12:36; Rev. 20:13; Rom. 2:6, 7-9; 14: 10, 12; Eccl. 3:17. (c) Mt. 25:34, 46; 2 Pet. 1:11; Rev. 3: 12; 1 Thes. 4: 17; Rom. 6:22; Rev. 1:6; 3:4; Col. 3:4. (d) Mt. 25:41, 46; 2 Thes. 1:9; Mk. 3:29; 9:44; Jude 7; Rev. 14:11; John 8:21; Rev. 20: 10, 15; 21:8, 27; 22:11; Mt. 13:41, 42; Ps. 9: 17; 11:6. 1 Ninth edition has this chapter as follows: "The General Judgment and Future Retributions. 1. THE GENERAL JUDGMENT. There will be a general judgment, when time and man's probation will close forever. Then all men will be judged according to their works. 66 2. FUTURE RETRIBUTIONS. Immediately after the general judgment the righteous will enter into eternal life, and the wicked will go into a state of endless punishment." Part Five CONFESSIONS OF OTHER NATIONALITIES All the Confessions thus far treated, which can in strict propriety be considered Baptist, were drawn up in English. But in the course of the nineteenth century Baptist churches rose in other lands, propagated for the most part directly or indirectly from England and America. Besides the mission fields, strictly so-called, which have been and are still dependent on English-speaking Baptists for their vitality, doctrines, and practices, there are on the continent of Europe flourishing bodies of Baptists, whose views and practices have been formulated with considerable independence. The most important of these are the German, French, Swedish, Danish, Hungarian, and Russian Baptists. Some of these bodies have drawn up independent Confessions of faith of considerable importance. They are all Calvinistic, but their Calvinism is of a mild type. I. GERMAN BAPTIST CONFESSION Of these Confessions, that of the German Baptists is most important, because of the size and vigor of the body, and of the further fact that they have been largely instrumental in planting Baptist bodies in the other countries of Northern and Eastern Europe. They are in no way descended from the old Anabaptists or Mennonites, alongside of whom they live to-day without any intercommunior. The work began at Hamburg, in 1834, with the baptism of J. G. Oncken, a colporter of the Edinburgh Bible Society, who had been converted by independent personal study of the Bible, to the Baptist view of the subject and mode of baptism. April 23 the first Baptist Church of Germany was organized in the house of Oncken, in the great commercial city of Hamburg. Through much persecution and over great difficulties, Baptist work gradually spread to all parts of the country, until at present (1909) there are some forty thousand Baptists in the empire. Early in the history of the movement, Julius Köbner, a Danish Jew, and G. W. Lehmann, of Berlin, were converted and threw in their fortunes with the Baptists. These two, with Oncken, form the famous "Clover-leaf' of German Baptist history, and for years shaped the views and policies of the body. They drew up that statement of doctrines which continues to the present to be the sole Confession of the whole body of German Baptists. As in the case of the early English Baptists, their purpose was to disprove the slanderous accusations constantly circulated against them, and to afford a brief text-book for indoctrinating the churches in the teachings of the Bible. As early as 1837 such a Confession was drawn up by Oncken and Köbner to be laid before the government of Hamburg. When it was presented to the Hamburg church, some of the members rejected it because of its outspoken doctrine of the election of grace, and were excluded in consequence. It was then adopted as the doctrinal belief of that church. A transcript copy was sent to the church in Berlin, where Lehmann enlarged and modified the Confession, and the Berlin church then adopted it. In this form the brethren at Hamburg would not receive it. For nine years it was impossible for the two parties to agree upon any common statement. Fi nally, in 1845, during a visit of Lehmann in Hamburg, the brethren, after struggling for days and nights with the subject, reached a statement in which all parties could find their views. The doctrine of the Lord's Supper is Calvinistic rather than Zwinglian. Köbner, who was the leading literary representative of the Baptists, was charged with the duty of giving literary form and providing Scripture references for the whole. This work was not finished until 1847, when the Confession was printed, and at the urgent demand of Oncken, was laid before all the churches for adoption. This was done, and henceforth all who were received into the churches were required to give assent to the Confession. Not only were the Scripture references given, but many of the passages were printed in full, thus placing before the reader's eyes the Scripture proof of every position (Lehmann, “ Gesch. d. deutschen Baptisten," I, 254f). The opposition the German Baptists encountered not only cemented their union but made them especially careful in regard to the standards of their faith which they sent forth. When the Baptist Union was formed, in 1848, it was agreed that the "Foundation of this Union is the Confession of Faith adopted by all the churches which enter this Union." As before stated, this Confession remains the common bond of the German Baptists to the present time. But in 1906 a committee was appointed by the General Conference to consider its revision. A carefully prepared revision (printed in "Die dreijährlichen Berichte" for 1909) was brought in in 1909, but after considerable discussion action was postponed for another period of three years. The original Confession therefore continues in force. A translation with Scripture references attached follows: |