FUTURE PUNISHMENT; OR- . DOES DEA TH END P ROBATION ? Materialism, Immortality of the Soul ; Conditional Immortality or Annihilationism ; Universalism or Restorationism ; Optimism or Eternal Hope ; Probationism and Purgatory. By the J^EY'D WILLIAM (BO0HRANB. D. D., I Ex-Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada,) AuTHoB oj "The Heavenly Vision;"' "Christ and Christian Lipb;" "Wabnino and Welcome;" Etc • With Illustrative Notes from the Writings of Eminent British and American Scientists and Theologians, — also — Additional papers prepared especially for this Book, by the Rev. VVm. McLaren, D. D., Professor of Systematic Theology, Kno" College, Toronto ; Rev. A. Carman, D. D., General Superin- tendent ot the Methodist Church ; Rev. J. W. Shaw, M. A., LL. B., Professor, Methodist Theological Co lege, Montreal; Rev. Wm. Stewart. D. D., Baptist Church ; Rev. John Burton, B. D., Congregational Church, Toronto ; and Aichbishop Lynch, Toronto. ILLUSTRATED BY THE CELEBRATED FRENCH ARTIST. GUSTAVE DORE, FROM DANTB'S "inferno" AND "PUROATOBY AND PARADISE." BRANTFORD, ONT., ST. JOHM, N. R, MELBOURNE ANB port ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA, BRADLEY, GARRETSON & CO., 1886. B ( 3bG ft ]-^|\ ^entfltten j^ ^^ ^^ Pt^EgEN^ED : TO 1 1^ 'i>iVri'<>V»>irt^ii^'iiWMi ' rzllslrsMsliallslislisllsllsllsllsllsJlslBUisasllsJislislisuisaslratslisJislisliaistxIlsaiB* Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada, in the Year Fi^liteeu Hundred and Eiqhty-fiva, by Bradley, Garretson & Co., iu the Office of the Minister of Agriculture. PREFACE i HE Doctrine ot Future Punishment has for many years engaged the attention of thinking minds, on both sides the Atlantic. Notable departures from the old faith have but stimulated enquiry, and led to greater study of those portions of God's word which treat of this all- important truth. The result cannot be otherwise than bene- Although in the somewhat severe conflict of opinions, the discussion may not always seem profitable or promotive of Christian charity, yet in the end it njust lead to a more intelligent conception of the truth, and a deeper reverence for the Volume of inspiration. This treatise has been written and compiled at the request of the Publishers, to meet a felt want in many Christian homes. Vol- umes by specialists in Science and Theology abound, but these for the most part are beyond the capacity and comprehension of the ordinary reader, and only treat of some one phase of the question, with which the writer is specially concerned. An attempt has been made in the present work to discuss, however cursorily, nearly all the leading views held regarding the future punishment of the wicked, in the simplest possible language, and at the same time to include in the Notes and separate papers, the more scholarly and abstruse discussions of thoughtful minds, both in the old world and the new. To students, therefore, as well as to the general reader, it is hoped that the volume may at least be helpful, if not exhaustive. Instead of proceeding at once to discuss the doctrine of Univcr- salism, as opposed to the orthodox view held by Evangelical 6 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. churches, the tcachinpfs of Matcriah'sm arc first considered. For, if as is alleged by Materialists, there is no immortality for man, it is useless to discuss the different opinions held as to the nature or duration of punishment, in a state which has no existence. Is there a future state? Is the present the precursor of an endless exist- ence ? Is man an accountable being ? or is the grave an eternal sleep, and heaven and hell mere speculations, without anything approaching reality? Such questions meet us on the very thresh- hold of the subject, and demand consideration before all others. Following this and closely connected with the main question, several chapters have been devoted to a consideration of " Condi- tional Immortality," "Optimism,": Probationism, Purgatory and Agnosticism ; until finally, and at greater length, the old orthodox view of Eternal Punishment is discussed, as opposed to modern rationalism and restorationism ; — theories — which if we rightly judge, undermine all faith worthy of the name, and rob the Al- mighty of His holiest and most glorious attributes. Those who expect to find in this Volume, a mere " symposium " of the different opinions held regarding Future Punishment, will be disappointed. While an earnest endeavor has been made, not to misrepresent the views held by those who are at variance with the Evangelical Creed, no uncertain sound is given as to the opinions held by the several writers. I know that it is said by some, that old-fashioned doctrinal preaching is dying out : that old doctrines have sunk into oblivion : that future retribution is now only alluded to : that eternal punishment is never taught in the pulpit of to-day ; and that in the few instances where the orthodox creed is held, the prosperity of the church is blighted, the pulpit loses its power over the masses, vital religion dies out, sanctuaries are deserted, and edu- cated men become infidels ! Those who speak thus, wilfully mis- represent facts. In Canada and the United States, the pulpit was never more definite and outspoken regarding the Doctrine of Eter- nal Punishment than at the present moment ; orthodox congrega- PRIiFACE. ; tions were never more numerous and aggressive, and contributions to missions never more liberal To those of my brethren in the different churches, who have so kindly aided me in the preparation of this Volume, my best thanks are due. Without their contributions, the discussion of this mo- mentous question would have been far less valuable than it is. I trust that the Publishers, who have undertaken the responsi- bility of issuing the Volume, and all who may promote its circula- tion, may feel, that apart from any monetary return, they have aided in the defence of " the faith, once delivered to the saints." Finally, and in the words of another : " Whatever, be the fate of human speculations on this tremendous topic, be it ours to cul- tivate the simplicity of faith which is independent of them. Even though in its vastness and mystery it continue to rebuke our feeble reason, let it stand in the naked simplicity of fact ; a truth great, and terrible and certain ; planted deep in the nature of God's attri- butes, and, therefore, unfathomable as all things that are of Him ; but withal addressing itself to the simplest and strongest leelings of man, his dread of pain, his horror of shame, and misery, and death ; meeting him at every turn to evil, and casting a fearful shadow across those pleasures that are not of God, and those glories where God's glory is forgotten ; meeting him at the first fatal step upon that course which ends in the abyss of woe it denounces, and warning him at once to flee the bondage of seductions which grow as they are obliged, and strengthen with every victory ; warning him that all the temporal results of sin — are but shadows of the overwhelming penalty it brings, when the mercy, which still re- strains to these limits the fulness of divine vengeance shall have ceased ; and the sin and the punishment which are now but tem- porary, passing together into the world of eternity, and still, as ever, bound in inseparable links, shall become themselves alike eternal." WILLI /^M COCHRANE. Brantford, Ontario, ! 4 W^!^^^ ^'W" LIST OF AUTHORITIES. Note. — The following Authors, among othet.^, have been con- sulted or quoted, in the preparation of this volume : Abbott, Lyman Dr. Adler, Professor Felix Allon, Dr. Henry Argvle, His Grace the Duke of Augustine. Barnes, Dr. Albert B artlett, P roe esso r Bascom, President John Beeciier, Dr. Lyman Beecher, H. W. Brady, Rev'd Ciieyne Breckenridge, Dr. R. J. Brewster, Sir David Busiinell, Dr. Horace Caird, Principal Candlisii, Principal Carlyle, Thomas Clemance, Dr. Clement Cook, Rev'd Joseph Constable, Rev'd H. Cumming, Dr. John Dale, Dr. R. W. Dante, Darwin, Professor Dawson, Sir J. W. Delitzsch, Prop'essor Dick, Dr. John Edwards, Dr. Jonathan Emerson, Ralph Waldo Farrar, Canon Franklin, Benjamin Eraser, Dr. William Haeckel, Professor Harrison, P'rederick HiRSCIIFELDER, PROFIISSOR Hodge, Dr. Charles Hugo, Victor , Hume, David Huxley, Profe.ssor Kellogg, Professor S. H. KiNGSLEY, Rev'd Charles / KiTTO, Dr. John Knapp, Dr. G. C. Leighton, ARCiir.isHOP Lyell, Professor Mathieson, Dr. George Maurice, Professor F. D. MuNGER, Dr. T. T. McCosH, Dr. James McGilvray, Dr. Walter McLeod, Dr. Donald McLeod, Dr. Norman Newton, Sir Isaac Parker, Theodore Patterson, Dr. Robert Patton, Dr. ¥. L. lO FUTURE PUNISHMENT. Pearson, Bishop Pettingell, Rev'd J. H Phelps, Professor Plumptre, Professor PuNSHON, Dr. Morley PUSEY, Dr. E. B. Rogers, Professor George Robertson, Rev'd F, W. Robinson, Dr. Stuart Saurin, Rev. James Shedd, Professor W. T. G. Smith, Professor Henry B, Smith, Professor Joseph H'yi Spencer, Herbert "Spurgeon, Rev'd C. H. Stuart, Professor Moses Symington, Dr. A. Macleod SWEDENBORG, EMMANUEL Thornwell, Dr. J. H. Thompson, Dr. J. P. Tyndall, Professor Wallace, Professor Watts, Dr. Robert White, Rev'd Edward Whittier, J. G. CONTENTS. ^H^NTRODTJCTORY. Different views held as to a future ivil K^'.f4 state. The Materialistic — Annihilationist — Optimistic — Probationist — Romish — Dantean — Agnostic — Uni' ■^ versalist — And Orthodox. Materialism. — Man nothing but a Material Organism, whose conscious existence terminates at death — The theory in some form or other advocated for thousands of years — Prevalent in China three hundred years before the christian era. Teaches that every particle of matter is endued with life. Common distinc- tion between mind and matter ignored. The Universe always has existed, and must continue to exist for ever. At death man as an individual ceases to exist, but the forces which belong to him enter into the composition of other men. All existence traced to matter, which never having been created cannot be destroyed. Immateri- ality and Spirituality, meaningless words. Feeling, thought and will, only modifications of the nerves and brain. Belief in a future life a dream and a delusion. Materialists not all agreed as to the value of the conclusions aimed at. Some disown the name. Quo- tations from Haeckel, Huxley and Tyndall. Evolution. — Differs from Materialism. Does not do away with the necessity of a Creator. The present course of nature, a development of original and infinitely early laws. Man the legiti- mate offspring of the bestial race by a link of unbroken succession The chemic lump shapes itself into the human form, and within 12 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. the recesses of the human brain assumes a spiritual character, and thinks. Baselessness of such a theory shown, by quotations from the 'vritlngs of MacGilvray, Newton, Sir David Brewster, and others ; with Notes on Materialism and Evolution from the writings of Professor Lyell, Alfred Russell Wallace, Professor Joseph Henry Smith, Dr. R. Patterson, Professor Henry B. Smith, Dr. Charles Hodge, The Duke of Argyle, Thomas Carlyle, Dr. James McCosh, and Sir J. W. Dawson. The Immortality of the Soul. — Arguments drawn from (a) The almost universal belief of mankind, (b) The Analogy of Nature, (c) Reason, (d) Revelation. Doctrine of a future state held by nearly all nations. To what is this to be traced ? Greek and Roman mythology, Chinese, African and Hindoo worship, all recognize existence beyond the grave. The Mahommedan creed gives prominence to the doctrine. Nothing in nature opposed to it. Death destroys the sensible proof, but gives no reason for sup- posing that the grave ends the aspirations of the life. Yearnings after a future existence. Proof of the immortality of the soul from the general law of adaptation. Dr. Chalmers' Bridgewater treatise. The present condition of the world, and the unequal distribution of rewards and punishments demand it. Clearly announced in Scrip- ture. Translation of Enoch and Elijah. Testimony of Moses, David, Solomon, the Apostles, and Christ himself. Professor Hirschfelder's argument, founded on the creation of man. Job's words, " I know that my Redeemer liveth." Greg's statement, " Immortality a matter of intuition, not of inference — the soul per- petually reveals itself" Opinions of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Lord Byron and others ; with Notes on the Immortality of the Soul, from the writings of Dr, R. J. Breckenridge, President Bascom, and Rev. Dr. T. T. Munger. Conditional Immortality, or Annihilationism.— Im- mortality not natural, inherent and unconditional, but bestowed only upon the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, Prominent advo- CON TL M.S. li cates of the doctrine. Condensed statement of their views. Scrip- ture texts cited and examined in support of and against. Meaningf ot the Greek words, " Oiethros," " ApoHumi," " Apolonto," &c. Rev. George Rogers on the Annihilation theory. Argument from the mercy of God. Parable of the Rich man and Lazarus consid- ered. " Conditional Immortality," by the Rev. Wm. McLaren, D.D.^ Professor of Systematic Theology, Knox College, Te nto. Optimism.— Canon F.\rrar's "Eternal Hope." — Rejects Univcrsalism, Annihilationism, and Purgatory (as held by Roman Catholics). Agrees with the teachings of the Evangelical Churches, that sin cannot be forgiven, until repented of and forsaken. Rejects physical torments, and the doctrine that endless punishment is the doom of all who die in a state of sin. Canon Farrar's exaggerated statements as to the views held by orthodox christians. No valid Scriptural grounds assigned for this " Eternal Hope." Quotations from writers holding similar views. Tendency of the theory to unsettle. Of no practical benefit. Gives men an excu.se for con- tinuance in sin. Easy to understand what is denied — difficult to discover what is believed. Canon Farrar's justification of his posi- tion and the circumstances of publication, unsatisfactory. Reply by Dr. Allon. Canon Farrar's views of Eternal Punishment as given in his life of Christ. The true grounds of hope. The Cer- tainty of Endless Punishment, with special reference to the views of Canon Farrar, by the Rev'd W. T. G. Shedd, D. D., Professor ia Union Theological Seminary, New York. PROBATIONISM— PURGATORY.— THE DANTEAN THEORY OF PHYSICAL SUFFERING. Probationlsm Defined. — Differs from Optimism and pur- gatorial purification. Various opinions as to when probation ends. Testimony of Scripture regarding the theory. Arguments against Probationlsm and Univcrsalism similar. Salvation entirely the 14 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. result of faith in Jesus Christ, without future probation or purga- torial suffering. Cardinal Wiseman's testimony. Practical results of such a theory. Wherever philosophy has taught, that " the gods do not punish" licentiousness has prevailed. Illustrations from the degeneracy of the Roman Empire. Effect of the writings of Voltaire, Diderot and others. Mohammed and the poison cup. The poetry of repentance beyond the grave. Whittier's earlier and later convictions. Purgatory. — A state of preparation and purification, prior to entrance upon everlasting bliss. Quotations from Catholic Period- cals. The doctrine in a modified sense held by such writers as Canon Farrar. The arguments from Scripture in favor of purga- tory examined. Christ's preaching to the spirits in prison. The unpardonable sin, or sin against the Holy Ghost. Personality of the Holy Ghost. His work. In what does the sin consist. Is it one act or a series of acts. Different views. Evidence that such a sin has been committed. The Dantean Theory of Physical Suffering. — Few Christians now retain it as an article of belief. The Church of Rome merely says " that it is dangerous to deny that future pun- ishment may be physical." The Hell of Dante real. The lake of fire and brimstone not figurative, but actual representations of future torment. Sketchof the Poet's life. Birth — education — appli- cation to study — attainments and accomplishments. His love for Beatrice Portinari. His public and political life. Exile and return to Florence. Earlier works but little known. His greatest effort " The Divine Commedia," comprising " The Inferno," " The Pur- gatorio," and the " Paradiso." Begun about the year 1300 — finished probably about 1320. Brief description of the poems. Specimen stanzas taken from " The Inferno," illustrating the awful sufferings of the lost. Character of Dante's genius. Results of his life. His last days and death. His tomb at Ravenna. Notes on Proba- tionism and Purgatory from the writings of Professor S. H. Kellogg, CONTKNTS. I| Professor E. H. Plumptre, Dr. John Dick, Dr. John Brown, and Dr. Charles Hodge. Agnosticism. — Its Athenian prototype. Gnostics and Agnos- tics compared. Agnosticism denies the cardinal doctrines of the Christian creed. Believes neither in mind, matter, nor God. Not a new heresy, though formerly called by other names. The Agnos- tic creed. Agnostics refuse to be called Atheists — they only ignore God. They worship the " Great Unknown," assured that IT IS. Opinions of Drs. McCosh and Caird. The Agnostic denial of a God leads to the denial of man's personality and a future state. Of such a state there is a possibility, but no hope. To expect it, is weak and ignoble. Man's ideal existence is in the lives of others only. Theists admit that there are many things which the human mind cannot grasp : they must be accepted by faith. Yet God is not unknowable. Spurgeon's description of the Agnostic creed. Agnostics not examples of humility. Boastful of human reason. Tendencies of the theory — Fails to satisfy the yearnings of the soul — affords no consolation in the hour of trial — takes away a religious faith, and puts nothing in its place but the unknowable ! Such a creed can never be accepted by the great body of any people. With notes and an additional paper on " Agnosticism " by the Rev. James McCosh, D. D., and tl.j Rev. John Burton, B. D., Northern Con- gational Church, Toronto. Universalism, or Restorationism. — The word used in two senses. Summary of what Universalists believe in common with other Christians and what they reject. The Orthodox or Evan- gelical view of future punishment, as opposed to Universalism. Universalists seldom confine themselves to the question at issue, but misrepresent the orthodox creed. Jonathan Edward's writings often quoted for this purpose. Such criticism unfair. Makes no allowance for the rhetoric of impassioned preachers. Quotations from other theologians, Pusey, Archer Butler, Professor Mansel and Spurgeon. Drs. Hodge, Phelps, and Bartlett on the Metaphors \ I(S FUTURE PUNISHMENT. and Symbols of Scripture. While often too literally pressed, they.- represents dreadful realities. Universalists admit that sins com- mitted and unpardoned in the present life must be dealt with in the next. After death, however, the worst specimens of human beings shall be reclaimed. Sin is misfortune without guilt. God cannot consistently doom men to endless retribution. The ortho- dox view is that sin perpetuates itself — that with no remedial influ- ences it increases in heinousness, from one degree of wickedness ta another, without possibility of change. Quotations from the writ- ings of Swedenborg, Joseph Cook, Dr. Albert Barnes, Andrew Jukes, Professors Watts and Phelps. The objection considered, that eternal punishment is against the justice and benevolence of God. Arguments from Scripture considered. The true meanings of the words '• Aeon," " Aionios," and " Aionial." The conclusions arrived at regarding them by Professor Moses Stuart and others. The broad thinkers of the day not, as alleged, Universalists. Views of Charles Kingsley, F W. Robertson, Norman McLeod, and others. Summary of the arguments advanced in behalf of the orthodox creed. Positive objections to Universalism. Antagonistic to the teachings of God's Word. Leads to utter rejection of the funda- mental truths of Christianity. Universalism tested by the number of its adherents and its actual results, gives no cause for alarm. Few unhesitatingly accept it as a ground of trust. Growth of the sect marvellously slow, compared with that of other churches. Does little for the good of society or the amelioration of present wrongs ; with Notes and Additional papers on Future Puni.-^iment, by Rev. Principal Cairns, D. D., Rev. P'rancis L. Patton, D. D., LL. D., Princeton, N. J., Rev. James Saurin, Rev. Stuart Robinson, D. D., Rev. Wm. J. Shaw, M. A., LL. B.. Methodist Theological College, Montreal ; Rev. Wm. Stewart, D. D., Baptist Church, Cheltenham ; Rev. A. Carman, D. D., General Superintendent of Missions, Canada^ Methodist Church ; and Archbishop Lynch, Toronto. Practical reflections. Index. INTRODUCTORY. ^IJh^ EFORE discussing the question of tne " Eternity ol future punishment," let us briefly indicate the different views held as to a future state. Next to the question ^^ of the being of a God, no inquiry is more natural foi every individual to make and settle, than this : " Is my existence limited by time, or shall I continue to live throughout the endless ages of eternity ?" Upon our belief or rejection of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, much ol our happiness depends, even on this side the grave. The dilTerent theories held as to a future state are these : The Materialistic. — Man is nothing but a material organ- ism, whose conscious existence is terminated at death. Materialism is indeed but the old Sadducean disbelief in immortality — no resur- rection, no future life, no heaven, no hell : let us eat, drink and be merry, for to-morrow we die. The Annihilationist. — The soul is not naturally immortal, and can only be made immortal by union with the Saviour. The incorrigibly wicked shall therefore sooner or later cease to exist, for there is no future for any but believers in Christ. 2 l8 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. The Optimistic. — Affirming neither the Univcrsalist nor Rcs- torationist nor Agnostic theories, it indulges in an eternal hope. Canon I'arrar, who occupies this position, says, that although he cannot preach the certainty of Univcrsalism, he must yet lift up, behind the darkness in the background, the hope that every winter will turn to spring. The Probationist. — Not that all men will be saved, but that those who die impenitent will have a second chance, and that those who do not improve it, will fall into eternal sin, and go into eternal punishment. Men may thus secure the pardon after death, which they failed to secure while they lived on earth. The Romish. — There is a hell, and there reprobate angels and lost men are eternally punished. While not teaching authoritatively that future punishment will be physical, it asserts that it is danger- ous CO deny that it will be so. ■ The Dantean. — There is a hell, and its punishment is phy- sical and real. Such descriptions of future torment as " the lake of fire and brimstone" are not figurative, but literal and actual repre- sentations of the awful future in store for impenitent souls. The Agnostic. — We know nothing whatever about the future state. Nature throws no light upon the question, and the Bible reveals n thing of a definite character to solve the mystery. No one has ever come back to tell us anything in regard to his welfare beyond the grave. We are therefore at liberty to think as we please. There may be, and there may not be, a future world. When a man dies, that may be the end of him, or he may enter some fair land, to be forever free from the ills of the present life 1 The Universalist or Restorationist.— All men will be ultimately saved and restored to the favor of God. Sooner or later all will reach heaven. The Universalist Creed is as follows : " We believe that there is one God, whose nature is love, revealed in one Lord Jesus Christ, bj' one Holy Spirit of grace, who will finally INTRODUCTORY. 19 restore the whole family of mankind to holiness and happiness." One of our best known poets, expressing this hope of final res- toration, says : " Oh yet we trust that somehow good f Will be the Annl ^'oal of ill; To pan^s of nature, bIus of will. Defects of doubt and taints of blood Ihat nothing walks with aimless feet, That not one life shall be destroyed, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete." The Orthodox. — Future punishment is everlasting. At death th€ state is fixed for eternity. No man who dies impenitent will, after death, change his character and obtain pardon. Sin is self- propagating. Where sin continues punishment will continue. Reform in another state of existence is not supposable. Men who persevere in sin from the beginning to the end of life, will persevere in sin forever, and such as refuse forgiveness here will never obtain it hereafter. It is appointed unto men once to die, and afterwards there comes — not probation — not the offer of mercy — but the judgment MATEEIALISM. "What am I, whence produced, and for what end ? Whence drew I being, to what period tend ? Am I the abandoned orphan of blind chance, Dropp'd by wild atoms in disordered dance ? Or from an endless chain of causes wrought, And of unthinking substance, born with thought, Am I but what I seem, mere flesh and blood, A branching channel, with a mazy flood ?" " Eternal life is Nature's ardent wish : What ardently we wish, wc soon believe : Thy tardy faith declares that wish destroyed : What has destroj^ed it ? Shall I tell thee what ? When fear'd the future, 'tis no longer wish'd ; And when unwish'd, we strive to disbelieve. Thus infidelity our guilt betrays." MATERTATTSM f* N CONSIDERING the different theories held regarding " Eternal punishment," the question arises, is the soul XV '.y) of man immortal ? "If a man die, shall he live again?" Z; V/jT -% If according to Materialists there is no hereafter, and ^-^ P man's existence ends in the grave, there can be neither V misery or happiness beyond the present. It is held by some, that man is nothing but a material organism, ivhose conscious existence is terminated at death. Although this theory is now prominently and zealously discussed by a certain class of scientists, as a new and be'ter solution of creation than the first chapter of the book of Genesis affords. Materia Ism, in some form or other, has been advocated for thousands of years. It is indeed impossible to say when and where Materialism began. In China, three hundred years before the Christian era, it was preva- lent. Quotations from the writings of that period might with very little change be accepted as the creed of the Materialists in the present age. Says one of these Chinese philosophers : " Wherein people differ, is the matter of life ; wherein they agree, is death. While they are alive, we have the distinctions of intelligence and stupidity, honourableness and meanness : when they are dead, we have so much rottenness decaying away ; — this is the common lot 24 FUTURi: PUNISHMENT. All arc born, and all die. At ten years old some die, at a hundred years old some die. The virtuous and the sage die : the ruffian and the fool also die. Alive they maj' be the most virtuous of men ; dead, they are so much rotten bone. When about to die, therefore, let us treat the thing with indifference and endure it, and so ABANDON OURSELVES TO ANNIHILATION !" Materialism, according to its principal exponents, teaches that matter is endued with life ; that ever)' ^•'article of malLcr, ojsides its physical properties, has a principle of life in itself, which precludes the necessity of assuming any other cause for the phenomena of life exhibited in the world. It ignores the common distinction made between matter and mind, and refers the phenomena of the world, whether physical, vital or mental, to the functions of matter. The Universe always has existed, and must continue to exist for ever. As defined by one of themselves : " The Materialistic theory is that there is but ONE EXISTENCE, the UNIVERSE, and that it is eternal — without beginning or end — that the matter of the Universe never could have been created, for ex nihilo nihil fit (from nothing nothing- can come), and that it contains within itself the potency adequate to the production of all phenomena. This we think to be more conceivable and intelligent than the Christian theory that there arc- two existences — God and the Universe — and that there was a time when there was but one existence, God, and that after an indefinite period of quiescence and " masterly inactivity," He finally created a Universe either out of Himself or out of nothing — either one of which propositions is philosophical!}' absurd." The soul is thus material, and ceases to exist when the body dies. Death is the cessation, not only of the vital but also of the intellectual functions of the individual. The atoms of which the man is composed, with the forces which belong to him continue to exist, and may enter into the composition of other men. But the man AS AN INDIVIDUAL CEASES TO EXIST. From this it follows, that as there is neither mind or spirit, there is no God and no moral law, and no future MATERIALISM. 25 state of existence for man. " Every ^reat man (says Comte) has two forms of existence : one conscious before death, the other after death — UNCONSCIOUS — IN THE HEARTS AND INTELLECTS OP OTHER MEN." All existence is thus traced to mere matter. The best known and mo«t widely read materialistic text books teach, that matter ih eternal and independent of Almighty will ; that nothing exists, oi can exist, that is not material ; that matter and force are insepar- able, eternal and indestructible ; that inorganic and organic forms are simply the result of different accidental combinations of matter ; that life is a particular combination of matter, taking place under favorable circumstances ; that the soul is a function of material organization, and thought a movement of matter. The physical universe is the one sclf-existcnt necessary eternal being : all sen- tient, and each part performing its appropriate function. The world was uncaused, and exists solely of itself. Since matter is, MATTER MUST ALWAYS HAVE BEEN. It cannot be destroyed, and conse- quently cannot be created. IT IS WITHOUT END, AND THEREFORE WITHOUT BE(;iNNiN(;. It is the basis of all Life, and ALL LIVING FORMS ARE FUNDAMENTALLY OF ONE CHARACTER. The matter of life is composed and built up of ordinary matter, differing from it only in the manner in which its atoms arc aggregated. It is again resolved into ordinary matter, when its work is done. Under what- ever disguise it takes refuge, WHETHER WORM OR MAN, THE LIVING MATTER DIES, AND IS RESOLVED INTO ITS MINERAL AND LIFELESS CON.STITUENTS. It follows from this, that immateriality and spirituality are meaningless words. Feeling, thought and will, are only modifica- tions of the nerves of the brain. Eelief in a future life is a dream and a delusion. The grave receives the whole of man. In a literal scn.sc, the poet's words fitly express such a creed : " Thou art safe ! The sleep of death protects thee, and secures From all the unnumbered woesiof mortal life." ':t6 FUTURE rUNISIIMENT. Upon this materialistic theory, consciousness, intelligence, thouglit and moral sense, are but the highest development of the faculty, ' by which the lichen draws nutriment from the air or the rock." The conscious, intelligent, thinking moral being, is as much a mate- rial substance as the lichen. Its intellectuality is due to the organ- isation to which it has attained, that is, to a certain combination of its material elements and the forces with which they are endowed. Consequently, when in each particular instance or product, the organisation ceases to act, the combination is dissolved, and the separate individual intelligence, — what we call mind and soul, — vanishes entirely. What we call a spiritual essence is only a devel- oped animal nature, the difference between man and beasts being not one of kind, but of degree. Humanity is only a higher degree of Animality. We have no right, according to materialism, to sup- pose or expect a personal immortality. Men may indeed be said to live after death in the memory of their fellow men, but OTHER DEATHLESS EXISTENCE THERE IS NONE. If all mental acts and states are of the brain, when the body dies, the man ceases to exist. The brain is, according to this atheistic iheory, the soul — the part of the body which thinks — which is endowed with fibres ot thinking, just as the legs have muscles of motion. Death, which destroys the rest of the body, destroys the brain, the so-called soul. When death comes the farce of human life is played out ! There is, therefore, according to this hypothesis, no ground for expecting in a future life reward or punishment. The only immor- tality is that when the body is disintegrated it will enrich the earth, nourish plants, and feed other generations of men. Death is an eternal sleep. The mind cannot exist apart from the body, as it cannot come into existence without the body. What is dissolved at death is devoid of sensation, and therefore death is simply an escape from the ills of life. There is no God, no fate, no other world, no recompense for acts. Prosperity is heaven, and adversity is hell, and there is no other heaven or hell. Entire human disso- MATERIALISM. 2/ lutlon is coincident with death. Life is onlv a phenomenon, and death joins us to the unrcturning past. All that is good of us IS ABSORBED INTO GENERAL AND GENERIC HUMANITY! The race we have served is our sepulchre. " The man of overwrought brain, used up, worn-out feelings : the distempered dreamer : the reckless worker of wrongs : the disappointed striver for an earthly crown, all shall have a common slumber, unconscious, impervious, unbroken. The opiate comes at last — oblivion ! An overshadow- ing that covers all." " Cessation is true rest And sleep for them oppres't, And not to be — is blest. Annihilation is A better state than this ; Better than woe or bliss. The name is dread : the thing Is death without a sting : An overshadowing!" Thus materialism looks down the gulf of annihi'at'on, and amid th? ti'oubles of a godless existence, feels something like a morbid satisfaction in the thought, that the present scene is the whole of man. Such a system is essentially atheistic. It denies the exist- ence and necessity of a God, and the immortality of the soul. Professor Huxley, after delineating the leading features of bis phil- osophy, says : "In accepting these conclusions, you are placing your feet on the first rung of a ladder, which in most people's esti- mation is the reverse of Jacob's, and leads us to the antipodes of heaven. I should not wonder if " gross and brutal materialism " were the mildest phrase applied to them in certain quarters. Most undoubtedly the terms of the propositions are DISTINCTLY MATE- RIALISTIC. Nevertheless I can discover no logical halting place between admitting, that the matter of the animal and the thoughts to which I give utterance, are SIMPLY CHANGES IN THAT MATTER OF LIFE, which is the source of vital phenomena." 28 FUTURE rUNlSlIMENT. Materialists are, however, by no means agreed, as to the value of the conclusions arrived at. Some of them disown the name by which they are known, although it is of their own choosing. While Professor Hackcl says, "that materialism is now established on evidence which places it beyond dispute, and that the time has come to teach it to children in the form of a catechism". Professor Huxley retorts by saying : " I am no materialist, but on the con- trary, believe materialism to involve grave philosophical error. The materialistic position, that there is nothing in the world but matter, force and necessity, is as utterly devoid of justification, as the most baseless of theological dogmas. All who are competent to express an opinion (upon the mode of creation) agree, that the manifold varieties of animal and vegetable form, have not come into exist- ence by chance, nor result from capricious exertions of creative power ; but that they have taken place in a definite order, the statement of which order is what men of science term natural law. The plastic matter out of which the smallest animal is formed, undergoes changes so steady and purpose-like in their succession, that one can only compare them to those operated by a skilled modeler upon a formless lump of clay. One is almost possessed by the notion that some more subtle aid to vision than an achromatic would show the hidden artist with his plan before him, striving with skilful manipulation to perfect his work." And in his article on Biology, ctintributed by Professor Huxley to the new edition of the Encyclopaedia Brittannica, he says : " The fact is that at the pres- ent moment there is not a shadow of trustworthy direct evidence that abiogenesis (life from the lifeless) does take place, or has taken place within the period during which the existence of life on the globe is recorded. But it need hardly be pointed out that the fact does not in the slightest degree interfere with any conclusions that may be arrived at deductively from other considerations, that at some time or other abiogenesis must have taken place." Yet strange to say, while rejecting the materialistic creed, and expressing his MATERIALISM. 29 abhorrence of any theory that teaches that mind is matter, thought nothing- but a movement of matter, and the soul material, — all his philosophical and psychological enquiries proceed on the supposi- tion, that such propositions are true — that life and thought are the product of a certain disposition of and changes in material molecules! And finally, Professor Tyndall admits that while materialism presents itself as an intelligible theory of the universe, IT HAS NEVER YET SUCCEEDED IN EXPLAINING A SINGLE FACT in the world of con- sciousness. It hopes some day to be able to show us future Shakespeares, " potential in the fires of the sun," but as yet cannot find the faintest sensations of the meanest insect. While wc think there can be no dispute in any candid mind that materialism is atheistic, it is not asserted that all so-called Materialists are Atheists. Some admit the being of a God, to whom they refer the creation of the world, although the number of such illogical materialists is small. And in order to reconcile their views with belief in the Almighty, they substitute the Development theory, or Evolution, which in recent years has been discussed in the " Vestiges of the Creation," and the voluminous writings of Charles Darv. I^i, tl.c eminent naturalist. EVOLUTION. Wherein this theory differs trom materialism, and wherein it equally fails to satisfy the demands of science and religion, is worthy of consideration. It does not do away with the necessity of a Creator. The method of his working is simply on such a suppo- sition changed, but the fact of his existence remains. Whence came matter, with its marvellous adaptations and development? " So far from superseding an intelligent agent, the Development theory only exalts our conceptions of the ultimate skill and power, that could comprehend such an infinity of future uses, under future systems, in the original groundwork of creation." God might have 30 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. originated the species by a law of development, just as he continues this world and all that it contains, by the constancy of law. The necessity of a first great cause is as consistent and compatible with the one scheme as the other. But as has been observed, mere belief in the existence of a God, without belief in the immortality of the soul and in the scheme of salvation by a Mediator and Redeemer, is of as little ethical value as a belief in the existence of the great sea serpent. Among other things, so far as we can gather its leading prin- ciples from its numerous advocates. Evolution holds that the present course of nature is a development of original and infinitely early laws, primarily due to matter : the nebulous became the solid : the solid distinguished and separated : the inanimate by imperceptible degrees became animate, and so on into more perj'ect forms and nobler instincts. All the forms and processes of nature are evolved from the operation of certain laws, inherent in nature itself, working in the 'wa.y of gradual progression and improvement, each class or order of existing creatures containing in it-^elf aii that is essential to the class or order above it. The primary basis of vegetable and animal life consists of a globule of matter, from which by the oper- ation of chemical causes, a generative germ is produced. This germ, after passing through a formative process, gradually assumes the shape of a plant. This plant improves in structure, and gives birth to a new order of plants, of a higher and better type than itself, and they in turn repeat the same process. Thus by a course of transformation and development, one class of vegetable produc- tions rises above another, according to a regularly graduated scale, until at last we reach animated nature. From the point of junction of vegetable and animal life, the different grades of living creatures steadily advance in structural development, each grade surpassing the last in complexity and completeness of organization, until the crowning work is reached in man, .n whom the best features of the whole are combined. MATERIALISM. 