80 The Fundamentals tion is release from the necessity of continued rebirths, not a creation of new character for human service in Divine loyalty. Confucianism has no doctrine of salvation. The Chinese soul has had to turn, in the attempt to satisfy its needs, to other teachers. In its ideal and offer of salvation Christianity stands alone. (Kellogg, “Comparative Religion,” chapters IV, V.) 5. Christianity is the only religion which is at once his torical, progressive and spiritually free. Therefore, it is the only religion which can claim universal dominion. Each re ligion of the world has filled a place in history, but Moham medanism is the only one whose historical facts are essential to it, and, as Bishop Westcott says: “Christianity is historical not simply in the sense in which, for example, Mohammedanism is historical, because the facts connected with the origin and growth of this religion, with the personality and life of the Founder, with the experience and growth of His doctrine, caii be traced in documents which are adequate to assure belief; but in a far different sense also. It is historical in its antecedents, in its realization, in itself; it is historical as crowning a long period of religious training which was accomplished under the influence of Divine facts; it is historical as brought out in all its fulness from age to age in an outward society by the action of the Spirit of God; but above all, and most characteristically, it is historical be cause the revelation which it brings is of life and in life. The history of Christ is the Gospel in its light and in its power. His teaching is Himself, and nothing apart from Himself; what He is and what He does. The earliest creed—the creed of baptism—is the affirmation of facts which include all doc trine. “Dogmatic systems may change, and have changed so far as they reflect transitory phases of speculative thought, but the primitive Gospel is unchangeable as it is inexhaustible. There can be no addition to it. It contains in itself all that
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