31 If tlu.s is the position of man in the scale of creation, it makes him the legitimate offspring of the bestial race, by a line of ascend- ing gradation, but at the same time of unbroken succession : a line which leads him down through the beast, the bird, the reptile, the fish, the mollusc and the worm, until he finds his origin in a chem- ical lump of matter. As a materialist expresses it, "the chemic lump arrives at the plant, and grows : arrives at the quadruped, and walks : arrives at man, and thinks." That is, the chemic lump, by its own inherent energies, moves on towards those different steps of promotion. It is the same lump that shapes itself into the goodly proportions of the human form, and there seated as on a throne within the recesses of the human brain, assumes a spiritual character and thinks." Such a theory, it would seem, needs only to be stated to carry with it its own refutation. Its baselessness on scientific grounds, and its unreasonableness or absurdity on moral grounds, have repeat- edly been shown. To expose all the fallacies and assumptions that underlie it, is beyond the immediate purpose of this volume, and would tax unduly the patience of the general reader. Suffice it, ttiat we present the followin ; condensed summary of one of the earliest replies made to the theory, as indicating how vulnerable it is, when critically examined. The late Rev. Walter McGilvray, D. D., in his treatise entitled " The Sadducees of Science," thus writes : " To make such a theory credible, there are many assertions and assumptions that have yet to be proved. Among these may be mentioned the statement, regarding the gradual procession of the different races of creatures, from each other. ' Like produces like,' has hitherto been regarded as the established law of nature, nor has anything yet been brought forward by the advocates of " Evolution " to a contrary conclusion. Not a single example has been given jf the operation of a different law. Countless myriads ui' seeds arc daily germinating, yet it has never been f^und that the 32 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. seed borne by any one plant has produced a species different from its parent. Individual varieties of the same species may be, and have been frequently propagated, but no example of transmutation from one generic class to another. This holds true, also, of the animal kingdom. Experiments have been made without number to effect a change of species, but without success, so that the theory of spontaneous generation, and progressive transition, is a theory that yet remains without a shadow of proof Nor does the likeness traced between the physical construction of the human race, and that of the inferior creatures, afford any foundation for the theory of Evolution. Comparative anatomy proves beyond a doubt, that the organic productions of nature all proceed upon the same funda- mental plan, but this resemblance is only an example of that beau- tiful unity of design which pervades the work of creation : which binds its various points together into one connected system, bespeak- ing the skill of a Supreme directing Intelligence, in the precise adjustment of its complicated elements, and their harmonious co- operation to the production of a common end. Can we suppose, that the power which has brought into existence such a mass of magnificent materials, and built them up into a fabric so symme'.ri- cal and sublime in its proportions as the human frame itself, is a mere property of matter, the simple, natural development of a chemic lump — that a particle of dust has been converted into the mind of a Milton and the heavenly soul of a Paul ? " But even supposing that there is a physiological connection between the lower animals and man, this is not sufficient evidence that they derive their different measures of intelligence from the same source. That mind is the product of matter is the assumption of materialists, and the more complete the organisation, the greater the sagacity manifested. The brain, they say, is the organ of the mind, and the size and finish of this organ is in proportion to the structural advancement of the creatures, and determines the meas- ure of intelligence with which they are severally endowed. And NOTES ON MATERIALISM. OR such of our readeia as may wish to prosecute this subject further, we append a few extracts from well known Scientists and Theologians, in confirmation of the opinions advanced in the previous pages : " There is not an existing stratum in the body of the earth, which geology has laid bare, which cannot be traced back to a time when tt was not ; and there is not an exist- ing species of plants or animals which cannot be referred to a time when it had no place in the world. Their beginnings are discov- erable, in succeeding cycles of time. It can be demonstrated that man also had a beginning, and all the species contemporary with him, and that therefore, the present state of the organised world has not been sustained from eternity." — PROFESSOR Lyell, (the well-known Geologist.) " If a material element, or a combination of a thousand material elements in an atom of matter, are alike unconscious, it is impossible for us to belie/e that the mere addition of one, two, or a thousand other material elements to form a more complex atom, could in any way tend to produce a self-conscious existence. To say that mind is a product or function of matter, or of its changes, is to use words 42 FUTURE PUNISIIMKNT. to which \vc can attach no clear conception. You cannot have in the whole, what does not exist in any of the parts. EITHER ALL MATTER IS CONSCIOUS, OR CONSCIOUSNESS IS SOMETHING DIS- TINCT FROM MATTER : and in the latter case, its presence in mate- rial forms is a proof of the existence of conscious beings, outside of and independent of what we term matter." — ALFRED RusSELL Wallace, (friend and associate of Darwin.) " The body is but the machine we employ, which furnished with power md all the appliances for its use, enables us to execute the intentions of our intelligence, to gratify our moral natures, and to commune with our fellow beings. This view of the nature of the body is the farthest removed from materialism : it requires a sep- arate thinking principle. A locomotive may be equipped with steam, water and fuel ; in short, with the potential energy necessary to the exhibition of immense mechanical power, but the whole remains in a state of dynamic equilibrium, without motion or signs of life or intelligence. Let the engineer now open a valve, which is so poised as to move with the slightest touch, and almost without a volition to let on the power to the piston, — the machine then awakes as it were into life. It rushes forward with tremendous power : it stops instantly, and returns again at the command of the master of the train ; in short, it exhibits signs of life and intelligence. Its power is now controlled by mind ; it has, as it were, a soul within it. The intellect which controls the engine is not in it, nor is it affected by its changes. And in the body, as well as in the engine, THE CONTROLLING INTELLECT IS EQUALLY DISTINCT FROM THE PHYSICAL FORCE, which both so wonderfully exhibit." — PROFESSOR Joseph K. ry Smith, (Smithsonian Institute, Washington.) "The advocates of Materialism say that the world made itself, and that mind is but a development of matter. According to this theor^ matter is eternal, and the statement contained in the first verse of the Bible — ' in the beginning God made the heavens and the earth ' — is false. 'The world never had a beginning nor a creator.' In NOTES ON MATKRIALISM. 43 support of this theory the sjiyiiiffs of .scientific men are quoted, who affirm ' that matter is naturally indestructible by any human power. You may boil water into steam, but it is all there in the steam ; or burn coal into gas, ashes and tar, but it is all in the gas, ashes and tar : you may change the outward form as much as you please, but you cannot destroy the substance of anything.' Therefore it is argued, as matter is indestructible, it must also be eternal. " In reply to such assumptions, we deny that there is any gen- eral .igreement among scientists and philosophers as to the indes- tructibility of matter, for the very good reason, that few of them pretend to say what matter in its own nature is. All that they assert is, ' that matter is indestructible by any operation to which it can be subjected in the ordinary course of circumstances, observed at the surface of the globe.' That is, ' human power cannot destroy matter :' and if so, it is just as reasonable to say, ' HUMAN POWER DID NOT CREATE IT.' But to say that matter is eternal, because man cannot destroy it, is as foolish as if a child should try to beat the cylinder of a steam engine to pieces, and failing in the attempt should say, ' I am sure this cylinder existed from all eternity, because I am unable to destroy it.' But even if matter were eternal, it does not account for the formation of the world, and the creation of man. What we call matter, is not one, but a vast number of material substances in combination. How did they come together in their different shapes, in clouds, atmosphere, rocks and rivers ? In what way did the fifty-seven primary elements of matter resolve themselves into the present glorious and beautiful world, with its variety of flowers and trees, and birds and beasts and fishes ? If, as is generally believed, every home must have a builder, and every machine a maker, can we accept the teachings of maierialism, that this universe, which is the greatest of all compounds, is eternal, and the result of chance combinations of matter ? " In order to meet this objection, the materialist refers (a) to the law of gravitation, which extends through space, and which has, he U FUTURE PUNISHMENT. alleges, operated eternally ; by which the separate parts of our earth have been drawn together, and under whose influence the orbs of heaven steadily and harmoniously revolve. But the law of gravi- tation presupposes intelligence in its beginning and continuance, for without some power of resistance to the law of gravitation, all things in the universe would be drawn steadily towards the centre of gravity. The centripetal and centrifugal forces, that keep the motions of the plaaetary world adjusted, are evidence of design, and of a power that is tiOt in matter, (b) Nor does the theory of the fire mist, which the mat'jrialist says has existed from all eternity, and from which, under certain conditions, this earth and all living crea- tures has sprung, remove the difficulty. Millions of years ago, says the materialist, the world existed ' as a vast cloud of fire,' which after a long time cooled down into granite, and the granite by dint of earthquakes, got broken up on the surface, and washed with rain into clay and soil, whence plants sprang up of their own accord, and the plants gradually grew into various animals, and some of the animals grew into monkeys, and finally the monkeys into men.' This is what is now known as EVOLUTION, OR THE Developmlnt Theory, — in itself, not necessarily Atheistic, but in its tendency and logical results decidedly so. Whether it is easier to believe that matter is eternal, or that nothing evolved something outside of itself, by some unknown law of nature, and that man with all his powers of reason, is but matter, destitute of immortality, or that the words of inspiration — 'and God said. Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,' — are true, may confidently be left to the judgment of every candid mind. If man is simply a material organ- ism, then the doctrine of a future existence is false, and conscious- ness terminates at death." — REV. R. PATTERSON, D. D., (author of " Fables of Infidelity.") " Materialism teaches — i. That from matter can be deduced all the powers and forces of nature, such as magnetism, light, gravity, or that matter eventuates in these forces. NOTES ON MATERIALISM. 45 " 2. That the principle of life is also a modification of matter. " 3. That the soul, with all its faculties, is a product of matter, as also all that the soul produces. "4. That all knowledge, all truth, all ideas, are simple inductions /rom material facts and phenomena, and all knowledge a modifi- cation of sensation. " 5. That the material world has the ground and end of its existence in itself — that there is no power above it, producing it, and no end for which it was made — and that irrational power is sufficient to produce all there is in the world. " 6, That the moral law is nothing more than a modification of the sequence of phenomena, and not a binding law given from above. " 7. That God is merely a name for matter, and that there is really no God. " Materialism cannot establish these PRorosiTiONS. It cannot explain the phenomena of life, neither the animal organism, nor the life which results from it. It cannot explain an organic body — not even the humblest plant. One life runs through all its parts. There is something more in it than atoms and general forces of nature. It cannot prove the soul to be a modification of matter. If the soul is material, it is the brain acting. But the brain is an aggregate of organs, to which strict unity does not belong. But strict unity does belong to the soul, as is seen in the consciousness of personal identity. Hence the soul cannot be derived from the brain. Thought and feeling cannot be explained as secretions of the brain, or as products of it, in any way. Still less can will or choice be derived from brain ; for in choice we are conscious of powers above the material world. If there be any final or efficient causes, materialism cannot be true. A final cause supposes a wise author of the world. An efficient cause supposes a power above that which it produces. Organisation shows final cause, and the efficient cause is necessary to satisfy the reason. If there be any 4^ FUTURE PUNISHMENT. absolute right, materialism cannot.be true. Any law of duty is quite inconsistent with materialism. Materialism must deny any ultimate cause or end of the universe, out of itself If the universe indicates a source lying behind it, and a goal before it, materialism is a failure." — REV. Henry C. Smith, D. D., (Union Seminary, New York.) "As materialism, in its modern form, in all that is essential to the theory, is the same that it was a thousand years ago the old arguments against it are as available now as they ever were. Its fundamental affirmation is, that all the phenomena of the universe, physical, vital, mental, are to be referred to unintelligent physical forces ; and its fundamental negation is, that there is no such thing as mind or spirit, apart from matter. There arc two methods of combatting any such theory. The one is the scientific, which calls in question the accuracy of the completeness of the data on which it is founded, or the validity of the inferences adduced from them. The other is the shorter and easier method, of the reductio ad absurdum. The latter is just as legitimate and valid as the former. The facts on which Materialists insist may, for the most part at least, be acknowledged ; while the sweeping inferences which they draw from them, in the eye of reason may not be worth a straw. All such inferences must be rejected whenever they conflict with any well established truth, whether of intuition, experience, or of divine revelation : " I. Materialism contradicts the Facts of Consciousness. The knowledge of self must be assumed. Unless we ARE we cannot know. This knowledge of self is a knowledge that we are some- thing : a real existence, not merely a state or mode of something else. It is not only knowledge that we are a substance, but that we are individual substances, which think, feel, and will. This im- plies mind — an individual, intelligent, and voluntary agent. The body is not the man. It is intimately and even vitally united to the real self : it is simply the organ which the soul uses, in com- NOTES ON MATERIALISM. 4/ munlon with the external world. The Materialist cannot think or speak or write, without assuming the existence of mind, as distinct from matter, any more than the Idealist can live and act, without assuming- the existence of the eternal world. "2. Materialism denies the fact of free agency. Consciousness attests that men have the power of self-determination. Every man 1 nows this to be true as regards himself and his fellow men. This conviction no obduracy of conscience, and no sophistry of argument, can permanently obliterate from the human mind. But materialism denies free agency, and refers all mental action to physical forces. " 3. Materialism contradicts the facts of our moral and reli- gious consciousness. No man can free himself from a sense of accountability. These moral convictions necessitate belief in a God, to whom we must give account. But Materialism, in banishing all mind in man, leaves nothing to be accountable ; and in banishing all min ' from ihe universe, leaves no being to whom an account can be rendered. To substitute for an intelligent, extra-mundane, per- sonal God, mere matter (or ' inscrutable force,') is a mockery and an insult. It cannot be true, unless our whole nature be a lie, To call upon men to worship gravitation, and sing hallelujahs to the whirlwind, is to call upon them to derationalize themselves. The attempt is as idle, as it is foolish and wicked. " The fact is, that if \. e have no trustworthy evidence of the exist- ence of mind, we have no valid evidence of the existence of matter ; and there is no universe, no God. All is nothing. Happily men cannot emancipate themselves from the laws of their nature. They cannot help believing the testimony of consciousness as to their personal identity, and as to the existence of the soul, as the source of their thoughts, feelings and volitions. As no man can refuse to believe that he has a body, so no man can refuse to believe that he has a soul, and that the two are radically distinct." — REV. CllARLES Hodge, D. D., (Princeton Seminary, N. J.) 48 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. " I have never thought that any true theory of development or of growth was in the least degree inconsistent with divine purpose and design. But this must be development properly understood, and with all its facts clearly ascertained. My own strong impres- sion is, that there are many scientific men in the world who are a great deal more ' Darwinian,' than Darwin himself is. I have seen some letters published in scientific journals, in which it is quite obvious that the writer rejoiced in Darwin, simply becanse he thought that Darwin had dispensed with God, and had discovered some process entirely independent of design, which eliminated altogether the idea of a personal Creator from the universe. Now, it so happened that I had some means of knowing, that that was not the attitude of Mr. Darwin's own mind. In the last year of his life, Mr. Darwin did me the honor of calling upon me at my house in London, and I then had a long and very interesting conversation with that distinguished observer of nature. Mr. Darwin was above all things an observer. He did not profess to be a theologian, or a metaphysician. It was his work in the world to record facts, as far as he could see them, faithfully and honestly, and to connect them with theories and hypotheses, which were constructed at all events for a temporary convenience, (as all hypotheses in science must be,) before proof came. In the course of that conversation, I said to Mr. Darwin, in reference to some of his remarkable works on the fertilisation of orchids, upon earth worms, and various other obser- vations he had made of the wonderful contrivances for certain pur- poses in nature, that it was impossible to look at these, without seeing that they were the effect and the expression of mind. I can never forget Mr. Larwin's answer. Mr. Darwin looked at me very hard, and said : * Well, it often comes over me with overpowering force, but at other times' — and he shook his head vaguely — ' it seems to go.'" — THE DUKE OF Argyle. " The so-called literary and scientific classes in England, now proudly give themselves up to Materialism, Origin of the Species, MATERIALISM. 33 ycl the ant and the "busy bee," two animals /own near the very bottom of the scale of organisation, and that can hardly be said to possess a particle of brain at all, manifest more intelligence in their operations than any other class of the lower creatures that we are acquainted with ; and the beaver, whose brain is not more compli- cated than the sheep (which is regarded as the very type of stupidity) shows such a marvellous degree of constructive skill, that it is re- garded as one of the wonders of natural history. These facts show how little dependence is to be placed on the theory of evolution, which so utterly breaks down at so many important points. " Still more fatal to such a theory is the fact, that the capacities with which man is endowed are not only different in degree, but different in their nature and working from those of the inferior creatures. The lower animals carry on their operations under the controlling power of a fixed and inevitable law. Their instincts work perfectly from the first, and uniformly to the last. They are but little, if anything, indebted to experience for the skill they dis- play. It is born with them, and they begin to show it from the moment they begin to move. Neither are they indebted to expe- rience for any alteration or improvement in the exercise of their functions. They follow the same mechanical processes of action and construction, without the slightest deviation from the particular pattern or type, according to which they carry on their work. This certainly is not the intelligence of man. But even the instinct ot the lower animal is perfect of its kind, and works under the direc- tion and control of a higher Power than itself — a Power that fits it for its own particular ends, that foresees its particular wants, and that causes it to fulfil the one and provide for the other, in a way that can never be accounted for by the laws of orgariisation, or the general principles of Materialism. If, then, neither the instinct of the brute, nor the intelligence of the man, proceed from any combination of material substances, the falsity of evolution and the truth of scripture is established beyond j4 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. cavil. Man, as to his physical form, was the crowning act of the material universe, while in respect to the spirit that was in him, he was made in the likeness of God. Intellectual and moral qualities were conferred upon him, which raised him entirely out of the rank of the inferior creatures, connecting him immediately with the spir- itual world, and giving him a name and a place but ' a little lower than the angels.' He was far more in reality than the Poet imagines, when he declares him to be — ' half dust, half divinity.' His dust was not common dust, but dust so fearfully compounded, and so wonderfully organised, that it represented all the constituent ele- ments of the world which he inhabited, and all the constructive principles that were spread over the innumerable kingdoms of liv- ing nature ; so that, while he had a part with God, the meanest worm that crawls upon the ground had a part in him." The materialism of the present day is very different from what went under the same name in the days of such philosophers as DesCartes. They never went about to build up a world out of mere passive bulk and sluggish matter, without the guidance of a higher principle. They concluded it the greatest impudence or madness, to assert that living animals were the sole product of matter. Their system recognized an incorporeal substance, of which God was the head. That thought was the result of matter they regarded as the prodigious paradox of Atheists. They acknowledged the necessity of Divine organization and preserva- tion — the existence and agency of a spiritual principle distinct from matter and motion. Newton denied that matter possessed any inherent capacity of action. He ascribed the formation to the act of God, and everywhere in his writings recognized the neces- sity of a Divine Being, as the original cause and continued sup- porter of all things as they are. Nothing was independent of the will and action of God. His philosophical creed, in substance as follows, strongly contrasts with the materialism of our day : " This admirably beautiful structure of sun, planets, and comets, could not MATERIALISM. 35 have originated except in the wisdom and sovereignty of an intel- ligent and powerful Being. He rules all things, not as the soul of the world, but as the Lord of all. He is eternal and infinite, omni- potent and omniscient ; that is. His duration is from eternity to eternity, and His presence from infinity to infinity. He governs all things, and has knowledge of all things that are done or can be done. He is not eternity and infinity, but eternal and infinite. He is not duration and space, but He is ever, and ii present everywhere. We know Him only by means of his properties and attributes, and by means of the supremely wise and infinite constructions of the world, and their final causes : we admire Him for His perfection ; we venerate and worship Him for His sovereignty. For we worship Him as His servants ; and a God without sovereignty, providence, and final causes is nothing else than fate and nature. From a blind metaphysical necessity which, of course, is the same always and everywhere, no variety could originate. The whole diversity of created things in regard to places and times could have its origin only in the ideas and the will of a necessarily existing Being." Sir David Brewster, also, in later days, while admitting that gravitation might put the planets in motion, maintained that without the Divine power it could never give them such a circulating motion as they have about the sun, and hence he was compelled to ascribe the frame of the solar system to an intelligent agent. Young, the Christian poet, expresses this same idea when he says : " But miracles apart, who sees Him not — Nature's controller, author, guide and end ! Who turns his eye on nature's midnight face, But must inquire what hand behind the scene, What arm Almighty put these wheeling globes' In motion, and wound up the vast machine ? * • Who rounded in his hand these spacious orbs — Who bowled them flaming through the dark profound, Numerous as glittering gems of morning dew, Or sparks from populous cities in a blaze : And set the bosom of old night on fire, Peopled her desert, and made horror smile ?" 36 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. In view of this brief discussion, wc arc now in a position to answer the question : By what power was the human race begun on earth ? There are but two explanations — cither the first verse of the Bible, which says : " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," is true, or it is false. The soul is either the result of the innate labor of the natural forces of matter, or it is the work of a supernatural power. There is no middle ground between spontaneous generation and creation. The material sub- stances of the body may be necessary to life, but they do not con- stitute or produce life. Existence and thought cannot be a product of matter. The soul protests against such an origin, and the denial of immortality which it includes : " To lie in cold abstraction, and to rot, This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod," is hostile to man's better instincts. He can never believe that his spirit has been developed by the brain, and that with the brain must be dissolved. Life can only come from life. In thus opposing Materialism and evolution as unscriptural and unreasonable, we make no charge against the morality and integ- rity of many leading scientists, who in studying the mysteries of nature, are led to conclusions, which in the opinion of all christian men and women, undermine the foundations of faith in a Divine Being. Somewhat restive under such charges. Professor Tyndall says : — "It may comfort some to know that there are amongst us many whom the gladiators of the pulpit would call Atheists and Material- ists, whose lives, nevertheless, as tested by an accessible standard of morality, would contrast more than favorably with the lives of those who seek to stamp them with this offensive brand. When I say ' offensive ' I refer simply to the intention of those who use such terms, and not because Atheism or Materialism, when compared with many of the notions ventilated in the columns of religious MATERIALISM, 37 newspapers, have any particular offensiveness to me. If I wished to find men who are scrupulous in their adherence to engagements, whose words are their bond, and to whom moral shiftiness of any kind is subjectively unknown ; if I wanted a loving father, a faith- ful husband, an honorable neighbor, and a just citizen, I would seek him among the band of Atheists to which I refer. I have known some of the most pronounced amongst them, not only in life, but in death — seen them approach with open eyes the inexorable goal, with no dread of a 'hangman's whip,' with no hope of a heavenly crown, and still as mindful of their duties, and as faithful in the discharge of them, as if their eternal future depended on their latest deeds." This may be all true, still the fact remains that without belief in a Divine Being, men have little incentive to holy living. Accord- ing to a man's creed is his practice. Materialism furnishes no grounds for noble endeavor after a blameless life, for it takes away all hope of immortality beyond. Its aim is to exterminate God from the universe. An old legend represents a king shooting an arrow heavenward, and mistaking the blood that came from a bird accidentally wounded, for that of the Deity. Such is the aim of those who substitute Materialism for creative power . "Once, in long perished ages, a vain king Shot toward heaven an arrow plumed and broad ; Jt fell to earth blood-tinged in shaft and wing. " Behold " (quoth he), " MY power has slaughtered God !" What atheist-archers heavenward launch, to-day, Their arrowy malice, while, with mocking nods And scornful smiles, these bold blasphemers say, " Your God is slain I Behold, we now are gods !" NOTES ON MATERIALISM. NOTES ON MATERIALISM. 49 and the like, to prove that God did not build ♦^he univcr.-.c. I liavc known three generations of the Darwins — grandfather, father nnd son — Atheists alk The brother of the present famous naturaUst, a quiet man, told me that among his grandfather's effects he found a seal, engraven with this legend, " Omnia ex conchis" — EVEKYTIIINO FROM A CLAM SHELL ! I saw the naturalist not many months ago : told him I had read his 'Origin of Species,' and other books : that he had by no means satisfied me that men were descended from monkeys, but had gone far towards persuading me that he and his so-called scientific brethren, had brought the present ^^cncratio o^ Englishmen very near to monkeys. Ah ! it is a sad and terrible thing, to see nigh a whole generation of men and women, professing to be cultivated, looking around in a purblind fashion, and finding no God in the universe. The older I grow — and I now stand upon the brink of eternity — the more comes back to me the sentence in the catechism which I learned when a child, and the fuller and deeper its meaning becomes : ' What is the chief end of man ?* 'To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.' No gospel teaching, that men have descended from frogs through monkeys, can ever set that aside." — TiiOMAS Carlyle. "There is certainly evolution, that is, one thing coming out of another, in our world, especially in what we are here concerned with — the operations of physical nature. I know no scientific naturalist, under thirty years of age, in any country of the world, who does not believe that there is such a process. It is highly inexpedient in religious people to set themselves against it ; they will thereby only injure among young men the cause which they mean to benefit. Evolution is involved in the very nature of the causation acting in the whole physical world. Our physical world consists of an in- numerably large number of bodies created by God, and endowed by Him with specific properties. The bodies act upon each other according to their properties. All educated people do now acknow- ledge, that these mundane actions proceed according to the principle 50 FUTURIi rUNI.Sli;sxi.NT. of cause and effect. If this be so, there must be cvoUition. All the operations of nature are regulated by law. By the collocation of the causal agencies, orderly results are produced, or we may say developed, and these may also be called laws. The development is especially seen in the organic kingdonis. All plants and animals proceed from a seed or germ. Now in all this there is evolution, of which, therefore, every one has experience in his own person, and notices all around him in every department of nature, but especially in those living beings he is so closely connected with. " There is a general progression. According to the theory of Laplace, commonly adopted by scientific men, the earth was atone time in a state of vapor, which as it rotated, became condensed into successive planets, and finally into a central sun. All this is con- sistent with scripture, which represents the world as without form and void, at first, and then of a specific form, and plenished with living beings. In all this there is nothing Atheistic, nothing irre- ligious in an}' way. It leaves every argument for the divine exist- ence and the divine benevoleni e where it was before, only adding new examples of order and design. As the law of gravitation binds the whole ol contemporaneous nature in one grand sphere, so the law of development makes all successive nature flow in one grand stream, bearing the riches of all past ages into the future, possibly to the end of time. There is development in scripture. God crea- ted plants and animals at first, and gave them endowments by which they continue their kind throughout the ages. In the first chapter of Genesis such passages as these occur and re-occur : "And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit whose seed was in itself after his kind, a'd God saw that it was good." In all this there is evolution. There is also development and growth in the whole dispensation of grace enfolded in scripture. Looking to these things, the defenders of religion should be cautious and discriminating in their attacks on evolution ; and when they assail it they should always explain NOTES ON MATERIALISM. $1 ^\'hat it is that they are opposing. I regard the things evolved as not the less the work of God, because they have been evolved in an orderly and beneficent manner from other works of God. " But evolution, like every other operation of God, has been turned to evil purposes. It has been used to expel God from His works, and to degrade man to the rank of an upper brute. So I now turn to the question — " Is the Darwinian theory of evolution reconcilable with the Bible?" While holding by evolution, which I see everywhere in nature, I do not therefore concur in all the theories that have been formed on the subject, or approve of the uses to which it has been turned by such men as Huxley, Spencer and Haeckel ; on the contrary, I regard it as of vast importance to rescue a natural, and therefore a divinely ordained process, from the abuse which has been made of it by carrying it too far, and by a wrong interpretation of it by men who have not been made infidels by evolution, but have illegitimately used evolution to support their infidelity. •' Darwin is an eminent naturalist. He may be trusted in his statement of facts. But, while a careful observer, I do not regard him as a great philosopher ; and he was not trained in early life, or in any college course, to observe the facts of the mental and spiritual world, quite as certain and important as those of the phy- sical world. In arguing with him, the question turns around two points : " I. Can development evolve new species of plants and animals ? This is by no means settled, as many naturalists, on the one hand, and many theologians, on the other, suppose. We have no direct proof of any new species of plant or animal being produced by development. There is no such process going on visibly at the present time, and we have no report of any one perceiving it in the past. The first monkey that became a man has left us no autobi- ography to tell us that he was once a monkey. 52 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. "2. Is man developed from the lower animals? I believe in development, and that it can accomplish much, but it cannot do everything. It did not create matter at first ; evolution implies something to evolve from. It could not give to matter its power of evolution, that is, it has not created itself. Not only so, but it cannot evolve the higher powers, such as that of consciousness, intelligence, and moral discernment, from the lower, the material, or mere animal properties. There is no known power in dead matter to produce living matter. There is no potency in matter to produce consciousness, or the intelligence which devises means to secure an end. " We are entitled to ask, specially, whence that higher reason and moral perception which makes us like unto God. I believe wc have to seek for this, not in material or animal nature, but in a be .."ig himself possessed of the attributes he imparts. It will be seen under what limitations I hold the doctrine of Evolution. I stand by it on the understanding that the whole process is the work of God — and that there are higher manifestations of God's power which cannot thus be accounted for." — Rev. James McCosh, D. D., (President, Princeton College, N. J.) " It is a remarkable fact, that the first verse of the Hebrew sacred writings speaks of the material universe as a whole, and as origin- ating in a power outside of itself The universe, then, in the con- ception of this ancient writer, is not eternal. It had a beginning, but that beginning in the indefinite, and by us unmeasured past. It did not originate fortuitously, or by any merely accidental con- flict of self-existent material atoms, but by an act — an act of will on the part of a Being, designated by that name which among all the Semitic peoples represented the ultimate, eternal, inscrutable source of power and object of awe and veneration. With the sim- plicity and child-like faith of an archaic age, the writer makes no attempt to combat any objections or difficulties, with which thi.s great fundamental truth may be assailed. He feels its axiomatic NOTES ON MATERIALISM. 53 force, as the basis of all true religion and sound philosophy, and the ultimate fact which must ever bar our further progress, in the inves- tigation of the origin of things — the production from non-existence of the material universe, by the eternal self-existent God. " If any one should say, ' In the beginning was nothing ;' yes, says Genesis, there was, it is true, nothing of the present matter and arrangement of nature. Yet all was present potentially in the will of the Creator. " ' In the beginning were atoms,' says another. Yes, says Gen- esis, but TIIEY WERE CREATED ; and SO says modern science, and must say, of ultimate particles determined by weight and measure, and incapable of modification in their essential properties. '" In the beginning were forces.' says yet another. True, says Genesis ; but all forces are one in origin — they represent merely THE FL\T OF THE ETERNAL AND SELF-EXISTENT. Force must in the ultimate resort be an ' expression of Will.' '" In the beginning was Elohim,' adds our old Semitic authority, and in him are the absolute and eternal thought and will, the Creator from whom and by whom and in whom are all things. " Thus the simple familiar words, ' In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,' answer all possible questions as to the origin of all things, and include all under the conception of theism. " The term ' evolution,' need not in itself be a bugbear on theo- logical grounds. The Bible writers would, I presume, have no objection to it if understood to mean the development of the plans of the Creator in nature. That kind of evolution to which they would object, and to which enlightened reason also objects, is the spontaneous evolution of nothing into atoms and force, and of these into all the wonderful and complicated plan of nature, without any guiding mind. Biological and palaeontological science, as well as the Bible, object to the derivation of living things from dead matter, by purely natural means, because this cannot be proved to be pos- sible, and to the production of the series of organic forms foujid as 51- FUTURE PUNISHMENT. fossils in the rocks of the earth, by the process of struggle for exist- ence and survival of the fittest, because this does not suffice to account for the complex phenomena presented by this succession. * * * The origin and history of life cannot, any more than the origin and determination of matter and force, be explained on purely material grounds, but involve the consideration of power referable to the unseen world. * * * When Evolutionists, in their zeal to get rid of creative intervention, trace all things to the interaction of insensate causes, they fall into the absurdity of believing in absolute unmitigated chance, as the cause of per- fect ordei."— Sir J. W. Dawson, (Principal, McGill University, Montreal.) We cannot be'Lter close these notes than by the following lines, representing the progress of Creation from chaos up through the iraried grades of animal life to man, the last but grandest work of God : " In darkness of the visionary night This I beheld : Stark space and therein God, God in dual nature doth abide — Love, and Loved One, Power and Beauty's self And forth from God did come, with dreadful thrill, Creation, boundless, to the eye unformed. And white with trembling fire and light intense, And outward pulsings like the boreal flame ; One mighty cloud it seemed, nor star nor >-arth, Or like some nameless growth of the under seas ; Creation dumb, unconscious, yet alive With swift, concentric, never ceasing urge Resolving gradual to one disk of fire. And as I looked, behold tiie flying rim Grew separate from the centre, this again Divided, and the whole still swift revolved, Ring within ring and fiery wheel in wheel. Till, sudden or slow as chanced, the utmost edge Whirled into fragments, each a separate sun. NOTES ON MATERIALISM 5* With lesser globes attendant on its flitij^lit, Tiicsc while I gazed turned dark with sniouldcrlng fire And, slow contracting, grew to solid orbs. Then knew I that this planetary world, Cradled in light and curtained with the dawn And starry eve, was born ; though in itself Complete and perfect all, yet but a part And atom of the living universe. IL Unconscious still the child of the conscious God, - Crcaiion, born of Beauty and Love, Beauty the womb and mother of all worlds. But soon with silent speed the new-made earth Swept near me where I watched the birth of things. Its greatening bulk eclipsing, star by star, Half the bright heavens. Then I beheld crawl forth. Upon the earth's cool crust most wondrous forms Wherein were hid, in transmutation strange, Sparks of the ancient, never-ccising fire ; Shapes moved not solely by exterior law I^)Ut having will and motion of their own, — First sluggish and minute, then by degrees Horrible, monstrous and enorm, without IntclliGfence. Then other forms more fine Streamed ceaseless on my sight, until at last Rising and turning its slow gaze about Across the abysmal void the mighty child Of the supreme, divine Omnipotence — Creation, born of God, by Him begot, Conscious in Man, no longer blind and dumb, Beheld and knew its Father and its God." Y V THE iMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. WHERE ARE THE DEAD i WHERE are the miirhty ones of acjcs past, Who o'er the world their inspiration cast, Whose memories stir our spirits Hke a blast? — Where are the dead ? Did they all die when did their bodies die. Like the brute dead passing forever by? Then wherefore was their intellect so high — The mighty dead ? Why was it not confined to earthly sphere, To earthly wants? If it must perish here, Why did they languish for a bliss more dear — The blessed dead ? All things in nature are proportionate Is man aloiK in an imperfect state, He who doth all things rule and regulate? — Then where the dead? If here they perished, where their beings germ, — Here were their thoughts', their hopes', their wishes' term — Why should a giant's strength propel a worm ? — The dead ! the dead 1 There are no dead ! The forms, indeed, did die, That cased the ethereal beings now on high ; 'T is but the outward covering is thrown by i This is the dead 1 The spirits of the lost, of whom we sing, Have perished not ; they have but taken wing, Changing an earthly for a heavenly spring : These are the dead 1 Thus is all nature perfect. Harmony Pervades the whole, by His all- wise decree, With whom arc those, to vast infinity, We misname dead. " But there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty j'lveth them understanding. Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that gocth downward to the earth." THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. HE arguments in favor of the immortality of the soul are drawn from : (a) The almost universal belief of mankind, (b) The analogy of nature, (c) Reason, > / •- A.evelation. --v^^-i//- .j^Vc*. 'V*-'^ *"^ • '^^' ^\, and (d) Revelation. ^-yJ^ i ' JK'i J- *^/^ . ^ - . It is a striking fact that the doctrine of a futiire state has almost universal belief among all nations. This may not be conclusive proof of the soul's immortality, but it cer- tainly is worthy of consideration. On this question there is entire unity of sentiment, while on almost every other of doctrine or morals, wide differences of opinion have, and do still exist. To whatever this universal belief in a future state is to be traced — whether we regard it as a mere traditionary legend, or a belief originally impressed upon the heart of man by the Almighty, or as a divine revelation handed down from generation to generation — it certainly forms a strong presumption in its favor. Greek and Iloman Mythology, Chinese, African and Hindoo worship, recog- nize existence beyond the grave. All the ancient funeral rites, especially the Egyptian modes of sepulture, were based upon the belief of the soul's immortality. The writings of the more celebra- ted Greeks and Romans, are pervaded and possessed by the same idea, though certainly vague and indefinite, in comparison with the works of modern thinkers. Nor is it denied that many of the ancienl 60 KUTUKl-: rUNISIlMCNT. nations entertained notions regarding the future, bordering upon absurdity ; but admitting this, at the foundation of every ancient system of religion, there lay the belief in the soul's conscious exist- ence after death. To be more explicit, the Scythians believed death to be a mere change of habitation. The Magi, who were scattered over Assyria and Persia, universally admitted the necessity of a future state of rewards and punishments. Socrates and Plato, and many other Greek philosophers, held the doctrine. Plato represents Socrates shortly before his death as saying : " When the dead are arrived at the rendezvous of departed souls, whither their angel conducts them, they are all judged. Those who have passed their lives in a man- ner neither entirely criminal nor absolutely innocent, are sent into a place where they suffer pains proportioned to their faults, till being purged and cleansed of their guilt and afterwards restored to lib- erty, they receive the reward by the good actions they have done in the body ;" and after annexing a specific punishment to each grade of crime, he adds : " Those who have passed through life with peculiar sanctity of manners, are received on high into a pure region, where they live with their bodies to all eternity in a series of joys and delights which cannot be described." Holding such sentiments, we are told the philosopher drank the poisonous draught with amaz- ing tranquility, and with the aspect of one about to exchange a short and wretched life, for a blessed and eternal existence. Homer again gives us a description of the descent of Ulysses into the shades of death, and Minos administering justice to the dead, as they stand around his dread tribunal to receive sentence according * ) their past vices or virtues. Ovid and Virgil taught the same doctrine. The Mahommedan creed gives special prominence to a future exist- ence after death. The followers of the false prophet, to this day, entertain the belief of a st:ite of luxurious and sensual blessedness beyond human conception. The paradise of the Mussulman is a rude copy of an earthly garden of pleasure. The ultimate and glo- The multitwde of bright Spirits, offering to satisfy the Poet of anything he desires to know. — The Visiou of Paradise, Canto v. I iMMOKTALlTY OF THE SOUL. 6l rious destiny of the believer and the blessed — the warrior who has shed his blood in the cause of God, and the i)roi)hct, and the dcr- vis, whose body has fallen under the discipline of abstinence and continual penance, is a condition of existence where all are eternally happy and undecayinp^, amitl verdant groves, bright with unclouded sunshine, and moistened with streams containing a beverage mure delicious than the juice of the choicest grape. Thus wc find that the most civilized nations ot antiquity, alike with the savage hordes of heathen lands, held the doctrine of immortality. As Pope says : " Even the poor Indian, whose untutored mind, Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind ; Whose soul proud science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk or milky way : Yet simpler nature to his hope has given Behind the cloud-topt hill an humbler heaven : Some safer world in depths of wood embraced. Some happier island in the watery wa;,.c, Where slaves once more their native land behold, No fiends torment, no christians thirst for gold, And thinks admitted to yon equal sky. His faithful dog shall bear him company." Leaving the argument for the immortality of the soul, based upon the almost universal belief of mankind, wc find nothing in nature opposed to such a doctrine, but very much that assures us it is true. If we look to the state of man at his entrance upon life, and contrast the helplessness and dependence of infancy with the strength of manhood, we can deduce this general law, that the same creatures may exist at different periods, with varied degrees of per- ception and sensation, and capacities of action, enjoyment and suf- fering. This law holds good in many departments of animal life. The worm becomes the fly, and the insect bursts its shell. The butterfly, casting aside its chrysalis shape, rises on its silver-tinged wings into the summer sunbeam. Other illustrations might be given of a fact patent to every intelligent observer, favoring the 62 FUTURE PUNISHMENT, supposition, that we shall exist after death in a state difrercnt from the present, but analogous to a law of nature now in operation, only more fully developed and in keeping with the nobler destiny of rational and immortal beings. In our present condition of existence, we have capacities for action, enjoyment and suffering. The very possession of these before death, is a strong presumption that we shall retain them in, and after death. It is in accordance with all true logical argument, to hold by the continuance of any attribute or function of existence, whether in mind or matter, until we see adequate cause for its des- truction. We have an illustration of this in the case of sleep. Dur- ing the period of slumber, or when a person is in a swoon, all the faculties of the mind exist, although not in active exercise. No one doubts that all the mental powers are possessed as truly in sleep as when awake, and that they arc only for the tinie being unexercised. The heat of fire is in the flint before it is struck by the flint, only latent. By the collision of the two elements, the fire is ejected, and turned to practical purposes. xA.nd thus in like manner, man retains during sleep all the faculties and powers of mind and imagination, although for the time latent ; when sleep is over and consciousness has returned, and he is brought back again into contact with the external world, reason and intellect reassert their sway. There is nothing, then, so far as we can discern, to suggest the idea that living beings will ever cease to live. W'e cannot of course trace the experience of the soul, through and after death. All that we can do is to reason from analogy. Death destroys the sensible proof, that after this great change we retain possession of the pow- ers of thought and action, but it furnishes no reason for supposing that we are then deprived of them, and that the grave puts an end to all the aspirations of life. So far from this gloomy and fore- boding thought, the fact that we retain these powers up to that, moment, is a strong presumption, that we shall retain them beyond IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 63 \Vc may lose our limbs or certain of the organs of sense, and yet we remain the same beings. The amputation of a limb or an arm, is never regarded as proof of a corresponding diminution in the activity of the mind. Many gifted men have deformed bodies, while others \\ho are deaf or dumb or blind, are marvels of intellec- tual acumen. According to the established order of things our bodies are constantly wearing away, so that in the course of a few years we lose the greater part of the material and physical, but in spite of this change, wc remain the same living agent. The think- ing principle remains unaltered — the real man is unaffected by the decay of the outer. If this is so during the present existence, why not so after death, when th j tabernacle of clay has been dissolved and has returned to dust ? It follows, then, that the separation or destruction of t!ic active bodily organs, does not in any way affect the moving agent. The different senses are but mediums, by which we conduct our obser- vations. Active power is not diminished by the loss of a limb. Although the external moving instrument is destroyed, the primary cause of action remains. The withdrawal of one or any of the bodily organs, does not prove the annihilation of v/hat is vital in man's nature. It is true that the powers of sensation depend wholly upon the bodily organs, but not so the powers of mind and reflec- tion. These operate in a different way, and through entirely differ- ent channels. When the senses convey ideas of external nature to the mind, we are capable of reflecting and experiencing either pleasure or pain, without any assistance, so far as we know, from that body which is destroyed at death. Thence we argue, that if in our present state of being the soul can exercise its functions, uninfluenced by the body, — if it derives the greater part of its hap- piness and enjoyment from inward operations, altogether independ- ent of external influences, we have a right to believe that after death it will continue to act in a similar method. In opposition to what I have advanced, it is said by Materialists that death is the end of 64 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. all existence, that the mortal shall never put on immortality, that so soon as the organs of the body are subjected to the laws of inani- mate matter, sensation, perception and apprehension are at an end. If indeed it held universally true, that simultaneously with the approach of death the powers of the mind became weakened and disorganized, it might shake our confidence to some extent in the argument drawn from the analogy of nature. But experience tes- tifies that mortal diseases often leave the reflecting powers unim- paired, and that so far from becoming feeble and inoperative, they often reach their highest vigor the moment before dissolution. If it is asked, how are the ideas acquired by sensation to be supplied when the soul is separated from the body ? our only answer is, He who originally framed and moulded into harmony the wonderful mechanism of soul and body, can after death supply other means of communication, to compensate for the absence of the bodily organs. And finally, if we are -asked, why deny to the brute crea- tion the same immortality we claim for man ? our reply is, that the more we examine the instincts and dispositions of the lower ani- mals, the stronger is the conclusion that they were designed for this world, and this world alone, made in subjection to and for the use of man, who occupies a place but a little lower than the angels, and has been crowned with glory and honor. The insignificance of man, as compared with the immensity and grandeur of the universe, is no longer used as an argument against his immortality. On the contrary, the condescension manifested in God's mindfulness of man, throws around the character of the Deity a richer halo of glory, and bears testimony to the unselfishness and perfection of His love. " Man is one world and hath another to attend him." As the great dramatist says : " What a piece of work is man ! how noble in reason ! how infinite in faculties ! in form and moving, bow express and admirable ! in action how like an angel ! in apprehension how like a God !" It is not here upon this little earth that he is to play his better part, but yonder. IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 65 " All, all on earth is shadow — all beyond is .- ubslance. This is the bud of being, the vestibule . Strong death alone can heave the massy bar This gross impediment of clay remove, And make us, embryos of existence free, Embryos we must be, till we burst the shell, Yon ambient azure shell, and spring to life and reach it there, Where seraphs gather immortality." Nature's analogies never belie her maker. She teaches no such doctrine, as would represent the Almighty making man designedly to perish with the body, or as incapable of bestowing upon him im- mortality. Had she a voice, she would protest against such gross materialism, for as the poet well says : " Know'st thou the value of a soul mimortal ? Behold the midnight glory, worlds on worlds ! Amazing pomp ! Redouble the amaze : Ten thousand add, and twice ten thousand more, Then weigh the whole, one soul outweighs them all." Having briefly considered the arguments from the almost uni- versal belief of all nations in the immortality of the soul, and from the analogies of nature, we are now prepared to appeal to reason^ what says the soul itself? It will be admitted that there is within the breast of every one a strong and resistless yearning after future existence. The mind is ever seeking for new objects of interest, and more satisfying pleasures than the present affords. "The soul uneasy and confined from home, Rests and expatiates on a life to come." The intense thirst after knowledge also, wh-ch is common to the race, points to a time when we shall no longer sec through a glass darkly, but face to face ; when we shall no longer know but in part, but shall know as we are known. For this keen desire after greater intellectual attainments does not weaken as life advances and the term of man's mortal pilgrimage draws nearer its close. On the contrary, it is almost invariably the case that the longer man lives 6 66 FUTURE PUNISHMLNT. the stronger it becomes. We cannot suppose that the Creator should have implanted in man these unsatisfied longings, only to be extin- guished after a few years probation here, and often when the mind is entering upon its greatest discoveries and conquests. Even in the short space allotted man on earth, how grand are his achieve- ments ! Heights of fancy and imagination have been reached, and discoveries in science proved, that indicate the wonderful possibil- ities of the human mind. The immensity of the stellar world, and the motions of mighty orbs and planets that revolve in space, and the myriads of microscopic beings that live their little hour in a single drop of water, have all been proved to a demonstration, so that of man it may almost be said, and tliat in no mere figurative sense, " He weighs the hills in scales, and the mountains in a bal- ance." He explores the dark caves of earth, ransacks the sepulchre of ocean, and classifies the innumerable productions of the deep. He analyses the elementary principles of the invisible atmosphere, discourses on the nature of the thunder peal, arrests the lightning flash, and chains it to his chariot wheel. No wonder that a heathen philosopher said : " When I consider the wonderful activity of the mind : so great a memory nC the past, and such a capacity of pene- trating what is future : when I behold such a number of arts and sciences and such a multitude of discoveries, I am firmly persuaded that a nature which contains so many things within itself, cannot be mortal." " Say, can a soul possessed Of such extensive, deep tremendous powers, Enlarging still, be but a finer breath Of spirits dancing through their tubes a while, And then forever lost in vacant air?" Such a melancholy conclusion, no unprejudiced mind can for a moment entertain, but on the contrary feel that there are the strong- est grounds for the conviction that man's rational powers, instead of being quenched at death, shall attain greater strength, and enjoy full fruition in another world. We may recognize the beatings of IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 6/ the soul against the bars of its clayey tenement, and gather from the mortal impediments that confound and baffl'^ it, assurance, that it is winged to soar in an ampler and diviner atmosphere, than in- vests this earthly pilgrimage. As connected with this part of our argument, and forming a a special proof for the immortality of the soul, we may mention that general law of adaptation, which has been so ably discussed by Dr. Chalmers in his celebrated Bridgewater treatise, from which we quote : — " There is one special proof for the immortality of the soul founded on adaptation. The argument is this : For every desire or faculty, whether in man or the inferior animals, there seems to be a counterpart in external nature. Let it be either an appetite or a power, and let it reside cither in the intellectual or in the moral economy, still there exists a something that is altogether suited to it, and which seems to be expressly provided for its grati- fication. There is light for the eye ; air for the lungs ; food for the ever-recurring appetite ; society for the lone ; whether of fane or fellowship ; there is a boundless field in all the objects of all the sciences, for the exercise of curiosity ; in a word, there seems not one of the affections of the living creature, which is not met by a c -^unterpart arid a congenial object in the surrounding .creation. But there are also prospective contrivances in which are unfolded to us other adaptations. They consist of embryo arrangements or parts not for immediate use, but for use eventually ; preparations t^oing on in the animal economy, whereof the full benefit is not to be realized till some future, and often considerably distant, devel- opment shall have taken place — such as the teeth buried in their sockets that would be inconvenient during the first months of infancy, and other instances where this law is seen to operate in the material world. We may perceive in this, he goes on to say, the glimpse of an argument for the soul's immortality. What infer- ence shall we draw from this remarkable law in nature? That there is nothing waste, and nothing meaningless in the feelings and 68 FUTURE PUNIhHMEJMT. faculties, wherewith living creatures are endowed. For each desire there is a counterpart object — for each faculty there is room and opportunity of exercise, either in the present or in the coming futu- rity. But for the doctrine of immortality, man would be an excep- tion to this law. He would stand forth as an anomaly in nature ; with aspirations in his heart for which the universe had no antitype to offer ; with capacities of understanding and thought, that never were to be followed by objects of corresponding greatness, through the whole history of his being. This were a violence to the har- mony of things whereof no other example can be given. It were a reflection on one of the conceived, if not one of the ascertained, attributes of the Godhead. And unless there be new circumstances awaiting man in a more advanced state of being, he, the noblest of nature's products here below, would turn out to be the greatest of her failures." The last consideration which reason suggests for a future state, is founded upon the present condition of the world, and the unequal distributions of rewards and punishments. In accordance with the moral government of the Divine Being, we believe there must be a future existence. The miseries of the present life are tasted by all, and did each man suffer in proportion to his sins and shortcomings, there might be less reason for assuming the fact of another existence. But very different is the case. Often the good suffer, not directly for per- sonal wrong-doing, but from the injustice and violence of others. Looking upon the face of society we see oftentimes oppression tri- umphant, might sovereign over right, the innocent punished, while the guilty escape. Such inequality of fortune, furnishes no mean argument for the immortality of the soul. Who can conceive that a God of spotless equity and impartiality, will leave unsettled such seeming inconsistencies, or doubt but that a time is coming, when not only the grievances and injuries committed between man and man shall be adjusted, but when there shall be a final balancing of IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 69 accounts between man and his Maker? The history of humanity is stained by wholesale atrocities and cold-blooded murders. The dark places of the earth are still the habitations of horrid cruelty. What of the terrible slaughter of the Waldenses, among the Alpine mountains, the suffering of the Protestants of France in the reign of the despotic Louis XIV., the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, the fires of Smithfield and the Grassmarket, and the long and bloody persecution of the Covenanters? In many instances, the abettors of such atrocities have escaped human retribution. Surely there must be a day, when the cry of the saints under the altar shall be heard, and justice meted out to the enemies of the Most High. If, as has been said, the present is the only state of punish- ment and rewards ; if when the body ceases to move, and the tongue to speak, there is a complete end of all appertaining to humanity, on what grounds can we vindicate or maintain the recti- tude of the Almighty in these dispensations of his providence? And, now, leaving the considerations in favor of the immor- tality of the soul, drawn from the almost universal belief of nations, the analogies of nature and the testimony of reason, all that remains for us is to glance, in a few sentences, at the witness of the spirit in the volume of inspiration. Every man who has read the Bible to any extent, be he Materialist, Skeptic or Christian, must acknow- ledge that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is taught more or less explicitly in every part of the Book. Without it, in- deed, revelation is an unmeaning mockery and a mass of contradic- tions. For the present we assume, that God's word is the founda- tion of all our knowledge regarding the fu<;ure, and the source of all the hope that irradiates the gloomy passage of the grave. It is a common saying, but a true one, that nature and revela- tion are harmonious. It is so as regards the question under dis- cussion. What reason infers and nature symbolises, the Christian revelation clearly declares. Life and immortality have been brought to light by the Gospel. The doctrine of the immortalit/ of the •JO FUTURE PUNISHMENT. soul is taught at the birth of the Jewish nation, as well as at the close of the New Testament scriptures. It was held long before the advent of Christ by many uncivilized tribes, and was the re- ceived opinion of most, if not all, among the Oriental nations, Christ gave to the doctrine an authoritative sanction, and exemplified and embodied it in his own resurrection. VVc know that this is denied. Some good men, who believe in the evangelical doctrines of the gospel, cannot discover in the Old Testament Scriptures, any definite evidence that the Jews had any better faith than their neighbors. They admit that they had some hope of a life after death, some vague, shadowy presentiment, that the evanescent breath did not end all, and that in the occasional ecstatic moments which the keenest sorrow and the supremest joy sometimes bring to the spiritual soul, they uttered the words of anticipation, into which we may easily read a Christian assurance which they did not possess — that to David in the hour of his great sorrow, at the grave of his infant child, there came the half hope, half despair, " I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me," and that to Job in his bewilderment of grief there came a gleam like the flash of an aurora in a winter's cheerless night, " I know that my Redeemer livcth." But these, they argue, are only " the reactions and protests of souls well-nigh bewildered by their own grief, against its intolerable tyranny. There is no revelation of immortality ; no," thus saith the Lord, "no rock rolled away from the tomb, and disclosure of angels sitting there ; no clear, sweet-toned, triumphant song in the night — no eastern morn." The Old Testament, according to this view, " is one long, unbroken Good Friday, while hope and love, like the two Marys, sit over against the tomb, and wail and weep and frame their wishes into hopes, that die in the very utterance." We cannot come to such a conclusion. It was indeed impossible for the Jews — so intimately associated with the Egyptians — a people that recognized the doctrine of immortality — not to be be- , lievers in the survival of the soul after the death of the body. Nor IMMUKTALliV OF THE SOUL. 7t can \vc imagine that God would conceal such an important funda- mental truth, from the knowledge of his own chosen people. On the contrary, we should expect that in types, and symbols, and and communications of His will, made to them from time to tim?, plain reference would be made to the life beyond the grave. Such is the case. The language of the Old Testament prc-supposcs the immortality of die soul. Patriarch after patriarch rejoiced in the hope. The translation of Enoch and Elijah, " and the gatherinfij to his people," of one aged saint after another, indicates a universal belief in life after death. Abrau.m expected "a city which had for.ndations, whc-e builder and maker was God." Moses endured "as seeing Ilim who is invisible, for he had respect to the recom- pr^nse of the reward." David said : " As for me, I shall behold Tli\- face in right-^ousness ; I shall be satisfied when I awake with 1 y likeness. Thou will show me the path of life ; in Thy presence is fullness of joy ; at Thy right hand arc pleasures for evermore." Isaiah says : " Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise." Solomon declares his belief in the doctrine, in the well known words of Ecclcsiastes : " Rejoice, O, yoimg man, in thy youth, and walk in the ways of thy heart, and in the sight of thine eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment." Similar testimony might be given from the later, and minor prophets, demonstrating conclusively that the doctrine of the soul's immortality was not only taught by Old Testament writers, and sung of by every Bible bard from creation downwards, but also believed in and appropriated in all the changing circum- stances of their lives. When we come to ilie New Testament Scriptures, the doctrine, as might be expected, is still more clearly enunciated. It is there treated not as an abstract theory, but as a consequent of Christ's death and resurrection. The immortality of the soul and the con- ditions of souls in the future state, are spoken of together. Paul speaks of "the eternal weight of glory" laid up in Heaven — ol 72 FUTURE rUNlSIIMENT. " a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." Peter in glowing language, describes the lively hope, begotten in believers by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, "to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away ;" and the beloved John, in giving the assured and glorious prospect of exchanging this poor mortal life for a changeless existence, but unable to describe it, says : "It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, wc shall be like Ilim, for we shall see Him as He is." For those of our readers, who desire to study out more fully the testimony of the Hebrew scriptures to the immortality of the soul, the able lecture of Professor J. M. Hirschfcldcr, of the University of Toronto, entitled, " A critical investigation of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, as set forth in the Old Testament," is to be highly commended. His accurate knowledge of the Oriental lan- guages and literature, and the candor and impartiality manifested in all his writings, entitle his conclusions to the utmost respect. His argument in a condensed form is somewhat as follows : The doctrine of the immortality of the soul, must necessarily have its foundation in the c'eation of man. If Adam, our first parent, was created an immortal being, then the immortality of 3 soul can no longer be questioned. A glance at the language used by the sacred writer, in the narrative of the creation of man, shows at the very outset his superior dignity and preeminence above all the other creatures, and the great solemnity and importance which scripture attaches to this creative act. All the other creatures were called into existence by the simple fi:t of God, but here, God is first repre- sented as taking counsel with himself — " Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." " So God created the man in his own image, in the image of God created He him." If it is asked, in what sense man bears the image and likeness of God, the answer is, not in so far as the bodily form is concerned. In the creation of man, two distinct acts are mentioned. "The Lord God formed the IMMORTALITY Ol-' THE SOUL. j;^ man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils, the spirit or breath of life, and he became a living creature." So far, then, as the body is concerned, it is merely dust, but " the breathing into his nostrils the spirit of life, by which man became a living creature," shows that man has a life, which has nothing in common with the dust, or as it has been said : " The bond is nothing but a scabbard of a sword, in which the soul is put up." The word "breath," employed by the inspired penman, really denotes "God's own spirit." It is only applied in the Hebrew to God and man, and indicates the close affinity of man with his creator. It is the possession of this spirit which so immeasurably exalts man above all other creatures, and makes him " but a little lower than the angels." The breath of God became the soul of man : the soul of man, therefore, is nothing but the breath of God. The rest of the world exists through the word of God : man through His peculiar breath, which is the seal and pledge of his relation to God. That Adam was created an immortal being, is also implied in the sen- tence that was to follow his disobedience. The words, " In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die," have no meaning what- ever, if man was not destined to immortality. If he was born mortal and should remain mortal, the threat of death is useless. The translation of Enoch, who passed from earth to heaven without tasting death or seeing corruption, is another proof of the immortality of the sou', At the time of his translation, he was only three hundred and sixty-five years old, which in these days was not half of the ordinary life allotted to man. The "taking away" of Enoch, therefore, at so early an age, as a reward for his great piety, can only find its explanation in God as a loving father, having taken him to His eternal home, there to enjoy greater and never- ending bliss ; he and Elijah being exempted from the common lot of humanity. To explain the passage, "God took him," as merely meaning the removing from earth by the common process of dis- ease and death, as some writers have most absurdly done, would 74 FUTUKli PUNISHMENT. rather have been a punishment than a reward for his piety, and is altogether inconsistent with the representation, which pervades tlic Old Testament Scriptures, where length of days is spoken of as the reward of the present life. Dr. Kitto, the well-known Bible commentator, says : " As a reward of his extraordinary sanctity, he was translated into heaven, without the experience of death. Elijah was in like manner translated, and thus was the doctrine of immortality PALPABLY taught under the present dispensation." Delitzsch, the German Theologian, says : " Enoch and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God, without disease, death and corruption, for the consolation of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death." Indeed the most eminent German and Eng- lish critics, regard the " taking away " of Enoch, as one of the strong- est proofs of the belief in a future state, prevailing among the Hebrews. Without this belief, the history of Enoch is a perfect mystery, " a hieroglyph without a clue, a commencement without an end." In the prediction made of Abraham's death, the immortality of the soul is also distinctly stated : " Thou shalt come to thy fathers in peace ; thou shalt be buried in a good old age." This can mean nothing else, than that he should meet his fathers in the blessed abode of departed spirits. If the existence of his fathers terminated with their returning to dust in the grave, the words are entirely meaningless. In the account also given of his death, it is said : " And Abraham expired, and died in a good old age, and full of years, and he was gathered to his people." His jjcople evidently existed somewhere. Not certainly in the grave, but in the abode of departed spirits. The expression, " he was gathered to his peo- ple," cannot mean he was buried with his people, for Abraham's sons buried him in the cave of Macpelah, in the field of Ephron, in the land of Canaan, whilst all his fathers died, and were buried in Mesopotamia. Once more, and to close our quotations from the Old Testament Scriptures, the passage found in the Book of Job, chap. 19, v. 25-27, IMMORTALITY UK THE SOUL. 75 Ivas commonly been rcjjardcd as a .stronjT proof of the immortality nf the soul. Its literal translation is as follows : " For I know that my Redeemer is livinjr, And at the last (or hereafter) he will stand upon the dust ; And thou^tjh after my skin worms destroy this body. Yet from my flesh shall I see God, Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shau bcholdj And not a stran.c^cr. Although my veins be consumed within me." Professor Hirschfelder strongly advocates that view, as against those who regard it as nothing more than a prediction of Job, that he would be restored to health and prosperity. There is, however, still a third opinion advanced by scholars, that while the doctrine of the resurrection from the dead and the immortality of the soul, may be implied in the language, in its primary significance, it merely expresses the assurance of the Patriarch, that at some time in the future God would vindicate him from the charges of his friends, and assert his innocence. As the passage in question has been for ages the subject of prolonged study and speculation, and is emphatically the key by which we arrive at a right understanding of the argument of the entire book, it is deserving of more than a passing notice. The word rendered " redeemer," is susceptible of other meanings than that commonly attached to it. In the Old Testament, it is applied to any one who ransoms another from captivity, and fre- quently to the avenger of blood and vindicator of violated rights. Under the Mosaic law it was the duty of the nearest kinsman to take the part of his friend in life, and if need be avenge his death, by taking the life of the murderer. Such a law was common in Oriental countries, and doubtless was in force in the days of Job. It was well understood by the American Indians, and has prevailed more or less in all countries, before settled laws for the trial and punishment of the guilty were established. The term, "redeemer," therefore, does not of itself determine the exact meaning of the ^6 FUTUKK I'UNISHMKNt. passapjc. It m.iy rt^fcr to GfxI. as the vindicator of Job's character fn^in the false slanders and accusations of his friends ; or t(j (jod, as his vinchcalor at the resurrection ; or to (Jhrist, as the future Messiah and Kedeciner. N(;r need tin; words, " he shall stand upon the dust," be ref(;rred exclusively to the resurrection. As arj.;ued by certain scholars, it may simply im])ly that at S(jmc future [)erio(l — it mi^dit be at the last day, (jr at some subsefjuent stage in the present life, and long prior to the resurrection, — God would appear as his friend. Of one thing Job was well assured, that iiowever great and l< ,r- tality from our rational constitution, taken with the character of God. If there is no spirit in. man, if it is not the inspiration of the Almighty that giveth man understanding, then assuredly he will perish like the flowers, and no beauty will be any protection to him. Negatively, however, science has nothing of any moment to say against immortality. It finds, it is true, no proof for it in its own field, but from the very nature of the case it should not. Nor is there any rational presumption against immortality, save to those who make human experience a test of all possibilities. Its condi- tions, indeed, are inconceivable, but the reason of this is obvious. A life unlike our present life has no common terms in experience with it, and hence is inconceivable. The mystery of that future life, when it shall become a fact, will not be greater than of this life. Existence then will be somewhat less strange than existence now, for it will have an explanatory term back of it, which this life lacks. I. The first support for the doctrine of immortality is found in our spiritual constitution. The life of man, when it is brought to an end in death, is manifestly not exhausted in its intellectual and spiritual resources. The life of the animal is so rounded in by physical conditions as to wax and wane with them. Man's higher powers, on the other hand, are capable of indefinite growth, These faculties of man are profoundly fitted for a further unfolding, and so indicate an intellectual purpose, and raise a moral demand in reference to it. Here are germs to which a future life is a correla- tive opportunity of development. The spiritual unrest of man is a fruit of the range of unsatisfied powers. He will not, in his hopes and aims, readily settle down into the narrow circuit of his physical life, and so far as he does this he is injured by the concession. All his lifting forces look toward immortality ; an irrepressible migra- NOTES ON IMMORTALITY. 93 tory impulse is in him, the product of his combined powers. In spite of physical decay, it is often manifest that life closes at a maximum of spiritual energy. Thus, as Ranke says: "In every great life there comes a moment when the soul feels that it no longer lives in the present world, and draws back from it." This feeling does not arise from the decay of life, but from its weariness with conditions that are too slow for it, and which, in their exciting form, it has relatively exhausted. The whole object of evolution, the consummated labor of a life, will be lost without immortality. None of us are willing to take the present as the best term in evolution. If the rational fruits of the world are to be ripened they must be ripened in another life. Such a life is the out-door garden of this our conservatory. Who, either in his thought or feeling, can say there is no other air, no higher heavens, in which these plants can blossom ; nothing save this stifled air and this glass within reach of my hand ! Nor is the protest less profoundly rational, less deeply based in our constitu- tion, because it is deeply emotional. 2. The moral law is an unsu'table law for the guidance of a simply mortal life. It is one of self-sacrifice, it is one of protracted strug- gle, one of constant concession of pleasure to duty, of the present to the future. Now, if there is no future life, such a law is out of sorts. No man can well accept the moral law as one of spiritual insight, and not feel at once that the years of eternity must be given to it, in which to clear itself ; that a long day of fulfilment ana peace is to follow and level up the end with the beginning. If this future drops them into oblivion, what then ? They have played the part, on the highest stage of the world, of a moral maniac. Those who most staunchly hold fast to immortality, do it by virtue of the force of their spiritual powers. It is easy to ridicule this argument, as if it involved the assertion that the existence of a belief and the strength of a belief prove its truth. The univer- sality and force of a belief do imply some occasion for it. Beliefs 94 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. are facts, are effects, and have causes. The only proof we have of any truth, is in ultimate analysis, this same universality and per- tinacity of conviction. The impulse toward immortality, and the impulse in turn received from it, are very general in our race. But this impulse in men exists in its strongest, clearest form as they enlarge their spiritual powers, and in turn expands and nourishes those powers. 3. This leads us to our last argument, and one which, in a measure, includes all the others. Immortality is the third word in the vocab- ulary of belief: Spirit, God, Immortality. A spirit, an Infinite Spirit, an eternal fellowship of spirits, this is the rational relation of ideas. A belief in immortality is the second highest expression of faith, and faith is the force of our spiritual life. We believe that tl e plan of God requires this completion of immortality. The present confusion and discord of the world in its moral facts are very plain. Immortality can plainly bring new light, new breadth, new fitness to these cramped and distorted moral facts. The truthfulness of God, the imperturbable support of faith, calls for immortality. The wise and kind parent is careful not to allow any deep, earnest desire, any pregnant hope, to be awakened in the mind of the child, which cannot find fulfilment. The love of God toward man leads to the same conclusion. Man seems spiritually capable of future life ; he covets it, he shapes his action in reference to it ; he is lifted by this hope ; he is restrained from evil and united to virtue. What other result can divine love grant, then, save this of immortality? The love of God for man would lose all high quality, would be like that which we have for the flowers of a single season, if the years are to sweep him quickly away, and that, too, before he has reached his flowering. Nor can man on these terms be properly called into any communion with God, We must ever stand as passing strangers about the threshold of the temple, or in its outer courts. That God having embraced man in this fellowship of love, should relax his hold, is a moral NOTES ON IMMORTALITY. 95 contradiction. Having begun such a work as this, he must needs carry it on to perfection. Having commenced a discipline, he will not arrest it ; having drawn forth love, he will not fling it away ; having bestowed love, he will not withdraw it. The pledge of the ' Divine nature,' in his full spiritual force, is set as a seal to the im- mortality of the good — that * where I am there ye may be also.' Death must remain the most melancholy fact conceivable in its spiritual bearings, if no life follows after it. There is no pallor like the pallor of the grave, no knell like the knell of the tomb, when affection buries its dead. Death stands as a victor over life ; light ends in darkness ; and the shadows of vanished pleasures only swell the sad retinue whose voice is a dirge. Whatever we may seem to make of the world under the ' divine wisdom ' in it, the fact of death still fills it with fear and silence ; for every spirit that has tasted life must take its solitary way back again to the regions of night. One word alters all, explains all, illuminates all, and that word is Immortality. — PRESIDENT JOIIN BascOM, (University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.) The apparent futility that has attended all efforts to prove the immortality of man, springs largely from the fact that a sense of immortality is an achievement in morals, and not an inference drawn by logical processes from the nature of things. It is not a demonstration to, or by, the reason, but a conviction gained through the spirit in the process of human life. All truth is an achieve- ment. If you would have truth at its full value, go win it. If there is any truth whose value lies in a moral process, it must be sought by that process. Other avenues will prove hard and uncertain, and will stop short of the goal. Eternal wisdom seems to say : If you would find immortal life, seek it in human life ; look neither into the heavens nor the earth, but into your own heart as it fulfils the duty of present existence. We are not mere minds for seeing and hearing truth, but beings set in a real world to achieve it. This is the secret of creation. 9<5 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. But if demonstration cannot yield a full sense of immortality, it does not follow that discussion and evidence are without value. M'nd is auxiliary to rpirit, and intellectual conviction may help moral belief. Doubts may be so heavy as to cease to be incentives, and become burdens. If there are any hints of immortality in the world or in the nature of man, we may welcome them. If there are denials of it that lose their force under inspection, we may clear our minds of them, for so we shall be freer to work out the only dem- onstration that will satisfy us. How did the idea of immortality come into the world ? It can- not be linked with the early superstitions that sprang out of the childhood of the race, — with fetichism and polytheism and image- worship ; nor is it akin to the early thought that personified and dramatized the forces of nature, and so built up the great mytholo- gies. These were the first rude efforts of men to find a cause of things, and to connect it with themselves in ways of worship and propitiation. But the idea of immortality had no such genesis. Men worshiped and propitiated long before they attained to a clear conception of a future life. A forecasting shadow of it may have hung over the early races ; a voice not fully articulate may have uttered some syllable of it, but the doctrine of personal immortality belongs to a later age. It grew into the consciousness of the world with the growth of man, and marked in its advent the stage of human history, when man began to recognize the dignity of his nature. It does not belong to the childhood of the race, nor can it be classed with the dreams and guesses in which ignorance sought refuge, nor with the superstitions through which men strove to ally themselves with nature and its powers. It came with the full con- sciousness of selfhood, and is the product of man's full and ripe thought ; it is not only not allied with the early superstitions, but is the reversal of them. These, in their last analysis, confessed man's subjection to nature and its powers, and shaped themselves into forms of expiation and propitiation ; they implied a low and NOTES ON IMMORTALITY. 97 feeble sense of his nature, and turned on his condition rather than on his nature — on a sense of the external world, and not on a per- ception of himself. But the assertion of immortality is a triumph over nature — a denial of its forces. Man marches to the head and says : " I too am to be considered ; I also am a power ; I may be under the gods, but I claim for myself their destiny ; I am allied to nature, but I am its head, and will no longer confess myself to be its slave." The fact of such an origin should not only separate it from the superstitions, where of late there has been a tendency to rank it, but secure for it a large and generous place in the world of speculative thought. We should hesitate before we contradict the convictions of any age that wear these double signs of development and resistance ; nor should we treat lightly any lofty assertions that man may make of himself, especially when those assertions link themselves with truths of well-being and evident duty. The idea of immortality, thus achieved, naturally allies itself to religion, for a high conception of humanity is in itself religious. It built itself into the foundations of Christianity. It is of one sub- stance with Christianity — having the same conception of man ; it runs along with every duty and doctrine, tallying at every point ; it is the inspiration of the system ; each names itself by one syno- nym—life. Lodged thus in the conviction of the civilized world, the doctrine of immortality met with no serious resistance until it encountered modern science, When modern science — led by the principle of induction — transferred the thought of men from specu- lation to the physical world, and said, " Let us get at the facts ; let us find out what our five senses reveal to us," then immortality came under question simply because science could find no data for it. Science, as such, deals only with gases, fluids and solids, with length breadth and thickness. In such a domain, and amongst such phe- nomena no hint even of future existence can be found, and science could only say, " I find no report of it." We do not to-day regret that science held itself so rigidly to its field and its principles of induction— that it refused to Icau chasms. ^ FUTURE rUNlSlIMENT. and to let in guesses for the sake of morals. But science has its phases and its progress. It held itself to its prescribed task of searching matter until it eluded its touch in the form of simple force — leaving it, so to speak, empty-handed. It had got a little •deeper into the heavens with its lenses, and gone a little farther into matter with its retorts, but it had come no nearer the nature of things than it was at the outset, no nearer to an answer of those imperative questions which the human mind will ask until they arc answered — Whence ? How ? For what ? Not what I shall eat and how I shall be clothed, but what is the meaning of the world ? explain me to myself ; tell me what sort of a being I am — how I came to be here, and for what end. Such are the questions that men are forever repeating to themselves, and casting upon the wise for a possible answer. When chemistry put the key of the physical universe into the hand of science, it was well enough to give up a century to the dazzling picture it revealed. A century of concen- trated and universal gaze at the world out of whose dust wc are made, and whose forces play in the throbs of our hearts, is not too much ; but after having sat so long before the brilliant play of elemental flames, and seen ourselves reduced to simple gas and force under laws for whose strength adamant is no measure, wc have become a little restive and take up again the old questions. Science has not explained us to ourselves, nor compassed us in its retort, nor measured us in its law of continuity. You have shown me of what I am made, how put together, and linked my action to the invariable energy of the universe ; now tell me what I am ; explain to me consciousness, will, thought, desire, love, veneration. I confess myself to be all you say, but I know myself to be more ; tell me what that more is. Science, in its early and wisely narrow sense, could not respond to these demands. But it has enlarged its vocation under two impulses. It has pushed its researches until it has reached verges beyond which it cannot go, yet sees forces and phenomena that it cannot explain nor even speak of without using NOTES ON IMMORTALITY. 99 the nomenclature of metaphysics. Physical science has yielded to the necessity of allying itself with other sciences. All sciences arc parts of one universal science. The chemist sits down by the meta- physician and says, Tell me what you know about consciousness ; and the theol'^gian listens eagerly to the story of evolution. Unless we greatly misread the temper of recent science, it is ready to pass over certain phenomena it has discovered and questions it has raised to theology, and is ready to accept a report from any who can aid it in its exalted studies. This comity between the sciences insures a recognition of each other's conclusions. Whatever is true in one must be true in all. Whatever is necessary to the perfection of one cannot be ruled out of another. No true physiologist will define the physical man so as to exclude the social man ; nor will he so define the social and political man as to shut out the spiritual man ; nor will he so define the common humanity as to exclude personality. He will leave a margin for other sciences whose claims are as valid as those of his own. If, for example, immortality is a necessary coordinate of man's moral nature, — an evident part of its content, — the chemist and physiologist will not set it aside because they find no report of it in their fields. If it is a part of spiritual and moral science, it cannot be rejected because it is not found in physical science. * » » # # » But this negative attitude of natural science toward immortality does not by any means describe its relation to the great doctrine. While it has taught us to distrust immortality, because it could show us no appearance of it, it has provided us with a broader prin- ciple that undoes its work, — namely, the principle of reversing appearances. Once men said, This is as it appears ; to-day they say, The reality is not according to the first appearance, but is pro- bably the reverse. The sky seems solid ; the sun seems to move ; the earth seems to be at rest, and to be flat. Science has reversed these appearances and beliefs. Matter seems to be solid and at rest ; it is shown to be the contrary. The energy of an active agent lOO FUTURE rUNISIIMENT. seems to end with disorganization, but it really passes into another form. So it is throughout. The appearance in nature is nearly always, not false, but illusive, and our first interpretations of natural phenomena usually are the reverse of the reality. Of course this must be so ; it is the wisdom of creation — the secret of the world ; else knowledge would be immediate and without process, and a man a mere eye for seeing. Nature puts the reality at a distance and hides it behind a veil, and it is the office of mind in its relation to matter to penetrate the distance and get behind the veil ; and to make the process valuable in the highest degree, this feature of contrariety is put into nature. The human mind tends to rest in the first appearance ; science — more than any other teacher — tells it that it may not. But it is this premature confidence in first appearance that induces skepticism of immortality. No one wishes to doubt it ; our inmost souls plead for it ; our higher nature dis- dains a denial of it as ignoble. No poet, no lofty thinker suffers the eclipse of it to fall upon his page, but many a poet and thinker is — nay, are we not all ? — tormented by a horrible uncertainty cast by the appearance of dissolving nature, and reenforced by the black silence of science ? The heavens are empty ; the earth is resolving back to fire-mist ; what theater is there for living man ? Brought together out of nature, sinking back into nature, — has man any other history ? What, also, is so absolute in its appearance as death ? How silent are the generations behind us. How fast locked is the door of the grave. How speechless the speaking lips ; how sightless the seeing eye ; how still the moving form. Touch the cold hand ; cry to the ear ; crown the brow with weed or with flower — they are ali^e to it. It is an awful appearance ; is it abso- lute — final? Say what we will, heie is the source of the dread mis- giving that haunts the mind of the age. Science has helped to create it, but it also has discovered its antidote. The minister of faith stands by this horrible appearance and says : " Not here, but risen." He might well be joined by the priest of science with words NOTES ON IMMORTALITY. "ioll like these : " My vocation is to wrest truth out of illusive appear- ances. I do not find what you claim ; I find, instead, an appear- ance of the contrary ; but on that very principle you may be right ; the truth is generally the reverse of the appearance." To break away from the appearance of death — this is the imperative need ; and whatever science may say in detail, its larger work and also its method justify us in the effort. Hence the need of the imaginative eye and of noble thought. Men of lofty imagination are seldom deceived by death, surmounting more easily the illusions of sense. Victor Hugo probably knows far less of science than do Buchner and Vogt, but he knows a thousand things they have not dreamed of, which invest their science like an atmosphere, and turn its rays in directions unknown to them. Are we to be limited in our thought and belief by the dicta of natural science? In accounting for all things, are we shut up to matter and force and their phenomena? Science as positivism says : Yes, because matter and force are al' we know, or can know. Another 3chool says boldly : Matter and force account for all things — thought, and will, and consciousness ; a position denied by still another school, which admits the existence of something else, but claims that it is unknowable. If any one of these positions is ad- mitted, the question we are considering is an idle one, so far as demonstration is concerned ; it is even decided in the negative. The antagonist to these positions is metaphysics. Faith may surmounti but it cannot confute them without the aid of philosophy. Science is speechless before several fundamental questions that itself has put into the mouth of Philosophy. Science begins with matter in a homogeneous state of diffusion, — that is, at rest and without action, cither eternally so, or as the result of exhausted force. Now, whence comes force ? Science has no answer except such as is couched under the phrase " an unknowable cause," which is a con- tradiction of terms, since a cause with a visible result is so far forth known. Again, there arc mathematical formulae, or thought, in the 102 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. stars, and in matter, as in crystallization. The law or thought of gravitation necessarily goes before its action. What is the origin of this law as it begins to act ? — and why does it begin to act in matter at rest ? — a double question, to which science renders no answer. Again, Evolution, as interpreted by all the better schools of science, admits teleology, or an end in view ; and the end is humanity. But the teleological end was present when the nebulous matter first began to move. In what did this purpose then reside ? — in the nebu- lous matter, or in some mind outside of matter and capable of the con- ception of man ? Again, how do you pass from functional action of the brain to consciousness ? Science does not undertake to answer, but confesses that the chasm is impassable from its side. What, then, shall we do with the fact and phenomena of consciousness ? Again, what right has science, knowing nothing of the origin of force, and therefore not understanding its full nature, — what right has it to limit its action and its potentiality to the iunctional play of an organism ? As science it can, of course, go no farther ; you test and measure matter by mind ; but if matter is inclusive of mind, how can matter be tested and measured by it ? It is one clod or crystal analyzing another ; it is getting into the scales along with the thing you would weigh. These are specimens of the questions that philosophy puts to science. These questions are universal and imperative. No further word of denial or assertion can be spoken until they are answered. And as science does not answer them, philosophy undertakes to do so, and its answer is — Theism. The universe requires a creating mind ; it rests on mind and power. Metaphysics holds the field, and on its triumphant banner is the name of God. Science might also be pressed into close quarters as to the nature of this thing that it calls MATTER, which it thinks it can see and feel ; and how it sees and feeb it, it does not know. Science itself has led up to a point where matter, and not God, becomes the unknowable. A little further struggle through this tangle of matter, and we may NOTES ON IMMORTALITY. IO3 stand on a " peak of Darien " in " wild surmise '' before the ocean of the Spirit. The final wo. .1 which the philosophical man within us addresses to our scientific man is this : Stop when you come to what seems to you to be an end of man ; and for this imperative reason, namely, you do not claim that you have compassed him ; you find in him that which you cannot explain — something that lies back of energy and function, and is the cause or ground of the play of function. You admit consciousness ; you admit that while thought depends upon tissue, it is not tissue nor the action of tissue, and therefore may have some other ground of action ; you admit an impassable chasm between brain-action and consciousness. What right has science as science to leap that chasm with a negative in his hand ? And why should science object to attempts to bridge the chasm from the other side ? Physical science has left unexplained phen- omena ; may no other science take them up ? Science has left an entity — a something that it has felt but could not grasp, just as it has felt but could not grasp the ether. May not the science that gave to physics the ether try its hand at this unexplained remain- der ? Let us have, then, no negative assertions ; this is the bigotry of science. But a generous-minded science will pass over this mys- tery to psychology, or to metaphysics, or to theology. Ifitisa substance, it has laws. If it is a force or a life, it has an environ- ment and a correspondence. If it is mind and spirit, it has a men- tal and spiritual environment ; and if the correspondence is perfect and the environment ample enough, this mind and spirit may have a commensurate history. This is logical, and also probable, even on the ground of science, for all its analogies indicate and sustain it. My conclusion is this : Until natural science can answer these questions put by other sciences, it has no right to assume the solu- tion of the problem of immortality, because this question lies within the domain of the unanswered questions. But has science no positive word to offer? The seeming antag- onist of immortality during its earlier studies of evolution, it now 104. FUTURE PUNISHMENT. seems, in its later studies, about to become an ally. It suddenly discovered that man was in the category of the brutes and of the whole previous order of development. It is now more than sus- pecting that, although in that order, he stands in a relation to it that forbids his being merged in it, and exempts him from a full action of its laws, and therefore presumably from its destinies. It has discovered that because man is the end of development he is not wholly in it — the product of a process, and for that very reason cut off from the process. What thing is there that is made by man, or by nature after a plan and for an end, that is not separated from the process when it is finished, set in entirely different relations and put to different uses ? When a child is born, the first thing done is to sever the cord that binds it to its origin and through which it became what it is. The embryotic condition and processes and laws are left behind, and man walks forth under the heavens — the child of the stars and of the earth, born of their long travail, their pc^rfect and only offspring. Now he has new conditions, new laws, new methods and ends of his own. Now we have the image of the creating God — the child of the begetting Spirit. It is to such con- clusions that recent science is leading. Man is the end or product that nature had in view during the whole process of evolution ; when he is produced, the process ceases, and its laws either end at once or gradually, or take on a form supplementary to other laws, or are actually reversed. So freed, we have man as mind and spirit, evolved or created out of nature, but no longer correlated to its methods, face to face with laws and forces hitherto unknown or but dimly shadowed, moving steadily in a direction opposite to that in which he was produced. Receiving man thus at the hands of science, what shall we do with him but pass him over into the world to the verge of which science has brought him — the world of mind and spirit? From cosmic dust he has become a true person. What now? What remains ? What, indeed, but flight, if man be found to have wings ? NOTES ON IMMORTALITY. I05 Or docs he stand for a moment on the summit, exulting in his cinci;i;cnce from nature, only to roll back into the dust at its base ? There is a reason why the reptile should become a mammal : it is more life. Is there no like reason for man ? Shall he not have more life ? If not, then to be a reptile is better than to be a man, for it can be more than itself; and man, instead of being the head of nature, goes to its foot. The dream of pessimism becomes a reality, justifying the remark that consciousness is t mistake and malady of nature. If man becomes no more than he now is, the whole process of gain and advance by which he has become what he is turns on itself and reverses its order. The benevolent pur- pose, seen at every stage as it yields to the next, stops it action, dies out, and goes no farther. The ever-swelling bubble of exist- ence, that has grown and distended till it reflects the light of heaven in all its glorious tints, bursts on the instant into nothingness. Proceeding now under theistic conceptions, I am confident that our scientific self goes along with our reasoning self when I claim that the process of evolution at every step and in every moment rests on God, and draws its energy from God. The relation, doubt- less, is organic, but no less are its processes conscious, voluntary', creative acts. Life was crowded into the process as fast as the plan admitted ; it was life and more life till the process culminated in man — the end towards which it had been steadily pressing. We have in this process the surest possible ground of expectation that God will crown his continuous gift of life with immortal life. When, at last, he has produced a being who is the image of himself, who has full consciousness and the creative will, who can act in right- eousness, who can adore and love and commune with his Creator, there is a reason — and if there is a reason there will be found a method — why the gift of immortal life should be conferred. God has at last secured in man the image of himself — an end and solu- tion of the whole process. Will he not set man in permanent and perfect relations ? Having elaborated his jewel till it reflects him- I06 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. self, docs he gaze upon it for a briefer moment than he spent in producing it, and then cast it back into elemental chaos ? Science itself forces upon us the imperious question, and to science also are we indebted for a hopeful answer — teaching us at last that we are not bound to think of man as under the conditions and laws that produced him, — the END of the creative process, and therefore not OF it. Such is the logic of Evolution, and we could not well do without it. But we must follow it to its conclusions. Receiving at its hands a Creating Mind working by a teleological process toward man as the final product, we are bound to think consistently of these factors ; nor may we stop in our thought and leave them in confusion. If immortality seems a difficult problem, the denial or doubt of it casts upon us one more difficult. We have an intelli- gent Creator starting with such elements as cosmic dust, and pro- ceeding in an orderly process that may be indicated under Darwin's five laws, or Wallace's more pronounced theism, or ArgyH's or Naudin's theory of constant creative energy, — it matters not which be followed, — developing the solid globe ; then orders of life that hardly escape matter ; then other orders that simply eat and move and procreate ; and so on to higher forms, but always aiming at man, for " the clod must think," the crystal must reason, and the fire must love, — all pressing steadily toward man, for whom the process has gone on and in whom it ends, because he — being what he is — turns on these very laws that produced him and reverses their action. The instincts have died out ; for necessity there is freedom ; for desire there is conscience ; natural selection is lost in intelligence ; the struggle for existence is checked and actually reversed under the moral nature, so that the weak live and the strong perish unless they protect the weak. A being who puts a contrast on all the ravening creation behind him, and lifts his face toward the heavens in adoration, and throws the arm of his saving love around all living things, and so falls into sympathetic affinity with God himself and becomes a conscious creator of what is good NOTES ON IMMORTALITY. I07 and true and beautiful — such is man. What will God do with this being after spending countless eons in creating him ? what will God do with his own image ? is the piercing question put to reason. I speak of ideal man — the man that has been and shall be ; of the mock who inherit the earth and rule over it in the sovereign power of love and goodness. How much of time, what field of existence and action, will God grant to this being ? The pulses of his heart wear out in less than a hundred years. Ten years are required for intelligence to replace the loss of instinct, so that relatively his full life is briefer than that of the higher animals. A quarter of his years is required for physical and mental development; a half — perchance a little more — is left for work and achievement, and the rest for dying. And he dies saying : I am the product of eternity, and I can return into eternity ; I have lived under the inspiration of eternal life, and I may claim it ; I have loved my God, my child, my brother man, and I know that love is an eternal thing. It has so announced itself to me, and I pass into its perfect and eternal realization. Measure this being thus, and then ask reason, ask God himself, if the pitiful three score and ten is a reasonable existence. There is no proportion between the production of man and the length of his life ; it is like spending a thousand years in building a pyrotechnic piece that burns against the sky for one moment and leaves the blackness of a night never again to be lighted. Such a destiny can be correlated to no possible conception of God nor of the world except that of pessimism — the philosophy of chaos — the logic that assumes order to prove disorder — that uses consciousness to prove that it is a disease. But any rational conception of God forces us to the conclusion that he will h^ld on to the final product of his long creative struggle. If man were simply a value, a fruit of use, an actor of intelligence, a creator of good, he would be worth preserving ; but if God loves man and man loves God, and so together they realize the ultimate and highest conception of being and destiny, it is impossible to believe that the knife of Omnipo- I08 FUTlJKt: I'UNISHMENT. tence will cut the cord? of that love and suffer man to fall back into elemental flames ; for, if we do not live when we die, we pa^s into the hands of oxygen. Perhaps it is our destiny — it must be under some theories ; but it is not yet necessary under any accredited theory of science or philosophy to conceive of God as a Moloch burning his children in his fiery arms, nor as a Saturn devouring his own offspring. I am well aware that just here a distinction is made that takes off the edge of these horrible conclusions, — namely, that humanity survives though the individual perishes. This theory, which is not recent, had its origin in that phase of nature which showed a con- stant disregard of the individual and a steady care for the type or class. It found its way from science into literature, where it took on the form of lofty sentiment and became almost a religion. It is a product of the too hasty theory that we may carry the analo- gies of nature over into the world of man, and lay them down squarely and without qualification as though they compassed him. Science no longer does this, but the blunder lives on in literature and the every-day thought of the world. But suppose it were true that the individual perishes and humanity survives, how much relief does it afford to thought ? It simply lengthens the day that must end in horrible doom. For the question recurs, how long will humanity continue ? How long will the earth entertain that golden era when the individual shall peacefully live out his allotted years, and yield up the store of his life to the general fund of humanity, in the utter content of perfect negation ? I might perhaps make a total sacrifice for an eternal good, but I will sit down with the pes- simists sooner than sacrifice myself for a temporary good ; the total cannot be correlated to the temporary. If such sacrifice is ever made, it is the insanity of self-estimate, or rather is the outcome of an unconscious sense of a continuous life. How long do I live on in humanity? Only till the crust of the earth becomes a little thicker, and days and nights grow longer, and the earth sucks the NOTES ON IMMORTALITY, IO9 air into its " intet lunar caves** — now a sister to the moon. Chaos does not lie behind this world, but ahead. The picture of the evo- lution of man through " dragons of the prime " is not so dreadful as that foreshadowed when the world shall have grown old, and envir- onment no longer favors full life. Humanity may mount high, but it must go down and reverse the steps of its ascent. Its lofty altru- ism will die out under hard conditions ; the struggle for existence will again resume its sway, and hungry hordes will fish in shallow- ing seas, and roam in the blasted forests of a dying world, breath- ing a thin atmosphere under which man shrinks towards an inevit- able extinction. Science paints the picture, but reason disdains it as the probable outcome of humanity. The future of this world as the abode of humanity is a mystery, though not wholly an unlighted one ; but under no possible conception can the world be regarded as the theater of the total history of the race. This altruism that assumes for itself a loftier morality in its willingness to part with personality and live on simply as influence and force, sweetening human life and deepening the blue of heaven, — a view that colors the pages of George Eliot and jxlso some un- fortunate pages of science, — is one of those theories that contains within itself its own refutation. It regards personality almost as an immorality : lose yourself in the general good ; it is but selfish to claim existence for self. It may be, indeed, but not if person- ality has attained to the law of love and service. Personality may not only reverse the law of selfishness, but it is the only condition under which it can be wholly reversed. If I can remain a person: I can love and serve, — I may be a perpetual generator of love and service ; but if I cease to exist, I cease to create them, and leave a mere echo or trailing influence thinning out into an unmeaning uni- verse. Such an altruism limits the use and force of character to the small opportunity of human life ; it is so much and no more, however long it may continue to act ; but the altruism of ideal and enduring personality continues to act forever, and possibly on an no FUTURE I'UNISIIMENT. increasing scale This altruism of benevolent annihilation cuts away the basis of its action. It pauperizes itself by one act of giving. — breaks its bank in the generosity of its issue. It is one thing to see the difficulties in the way of immortality, but quite another thing to erect annihilation into morality , and it is simply a blunder in logic to claim for such morality a superiority over that of those who hope to live on, wearing the crown of personality that struggling nature has placed on their heads, and serving its Author for ever and ever. The simple desire to live is neither moral nor immoral, but the desire to live for service and love is the highest morality and the only true altruism. I shall not follow the subject into those fields of human life and spiritual experience — it being a beaten path — where the assurances of immortality mount into clear vision, my aim having been to lessen the weight of the physical world as it hangs upon us in our upward flight. We cannot cut the bond that binds us to the world by pious assertion, nor cast it off by ecstatic struggles of the spirit, nor unbind it by any half-way processes of logic, nor by turning our back upon ascertained knowledge. We must have a clear path behind us if we would have a possible one before us. There are three chief realities, no one of which can be left out in attempts to solve the problem of destiny : man, the world, and God. We must think of them in an orderly and consistent way. One reality cannot destroy nor lessen the force of another. If there has been apparent conflict in the past, it now seems to be drawing to a close ; the world agrees with theism, and matter no longer denies spirit. If, at one time, matter threatened to possess the uni- verse and include it under its laws, it has withdrawn its claim, and even finds itself driven to mind and to spirit as the larger factors of its own problems. Mind now has full liberty to think consistently of itself and of God, and, with such liberty, it finds itself driven to the conclusion of immortality by every consideration of its nature NOTES ON IMMORTALITY. Ill atvl by every fact of its condition, — its only refuge against hopeless mental confusion. Not from consciousness only, — knowing ourselves to be what wc arc, — but out of the mystery of ourselves, may we draw this sublime hope ; for we are correlated not only to the known, but to the unknown. The spirit transcends the visible, and by dream, by vision, by inextinguishable desire, by the unceasing cry of the con- scious creature for the Creator, by the aspiration after perfection, by the pressure of evil and by the weight of sorrow, penetrates the the realms beyond, knowing there must be meaning and purpose and end for the mystery that it is. — Rev T. T. MuNLiER. (Con- dcjised from " The Century " Magazine, May, 1885.) MM, CON DITION AL IM MORTALITY ; ANNIHILATIONISM. " The good and evil, in a moment, all Were changed, corruptible to incorrupt, And mortal to immortal : Her loud, uncircumcised, tempestuous crew, How ill-prepared to meet their God ! were changed." " In no system which disposes of the wicked by annihilation, will it be long possible to maintain faith in the immortality of the good. If human souls enjoy no exemption from the lot which ordains that all things eventually become the prey of death, it is hard to believe that self-love is not deceiving us, when we flatter ourselves that we can escape the doom which overhangs not only all other created things, but also multitudes of our fellowmen." CONDITIONAL IMMOllTALITY. AVING endeavored in previous chapters, to show the unreasonableness of Materialism in its different forms, and the certainty of Immortality, we now proceed to consider the doctrine of Conditional Immortality, or ^'V^ the Annihilation of the Wicked. ■^ Stated concisely, and in the words of those who teach it, Conditional Immortality, or Annihilationism, is as follows : Eternal life or immortality is not the natural, unconditional, and indefeasible endowment of every human being born into the world, Christian and heathen, saint and sinner, infant and patriarch, sage and idiot, alike ; but the gift of God, bestowed only upon the true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, and by virtue of his vital union with him, who is at once the author and the Prince of life. The Bible nowhere teaches an inherent immortality, but teaches that it is the object of redemption to impart it. It shows that the com- munication of it requires a regeneration of man by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and a resurrection of the dead. It declares that those who will not return to God will die, and perish everlastingly. That in the exercise of His matchless love, God is pleased to bestow immortality upon mortals who receive His son, Jesus Christ our Lord. That the object of Christ's work is to restore to man the two things which he has lost, holiness and immortality ; that the actual enjoyment of these blessings by any human being depends upon his acceptance of the gospel, and those who refuse to do so. Il6 FUTURE I'UNISHMENT. remain under the original sentence of death, but liable to additional stripes in the execution of it, which is called destruction, and is represented, literally or figuratively, by the most terrible of all des- tructive agencies, fire ; that some men will to the last receive the grace of God in vain, and consequently perish for ever. In the more recent publications of such men as White, Constable Pctengell, and R. W. Dale (successor of John Angel James, Bir- mingham), who may be regarded as the representatives of this theory in England and America, sut'-* passages as the following occur : The idea t'lat God has bestowed upon men, or upon any part of human nature, an inalienable immortality finds no sanction in the scriptures. In vain do men, bent on sustaining a human figment, ransack scripture for some expressions, which may be tor- tured into giving it an apparent support. Immortality was given to man at creation, but it was alienable. It might be parted with : it might be thrown away : it might be lost. This immortality was alienated : this priceless gift was thrown away and lost. Man sinned, and lost immortality. Sinful man is not by nature immor- tal, but mortal. He has lowered himself to the level of the beasts that perish. If immortality is to be his again, it must be as a gift restored, and not inherited. It must become his by virtue of some new provision of grace, which reinstates him in the place he lost. This is the gospel of Christ, which gives back to man the eternal life which he had forfeited. God was manifested in human form for the renewal of eternal life. Christ has not bestowed this price- less gift upon all ; but on some only of the fallen race. It is the believer only who can say, " He redeemeth my life from destruc- tion." ♦ ♦ ♦ Apart from Christ, the natural man has no possible ground of hope of immortality or eternal life. Immor- tality is only assured to every regenerated sou), through the death and resurrection of Christ. It is only by a new birth and a resur- rection from the dead THROUGH Christ, that any child of Adam CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY. 117 :an possess this imperishable h'fe. * » * Unless man can be recovered from the doom of death, to which sin when it is finished inevitably leads, and reunited to God in holiness and love, he can have no fitness for this endless life, nor hope of attaining it. Man's natural life, LIKE THAT OF ALL OTHER LIVING CREATURES, ends with death ; nor can there be any hope of a second life for any man, without a Divine supernatural interposition to raise him up ayain. * * » Punishment is eternal, but it consists in eternal death — that is, the loss of eternal life or existence. This death is attended and produced by such various degrees of pain, as God in his justice and wisdom thinks fit to inflict. The attendant pain, with its issue in death, are not two distinct punishments, but are one punishment, varying in degree of suffering according to the guilt of the object. The eternal state of the lost will not consist in an eternal life spent in pain of body or remorse of mind, but a state of utter death and destruction, which will abide for ever. The length of time which this process of dissolution may take, and the degrees of bodily or mental pain which may produce it, are ques- tions which we must leave to that providence of God, which will rule in hell as in heaven. Scope is thus provided for that great variety of punishment, which the reprobate will suffer hereafter, from that which in its justice is terrible to the sufferer, to that which with equal justice, is by him scarcely felt at all. The proofs adduced from die Old Testament in favor of the annihilation of the wicked, are such as these : Death was the pen- alty which God originally pronounced against human sin. Adam knew what death was in one sense only — the loss of being or exist- ence. He did not understand death to mean an eternal existence of agony, but simply that the penalty of disobedience was that he would become like the beasts that perish. It was not an eternal existence in pain, but the withdrawal of a life, whose true aim and object had been lost. The Old Testament Scriptures describe the end of the ungodly, as the resolution of organised substance inlo Il8 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. its original parts, its reduction to that condition in which it is, as though it had never been called into being, " The destruction of the transgressors and of sinners shall be together . they are pre- pared for the day of slaughter : God shall destroy them : They shall be consumed, cut off, rooted out of the land of the living ; blotted out of the Book of Life. The candle of the wicked shall be put out : as wax melteth before the fire, so shall the wicked perish at the presence of God : the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God — they shall be as though they had not been." From such passages Annihilationists argue, that the punishment of the wicked consists not in life, but in the loss of life ; not in their continuance in that organised form which constitutes man, but in its dissolution : its resolution into its original parts, its becoming as though it never had been called into existence. While the redeemed are to know a life which knows no end, the lost are to be reduced to a death which knows of no awakening for ever and ever. Passing on to the New Testament, the following texts are cited in support of the doctrine : " He that believeth not the Son, shall not see life : If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die : The wages of sin is death : Sin, when finished, bringeth forth death : The end ot these things (fleshly lusts) is death : Every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit, is hewn down and cast into the fire : If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost : Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord." The Greek noun " Apoleia," rendered " destruction " by the sacred writers, and the Greek verb " Apollumi," when speaking of future punishment, it is held, mean utter loss of existence, as when the Apostle says, that the ungodly are " vessels fitted to destruction." The illustrations of scripture also imply, it is argued by Annihi- lationists, that the wicked will come to an end, and cease to exist in hell. "They shall be dashed in pieces like a potter's vessel : they shall be like beasts that perish : like a whirlwind that passes away : CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY. IIQ like a waterless garden scorched by an Eastern sun : like {garments consumed by the moth : like a dream which flics away : thev shall be silent in darkness : shall be consumed like the fat of lambs in the fire — like smoke : like thorns : shall melt like wax, and burn like the tow — shall vanish away like exhausted waters. They shall be like wood cast into unquenchable flames : like chaff burned up : like tares consumed : like a dry branch reduced to ashes." Annihilationists, AS A CLASS, do not deny the resurrection of the wicked. They believe that all men shall rise in their bodies, to £rive an account of their deeds. But between the resurrection of the wicked and the just, there is a fundamental and essential difference. The one is raised to pain and shame : the other to joy and glory. The one is raised to die a second time : the other to die no more. The bodies of the just are changed at the resurrection, putting on incorruption and immortality ; while those of the wicked are raised unchanged, not putting on at resurrection either incorruption or im- mortality, but still natural bodies as they are sown, resuming with their old life their old mortality, subject to pain, and sure to yield to that of which pain is the symptom and precursor — physical death and dissolution. The notion of two everlasting kingdoms, running parallel with each other, the one a kingdom of purity and blessed- ness, the other a kingdom of sin and sorrow ; the one to resound with the praises and joyful songs of redeemed men and angels, and the other with the groans and blasphemies of lost sinners and devils to all eternity, is, they maintain, not a doctrine of the Bible, but a relic of Pei .ian dualism and pagan superstition. Those who hold the doctrine of conditional immortality and the final annihilation of the wicked, of necessity regard the fifteenth chapter of ist Corinthians as simply intended to show the intimate connection between Christ and his people, in virtue of which they rise from the grave. That the Apostle does not discuss in the ab- stract the fact of the resurrection, but has special reference to the bearing of Christ's rising from the dead upon the believer's spiritual I20 FUTURE rUNlSHMENT. and eternal life, all commentators hold ; but tuat the resurrection of Christ and belief in a general resurrection are inseparably con- nected, is none the less admitted by every candid critic. The object of the apostle is not to argue the resurrection against certain scep- tics who denied a future life, but rather to show the inconsistency of certain professed believers, who attempted to acknowledge Christ as the Messiah, while denying a future existence. As Dr. John Brown says : " The whole of the apostle's statement;- and reason- ings refer solely to the resurrection of the just, of those who are Christ's — who stand to him in a relation similar to that in which all men stand to Adam — the family of which Jesus is the elder brother, the first born, — the full harvest, of which he is the first fruits : NOT THAT Paul means to deny, what he elsewhere so expli- citly AFFIRMS, THAT "THERE SHALL BE A RESL RRECTION OF THE UNJUST AS WELL AS THE JUST," nor that some of his argu- ments have not a bearing on that resurrection to condemnation as well as the resurrection to life ; but that the subject of his discourse being the resurrection to life, as a glorious privilege secured by Christ to his people, did not naturally lead him to speak of the resurrection to condemnation, which forms an important part of the just retributive punishment that awaits the impenitent and unbe- lieving." The resurrection of Christ and the general resurrection are indeed so related to one another, that they st.^nd or fall together. " If Christ is risen, then the dead rise. If the dead rise not, then is Christ not raised." As Dr. Candlish shows in his able work, " Life in a risen Saviour," the question of the continued existence of man after death, is not raised in the argument, BUT IS EVERYWHERE IMPLIED. " We sh M not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump," is a state- ment that, taken in connection with other passages of scripture, CANNOT REFER EXCLUSIVELY TO THE JUST. Those who hold the theory of conditional immortality, and the ultimate destruction or annihilation of the impenitent wicked, equally with those who deny fC? '-nh Mk^« ?» Ml m >».'« -^ 1 Ciicles of (tlorified Souls, described as "(Jarlauds of never failing roses." — Tlie Vibiou of I'aradisf, Cauto xii. *V ' ■ ' y.> CONDITIONAL 1.M..1UKTALITY. t2I the I:' r, can aj^rcc in this — that Christ is the first fruits of his sleeping- saints, :uid tlmt as he rose they shall also rise. The doc- trine of the Reformed Church is, that their bodies, still initcd to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection. It is not the soul, but the body, that sleeps in Jesus. "The Fathers are in dust, yet live to God, So says the Truth : as if ihe motionless clay Still held the seeds of life beneath the sod, Smouldering and struggling till the judgment day. Sophist may urge his cunning test, and deem That they arc earth ; but they are heavenly shrmes." But none the less true arc the words of the apostle : " If there be no resurrection, then is Christ not risen : if the dead rise not, then is ; not Christ raised." To say that the resurrection of the wicked is simply an act of power and judgment, and is no part of redemption, docs not satisfactorily answer the question, — why are the impeni- tent dead raised at all ? If for judgment, is it a judgment which is but the prelude to annihilation ? If so, whence the necessity of judgment — of torturing the resurrected body for a longer or shorter time, when death of both soul and body is so near ? The absurdity of such a doctrine led sucl a man as Theodore Parker to say : "I believe that Jesus Christ taught eternal torment. When the stiffened body goes down to the tomb, sad, silent, remorseless — I feel that there is no death for the man. That clod which yonder dust shall cover, is not my 'mother. The dust goes to his place, man to his own. It is then, I feel immortality. I look through the grave into heaven. I ask no miracle, no proof, no reasoning. I am conscious of eternal life." Christ in his conversation with the sisters . of Bethany, after the death of their brother Lazarus, shows most conclusively the life which believers have m a risen Saviour, and the close relation in which he stands to his people. Whether, as alleged by those whose creed we are now discussing, Mary had no thought that Christ had anything in especial to do with resuireclilon, and 122 FUTURE I'UNISIi.MENT. had a mere general belief in a resurrection of the good and bad alike at the last day, is immaterial. Christ clearly teaches her, that the resurrection of believers is assured in virtue of their union to their Head. " I am the resurrection and the life : he that bclicveth in me though he were dead, yet shall he live : and whosoever livcth and believeth in me shall never die." Mary doubtless was tlunkin;j^ of the last day, when in company with all the hosts of the world's dead, her brother would rise again, a truth which the Saviour never once objected to, but frequently impressed upon the minds of his hearers. But in addition, he shows that apart from himself, there is no comfort in the prospect of a resurrection. He does not imply that there is no life in the future for the impenitent dead, or that such a life is only limited and of short duration ; but he shows that union between Christ and his people ensures victory over death and the grave, and eternal life and blessedness beyond the present. Christ and his people are one. His death is their death. By his sufferings and death he has satisfied the claims of divine justice — freed his people from condemnation, and raised them to the favor and fellowship of God. They are thus, as the apostle elsewhere expresses it, " quickened together with Christ, raised up together with Him, and made to sit with Him in heavenly places." Or, to use the very language of Annihilationists, " Christ is the cause and source of his people's resurrection : without Him they could have no resurrection : in Him, through Him, from Him and Him alone, their resurrection is to spring." But this is no new doctrine. It was not left to Annihilationists to proclaim for the first time to the world. It has been the belief for centuries of the Christian Church. Says the Prophet Isaiah, chapter 26, v. 19 : " Thy dead men shall live : together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust : for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead." This passage, as well as that contained in Ezekiel's prophe- cies, chapter 37, descriptive of the dry bones in the Valley of Vision, CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY. IZ$ has doubtless a primary reference to the desolations sent upon the lewish nation for its sins. Notvvithst.'.'iJing their past sad history, they are still beloved for their fathers' sake. In spite of their dis- persion amonfj the nations of the earth, they shall again be gathered together, when their wanderings shall cease, their unbelief end, and when in point of privilege they shall become the joy and glory and envy of the world. These despised, degraded, downtrodden Jews, shall aj^ain be quickened into national and spiritual life, and realise a happier condition than under Solomon's reign. " Thy dead men shall live." When the set time to favor Zion comes, the walls shall be built, and the desolations and breaches repaired. Nor can any student of history fail to perceive, how marvellously the signs of the times, and the shakings of the nations, are hastening on this blessed consummation. Kingdoms are being rent in pieces, and thrones demolished. New sovereignties and alliances are springing up, and empires being established on the soil where but recently civilisation has made her first conquests. Embattled hosts are going forward to deadly struggles for the maintenance of national honor, the removal of real or fancied wrongs, and the help of the oppressed. Such things in themselves may seem comparatively insignificant, but they are working out grand results, underneath the surface of soc'cty, such as the ingathering of the Jews and the evangelisation of the Gentiles. It is not simply that the scales of unbelief shall be taken from eyes of the Jews, enabling them to recognise Christ as the promised Messiah of Old Testament times, but along with their conversion shall come the latter day glory. When Israel has been reinstated, we shall see the downfall of hoary systems of super- stition, that for centuries have enslaved the human mind. But the passage has a direct bearing on the subject under dis- cussion. It intimates, in common with New Testament texts already quoted, that the resurrection of believers is .' ntimately con- nected with the resurrection of Christ. " Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise." Elsewhere we read : 124 FUTUKK I'UNISIIMKNT. " When he who is your life shall appear, yc also shall appear with hhn in glory." " The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout : with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first." What then do we mean by saying, that believers rise with Christ? What is the nature of that union between Christ and his pco[)le, that involves and ensures such a consequence ? It may be admitted at once, that the scrip- tures nowhere represent the resurrection OF ALL THE DK.\n, as the lirect result of the re.surrection of Christ. It need not be assumed, in combattiiig the views of Annihilationists, that the death an 1 resurrection of Christ has secured the resurrection of all who now sleep in their graves, saints and sinners indiscriminately. A resur- rection of the body is a necessity, in order that men may receive sentence according to their lives in the flesh. In the case of believ- ers, more than the mere fact of resurrection is guaranteed — instead of being one to dishonor and condemnation, it is one to life and immortality. It is a glorious awakening, and the enjoyment of per- fect and endless felicity in the world to come. There is, then, vast meaning in the words, " TOGETHER wiTfi MY DEAD BODY shall they arise." Most vividly is the preciousncss of union to a crucified Saviour revealed. Faith not only ensures to the believer all present spiritual blessings, but makes him an actual sharer in the future destiny of his risen Lord. Christ has died— that is a comforting truth : but if he has not risen, the believer's redemption is incomplete. But Christ has risen. His sacrifice has been accepted. The believer's sins are no longer imputed to him. When he dies, it is not IN his sins and under the condemnation of t: 'aw, but he falls asleep in Jesus. He enters the grave, and for a brief season is subject to the last enemy, that like his Master, he may at last conspicuously conquer him. There is such an intimate union between Christ and the believer, that it is not untii Jt rises from the grave that the great purposes of Christ's death anc reasoning implies : ist. That Adam, before he received this threat- ening, had witnessed death among the lower animals, which is quite uncertain. 2nd. That what he knew of the import of the threaten- ing was gathered from the words recorded in Genesis, and from what he had observed in the animal system around him, which is also quite uncertain ; and 3rd, That Adam knew that death is the termination of e.Kistence to the lower animals. If he knew this, he had learned what Bishop Butler, long after, had not discovered. That profound thinker, in his Analogy, writes : " Nor can we find any thing throughout the whole analogy of Nature to afford us even the slightest presumption that animals ever lose their living powers, much less, if it were possible, that they lose them by death, for we have no faculties wherewith to trace any beyond, or through it, so CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY. I47 as to see what becomes of them."— Page 17. If Adam knew that the lower animals cease to exist at death, he knew what no process of observation could teach him, and which we ourselves do not know, unless it be through revelation made long subsequent to the time of Adam. And if he had a revelation, of which there is no record, to teach him that the beasts cease to exist at death, may he not have had a revelation of an opposite kind in reference to himself and his posterity ? If he was informed that the spirit of the beast j^oeth downward, may he not at the same time have been taught that the spirit of man gocth upward ? Ecclesiastes iii., 21. So far as observation goes, what takes place, when a good man and when a beast dies, is the same. All signs of life and activity disappear, and physical decay sets in. If this proves that the brutes cease to exist, it proves the same in reference to good men ; yet Annihilationists, like White and Hudson, maintain that good men, in virtue of their union to Christ, do not entirely cease to be at death. And if it must be admitted that what is observed proves nothing in regard to the continued existence, or non-existence of men or of beasts, it is only candid to say so. We are reminded, however, that there are reasons why death does not end the being of those who are in Christ, which do not apply to the lower animals. We reply (i), that these reasons could not be learned from obser- ve tion of what transpires in the animal system around us, and (2), that there are reasons in the very constitution of man as a moral, intelligent and responsible free agent, which bespeak for the race an endless existence, reasons which cannot be supposed in the case of the lower animals. This mode of determining the meaning of the threatening ignores the important distinction between man and the lower ani- mals recognized in the record of creation, and assumes that Adam learned from observation what no observation could teach. 148 FUTURE I'UNLSllMENT. But White and Constable support their views of the threatening b}- an assumption, which they probably mistake for reasoning, viz : that Adam must have understood the threatening to mean the extinction of his being for ever, or death in its primary meaning, as he had learned it from the animal system around him, otherwise it would have been unjust in God to inflict the penalty. This is tjegging the question, and something worse. What requires to be proved is, that death in the primary and ordinary sense of the word is the cessation of existence. This we have seen could not have been learned from observation. And if a revelation was necessary to make Adam know that the penalty threatened is " the entire deprivation of being," what but a tacit assumption of what requires to be proved, prevents these writers from perceiving that the same method of instruction was equally suited to inform him that death is to be understood in the pregnant sense, required in many parts of Scripture, and even by the narrative in Genesis. But we deny absolutely that a penalty must be known, or under- stood, before it can be justly inflicted. The justice of the punish- ment depends on the law being known, and on the penalty being proportioned to the offcn- :, but not on the penalty being known. Constable, replying to Professor Bartlett on this point, says : " If this Professor of Theology had consulted a Professor of Jurispru- dence, he would have been informed, that when a man is incapable of knowing the nature of a penalty, he cannot be subjected to it." — Nat. and Dur. of Future Punishment, page 30. This is an artful representation, by which one thing is adroitly substituted for ano- ther, in a way not very worthy of an honest man. Human law views a man, who from mental imbecility or disease, is incapable of understanding the law or its penalty, as not responsible for his actions. But this has nothing to do with the case on hand, where the law was known and understood, and only the penalty is sup- posed to have been not fully comprehended. CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY. 149 According to the teaching of White and Constable, where God forbids a sin, and docs not publish a penalty, no penalty can be inflicted. Were this precious morality accepted, the members of a community, which had the Decalogue revealed from Heaven as their moral code, might deem themselves licensed, so far as exemp- tion from penalty could license them, to murder, steal, and commit adultery, because the precepts forbidding these sins have no penal- tics attached to them. White tells us that even the " Chinese gov- ernment considers itself obliged to read to the people periodically the Criminal Code." — Page 113. If so, it may be assumed that it has wisdom to do it, to make them familiar with the law, rather than merely to acquaint them with the penalty. We think it is manifest that neither of these modes of determining the meaning of the threatening given in Eden can satisfy any thoughtful and un- biased mind. We shall now advance a step, and give some reasons why we cannot accept the view of death on which the doctrine of Condi- tional Immortality is based. We reject the doctrine. I. Because it is based on an unfounded assumption, viz : that the primary and ordinary meaning of death is the cessation of exist- ence, or the extinction of being. This notion pervades the reason- ings of Annihilationists, and it is essential to the theory that this should be recognized as the primary meaning of the word. For only in this way can they hope to fasten such a meaning on death, as the threatened penalty of sin. We venture, however, to assert that it is a pure assumption, in support of which not one relevant Aict can be adduced, and in opposition to which almost number- less facts array themselves. Constable, with his usual boldness, claims the testimony of the dictionaries of all languages to the assertion. '•' that the primary and ordinary meaning of death is the extinction of being." He writes : " Every dictionary of every language of the earth is our witness of 150 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. this." — Papfe 75. It is difficult to imagine a statement more un- founded, made by an intelligent man, who considers himself under obligations to speak the truth. The word " death " has, no doubt, a primary, and various sec- ondary meanings, but it is not true that, in any language with which we are acquainted, or in any respectable dictionary,, its primary meaning is the extinction of being, or that the word prir^arily im- plies that the being who has died has " utterly and wholly ceased to be." It is a word which points primarily to certain familiar phy- sical phenomena, which occur once in the history of every man, but it gives no explanation of the causes or results of these phenom- ena. The Imperial dictionary gives as the meaning of the word death: "The state of a being, animal or vegetable, but more particularly of an animal, in which there is a total and permanent cessation of all the vital functions, when the organs have not only ceased to act, but have lost the susceptibility of renewed action." In this definition, there is nothing inconsistent with the continued existence of the soul after death. Of course, if Materialism is true, the ce.ssation of these vital functions in the disorganised material mechanism, carries with it the extinction of mental and spiritual action, and of the soul it.self, which is merely a function of the body. The entire man is resolved into his " elemental atoms," and ceases to be. But this conclusion is not reached from the primary force of the word DEATH, but from the teachings of a base philosophy. And even if Materialism were proved true, it would not follow that mankind, in speaking of an occurrence so familiar as death, has any thought of pronouncing it true. Sunrise and sunset are due to the revolution of the earth on its axis, but neither the learned nor the unlearned, in using these words, ever dream that they are enunciating that truth. Bishop Butler has well remarked : " We do not know at all what death is in itself, but only some of its effects, such as the dissolution of the flesh, skin and bones. And CONlJlTlOiNAL IMMORTALITY. Ijl these effects do in no \v;?e appear to imply the cleslructfon of a living a-ent."— Analonry, page i6. If our vital functions are due to the union of the soul and body, then their total and permanetit cessation in the body, which is the thing observed in death, maybe due to the termination of that union, and does not imply the ex- tinction of the soul, or that it has ceased to be active or conscious. It is only when the teaching of a Materialistic philosophy is adroitly transfused into the word death, that it can be made to speak the language of Annihilationism. If Constable's reckless assertions were true, whenever a man says a neighbor has died, he intends to affirm that he has " utterly and wholly ceased to be." The prevalence, well nigh universal, of a belief in the immortality of the soul, is a sufficient refutation of this preposterous assertion. The truth is that neither Materialists nor Annihilationists have ever been sufficiently numerous to mould the language of any people. Neither Hebrews, Greeks nor Romans, when they spoke of the death of their friends, in the ordinary and primary sense of that word, ever dreamed of asserting that the de- parted had ceased to be ; and with the exception of a few who had become corrupted by a Materialistic philosophy, they did not be- lieve it. It is notorious that the Jews, in the time of our Lord, with the exception of the Sadducees, who never were a numerous class, believed in the immortality of the soul. Of this the New Testa- ment and Josephus supply ample evidence. And if we can trust poets, philosophers and historians, it is no less certain that the mass of the Greeks and Romans did the same. Their superstitions make this belief palpable. Their Gods were nearly all departed heroes. Tartarus and the underworld were peopled with those who had laid aside the body in death. Necromancy, which prevailed exten- sively, is a recognition of the survival of souls separated from the body. And if the popular religion provided for the departed a ferryman at the river, and judges for the nether world, it surelj- i:i 152 FUTURE rUNlSMM'"NT. sufficient evidence that when they spoke ot death in its primary sense, they did not intend to affirm that the dead had " utterly and wholly ceased to be." Another point requires to be noticed in connection with this word. What Annihilationists assert is the primary meaning of death is a purely SECONDARY MEANING, of which there are oc- casional examples in classic, and even in theological Greek. But it is only the perverting influence of a Materialistic philosophy, which in view ot the facts we have adduced, could ever lead anv one to mistake it for the primary sense of the word. Like nearly all our terms, which represent abstract ideas, the word DEAIII passes from what falls under the senses to what, in a higher depart- ment, is supposed to be analogous. Between those familiar sensible phenomena, which the word primarily represents, analogies arc easily traced in a higher region, out of which spring secondary meanings of the word death. To illustrate ; When a living creature dies, the body is dissolved into its elements. Following this analogy, a writer may affirm or deny the death of the soul, wlien he wishes to assert or repudiate the notion of its continued existence. In the one case, he designs to affirm that the soul can- not or will not be resolved into simpler elements, and thus pass away ; while in the other he makes the opposite assertion. But this is a purely secondary meaning of the word, which became neces- sary, when men began to indulge in abstract speculations. Again, wlien a living creature dies, physical decay sets in, and putre- faction, with all its loathsome accompaniments, follows. Pursuing this analogy, death when applied to the soul, represents the decay of moral principle or character, and all the loathsomeness of a depraved heart and life ; in one word, moral and spiritual death. But this is not more certainly a secondary meaning of the word death than the other. ---"^- - - ^ .^ __ __^ _-_: — CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY. I5j Hut \vc might very well object to have the biblical sense of tlic woixl death determined by an appeal to its usage in heathen writers, or indeed in extra scriptural vvritersof any kind. The only safe way to reach the meaning of the word in the Bible, is to examine carefully the passages in which it occurs. Supernatural revelation had to engraft an entirely new circle of ideas upon languages which had been before employed merely as the vehicle of heathen thought. It was therefore often compelled, as the con- te.Kt shows, to use words in a much higher sense than that in which tlicy were employed among the heathen. To insist that the usage of classic Greek is to ru'e the interpretation of the New Testament is really to keep Chr'stianity down to the dead level of heathen ideas. What, we may say. was Paul's entire speech on Mars' Hill, but an attempt to engraft on the word GOD a circle of ideas, as iinich higher than that which the Athenians connected with it, as the God of the Bible is higher and purer than those monsters of vice, whom the heathen often honored as their Deities ? II. We cannot regard the death threatened as equivalent to the cessation of being, because that view does not agree with the inti- mations of the record in Genesis, respecting *:he nature of man and the execution of the penalty. There are four things in the record which we require to observe : 1st. That the creation of man is introduced wiih much greater solemnity than that of the lower animals. His creation is not re- ferred to merely as that of a member of the animal kingdom, with powers and capacities somewhat higher than those of his fellows, but as that of a being largely SUI GENERIS, an animal uo doubt, but one quite unique in his nature. When the lower animals are introduced, God said, " Let the waters bring forth abundantly, the moving creature that hath life," or " Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind." — Genesis i. 20 and 24, The language looks as if their origin were wholly earthly, but when we come to the crea- 154 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. tion of man, the Godhead is represented as taking counsel. "And God said, let us make man," &c. This is language, surely, which might prepare us to look for a being of a very different nature from the other denizens of earth. This expectation is fulfilled ; for the I'ccord next asserts, — 2nd. That man was created in the image of God. We are often reminded, by those who regard man as entirely of earthly origin, tliat in Genesis ii. 7, God is said to have formed man out of the dust of the ground ; but it should not be forgotten that there arc two accounts of man's creation given in Genesis i. 26, 27, and ii. 7 — the later supplying some details omitted by the earlier — but what is stated first, as announcing that which is most distinctive of man, and that in reference to which the Godhead takes counsel, is that man was made in the image of God. In what, then, does the imat;c of God consist? The scriptures warrant us in answering, that it consists in two things, distinct, yet related. ( i ) A likeness of nature to God, which was not lost by the fall — Genesis ix. 9, James iii. 9, and 1st Cor. xi. 7. And (2) a likeness in moral character to God, which was lost by sin, and may be restored by grace. Paul tells us to "put on the new man, which after God is created in righteous- ness and true holiness," — Ephesians iv. 24. And again he describes Christians as those who "have put on the new man, which is re- newed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him," — Col. iii. 10, and 2nd Cor. iii. 18. These passages teach, (i), That the new man, which we put on, when we become living followers of Christ, is the re-establishment of the divine image, in which man was originally created. (2) That the distinguishing features of that image are knowledge, righteousness and holiness, or moral exccl- cellence viewed from its intellectual and ethical sides. (3). That these features of the Divine image were created in man. If we ask ourselves, in what do such qualities as knowledge, righteousness and holiness inhere ? The answer must be, in man's ::piritual na- CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY. 155 tine, or in that element of the Divine image which sin has not obliterated. God is a spirit, and when He made man in His image, He made him a spirit. It is from CON.SClOU.SN ESS we get the idea of spirit as something distinct from matter. Through the senses, we come to the knowledge of matter, as found in the body and in the exter- nal world. It is recognized as that which has certain properties, such as extension, weight, color and divisibility. By consciousness 1 become acquainted with something which I call myself, or my soul, which thinks, feels, wills, makes moral discriminations, and is one and indivisible. None of the known properties of matter can be ascribed to the soul or self, as made known by consciousness. And none of the known properties of the soul can be predicated of matter. We thus reach a knowledge of soul or spirit as essentially distinct from matter. When everything which discovers to us the existence of soul and of matter, reveals them as distinct, it would sure- ly be gratuitous folly to attempt to identify them with each other. But while we can predicate none of the properties of the self or soul of matter, we are constrained both by reason and revelation to ascribe to God, in infinite measure, ali the distinguishing proper- ties of the soul, and to deny to him all the properties of matter. To Him we ascribe personality, feeling, intelligence, will, moral charac- ter, and indivi'-ible unity — the very characteristics of the human soul revealed by consciousness. And when we affirm that human soul is spirit, and that God is a spirit, we only employ a verbal sym- bol to express what we had before discovered is common to man and to his Creator. If we had not discovered through conscious- ness what spirit is, the assertion, that God is a spirit, would mean as little to us as a description of colors to a man born blind, or of sound to a man who has been always deaf. Language cannot con- vey simple ideas which are not already in the mind. A belief, there- fore, in the spirituality of the human soul, and in the spirituality of God, logically stand or fall together. ISC FUTURE PUNISHMENT. But it may be asked, what is the connection between the spirit- uality of the soul and its survival after death ? The attitude of both friends and foes is good evidence that the connection is real. Nor is the reason far to seek. Were the soul material, or the result of highly organized matter, we would naturally expect that when the body returned to dust, the soul would vanish and become as though it had not been. But if the soul is spirit, a substance which is essentially diverse from matter, if it is not liable to decay or dis- solution, and if consciousness reveals it as one and indivisible, then the changes whi^lx dissolve the body into its elements, cannot affect the soul. No doubt God can blot the soul of man out of existence, although the fact that He made it in His image may be regarded as an intimation of an opposite intention, but we cannot suppose even the Almighty to divide it, or to resolve it, into simpler ele- ments. In the very structure of the soul, therefore, which was made in the image of God, we discern the forc-^leams of immortality. 3rd. The record of man's creation indicates very clearly the DUALITY of his nature. "And the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; and man became a living soul." — Genesis ii. 7. The force of the argument here does not depend on the state- ment that man became a living soul — NEi'liESH HAYAH — terms which are expressly applied to the lower animals, but rather upon the indication which we have here of a twofold nature in man, one part drawn from the dust, and the other the product of the in- breathing of .he Almighty. The place which man is here recog- nized as holding in the animal kingdom, is due to the union of soul and body. Bring together all the elements of man's nature which arc drawn from the ground, and arrange them in the exact order in which they are found in living men, and let the Spirit be a want- ing, and "Tin i* not. nephesh HAYAH, a living soul, or animal ; he CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY. 157 h a rarcase or corpse. But add to what comes from the dust what is due to the inbreathing of God, and he becomes a living soul, a creature having life, and takes his place lu the animal kingdom. No fair handling of the record can keep out of view the indications which it gives of a twofold nature in man. It distinguishes between the vital principle, or soul, and the material organism, and points to the former as more directly from God, and " akin to Him than the latter." And the inference deduced from the marks of dualism apparent on the record of man's creation, becomes more powerful when the record is read in the light of the inspired comment, given in Ecclesiastes xii. 7, " Then shall the dust return to the earth, as it was, and the spirit shall return to God who gave it ;" and still more clear, as practically interpreted by the prayer of the dying Stephen, " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." — Acts vii. 59. 4th. But the record in Genesis gives not only indications of the nature of man, but also of the execution of the curse threatened ; from which it appears that the penalty fell more directly on the soul. Disobedience was to be followed by immediate punishnient : " In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." The narrative shows that the first fruit of sin was reaped in the souls of our first parents. The sense of shame, the dread of God's displeasure, and a consciousness of a baleful change in their relations to God, are the things which are first experienced by the transgressors. It is not the extinction of being, but of conscious well being, which ap- pears. Is this no intimation to us of the real meaning of the threatening? We are informed by Annihilationists that but for the intervention of Christ, the cessation of being would have followed man's sin instantly. This, however, is a pure assumption, to which the Scriptures give no countenance. It is never safe to regulate our views of Scripture by unproved assumptions. What we here observe is penal evils, which are spoken of elsewhere in Scripture as death, coming upon our first parents as soon as they sinned, 158 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. and these we regard as included in the threatening. This is God's interpretation of his own words.. III. We cannot accept the Annihilationist view of death, because the scriptures show that the soul of man retains a conscious exist- ence after death. Those who embrace the doctrine of Conditional Immortality with which we are dealing, while insisting that death means prim- arily the extinction of being, admit that as a result of the interven- tion of Christ, men do not cease to be until after the general judgment. White says, "The Hades state is for good and bad, one of the miraculous results of a new probation." — Page 106. But writers of this class uniformly deny, and in order to give their admission a semblance of consistency with their view of death, it Is necessary that they should deny to man a conscious existence between death and the resurrection. We cannot regard the con- sistency as real. They appear, however, to think that if they assign to man a condition so near to non-existence, that it may be mistaken for it, it will be forgotten that they have defined death to be " the entire deprivation of being." Do the scriptures, then, warrant us in ascribing to man, between death and the resurrection, an uncon- scious state ? Turn to that evangelical narrative in Luke xvi, 19-31, which Annihilationists always speak of as a parable. Its doctrinal value will, however, in no way be lessened, if we view it as a parable ; for a parable always presci^ts a case which might have happened. You will observe that the passage asserts three things, viz. : (i.) That Lazarus and the rich man died. What the scriptures recognize as death in its primary and obvious sense, befel both of them. (2.) Both passed, at once, into a state of conscious existence, the one comforted in Abraham's bosom, and the other lifting up his eyes in Hades, being in torments. (3.) That this was their condition during the lifetime of the five brethren of the rich CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY. 159 man, whose advent he dreaded, or in other words, during the very period elapsing between his death and the resurrection. This one passage subverts the entire scheme of Annihilationists. But it does not stand alone. The dying malefactor was comforted with the assurance that he should be that day with Christ in para- dise. — Luke xxiii. 43. Paul expected, when his earthly taber- nacle was dissolved, to be received, in his abiding personality, into an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, and when he was absent from the body to be present with the Lord. — 2nd Cor- inthians v. 1-8. We learn, also, that the Apostle of the Gentiles deemed it far better to depart, and be with Christ, then to remain in the flesh. To him death was gain, not a state of unconsciousness. . Moses, who had been many centuries dead, appeared in glory along with Elias, and talked with Christ concerning the decease which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem. — Luke ix. 30, 31. This certainly is something very unlike slumbering on in unconsciousness until the resurrection. The Sadducean doctrine was based on the same materialistic philosophy which we have seen underlies the theory of Conditional Immortality. And Christ in refuting the denial of the resurrection by the former, refutes also the denial of consciousness ^o those who have died, as held by the latter. Our Lord met the cavils of the Sadducees by showing that the words addressed to Moses at the bush, " I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," implied that these patriarchs were still living, and in cov- enant relations with God. What Annihilationists inform us is a state of entire unconsciousness, He pronounces to be a state of life. " For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living ; for all live unto Him." — Luke xx. 38. The testimony of Christ, therefore, is explicit that death, in the ordinary sense of that word, does not exclude the continued life of the soul apart from the body. , l60 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. TV. We reject the Annihilationist view of the thrcatcninfT in Eden, because it is not in harmony with the New Testament usatjo of the words LIFE and DEATH, particularly when they are associa- ted with the mission of Christ. He is represented as coming to deliver us from death, and to impart to us life ; and it will not be questioned that the death from which He frees us is the curse en- tailed by sin, and the life He bestows is the opposite. That life, in the New Testament, is used to signify not merely conscious e\- i>tence, but man's NORMAL EXISTENCE, a blessed life in fellowship with God, where all the fruits of His favor are enjoyed, is, we think, undeniable. Death, on the other hand, frequently stands for the opposite, AN ABNORMAL EXISTENCE OF ALIENATION FROM GOD, subject to all the penal evils which follow such an existence in this world and in the world to come. When Christ says, " Let the dead bury their dead," Matt. viii. 22 it needs surely no proof that the dead who were capable of burying their dead, were not persons who had either laid aside the body, or who had ceased to be, but men who by reason of their abnormal state of alienation from God, were viewed as spiritually dead. It is equally apparent that it is in the same sense the word is applied to the church in Sardis, which had a name to live, and was dead, — Revelations iii. i. John affirms, "he that loveth not his brother abideth in death," but he does not mean to say either that his earthly career was over, or that he had ceased to exist. The Apostle Paul expressly declares that " to be carnally minded is death,"— Romans viii. 6 — and the reason which he gives for the assertion is not that it leads on, at some future time, to " the entire deprivation of being," but that it involves alienation of heart and life from God ; for in the next verse he adds, " Because the carnal mind is enmity against God ; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." This is what Paul regards as death. He even predicates death and life of the same person, at the same time, — " she that CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY. l6l livcth in pleasure is dead while she liveth," — 1st Tim. 5, 6. That life is spoken of as imparted, in a sense exactly corresponding, is sufficiently evident from the statement, " To be spiritually minded is life and peace," — Romans viii. 6 ; or from the declaration, " You hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins," — Ephcsians ii. i. It is important to observe that in many of the passages in the New Testament, where LIFE denotes a normal state of being in the fellowship, likeness, and enjoyment of God, it is directly associated with the mission of Christ, and the imparting of life, in this high sense, is set forth as the special object of His work. A few illus- trations must suffice. John xvii. 23 : " As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou has given Him. And this is life eternal that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou has sent." Observe here (i) That the end for which Christ was granted all power was that He might give eternal life to as many as were given Him. This life must be the opposite of the death which was intro- duced by sin. For Christ " came to destroy the works of the devil." — ist John iii. 8, and ist John iv. 9. (2) That this life, in what Christ regards as its most essential aspect, is to know the only true God, and His Son, Jesus Christ. The life which our Redeemer came to impart, as defined by Himself, is not mere con- scious being, but a normal state of being in communion with God, whose real glory is spiritually apprehended. It is to know God, and His Son, Jesus Christ. John iii. 36 : " He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life ; he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." Observe here, (i) everlasting life is the present possession of the believer. He hath it. The present tense is used. It is not something bestowed merely at the resurrection. (2) The unbeliever shall not see life. If life here means a normal existence in the fellowship and enjoyment of God, the statement is l62 FUTUKK PUNISHMENT. intellicjiblc, but if it means mere existence, or conscious beinfr, the assertion palpably contradicts facts. It may be imaf>[ined that, at some future period, the unbeliever shall cease to be, but that he now exists is as certain as any fact to which our senses bear wit- ness. (3) But the nature of the death in which the unbeliever abides, and out of which he shall not pass, is explained by the last clause of the verse, " But the wrath of God abidcth on him. " He is in other words, subject to such penal evil as the divine displeas- ure may inflict. The death which is here implied is not the extinc- tion of being, but an abnormal state of being, where man, estranged from God, abides under his frown. According to the Annihila- tionist interpretation of the various clauses of this verse, the whole may be fairly paraphrased, as follows : He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting conscious existence, he that believeth not the Son shall not see conscious existence, but the wrath of God abideth on that which has " utterly and wholly ceased to be "11! A theory which reduces such a text to nonsense is not of God. The usage of the words life and death, to which we have ad- verted, pervades the New Testament, vide John v. 24 ; John vi. 47-51 ; Rom. vii. 9-13 ; Rom. vii. 24-15 ; Rom. viii. 6; Eph. ii. 1-6; Eph. iv. 18 19; Col. ii. 12-13 ; ist John iii. 14. V. We cannot accept the Annihilationists' view of the death threatened in Eden, because they do not themselves adhere to it, and cannot adhere to it, without coming into direct conflict with what they acknowledge to be the teaching of Scripture. Those who embrace the phase of the doctrine of Conditional Immortality with which we are dealing, maintain (i) that the death threatened in Eden, and death in the primary and obvious sense of the word, are one and the same ; and both imply the extinction of being. Those who have died have " utterly and wholly ceased to be. " (2) That there shall be a resurrection of the entire race, and a general Judgment, where the wicked shall have such punish- ment inflicted on them, as will issue in their final annihilation. CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY. 163 It must be evident to any one who reflects that these positions arc mutually destructive. Wc turn to Gen. v. 5, and wc read, "And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years : and he died. " This is certainly death in its plain and obvious, in its primary sense. Then, of course, according to Mr. White, he " utterly and wholly ceased to be." He was, as another writer has it, resolved into his " elemental atoms." These existed before he was created, and they exist after he is dead, but, if death is the cessation of being, in no other sense did Adam exist after he died, than he existed before his creation. And, as " it has been appointed unto men once to die," it follows that all who have passed away from this earthly scene, have ceased to be : " they have returned to the earth, and have become as though they had not been." But what -has ceased to be cannot be raised up again. The rain drops of this year are not a resurrection of the rain drops of last year. The sounds which issue from the tolling bell to-da)' are no resurrection of the tones which came from it yesterday. A res- urrection implies continuity of being. If Adam ceased to be, when he died, he cannot be raised up again. Another man may be cre- ated in his liiij.jht and heat are insep arable in a sun -beam, but it would be an abuse of lanj^niaj^je to make li^ht mean heat. Sin and misery arc inseparable in this world and in the next, yc-t it would be an abuse; of lanjaiaf^'e to make sin mean misery. And sr), while the words "destroy and "perish," may not be terms convertible with endless cf)nscit)iis misery, they may be perfectly ccjnsistent with it, if the destruction referred to is f>f that whicli renders existence j;odlike, noble, useful, and desirable. Jiut those who teach that the wicked shall be annihilated thi'fiU^^h sufferings, which maybe im extinction of being, but because he saves them from their sins. (Matt. i. 21.) VVe arc informed that he gave himself fe^r us, that he mi^jht redeem us from all ini(|uity and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. (Tit. ii. 14.) We are assured that Christ loved the CONUmONAL IMMORTALITY. \C)() f'linirh, ;iti(l }j;iv(: liiiMsclf for it, that he mif^ht sanctify and cleanse it. (\'.\)\\. V. 2^-2C).) If there is one fact res[)ectin^ rcdenijjtif>ri, which stands ft^rth more |)roinineiitiy in the New Testament than another, it is that the ^rand end vvliich fJhrist had in view, in sub- ordination to the jjlory (jf (j(n\, was the hoh'ness of his people, their coniijlete restoration to the moral and spiritual irna},'e of God. liul now we are ask(,'d to believe, that the {jrand end was that men mifdif be preserved in existence. And to this holiness itself must be subrjrdinated. This is a revolution and a de^jradatifjii. The man who values a paintiii;^j, wai for the touches fjf the artist's skill add ^jenius, which have made it instinct with thou^jht and charac- ter, but for the scjuare yards of its surface, has done in art, what will be effected for Christianity, wh(;n for that holiness of heart and life;, which is the p^rand i'Am\ of Christ's redeeminj^f work, men shall learn to substitute the conscious existence of ConditioniJ liiuiioi tality. OPTIMISM. CANON FARRAR'S "ETERNAL HOPE." " The hypocrite's hope shall perish— whose hope shall be cut off, and whose trust shall be a spider's web. When a wicked man dieth, his expectation shall perish ; and the hope of unjust men perisheth." " The righteous hath hope in his death." " Heavenly hope is all serene. But earthly hope, how bright soe'er. Still fluctuates o'er this changing scene, As false and fleeting as 'tis fair." OPTIMISM. Eternal Hope"* of Canon I'arrar nas received much greater consideration than it deserves, chiefly on account of the prominent position of its author, and the important services he has rendered Christian Ht- erature, and the fact that such sentiments and opinions are tolerated in men of the highest standing, within the pale of the Church of England. Brilliant, impassioned and elo- quent as all l.Ms writings are, a man who has no definite belief or convictions regarding the duration of future punishment, should be less lavish in hurling anathemas at others who are as sincere in their belief as Canon Farrar is in his doubts. Indeed it may be said with good reason, that the man who has nothing but a hope, and shrinks from accepting or rejecting the teachings of universal- ism on the one hand, and orthodoxy on the other hand, is not in the best position to brand those who differ t'rom him as hard-heart- ed, cruel and revengeful. It has ever been uiund that those who accept without cavilling the teachings of Scripture regarding ever- lasting punishment, are those who, with tender pity and agonizing cries, bend over and beseech men to be reconciled to God. As • " Eternal Hope — Five sermons preached in Westminster Abbey, November and December 1877, by the Rev. Frederick W. Farrar D. D., F. R. S , Canon of Weslmius- ter, Chaplain in ordinary to the Queen &c., dec. 174 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. Professor Phelps truly says : " Unbelievers in the doctrine of future punishment are never, on any very large scale, efficient supporters of missions. Why is this? Simply because they do not believe, as others do, that this is a lost world. Not believing this element- ary fact of the situation, they unconsciously lower the whole re- demptive work of Christ to the level and to the temperature of that negative." The views held by Canon Farrar have already been summar- ised ; affirming neither the universalist nor agnostic theories, he indulges in an eternal hope, and lifts up behind the darkness in the back ground, the hope that every winter will turn to spring. In justice to such a distinguished man, it is only fair that they should be given, in his own words, and at greater length. Universalism, which teaches that the infinite love of God cannot punish the creature throughout eternity, he cannot accept, inasmuch as however deeply he desires such to be the will of God, and thinks it in accord with mercy and justice that sinners should ultimately be restored and forgiven, it is not clearly revealed to us, and no one can estimate the power of the human will to reject the love of God. Conditional Immortality or annihilationism he rejects, as having little basis in God's word. Fhe almost universal and instinctive belief in the immortality of the soul, which is found in every age, is against it, and it leaves us with the awful conclusion, that God raises up the wicked from death, only "that they may be tormented and finally destroyed. Purgatory, which the Roman Catholic Church describes, as a fire, where the souls of the righteous are purified by punishment of some fixed period, ^hat entrance may be given them into their eternal home, he rejetts, not because he is averse to the acceptance of the truth which the word purgatory involves ; but because it is mixed up with a number of views, in which he cannot believe. OPTIMISM. 175 As regards the evangelical and commonly received doctrines of everlasting punishment, he does not deny the doctrine of future retribution ; he believes that sin cannot be forgiven until it is re- pented of and forsaken, and that the doom of sin is both merciful and just. Thus far he agrees with the teachings of the church. But he rejects, (a) Physical torments (in which it need hardly be said, he does not stand alone) ; (b) The doctrine that future pun- ishment is necessarily endless ; (c) That the vast mass of mankind will suffer such ; and (d) That this doom is passed irrevocably at the moment of death, upon all who die in a state of sin. (Only the second and fourth of these particulars arc fundamental beliefs in the Protestant creed, as Canon Farrar well knows.) Canon Farrar's condemnation of all who differ from him, is sad- ly inconsistent with the Hberty accorded himself as a dignitary of the Church of England. He cannot see how any man who has a heart of pity can believe in the eternal duration of punishment ; he charges his ministerial brethren of the orthodox faith with evasion and endless modifications and sophistries, to get rid of teaching what they do not believe, although solemnly subscribed to in the confessions of their church, He ascribes the prevalence of infidel- ity to the revolt of an indignant conscience against the teaching of everlasting punishment as an essential part of the gospel, while at the same time he subscribes to the agnostic creed of " in memori- am " : — " Behold, we know not anything, lean but trust that good shall fall At last— far off— at last to all, And every winter turn to spring." "The complacency of ignorance that takes itself for know- ledge," he says, " may be ready with glaring and abhorent pictures of fire and brimstone, and dilate upon the awfulness of the suffer- ings of the damned ; but those whose faith must have a broader basis than the halting reconciliation of ambiguous and opposing te.xts ; who grieve at the dark shadows flung by human theologians 176 FUTURE I'UxNISUMENT. athwart God's light ; who believe that reason, and conscience, and experience, as well as Scripture, arc books of God, which nnust have a direct voice in those great decisions, will not be so ready to snatch God's thunder into their own wretched and feeble hands, and undeterred by the base and feeble notion that virtue would be impossible without the horrors of an endless hell, will declare their hope and trust that even after death, through the infinite mercy of God, many of the dead shall be alive again, and the lost be found." Finally he insinuates th-.t those who believe in the final restitution of all things, and the ingathering of both wicked and good into heaven, are the most God-like : — " The wish that, of the living whole, No life may fail beyond the grave, Derives it not from what wc have, The likest God within the soul." Canon Farrar, in his eagerness to show the awful cruelty of those who believe in eternal punishment, draws pictures of hell, and uses language, which he knows well are never used at the present day, and which belong to an age when the modes of thought and speech were radically different from that of modern times. The conception of hell, as held by orthodox Christians, he describes as "a vast and burning prison, in which the souls of millions and mil- h'ons writhe and shriek forever, tormented in a flame that ncvc- will be quenched " — as " a great lake or liquid globe of fire, m which the wicked shall be overwhelmed, which shall always be in tempest in which they shall be tossed to and fro, having no rest day nor night, vast billows of fire continually rolling over their heads, of which they shall ever be full of a quick sense, within and without, their eyes, their tongues, their hands, their feet, their loins, and their vitals shall forever be full of a glowing, melting fire, enough to melt the very rocks and elements — all this not for ten millions of ages, but for ever and ever, without end at all." That such bn- guage has been used, all conversant with the literature of this jub- OI'TIMISM. 177 jcct will admit, but that any number have "exulted in such views of cvcrlastinef punishment," and not rather mourned, what seemed tf tlif.m the fatal necessity for believinc^ them, is a statement wholly r.nsiipported by tacts. It is not after such a manner that the great Nonconformist divines have held and taught it, nor has it ever been held as he describes it by the highest class of theologians in the Church cf England, and even these frightful pictures of cverlastiii;. punishment by Tertullian and others, quoted by Canon Farrar, are net one whit more vivid and repellant than his own, when describ- ing the horrors of delirium tremens in the drunkard. " Have y^^u ever seen — if not, may you never see — a young man suffering from delirium tremens? Have you ever heard him describe its horrors — horrors such as not even Dante imagined in the most harrowing scenes of his "Inferno" — the blood red suffusion of the eyes quenched suddenly in darkness — the myriads of burning, whirling •ngs of concentric fire — millions of foul insects seeming to weave their damp, soft webs about the face — the bloated, hideous, ever changing faces of their visions — the feeling as if a man were falling, fal'ing, falling endlessly, into a fathomless abyss. This is the goal to which intemperance leads — as thou lovest thine own soul, it is better for thee to enter into life blind and maimed rather tha " cast thyself int J this Gehenna of Aeonian fire — this depth of disgrace and of c rruption, where the worm of the drunkard dieth not, and his fire is not quenched." Now, no one finds fault with Canon Farrar in using such methods, to deter men from the terrible re- sults of intemperance. If one drunkard can be reclaimed by the use of such dark coloring, it is fully warranted. But why should Canon Farrar rebuke earnest men, who in the very same manner seek to reclaim their fellows from eternal misery, towards which in- temperance is one of the many gateways ? The Scriptures indulge in no such " ghastly " modes of warning men to flee from the wrath to come. " Their warnings are the more impressive because the words are few and simple, severe in their calm grandeur of earnest 12 l?S FUTURE PUNISHMENT. caution ; outer darkness, weeping, mourning and gnashing of teetli." Surely it were more seemly and more befitting the dignity of the scholar, for him to prove that the punishment of the wicked is not eternal, without regard to the varied coloring given to such punish- ment, from age to age ! What then does Canon Farrar's optimistic theory amount to? To the question, what shall be the condition of the impenitent dead, what does he reply ? Absolutely nothing. He indulges a hope, but he gives no valid scriptural grounds for his hope. While repudiating controversy, he does all he can to teach men to reject and even detest, one of the fundamental articles of Christian belief. He argues as if the universe ought to have been governed on the principle, that its ruler never would inflict pain upon any creature of his hand, and that eternal punishment is antagonistic to the mercy and justice of God. Surely one who denies with such bit- terness the teachings of Christendom, and casts dishonor upon good men, who present the torments of Hell in terms uncouth to ears polite, should be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in him. Endless punishment he cannot find in Scripture ; he thinks it may mean an intermediate, a remedial, a metaphorical, a terminable retribution ; he shakes off the hideous incubus of atrocious con- ceptions, attached to the commonly received doctrines of future misery. But what positive teaching does he give us ? He dare not dogmatize as to forgiveness beyond the grave ; he cannot be- lieve in purgatory, or conditional immortality, or universalism, al- though he speaks of the latter with approval. He affirms that God has given us no clear and decisive revelation, as to the final condi- tion of those who die in sin, and only hopes that the vast majority of the lost may be found. Souls that in this world have failed to secure forgiveness " may entertain hope, though they may have to be purified beyond the grave." His creeo may be summed up in these words • " The destruction of the work of the devil in the universe by the hand of God ; sin withered under the curse of the OPTIMISM. 179 souls that were once its victims, the devil spoiled of his dark do- minion by the hand of omnipitent love ; Hell destroyed and Christ triumphant, gathering the spoils of his cross and passion here and in all worlds." That there are certain popular preachers and theologians, who sympathize with Canon Farrar is well known. In no case, however, do they give us anything more explicit, than that of the sermons under review. The assertion of "The hope," is indeed so qualified, as to indicate the baselessness of the theory alike as regards reason and Scripture. A recent candidate appearing before a New Eng- land congregational council for examination, qualifies his accept- ance of the orthodox creed in the following terms: — (i) The Judge of all the earth will do right. (2) No soul will be saved except on the basis of conversion and regeneration, (3) No soul will be lost until all the resources of divine love consistent with human freedom have been exhausted. He said unqualifiedly that he had no hope to extend to any sinner beyond the moment that salvation was offered him. While he declined to make any dog- matic statement concerning whether any opportunity might be offered of repentance after death, he distinctly and emphatically said that he had no hope to offer to any of such an opportunity, and that he preached the duty of immediate repentance, under peril of being eternally lost. Dr. Donald McLeod, Editor of "Good Words," writing on the future destiny of the wicked, says he has no difficulty in rejecting the popular conception of the future pun- ishment which represents infinite and eternal torment, as the pen- alty fixed by God for some definite act or acts done in this life. But the real difficulty, he adds, refers not to the eternity of punish- ment but to the continuance of sin. We see the sinner growing worse in this world, in spite of every deterring influence. Is it not conceivable that such a career may continue ? Having resisted God for so long, he may do so for ever. In this world we are met by too many terrible facts to warrant our constructing, on merely an- l8o FUTUUE PUNISHMENT. tecedent reasoning, the vision of an absolutely happy universe. Nevertheless, while recognizing- the difficulties that beset the sub- ject, Dr. Macleod thinks we are permitted to fall back with reverent hearts on the " larger hope " of " restitution of all things." At the same time, he feels that assertions are made on this dark question which betray great lack of thoughtfulness. " The difficulties that surround it cannot, unfortunately, be swept away at the bidding of mere generous sentiment." In much stronger terms, as might be expected, but still less satisfactory, Mr. Bcecher, speaking of the myriads of men who are living without God, and without hope in the world, thus delivers himself: " If, now, you tell me, that this great mass of men, because they had not the knowledge of God, went to heaven, I say that the in- road of such a vast amount of mud swept into heaven would be destructive of its purity ; I cannot accept that view. If, on the other hand, you say that they went to hell, then you make an infidel of me ; for I do swear, by the Lord Jesus Christ, by his groans, by his tears, and by the wounds in his hands and in his side, that I will never let go of the truth, that the nature of God is to suffer for others, rather than to make them suffer. If I lose everything else, I will stand on the sovereign idea that God so loved the world that he gave his own Son to die for it rather than it should die. Tell me that back of Christ there is a God, who for unnumbered cen- turies has gone on creating men and sweeping them like dead flies — nay, like living ones — into hell, is to ask me to worship a being as much worse than the conception of any mediaeval devil as can be imagined ; but I will not worship the devil, though he should come dressed in royal robes, and sit on the throne of Jehovah. But it is not true — the Scripture does not teach it, and the whole sense of human justice revolts at it — that for the myriads who have been swept out of this life without the light and knowledge of the divine love there is reserved an eternity of suffering. In that mystery of OPTIMISM. l8l the divine will and work of which the apostle speaks, in the far-off dispensation of the fullness of time, there is some other solution than this nightmare of a mediaeval theology. But has not God jus- tice also ? And is he not of purer eyes than to behold iniquity ? Yes. And the distinction between right and wrong are as eternal as God himself The relation between sin and retribution belongs not to the mere temporal condition of things ; it inheres in the divine constitution, aud is for all eternity. The PROSPECT FOR ANY MAN WHO GOES OUT OF THIS LIFE RESOLUTE IN SIN MAY WELL MAKE HIM TREMBLE FOR HIMSELF, AND MAY WELL MAKE US TREMBLE FOR HIM ! " " Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing," may fitly be ap- plied to such declamation. It is not only entirely unsatisfactory, but is entirely out of place when discussing such a momentous theme. It is not wonderful, then, that the most learned and pious divines ill Europe have denounced such endeavors to unsettle men's minds, without giving them anything like presump'.ive evidence of the theory enunciated. As has been well said, it is not wise to leave huge vacant spaces, like the wastes within the walls of Rome and Constantinople, in men's minds, where once some definite notions as to one of the most momentous topics which can exercise thought, were held. But this is what Canon Farrar has done. There is no difficulty in understanding what he denies, but it is hard to discover what he asserts or believes. He ridicules the poetry and parables and metaphors of Scripture, when used in support of the doctrine of everlasting punishment, but when isolated texts can be wrenched from their plain contextual mf^aning, and when tradition favors his views, he has no scruples to use them. His teaching is destructive —to pull down — to undermine faith in the most tremendous reali- ties of the future. It may not be Universalism ir. so many words, but for all practical purposes the difference is so little, it may be regarded as essentially the same. l82 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. Now let US ask, what is the benefit of such a vague eternal hope, when the minister of religion leaves his pulpit, and stands face to face with some anxious soul, which is soon to appear before its Maker ? When the mind, " diseased with sin's hot fever," cries out piteously for something solid to rest upon, apart from the mere conjectures of any living man — whether is it wiser to hold up before the vision of the dying man this fond dream of universal blessedness, or rather • — while not holding back, nor toning down "the terrors of the Lord " — to press home the question — " How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation," affirming at the same time — that ere we leave the world, the blood of Jesus Christ can cleanse from all sin, that he that believeth is not condemned, and that even the would- be-suicide and murderer, who accepts a Saviour, shall be saved ? In regard to the old fashioned method of presenting the doctrine of eternal punishment, which Canon Farrar so severely denounces, we in the main agree with him. While no man dare rashly say what kind of torment is in store for the impenitent — for this is one of the secrets which belong to God — it is not well to present pic- tures to the imagination that are not fully warranted by Scripture. God's Word, while clearly teaching the indestructibility of the soul, as against the teachings of Materialism and Annihilationism, and giving, as we think, little ground for believing that men who des- pise mercy here, shall repent and be saved hereafter, does not eer- tainly seek to drive men, without the consent ot their reason and will, to a change of conduct. The obedience of love is much more noble than anything that is extorted by mere terror. As has been well said, to paralyze a man's mind with fear at impending danger is not the best way of enabling him to avoid it, and to draw tragic pictures of hell is not the best way to keep men from falling into it. In his reply to the many pungent criticisms that followed the publication of "Eternal hope," Canon Farrar attempts to justify his position. We look in vain, however, for anything more sat- isfactory or positive than in the original work. He complains OPTIMISM. 183 that the circumstances under which his book was published have been overlooked or ignored. It did not profess to be a formal treatise. " The main part of it consisted of sermons, written under the dif- ficulty of interrupted leisure and uninterrupted anxieties ; written a day or two before they were delivered ; written to be addressed to large miscellaneous audiences ; written lastly under the influence of emotions which had been deeply stirred by circumstances, and had taken the strongest possible hold of my imagination and memo- ry. While I was musing, the fire burned, and it was only at the last that I spake with my tongue. It is not thus that I should have addressed a small audience of learned theologians. It is not thus that I should have addressed ANY audience but one which for the time being I could regard as my own. Expressing the same convictions I should have formulated them with more deliberate completeness." But it was not the setting of the sermons, so much as the reck- lessness and daring, with which the profoundest convictions of the Christian world were assailed, that startled and shocked the religi- ous feelings. Nor is there any necessity for excusing his fir t and hurried preparations, if after the lapse of years, in the calm leisure of his study, he still maintains his theory without qualification, against the views of others. His more recent utterances are these : " I am NOT a Universalist. I do not mean that I condemn the doctrine as heretical or untenable ; or that I do not feel (can there be such a wretch as not to feel?) a longing, yearning DESIRE that it might be true. But I dare not say that it MUST be true, because, as I intimated in my book, no man has ever explained the present existence of evil, and no man has ever sounded or can know the abysmal deeps of personality or 'the marvel of the everlasting will." I have advocated the ancient and Scriptural doctrine of an in- terval between death and doom, during which state — whether it be regarded as purgatorial, as disciplinary, as probational, or as retri- l84 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. butivc — whether the aeon to which it belongs be long or short — we see no Scriptural or other reason to deny the possible continu- ance of God's gracious work of redemption and santification for the souls of men ; and I have added that I can find nothing in Scrip- ture or elsewhere, to prove that the ways of God's salvation neces- sarily terminate with earthly life. I have never denied — nay, I have endeavored to support and illustrate — the doctrine of Retri- bution, both in this life and the life to come. I have never said — as I am slanderously reported to have said — that there is no "Hell," but only (and surely this should have been regarded as a self- evident proposition) that " Hell " must mean what those words mean of which it is the professed translation ; and that those words — Hades, Gehenna, Tartarus — mean something much less incon- ceivable, much less horribly hopeless, than what " Hell " originally meant, and than what it has come to connote in current religious teaching. I have not maintained Universalism, in spite of much apparent sanction for such a hope in the unlimited language of St. Paul, because I did not wish to dogmatize respecting things uncer- tain, and because I wished to give full weight to every serious con- sideration which may be urged against the acceptance of such a hope. I have earnestly maintained that no soul can be saved while it continues in sin, or saved by any means except the efficacy of Christ's redemption. So far from derogating from the necessity of that awful sacrifice — as has been so often and so strangely assertcii — I know of literally nothing which is so infinitely calculated to enhance our sense of its blessedness, or our love to Him who made it, as the hope that its power will be unexhausted even beyond the grave. Seeing that repentance is always possible in life — seeing that so long as life lasts any man MAY become good — the Law of Contin- uity was one of the very grounds on which I based the doctrine of Eternal Hope. If the greatness of God's mercies lasts till the grave, the Law of Continuity strengthens our hope that it will not be for OPTIMISM. l8f ever cut short by the accident of death. If the efficacy of Christ's atonement lasts till death, the Law of Continuity helps to strength- en our conviction, that the love of God cannot be the one Divine power in the universe which, for man at any rate, is paralyzed by the hand of death." Among the many able and scholarly replies to Canon Farrar, by I'jiglish divines, that of Dr. AUon.. of London, is worthy of con- densation. It is as follows : — " The accretions which ignorant literalism, poets and painters, and above all, perhaps, priestcraft, have clustered around the root- idea ot the retribution of sin in the future life, may be pulverized by a more spiritual conception ; and yet it may remain true that the retributive sequences of sin are irreversible, and even unending. The argument which is to decide the question must deal not so much with the ignorant and popular perversion, nor with the im- aginative forms of the painter, the poet and the rhetorician, nor with the metaphorical forms of Scripture representation even, but with the root idea of retribution, and with the exact evidence that revelation, the moral sense, philosophy, and experience may furnish. Thus reduced, it will hardly be maintained that the subjective consciousness of a man, however elevated and refined by pure religi- ous feeling, is competent to demonstrate — (i) Whether the sequen- ces of sin will in the future life be reversible ? (2) Whether, if they are not, they are terminable ? For all information concerning the facts and the characteristics of the life hereafter, whether affecting t'.ie saved or the lost, we are necessarily dependent upon the testi- mony of revelation, whatever the verifying functions of our own reason and moral faculty. Naturally, therefore, our first inquiry is concerning the testimony of Christ, who hath " brought life and immortality to light." That the conception of God as an Almighty being, inflicting eternal torment upon his creatures by acts of material punish- ment, such as the mediaeval Church represented, contradicts such l86 FUTURE PUNISIIMKNT. elementary feelings, is fully conceded. Good men have had forcibly to subdue this feeling, to reason it down by logic, or to determine to believe in spite of it, because they deemed it authoritatively taught. Almost by common consent, however, men are renouncing tradi- tional beliefs in the material interpretations put upon the Scripture symbolism of retribution, and are inquiring concerning the moral ideas and processes which these represent. Is there, then, in our moral nature, when purest and most de- vout, anything to which the idea of finality, as we have suggested it, is in moral contradiction ? So far as equity goes, accepting the law of retribution as gradu- ated by the Apostle, in Romans ii. — viz., that men's responsibility, and therefore, ther culpability, is limited by theiir light and their personal ability, their opportunity and their circumstances — the moral sense cannot object. It is a rule of equity universally applicable. Looking at our Lord's sayings broadly and popularly, and with such a degree of deference to possible meanings of words as popu- lar teaching may admit, I cannot resist the conclusion that in the most absolute manner He affirmed and intended to affirm the finality of religious conditions after death. It would do violence to common sense, to intellectual respect, and to moral feeling, to sup- pose that his words conveyed a meaning diametrically opposite to that which he intended — that when He meant to say that retribu- tion was terminable, He was understood to mean that it was unend- ing. He would surely have corrected a misapprehension so false, on such a subject. Undeveloped meanings there necessarily were, but these are vastly different from contradictory meanings. Due allowance being made for rhetoric and poetry in certain passages, no authority can be drawn from Apostolic writings for any theory of Universalism or of a second probation. Notwithstanding, therefore, the strongest predisposition to opti- mist views concerning this great and fearful problem, I feel com- • OPTIMISM. 187 polled to the conclusion that the testimony both of Scripture and of tlie moral judgment is in favor of the finality of moral condition after death. From neither does the theory of a second probation in another life, under other and more favorable conditions, derive any .su[)port. Against the theory that the ultimate issue in the conflict between good and evil will be the necessary salvation of every individual moral being, the presumption seems immense. It is contrary to all experience and to all analogy, it puts unauthor- ized limits upon human freedom, and it restricts unwarrantably the ways and issues of God's holy love." Those who have read Canon Farrar's " Life of Christ," cannot fail to observe how materially he has changed his views since he wrote that fascinating volume. In chapter 44 of that work, allud- ing to the narrative of the rich man and Lazarus, he says : " This constant reference to life as a time of probation, and to the great judgment, when the one word, ' Come ' or ' Depart,' as uttered by the Judge, should decide all controversies and all questions forever, naturally turned the thoughts of many listeners to these solemn subjects." Again in speaking of Christ's answer to the • question, " Are there few that be saved ?" He says : " Since the efforts, the woeful efforts, the erring efforts, (to enter the straight gate) of many fail ; since the day will come when the door shall be shut, and it shall be forever too late to enter there ; since no impassioned ap- peal shall then admit ; since some of those who, in their spiritual pride, thought that they best knew the Lord, shall hear the av/ful repudiation, ' I know you not ' — strive ye to be of those who enter in." Again, speaking of Christ's second coming, he says : " For though till then all the various fellowships of toll or friendliness shoub continue, that night would be one of fearful and final separ- ations ! " And he adds : " The disciples were startled and terrified b\' words of such solemnity." To close these remarks on Canon Farrar's views, surely in a matter fraught with such tremendous consequences of weal or woe l88 FUTURf rUNlSHMENT. to the human race, it is not by passionate unreasonable appeals to men's feelings, or the use of florid rhetoric that holds up to scorn, what has been the faith of Christendom for centuries, that truth is to be reached and such a question settled ? To dwell upon the love of God exclusively, without regard to His holiness and justice is to make a false representation of the Deity. "A God all mercy, is a God unjust." No reader of history, but must acknowledge that God in past ages has by terrible doings punished evil. What he will do with sin in the future, it is not for man to predict. Those who flippant- ly assert that God cannot exact the penalty of sin throughout all eternity, ought to be able as easily to explain why evil exists at all. The origin of sin and its permission for so long a time is the m}-.s- tcry of the universe. All that we know concerning it is found in the word of God, where alone are to be found any statements con- cerning the future condition of the unsaved. Appeals to reason or moral sense leave us in utter uncertainty. Those who are trans- gressors of the law whether human or divine, are not the best judges of the justice of the decrees that condemn them. To set the hu- man creature above his Maker, and question His right to punish, is to reverse the order of things — dethrone the Almighty, and deny His sovereign right to the correction and control of His creatures as he sees fit. " Nay, but O man, who art thou that repliest against God ? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast Thou made me thus > What if God is willing to show His wrath, and to make His power known, endured with much long-suffering, the vessels of wrath fitted to destructicn, and that he might make known the riches of His glory -on the vessels of mercy which He had afore prepared unto glory." Canon Farrar seeks to throw contempt on the generally receiv- ed opinion of Christians by adding to their creed, what I trust very few believe, that the vast majority of mankirid shall be lost. How OPTIMISM. 189 the heathen are to be dealt with, in view of their ignorance of the Gospel of Christ, is a question that has never yet been categor- ically answered by the deepest thinkers of the age. This much we know, that merciful allowance will be made for such as have not enjoyed the light of Christianity — that according to privilege and opportunity shall be their accountability and deserts. " He that knew not his Lord's will and did commit things worthy of stripes shall be beaten with few stripes." It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for nominal Christians who reject the truth. Belief in the doctrine of endless punishment by no means con- signs the majority of our race to eternal death. On the contrary, the generally accepted opinion of the Christian Church, favors the ultimate salvation of a very large proportion of the human family. While there seems to be no hope held out for such as despise offered mercy, there are many reasons in harmony with revelation, that lead us to conclude that a number that no man can number, shall at last be gathered into heaven. When we think of the many generations who lived and died before the advent, and the partial diffusion of the gospel since ; and still further, that those who die in infancy or who are not gifted with ordinary capacity are saved without any instrumentality on the part of man ; " we dare not fix any definite amount of knowledge and profession as indispensable to salvation, or pronounce that the area of salvation is co-extensive with those portions of the globe where knowledge has been en- joyed, and where the truth of God has taken effect upon the heart." Rather we may hope that large numbers of souls, beyond all human calculation, shall be drawn to Christ. Assuredly the Judge of all the earth shall do right. His justice shall be amply vindicated in that day, when he turns the wisdom of men into foolishness, and confounds the vain imagination of their hearts. No mere hope then, in the mercyof God, shall stay the pronouncing of sentence and the infliction of doom. IpO FUTURE PUNISHMENT. If there be any readers of these pages, who have nothing more than "a hope "that God will in some way condone unforgivcn iniquity in the future world, I beg them to seek some better opiate to soothe the unrestful and persistent demands of the soul after peace. Conjectures, surmises, speculations, as to what may be, or might be, ought never to be preached. We dare not preach a gos- pel which says in effect — no matter what you do now, surely God, in his infinite mercy, will, at some time future, rectify all mistakes. For if men are in no danger of being lost for ever, they do not need a Saviour. If there is a hope, however slender, that Ged will rela.x the penalties of his moral government, and that at last, independent of present conduct, the good and bad alike shall be restored to His image, we may as well give up the whole scheme of redemption as an idle fable and nothing more. The mass of men need no excuse for continuing in sin. Every utterance from the pulpit that weakens the sanctions of virtue, and leads men to continue lives of sensuality, profligacy and dishonesty in the hope of future pardon, and escape from conse- quences in some intermediate state beyond the grave, is eagerly read. If there is the least doubt as to the certainty of punishment they will take advantage of it. Better far then that we persuaded men to dread sin, more than the penalty. Had they correct views of the heinousness and guilt of sin, they would not cry out against endless punishment, or characterize the doctrine as inconsistent with the justice of God. Instead of vain efforts to believe what con- science denies, they would accept with glad and simple faith, the all sufficient remedy provided for sin. If the Bible contains con- demnatory language, it is no less replete with appeals and en- treaties. " In Christ incarnate, the crucified, risen and glorified one, we see God lifting the red thunderbolt of His wrath, and holding it before men and angels, transformed into the blazing sun of His love." As the well known hymn says : ' OPTIMISM. 19T *' Not to condemn the sons of incn ; The son of God appeared, No weapons in his hand are seen, Nor voice of terror heard. He came to raise our fallen state, And our lost hopes restore, Faith leads us to the mercy seat, And bids us fear no more." This is our " eternal hope," that God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked and wills not that any should perish. Believ- ing this, we live forever. In the words of the poet : " We would be melted by the heat of love. By flames far fiercer than are blown to prove, And purge the silver ore adulterate." THE CERTAINTY OF ENDLESS PUNISHMENT, (With special reference to tlie views of Canon Farrar,) BY THE T^EV. W. T. G. SHEDD, D, D., Professor in Union Theological Seminary, New York. ^''^Ji^ HE chief objections to the doctrine of endless punish- ment are not Biblical but speculative. The great majority of students and exegetes find the tenet in the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. Davidson, the yr^ most learned of English rationalistic critics, explicitly ac- ' ^"' knowledges that " if a specific sense be attached to words, never-ending misery is enunciated in the Bible. On the presump- tion that one doctrine is taught, it is the eternity of hell torments. Bad exegesis may attempt to banish it from the New Testament Scriptures, but it is still there, and expositors who wish to get rid of it, as Canon Farrar does, injure the cause they have in view by misrepresentation. It must be allowed that the New Testament record not only makes Christ assert everlasting punishment, but Paul and John. But the question should be looked at from a larger platform than single texts — in the light of God's attributes, and the nature of the soul. The destination of man, and the Creator's infinite goodness, conflicting as they do with everlasting punish- ment, remove it from the sphere of rational belief. If provision be la 19^ FUTURE PUNISHMENT. not made in revelation for a change of moral character after death, it is made in reason. Philosophical considerations must not be set aside even by Scripture." (Last Things, pp. 133, 136, 151.) So long, then, as the controversy is carried on by an appeal to the Bible, the defender of endless retribution has comparatively an easy task. But when the appeal is made to human feeling ami sentiment, or to ratiocination, the demonstration requires more effort. And yet the doctrine is not only Biblical but rational. It is defensible on the basis of sound ethics and pure reason. No- thing is requisite for its maintenance but the admission of three cardinal truths of theism, namely, that there is a just God ; that man has free will ; and that sin is voluntary action. If these arc denied, there can be no defence of endless punishment — or of any other doctrine, except atheism and its corollaries. The Bible and all the creeds of Christendom affirm man's free agency in sinning against God. The transgression which is to receive the endless punishment is voluntary. Sin ,whether it be inward inclination or outward act, is unforced human agency. This is the uniform premise of Christian theologians of all schools. Endless punishment supposes the liberty of the human will, and is impossible without it. Could a man prove that he is necessitated in his murderous hate and his murderous act, he would prove, in this very proof, that he ought not to be punished for it, either in time or eternity. Could Satan really convinc* himself that his moral character is not his own work, but that of God, or of nature, his remorse would cease, and his punishment would end. Self- determination runs parallel with hell. Guilt, then, is what is punished, and not misfortune, Free and noL forced agency is what teels the stroke of justice. What, now, is this stroke? Everything depends upon the right answer to this question. The fallacies and errors of Universalism find their nest and hiding place at this point. The true definition of punishment detects and excludes them, CERTAINTY OF ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. I95 iv Punishment is neither chastisement nor calamity. Men suffer '"^ calamity, says Christ, not because tlicy or their parents have sinned, "but that the works of God should be made manifest in them." John ix, 3. Chastisement is inflicted in order to develop a good but imperfect character already formed. " The Lord loveth whom he chasteneth," and " what son is he whom the earthly father chas- tenethnot?" Hebrews xii. 6, 7. Punishment, on the other hand, is retribution, and is not intended to do the work of cither calamity' or chastisement, but a work of its own. And this work is to vin- dicate law, to satisfy justice. Punishment, therefore, is wholly retrospective in its primary aim. It looks back at what has been done in the past. Its first and great object is requital. A man is hung for murder, principally and before all other reasons because he has voluntarily transgressed the law forbidding murder. He is not hung from a prospective aim, such as his own moral improve- ment, or for the purpose of deterring others from committing mur- der. The remark of the English judge to the horse-thief, in the days when such theft was capitally punished, " You are not hung because you have stolen a horse, but that horses may not be stolen," has never been regarded as eminently judicial. It is true that personal improvement may be one consequence of the infliction of penalty. But the consequence must not be confounded with the purpose. Cum HOC NON ERGO PROPTER HOC. The criminal may come to see and confess that his crime deserves its punishment, and in genuine unselfish penitence may take sides with the law, ap- prove its retribution, and go into the presence of the Final Judge, iclying upon that great atonement which satisfies eternal justice for sin ; but even this, the greatest personal benefit of all, is not what is aimed at in man's punishment of the crime of murder. For should there be no such personal benefit as this attending the in- fliction of the human penalty, the one sufficient reason for inflicting it still holds good, namely, the fact that the law has been violated, and demands the death of the offender for this reason simply and 196 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. only. " The notion of ill-desert and punishableness " says Kant (Praktische Vernunft, 151. Ed. Rosenkranz), "is necessarily implied in the idea of voluntary transgression ; and the idea of punishment excludes that of happiness in all its forms. For though he who inflicts punishment may, it is true, also have a benevolent purpose, to produce by the punishment some good effect upon the criminal, yet the punishment must be justified, first of all, as pure and simple requital and retribution : that is, as a kind of suffering that is de- manded by the law without any reference to its prospective bene- ficial consequences ; so that even if no moral improvement and no personal advantage should subsequently accrue to the criminal, he must acknowledge that justice has been done to him, and his ex- perience is exactly conformed to his conduct. In every instance of punishment, properly so called, justice is the very first thing, and constitutes the essence of it. A benevolent purpose and a happy eiTect, it is true, may be conjoined with punishment ; but the crim- inal cannot claim this as his due, and he has no right to reckon upon it. All that he deserves is punishment, and this is all that he can expect from the law which he has transgressed." Those are the words of as penetrating and ethical a thinker as ever lived. Neither is it true, that the first and principal aim of punishment is the protection of society and the public good. This, like the personal benefit in the preceding case, is only secondary and inci- dental. The public good is not a sufficient reason for putting a man to death ; but the satisfaction of law is. This view of penalty is most disastrous in its influence, as well as false in its ethics. For if the good of the public is the true reason and object of punish- ment, the amount of it may be fixed by the end in view. The criminal may be made to suffer more than his crime deserves, if the public welfare, in suppressing this particular kind of crime, re- quires it. His personal desert and responsibility not being the one sufficient reason for his suffering, he may be made to suffer as much as the public safety requires. It was this theory of penalty th:t CERTAINTY OF ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. I97 led to the multiplication of capital offenses. The prevention of forgery, it was once claimed in England, required that the forger should forfeit his life, and upon the principle that punishment is for the public protection, and not for strict and exact justice, an offence against human property was expiated by human life. Con- trary to the Noachic statute, which punishes only murder with death, this statute weighed out man's life-blood against pounds, shillings, and pence. On this theory, the number of capital offenses became very numerous and the cri.ninal code very bloody. So that, in the long run, nothing is kinder than exact justice. It pre- vents extremes in either direction — either that of indulgence or that of cruelty. This theory breaks down, from whatever point it be looked at. Suppose that there were but one person in the universe. If he should transgress the law of God, then, upon the principle of expe- diency as the ground of penalty, this solitary subject of moral gov- ernment could not be punished — that is, visited with a suffering that is purely retributive, and not exemplary or corrective. His act has not injured the public, for there is no public. There is no need of his suffering as an example to deter others, for there are no others. But upon the principle of justice, in distinction from ex- pediency, this solitary subject of moral government could be pun- ished. The vicious ethics of this theory of penalty expresses itself in the demoralizing maxim, " It is better that ten guilty men should escape than that one innocent man should suffer." But this is no more true than the converse, " It is better that ten innocent men should suffer than that one guilty man should escape." It is a choice of equal evil and equal injustice. In either case alike, jus- tice is trampled down. In the first supposed case, there are eleven instances of injustice and wrong ; and in the last supposed case, there are likewise eleven instances of injustice and wrong. Un- punished guilt is precisely the same species of evil with punished I9S FUTUKK PUNISHMENT. innocence. To say, therefore,- that it is better that ten guilty pcr- sons should escape than that one innocent man should suffer, is to say that it is better that there should be ten wrongs than one wrong against justice. The theory that punishment is retributive, honors human nature, but the theory that it is merely expedient and useful degrades it. If justice be the true ground of penalty, man is treated as a per- son ; but if the public good is the ground, he is treated as a chattel or a thing. When suffering is judicially inflicted because of the intrinsic gravity and real demerit of crime, man's free will and re- sponsibility are recognized and put in the foreground ; and these are his highest and distinguishing attributes. The sufficient reason for his suffering is found wholly within Vas own person, in the ex- ercise of self-determination. He is not seized by the magistrate and made to suffer for a reason extraneous to his own agency, anl for the sake of something lying wholly outside of himself — namely, the safety and happiness of others — but because of his own act. He is not handled like a brute or an inanimate thing that may be put to good use ; but he is recognized as a free and voluntary pir- son, who is punished not because punishment is expedient and useful, but because it is just and right ; not because the public safety requires it, but because he owes it. The dignity of the m;ui himself, founded in his lofty but hazardous endowment of free will, is .icknowlcdged. Supposing it, now, to be conceded, that future punishment is retributive in its essential nature, it follows that it must be endless fro n the nature of the case. For suffering must continue as lon^' as the reason for it continues. In this respect, it is like law, which lasts as long as its reason lasts : RATI ONE CESS ANTE, CESSAT IPSA LEX. Suffering that is educational and corrective may come to an end, because moral infirmity, and not guilt, is the reason for its iT)f\\rf\'vi ; and moral infirmity may cease to exist. But suffcrinjj that is penal can never come to an end, because guilt is the reason CLKTAINTY OF KM^Lh^.S I'U M.MlMhxN T. I<59 for its it rliction, and jTuilt once incurred never erases to he. The liipsc of time does not convert guilt into innocence, as it converts moral infirmity into moral strenj^th ; and therefore no time can ever arrive when the guilt of the criminal will cease to deserve and demand its retribution. The reastin for retribution to-day is a reason forever. Hence, when God disciplines and educates his children, he causes only a temporary suffering. In this case, '• He will not keep his anger forever." Ps. ciii. 9. But when, as the Su- preir.e Judge, he punishes rebellious and guilty subjects of his gov- ernnent, he causes an endless suffering. In this case, " their worm dicth not, and the fire is not quenched." Mark ix. 48. The real question therefore, is, whether God e\cr punishes. Till! he chastises, is not disputed. But does he ever inlhct a suf- fering that is not intended to reform the transgressor, and does not reform him, but is intended simply and only to vindicate law, and satisfy justice, by requiting him for his transgression ? Revelation teaches that he does. "Vengeance is mine ; I will repay, saith the Lord." Rom, xii. 19. Retribution is here asserted to be a func- tion of the Supreme Being, and his alone. The creature has no ri[,rht to punish, except as he is authorized by the Infinite Ruler. "The powers that be are ordained of God. The ruler is the min- ister of God, an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." Rom. xiii. I, 4. The power which civil government has to punish crime — the private person having no such power — is only a delegated right from the Source of retribution. Natural religion, as well as revealed, teaches that God inflicts upon the voluntary transgressor of law a suffering that is purely vindicative of law. The pagan sages enunciate the doctrine, and it is mortised into the moral constitution of man, as is proved by his universal fear of retribution. The objection, that a suffering not intended to reform but lo satisfy justice, is cruel and unworthy of God, is refuted by the question of St. Paul : " Is God unrighteous who taketh ven- geance ? God forbid: for how then shall God judge the worlds" 200 FUTURE I'UNI.SUMliNT. Rom. ill*. 5, 6. It is impossible cither to found or administer a {gov- ernment, in heaven or upon earth, unless the power to punish crime is conceded. The endlessness of future punishment, then, is imph'ed in the endlessness of guilt and condemnation. When a crime is condemn- ed, it is absurd to ask, " How long is it condemned ?" The verdict "Guilty for ten days" was Hibernian. Damnation means absolute and everlasting damnation. All suffering in the next life, there- fore, of which the sufficient and justifying reason is guilt, must con- tinue as long as the reason continues ; and the reason is everlastin;.,'. If it be righteous to-day, in God's retributive justice, to smite tlic transgressor because he violated the law yesterday, it is righteous to do the same thing to-morrow, and the next day, and so on AO INFINITUM; because tlie state of the case AD INFINITUM re- mains unaltered. The guilt incurred yesterday is a standing and endless fact. What, therefore, guilt legitimates this instant, it le- gitimates every instant, and forever. It may be objected that, though the guilt and damnation of a crime be endless, it does not follow that the suffering inflicted on account of it must be endless also, even though it be retributive and not reformatory in its intent. A human judge pronounces a theft to be endlessly a theft, t id a thief to be endlessly a thief, but he does not sentence the thief to an endless suffering, though he sentences him to a penal suffering. But this objection overlooks the fact that human punishment is only approximate and imper- fect, not absolute and perfect like the Divine. It is not adjusted exactly and precisely to the whole guilt of the offense, but is more or less modified, first, by not considering its relation to God's honor and majesty ; secondly, by human ignorance of the inward motives; and, thirdly, by social expediency. Earthly courts and judges look at the transgression of law with reference only to man's temporal r-'lations, not his eternal. They punish an offense as a crime against the State, not as a sin against God. Neither do they look CERTAINTY OF ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 201 into the human heart, and estimate crime in its absolute and intrin- sic nature, as docs the Searcher of Hearts and the Omniscient Judge. A human tribunal punishes mayhem, we will say, with six months' imprisonment, because it does not take into consideration cither the malicious and wicked anger that prompted the maiming, or the dishonor done to the Supreme Hcing by the transgression of his commandment. But Christ, in the final assize, punishes this offense endlessly, because his All-seeing view includes the sum-total of guilt in the case; namely, the inward wrath, the outward act, and the relation of both to the infinite perfection and adorable majesty of God. The human tribunal does not punish the inward anger at all ; the Divine tribunal punishes it with hell fire : " For whosoever shall say to his brother, Thou fool, is in danger of hell fire." Matt. v. 22. The human tribunal punishes seduction with a pecuniary fine, because it does not take cognizance of the selfish and heartless lust that prompted it, or of the affront offered to that Immaculate Holiness which from Sinai proclaimed. " Thou shalt not commit adultery." But the Divine tribunal punishes seduction with an infinite suffering, because of its more comprehensive and truthful view of the whole transaction. Again, human punishment, unlike the Divine, is variable and inexact, because it is to a considerable extent reformatory and pro- tective. Human government is not intended tu do the work of the Supreme Ruler. The sentence of an earthly judge is not a substitute for that of the last day. Consequently, human punish- ment need not be marked, even if this were possible, with all that absoluteness and exactness of justice which characterizes the Di- vine. Justice in the human sphere maybe relaxed by expediency. The retributive element must, indeed, enter into human punish- ment ; for no man may be punished by a human tribunal unless he deserves punishment — unless he is a criminal. But retribution is not the sole element when man punishes. Man, while not over- 202 I'UTUKE I'UNlSIlMKI.r. looking the guilt in the case, has. some rc'crcncc to the rcforniatfnn of the offender, and still more to the protection of society. Civil expediency and social utility modify exact and strict retribution. For the sake of reforming the criminal, the judge sometimes inflicts a penalty that is less than the real guilt of the offense. For the sake of protecting society, the court sometimes sentences the crim- inal to a suffering greater than his crime deserves. Human tribu- nals, also, vary the punishment for the same offense — sometimes punishing forgery capitally, and sometimes not ; sometimes sen- tencing those guilty of the same kind of theft to one year's impris- onment, and sometimes to two. But the Divine tribunal, in the last great day, is invariably and exactly just, because it is neither reformatory nor protective. Hell is not a penitentiary. It is righteous retribution, pure and simple, unmodified by considerations either of utility to the criminal, or of safety to the universe. Christ, in the day of final account, will not punish wicked men and devils (for the two receive the same sen- tence, and go to the same place, Matt. xxv. 41), either fo' the sake of reforming them, or of protecting the righteous from the wicked. I lis punishment at that time will be nothing but retribution. The redeemer of men is also the Eternal Judge ; the Lamb of God is , also the Lion of the tribe of Judah ; and his righteous word to wicked and hardened Satan, to wicked and hardened Judas, to wicked and hardened Pope Alexander VI., will be : "Vengeance is mine ; I will repay. Depart from me, ye cursed, that work ini- quity." Rom. xii. 19 ; Matt. xxv. 41 ; vii. 23. Th^ wicked will reap according as they have sown. The suffering will be unerring- ly adjusted to the intrinsic guilt : no greater and no less than the sin deserves. " That servant which knew his lord's will (clearly), and did not according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes ; but he that knew not (clearly), and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. As many as have sinneJ without (written) law, shall also perish without (written) law ; and CERTAINTY OF ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 203 ,is mrn> as have sinned umlcr (written) law, shall be judged by the (written) law." Luke xii. 47, 48 ; Rom. ii. 12. It is because the human court, by reason of its ignorance hot'- of the human licart ami the true nature of sin against a spiritual law and a holy God, cannot do the perfect work of the Divine trib- unal, that human laws and penalties are only provisional, and not final. Earthly magistrates are permitted to modify and relax pen- alty, and pass a sentence which, though adapted to man's earthly circumstances, is not absolute and perfect, and is fmally to be 10- viscd and made right by the omniscient accuracy ot God. The human penalty that approaches nearest to the Divine is capital punishment. TheiJ is more of the purely retributive element in this than in any other. The reformatory element is wanting. And this punishment has a kind of endlessness. Death is a finality. It forever separates the murderer from earthly society, even as future [Rinishment separates forever from the society of God and heaven. The argument thus far goes to prove that retribution in distinc- tion from correction, or punishment in distinction from chastise- ment, is endless from the nature of the case. We passy now, to prove that it is also rational and right. I. Endless punishment is rational, in the first place, because it is supported by the human conscience. The sinner's own conscience will "bear witness" and approve of the condemning sentence, "in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ." Rom. ii. 16. Dives, in the parable, when reminded of the justice of his suffering, is silent. Accordingly, all the evangelical creeds say with the Westminster (Larger Catechism, 89) that " the wicked, upon clear evidence and full conviction of their own consciences, shall have the just sentence of condemnation pronounced against them." If in the great day there are any innocent men who have no accusing consciences, they will escape hell. We may accommo- date St. Paul's words, Rom. xiii. 3,4, and say : ''The final judgment Is not a terror to good works but to evil. Wilt thou, then, not be 204 FUTURE I'UNISIIMKNT. afraid of the final judgment ? Keep the law of God perfectly, with- out a sinjrle slip or failure, uiwardly or outwardly, and thou shalt have praise of the same. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid," liut a sentence that is justified by the highest and best part of the hiitnan constitution must be founded in reason, justice, and truth. It is absurd to object to a judicial decision that is con- firmed by the man's own immediate consciousness of its rif^hteous- ncss. And, as matter of fact, the oppf)nent of endless retribution docs not draw his arguments from the impartial conscience, but from the bias of self-love and desire for happiness. Hi.s objections are not ethical, but sentimental. They are not seen in the dry light of pure truth and reason, but through the colored medium of -elf-indulgence and love of ease and sin. Again : a guilty conscious expects endless punishment. There is in it what the Scripture denominates "the fearful looking-for of judgment, and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries " of God. Hebrew x. 27. This is the awful apprehension of an evil that is to last forever ; otherwise, it would not be so " fearful." The knowledge that future suffering will one day cease would im- mediately relieve the awful apprehension of the sinner. A guilty conscience is in its very nature hopeless. Impenitent men, in their remorse, " sorrow as those who have no hope," ist Thcss. iv. 13; "having no hope, and without God in the world." Eph. ii. 12. " The hope of the wicked shall be as the giving up of the ghost," Job xi. 20. "The hypocrite's hope shall perish." Job viii, 13, Conse- quently, the great and distinguishing element in hell-torment is despair, a feeling that is simply impossible in any man or fallen angel who knows that he is finally to be happy forever. Despair results from the endlessness of retribution. No endlessness, no despair. Natural religion, as well as revealed, teaches the despair of some men in the future life, Plato (Gorgias 525), Pindar (Olympia II.), Plutarch (Dc sera vindicta), describe the punishment of the incorrigibly wicked as eternal and hopeless. CERTAINTY OK ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 205 In Scripture, there is no such thinj^ as eternal hope. Hope is a characteristic of earth and time only. Mere in this life, all men may hope for forgiveness. ,' Turn, ye prisoners of hope." Zech. ix. 2. " Now is the accepted time ; now is the day of salvation." 2 Cor. vi. 2. But in the next world there is no hope of any kind, because there is cither fruition or despair. The Christian's hope is ctjnvertcd into its realization : " For what a man sccth, why doth he yet hope for it?" Rom. viii. 24. And the impenitent sinner's hope of heaven is converted into despair. Canon Farrar's phrase " eternal hope " is derived from Pandora's box, not from the Bible. Dante's legend over the portal of hell is the truth : '' All hope abandon, yc who enter here." That conscience supports endless retribution, is also evinced by the universality and steadiness of the dread of it. Mankind believe in hell, as they believe in the Divine li^xistence, by reason of their moral sense. Notwitlvstanding all the attack made upon the tenet ill every generation, by a fraction of every generation, men do not get rid of their fear of future punishment. Skeptics themselves are sometimes distressed by it. But a permanent and general fear among mankind cannot be produced by a mere chimera, or a pure figment of the imagination. Men have no fear of Rhadamanthus, nor can they be made to fear him, because they know that there is no such being. " An idol is nothing in the world." i Cor. viii. 4. But men have "the fearful looking-for of judgment" from the lips of God, ever and always. If the Biblical hell were as much a non- entity as the heathen Atlantis, no one would waste his time in endeavoring to prove its non-existence. What man would seriously construct an argument to demonstrate that there is no such being as Jupiter Ammon, or such an animal as the centaur ? The very denial of endless retribution evinces by its spasmodic eagerness and effort to disprove the tenet, the firmness with which it is entrenched in man's moral constitution. If there really were no hell, absolute indifference toward the notion would long since have been the 206 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. mood of all mankind, and no arguments, either for or against it, would be constructed. And finally, the demand, even here upon earth, for the punish- ment of the intensely and incorrigibly wicked proves that retribu- tion is grounded in the human conscience When abominable and Satanic sin is temporarily triumphant, as it sometimes has been in the history of the world, men cry out to God for his vengeance to come down. "If there were no God, we should be compelled to invent one," is now a familiar sentiment. " If there were no hell, we should be compelled to invent one," is equally true. When ex- amples of great depravity occur, man cries : " How long, O Lord, how long?" The non-infliction of retribution upon hardened villainy and successful cruelty causes anguish in the moral sense. For the expression of it, read the imprecatory psalms and Milton's sonnet on the massacre in Piedmont. 2. In the second place, endless punishment is rational, because of the endlessness of sin. If the preceding view of the relation of penalty to guilt be correct, endless punishment is just, without bringing the sin of the future world into the account. Man incurs everlasting punishment for " the things done in his body." Cor. v. 10. Christ sentences men to perdition, not for what they arc going to do in eternity, but lor what they have already done in time. It is not necessary that a man should commit all kinds of sin, or that he should sin a very long time, in order to be a sinner. " Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet ofTcnd in one point, he is guilty of all." James ii. lo. One sin makes guilt, and guilt makes hell. But while this is so, it is a fact to be observed, that sin is actually being added to sin, in the future life, and the amount of guilt is accumulating. The lost spirit is " treasuring up wrath." Rom. ii. 5. Hence, there are degrees in the intensity of endless suffering. The difference in the grade arises from the greater resoluteness of the wicked self-determination, and the greater degree of light that vvrs CERTAINTY OF ENDLESS TUNISIIMENT. 20/ enjoyed upon earth. He who sins against the moral law as it is drawn out in the Sermon on the Mount, sins more determinedly and desperately than the pagan who sins against the light of nature. There are probably no men in paganism who sin .so wilfully and devilishly as some men in Christendom. Profanity, or the blas- pheming of God, is a Christian and not a Heathen characteristic. There are degrees in future suffering, because it is infinite in dura- tion only. In intensity, it is finite. Consequently, the lost do not all suffer precisely alike, though all suffer the same length of time. A thing may be infinite in one respect and finite in others. A line may be infinite in length, and not in breadth and depth. A surface may be infinite in length and breadth, and not in depth. And two persons may .suffer infinitely in the sense of endlessly, and yet one experience more pain than the other. The endlessness of sin results, first, from the nature and energy f)f sinful .self-determination. Sin is the creature's act solely. God does not work in the human will when it wills antagonistically to him. Consequently, self-determination to evil is an extremely ve- hement activity of the will. There is no will so wilful as a wicked will. Sin is stubborn and obstinate in its nature, because it is enmity and rebellion. Hence, wicked will intensifies itself perpet- ually. Pride, left to itself, increases and never diminishes. Enmity and hatred become more and more satanic. " Sin," says South, "is the only perpetual motion which has yet been found out, and needs nothing but a beginning to keep it incessantly going on." Upon this important point, Aristotle, in the seventh book of his Ethics, reasons with great truth and impressiveness. He distinguishes be- tween strong will to wickedness and weak self-indulgence. The former is viciousness from deliberation and preference, and implies an intense determination to evil in the man. He goes wrong, not so much from the pull of appetite and passion, as purposely, know- ingly, and energetically. He has great strength of will, and he puts it all forth in resolute wickedness. The latter quality is more 208 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. the absence than the presence of will ; it is the weakness and irre- solution of a man who has no' powerful self-determination of any kind. The condition of the former of these two men, Aristotle regarded as worse than that of the latter. He considered it to be desperate and hopeless. The evil is incurable. Repentance and reformation are impossible to this man ; for the wickedness in this instance is not mere appetite ; it is a principle ; it is cold- blooded and total depravity. Another reason for the endlessness of sin is the bondage of the sinful will. In the very act of transgressing the law of God, there is a reflex action of the human will upon itself, whereby it becomes unable to perfectly keep that law. Sin is the suicidal action of the liuman will. A man is not forced to kill himself, but if he does, he cannot bring himself to life again. And a man is not forced to sin, but if he does, he cannot of himself get back where he was before sinning. He cannot get back to innocency, nor can he get back- to holiness of heart. The effect of vicious habit in diminishing a man's ability to resist temptation is proverbial. An old and hard- ened debauchee, like Tiberius or Louis XV., just going into the presence of Infinite Purity, has not so much power of active resist- ance against the sin that has now ruined him, as the youth has who is just beginning to run that awful career. The truth and fact is, that sin, in and by its own nature and operation, tends to destroy all virtuous force, all holy energy, in any moral being. The excess of will to sin is the same thing as defect of will to holiness. The human will cannot be forced and ruined from without. But if we watch the influence of the will upon itself; the influence of its own wrong decisions, and its own yielding to temptations ; we shall find that the voluntary faculty may be ruined from within— may surrender itself with such an absorbing vehemence and totality to appetite, passion, and selfishness, that it becomes unable to re- verse itself and overcome its own inclination and self-determination. And yet, from beginning to end, there is no compulsion in this A « « z 3 's 41 • U ' a a la • S It ^ I t "•S "< s CERTAINTY OF ENDLESS PUNISllMciN i. 209 process. The transgressor follows himself alone. He has his own way, and does as he likes. Neither God, nor the workl, nor Satan forces him either to be, or to do, evil. Sin is the most spontaneous of self-motion. But self-motion has consequences as much as any other motion. And moral bondacre is one of them. " Whosoever committeth sin is the slave of sin," says Christ. John viii. 34. The culmination of this bondar^e is seen in the next life. The sinful propensity, being allowed to develop unresisted and un- checked, slowly but surely eats out all virtuous force as rust eats out a steel spring, until in the awful end the will becomes all habit, all lust, and all sin. " Sin, when it is finished, bringcth forth death." James i. 15. In the final stage of this process, which commonly is not reached until death, when " the spirit returns unto God who gave it," the guilty free agent reaches that dreadful condition where resistance to evil ceases altogether, and surrender to evil becomes demoniacal. The cravings and hankerings of long-indulged and unresisted sin become organic, and drag the man ; and "he goeth after them as an ox gocth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the cor- rection of the stocks — till a dart strike through his liver." Prov. vii. 22, 23. For though the will to resist may die out of a man, the conscience to condemn it never can. This remains eternally. And when the process is complete ; when the responsible creature in the abuse of free agency has perfected his moral ruin ; when his will to good is all gone ; there remain these two in his immortal spirit — sin and conscience, " brimstone and fire." Rev. xxi. 8. Still another reason for the endlessness of sin is the fact that rebellious enmity toward law and its Source is not diminished, but increased, by the righteous punishment experienced by the impeni- tent transgressor. Penal suffering is beneficial only when it is humbly accepted, is acknowledged to be deserved, and is penitently submitted to ; when the transgressor says : " Father, I have sinned, and am no more worthy to be called thy son ; make me as one of 210 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. thy 'iired servants;" Luke xv. iS!, 19; when, with the penitent thief, he says : " We are in this condemnation justly ; for we receive the due reward of our deeds." Luke xxiii. 41. But when in this h'fc retribution is denied and jeered at ; and when in the next life it is complained of and resisted, and the arm of hate and defiance is raised against the tribunal, penalty hardens and exasperates. This is impenitence. Such is the temper of Satan ; and such is the temper of all who finally become his associates. This explains why there is no repentance in hell, and no meek submission to the Supreme Judge. This is the reason why Dives, the impenitent sen- sualist, is informed that there is no possible passage from Hades to Paradise, by reason of the " great gulf fixed " between the two ; and this is the reason whv he asks that Lazarus may be sent to warn his five brethren, "lest they also come into this place of torment," where the request for " a drop of water," — a mitigation of punish- ment — is solemnly refused by the Eternal Arbiter. A state of existence in which there is not the slightest relaxing of penal suf- fering, is no st; te of probation, 3. In the third place, endless punishment is rational, because sin is an infinite evil ; infinite not because committed by an infinite being, bi.w against one. We reason invariably upon this principle. To torture a dumb beast is a crime ; to torture a man is a greater crime. The person who transgresses is the same in each instance ; but the different worth and dignity of the objects upon whom his action terminates makes the difference in the gravity of the two offenses. David's adultery was a finite evil in reference to Uriah, but an infinite evil in reference to God. " Against thee only have I sinned," was the feeling of the sinner in this case. Had the patri- arch Joseph yielded, he would have sinned against Pharaoh. But the greatness of the sin as related to the fellow-creature is lost in its enormity as related to the Creator, and his only question is : " How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God ?" Gen. XXX ix. 9. CERTAINTY OF ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 211 The incarnation and vicai hjus satisfaction for sin by one of the persons of the Godhead demonstrates the infinity of the evil. It is incredible that the Eternal Trinity should have submitted to such a stupendous self-sacrifice, to remove a merely finite and temporal evil. The doctrine of Christ's vicarious atonement, logically, stands or falls with that of endless punishment. Historically, it has stood or fallen with it. The incarnation of Almighty God, in order to make the remission of sin possible, is one of the strongest argu- ments for the eternity and infinity of penal suffering. The objection that an offence committed in a finite time cannot be an infinite evil, and deserve an infinite suffering, implies that crime must be measured by the time that was consumed in its per- petration. But even in human punishment, no reference is had to the length of time occupied in the commission of the offense. Mur- der is committed in an instant, and theft sometimes requires hours. But the former is the greater crime, and receives the greater pun- ishment. 4. That endless punishment is reasonable is proved by the preference of the wicked themselves. The unsubmissive, rebellious, defiant, and impenitent spirit prefers hell to heave Milton cor- rectly represents Satan as saying : " All good to me becomes bane, and in heaven much worse would be my state " ; and, also, as de- claring that " it is better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven." This agrees with the Scripture representation, that Judas went " to his own place." Acts i. 25. The lost spirits are not forced into a sphere that is unsuited to them. There is no other abode in the universe which they would prefer to that to which they are assigned, because the only other abode is heaven. The meekness, lowliness, sweet submission to God, and love of him, that characterize heaven, are more hateful to Lucifer and his angels than even the sufferings of hell. The wicked would be no happier in heaven than in hell. The burden and an- 212 FUTURE I'UNlSIIMIiNT. guish of a guilty conscience, says South, is so insupportable that some " have clone violence to their own lives, and so fled to hell as a sanctuary, and chose damnation as a release." This is illustrated by facts in human life. The thoroughly vicious and ungodly man prefers the license and freedom to sin which he finds in the haunts of vice to the restraints and purity of Christian society. There is hunger, disease, and wretchedness in one circle ; and there is plenty, health, and happiness in the other. But he prefers the former. He would rather be in the gambiing-house and brothel than in the Christian home. The finally lost are not to be conceived of as having faint de- sires and aspirations for a holy and heavenly state and as feebly but really inclined to sorrow for their sin, but are kept in hell con- trary to their yearning and petition. They are sometimes so described by the opponent of the doctrine, or at least so thought of. There is not a single throb of godly sorrow or a single pulsa- tion of holy desire in the lost spirit. The temper toward God in the lost is angry and defiant. " They hate both me and my Father," says the Son of God, " without a cause." John xv. 24, 25. Satan and his followers " love darkness rather than light," hell rather than heaven, "because their deeds are evil." John iii. 19. Sin ultimately assumes a fiendish form and degree. It is pure wickedness without regret or sorrow, and with a delight in evil for evil's sake. There are some men who reach this state of depravity even before they die. They are seen in the callous and cruel voluptuaries portrayed by Tacitus, and the heaven-defying atheists described by St. Simon. They are also depicted in Shakespeare's lago. The reader knows that lago is past saving, and deserves everlasting damnation. Im- pulsively, he cries out with Lodovico : " Where is that viper? bring the villain forth." And then Othello's calmer but deeper feeling be- comes his own : " I look down towards his feet — but that's a fable : If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee." The punishment is remitted to the retribution of God. CERTAINTY OF ENDLESS I'UNISFIMENT. 213 5. T!.at endless punishment is rational, is proved by the history of morals. In the history of human civilization and morality, it is found that that age which is most reckless of law, and most vicious in practice, is the age that has the loosest conception of penalty, and is the most inimical to the doctrine of endless retribution. A virtuous and religious generation adopts sound ethics, and rever- ently believes that "the Judge of all the earth will do right," Gen. xviii. 25 ; that God will not " call evil good, and good evil, nor put darkness for light and light for darkness," Isa. v. 20 ; and that it is a deadly error to assert with the sated and worn-out sensualist ; " All things come alike to all ; there is one event to the righteous and the wicked." Eccl. ix. 2. The French people, at the close of the last century, were a very demoralized and vicious generation, and there was a very general disbelief and denial of the doctrines of the Divine existence, the immortality of the soul, the freedom of the will, and future retribu- tion. And upon a smaller scale, the same fact is continually repeating itself Any little circle of business men who are known to deny future rewards and punishments are shun.ied by those who desire safe investments. The recent "ncommon energy of opposi- tion to endless punishment, which started about ten years ago in this country, synchronized with great defalcations and breaches of trust, uncommon corruption in mercantile and political life, and great distrust between man and man. Luxury deadens the moral sense, and luxurious populations are not apt to have the fear of God before their eyes. Hence luxurious ages are immoral. One remark remains to be made respecting the extent and scope of hell. It is only a spot in the universe of God. Compared with heaven, hell is narrow and limited. The kingdom of Satan is insig- nificant in contrast with the kingd jm of Christ. In the immense range of God's dominion, good is the rule, and evil is the exception. Sin is a speck upon the infinite azure of eternity ; a spot on the sun. Hell is only a corner of the universe. The Gothic etymon flI4 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. denotes a covercd-up hole. In Scripture, hell is a "pit," a "lake;" not an ocean. It is "bottomless," but not boundless. The Gnostic and Dualistic theories, which make God and Satan or the Demiurge nearly equal in power and dominion, find no sup- port in Revelation. The Bible teaches that there will always be some sin and some death in the universe. Some angels and men will forever be the enemies of God. But their number, compared with that of unfallen angels and redeemed men, is small. They arc not described in the glowing '^nguage and metaphors by which the immensity of the noly and bl >sed is delineated. " The chariots of God are twenty thousand, and thousands of angels." Ps. Ixviii. 17. "The Lord came from Sinai, and shined lorth from Mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of his saints." Deut. xxxii. 2. " The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens, and his king- dom ruleth over all." Ps. ciii. 21. " Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory." Matt. vi. 13. The Lord Christ "must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet." i Cor. xv. 25. St. John "heard a voice from heaven as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder." Rev. xiv. i. The New Jerusalem " lieth four square, the length is as large as the breadth ; the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day ; the kings of the earth do bring their honor into it." Rev. xxi. 16, 24, 25. The number o; the lost spirits is never thus emphasized and enlarged upon. The brief, stern statement is that " the fearful and unbelieving shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone." Rev. xxi. 8. No metaphors and amplifications are added to make the impression of an immense " multitude which no man can number." We have thus briefly presentcu the rational defense of the most severe and unwelcome of aH th'" tenets of the Christian religion. It must have a foothold in the human reason, or it could not have maintained itself against all the recoil and opposition which it ilicits from the human heart. Founded in ethics, in law, and in judicial V.I.KTAINTY OK KNDLICSS I'UNISIIMLNT. 21$ reason, as well as unquestionaiily taii-^ht by the Author of Chris- tianity, it is no wonder that the thkohy of physical JSUFEElUxXG. HE theory of bodily sufferin^r tlii-ou5,fliout eternal ages, for sins committed during the present life, may be said to have originated with Dante. As few, if any, evan- gelical Christians now retain it as an article of belief, it is needless by lengthened argument to refute it. The Church of Rome, as we have seen, while tacitly approving of purgatorial fires, does not commit itself to such a view of ever- lasting punishment. It simply says, There is a Hell, and there reprobate angels and lost men are eternally punished. Instead of teaching authoritatively that future punishment will be physical, it merely asserts that it is dangerous to deny that it will be so. On the other hand, the Hell of Dante is a place, where punishment is physical and real. His descriptions of future torment as "the lake of fire and brimstone," are not figurative, but literal and actual representations, of the awful future in store for impenitent souls. A brief sketch of his life and writings, condensed from recent biog- raphies, is all that seems necessary to complete this part of our subject : Dante, or Durante AHghieri, was born at Florence, in May, 1265. By a familiar contraction of his Christian name, Durante, he was called Dante, by which name he has become generally known. 13 242 FUTURK PUNISHMENT. Dante's fat'.icr died while he was but a child. By the advice, however, of his surviving relations, and with the assistance of an able preceptor, Brunctto Latini, he applied himself closely to polite literature and other liberal studies, at the same time that he omitted no pursuit nccessar)- for the accomplishment of a manly character, and mixed with the youth of his atje in all honorable and noble exercises. " His education," says Mr. Carlyle, " was the best then going : much school divinity, Aristotelian logic, some Latin classes, no incon- siderable insight into certain provinces of things ; and Dante, with his earnest, intelligent nature, learned better than most all that was learnable. He had a clear, cultivated understanding, and of great subtlct)' ; this best fruit of education he had contrived to realize from these scholastics. He knows accurately and well what lies close to him ; but, in such a time, without printed books or free intercourse, he could not well know what was distant ; the small, clear light, most luininous for what is near, breaks itself into singu- lar chiaroscura striking on what is far off. This was Dante's learn- ing from the schools." The first remarkable event of the poet's life, and one which .served to color the whole of his future existence, was his falling in love with Beatrice Portinari, of an illustrious family of Florence. This attachment served to purify his sentiments ; the lady herself died about 1290, when Dante was about twenty-five years of age, but he continued to cherish her memory, if we are to judge from his poems, to the latest period of his life. " There is not one word," remarks Mrs. Oliphant, " to imply that Dante ever had the courage to speak of love to Beatrice her- self, or to aspire to any return of it from one whom he felt to be far above him. She knew it, as women still, in less romantic days, know now and then of the silent devotion of some man, too young, or too poor, or too humble, even to approach them more nearly. DANTEAN THEORY OF PHYSICAL SUFFERING. 243 The sentiment is not obsolete, though it has never produced another Vita Nuova. It is love in its highest and most beautiful sense, but it is incompatible with any idea of marrying or asking in marriage ; and even the pang with which the lover sees his lady another man's bride, is rather a wounded sense of some lessening of her perfection thereby, than the ordinary pangs of jealousy. This is, of course, a sentiment incomprehensible to many minds, but it is not the less a real one on that account." His political life in that troublous age and the prominent part he took in public affairs : his exile and return to Florence, are mat- ters foreign to our purpose. His earlier works " The Vita Nuova" in which he gives an account of his youthful attachment to Beatrice, and " The Convito," a sort of hand-book of universal knowledge and philosophy, composed as a means of consolation to his soul, after the death of Beatrice, are now but little known, compared with "The Divine Commedia" comprising "The Inferno" "The Purgatorio " and " The Paradiso." The time of the action of the poem is strictly confined to the end of March and the beginning of April, 1300. It is likely that it was begun shortly after this date. In the Inferno, xix. 79, allusion is made to the decease of Pope Clement V., an event which happened in 13 14. This pro!>ably marks the date of the completion of this cantica. The PURGA- TORIO was finished before 1318, at which date the Paradiso had yet to be written. The last cantos of the Paradiso were probably not completed till just before the poet's death. There are numerous translations in English of the Divine Comedy. Perhaps the best known, and the one which has most steadily held its ground, is that of Carey, which, though somewhat turgid in its long strain of blank verse, and giving no idea of the triple rhyme of the original, is in the main good and faithful. Other translations, each with its excellent points, have been made by ]\Iessrs. Wright, Cayley, Rossetti, and recently by Longfellow 244 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. and Mrs. Ramsay. Most striking of all is the literal prose trans- lation of Dr. Carlyle, who unfortunately did not get beyond the Inferno. Dante's DiVlNA Commedia is one of the few works of imagin- ation which have stood the test of ages, and which will pass down to the remotest generations. It resembles no other poem ; it is not an epic ; it consists of descriptions, dialogues, and didactic precepts. It is a vision of the realms of eternal punishment, of expiation, and of bliss, in the invisible world beyond death. Its beauties are scattered about with a lavish hand in the form of epis- odes, similitudes, vivid descriptions, and, above all, sketches of the deep workings of the human heart. It is especially in this last department of poetic painting that Dante excels, whether he describes the harrowed feelings of the wretched father, or the self-devotedness of the lover, or the melting influence of the sound of the evening bell on the mariners and the pilgrim ; whether he paints the despair of the reprobate souls gath- ered together on the banks of Acheron, cursing God and the authors of their being, or the milder sorrow of the repentant, chanting the "Miserere" along their wearisome way throug . the regions of pur- gatory, he displays his mastery over the human feelings, and his knowledge of those chords that vibrate deepest in the heart of man. No other writer except Shakspcare can be compared to Dante in this respect. His touches are few, but they all tell. Dante was a sincere Catholic ; in his poem he places the heretics in hell, and Dominic in Paradise, and manifestly shows everywhere his belief in the dogmas of the Romish Church ; but he attacks its discipline, or rather, the relaxation of its discipline. He urges, like Petrarch and other Catholic writers of that and the following ages, the necessity of a reform, and above all of a total separation of the spiritual from the temporal authority, things generally confounded by the Roman canonists. HereticN puuislieil in tombs buruiug wiih iuteuse tiit;. The Inferno Canto ix. dantean tiieorv of physical f.uffering. 24$ The Inferno In the opcninfj of the Inferno, the poet imagines himself at the pates of hell, about to explore its untold terrors. Through the intercession of Beatrice, his glorified mistress, he has been allowed this unusual privilege. The poet Virgil has been selected as his attendant and protector. And thus, in Easter-week of the year 1300, the modern Orpheus approaches the mouth of the yawning pit, which is entered by a single door. Above the entrance are written the ominous words : " Through me you pass into the city of woe : Through me you pass into eternal pain : Through me among the people lost for aye. ■ * * * # All hope abandon ye, who enter here." The Inferno is painted by the poet as a vast cone or pit which penetrates to the centre of the earth. It is divided into seven cir- cles or spheres, the lowest being the abodes of the most guilty, and the scene of the most fearful punishments. In the deepest circle, at the centre of the earth, is seen Satan, half buried in a sea of ice, and flapping his six terrible wings in his vain efforts to escape from eternal woe. But there is no hope for the lost. Despair sits upon every countenance ; sighs, lamentations, moans, resound through the horrible abode. A crash of thunder strikes Dante insensible as he enters ; but the memory of Beatrice and the encouragement of Virgil enables him persi'^t in his design. In vain the wild demons rush upon him to tear him to pieces, in vain the flames rise around him or the sulphurous smoke ascends, so long as Beatrice is his protestor. In the different circles he meets many of his former friends or foes, who recognize his Tuscan accent, and ask for news from the upper world, or explain to him for what crimes they have been condemned to endless woe. The various punishments of the lost imagined by the poet are wonderful examples of his originality. The guilty are enclosed in blazing tombs, bitten by poisonous ser- 246 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. pents, scorched by fiery rain ; are compelled to fjnaw and devour each other ; are plunged in pools of blood, half juffocatcd, and are then suddenly withdrawn ; are pierced by the darts of centaurs, or chained to eternal icebergs. One or two specimens taken almost at random from "The Inferno," will give the reader some faint idea of the ghastly pictures drawn by Dante, of the lost in hell : "Here sighs with lamentations and loud moans, Resounded through the air pierced by no star. That e'en I wept at entering, various tongues, Horrible languages, outcries of woe, Accents of anger, voices deep and hoarse. With hands together smote that swell'd the sounds, Made up a tumult, that forever whirls Round through that air with solid darkness stain'd, Like to the sand that in the whirlwind flics." "Woe to you, wicked spirits ! hope not Ever to see the sky again. I come To take you to the other shore across Into eternal darkness, there to dwell In fierce heat and ice." "O'er all the sand, fell slowly wafting down Dilated flakes of fire, as flakes of snow On Alpine summit, when the wind is hushed. As, in torrid Indian clime, the son Of Ammon saw, upon his warrior band Descending, solid flames, that to the ground Came down ; * * * So fell the eternal fiery flood, wherewith The marie glow'd underneath, as under stove The viands, doubly to augment the pain. Unceasing was the play of wretched hands, Now this, now that way glancing, to shake off The heat, still falling fresh." "Amid this dread exuberance of woe, Ran naked spirits wing'd with horrid fear, — Nor hope had they of crevice where to hide. With serpents were their hands behind them bound, DANTKAN THKORY OF I'lIVSICAL SUFFKRINC. 247 Which through their veins infixed the tail and head Twisted in folds before. And, lo ! on one Near to our side, darted an adder up. And, where the neck is on the shouklers tieil, Transpierced him. Far more quickly than e'en pen Wrote O or I, he kindled, burn'd, and changed To ashes all, pour'd out upon the earth. When there dissolved he lay, the dust again UproU'd spontaneous, and the selfsame form • Instant resumed. So mighty sages tell, The Arabian Phoenix, when five hundred years Have well nigh circled, dies, and springs forthwith Renascent :" * * "As one that falls, He knows not how, by force demoniac dragg'd To earth, or through obstruction fettering up In chains invisible to the powers of man, Who, ri^' from his trance, ga/xth around. Bcwildc d with the monstrous agony He hath indured, and wildly staring sighs : So stood aghast the sinner when he rose. r I Oh ! how severe God's judgment, that deals out, I Such blovvs in stormy vcngcncc !" Dorc has lately given to the world his illustration of the In- ferno, but even that inventive artist has failed to reproduce the wonderful variety of Dante, and his pictures seem almost tame and commonplace compared to the profuse novelty of the original. The Purgatorio. The Purgatorio, which follows the Inferno, is less vigorous, but still woiidcrfully poetical. Dante escapes through a passage that leads from the lowest sphere into Purgatory, As the Inferno was represented as a conical pit penetrating into the centre of the earth. Purgatory is painted as a tall mountain whose top ascends towards heaven. Its interior is divided into many spheres, and as the period of purgation passes, the spirits of the elect rise upward, and are led by angels to the celestial world above. When it is an- nounced by the angels that a soul has escaped to heaven, all Pur- 24'S FUTURE PUNISHMENT. gatory rinqfs with exclamations of joy. The characteristic trait oi hell was despair, that of Purj^atory is hope. The torments of Pur- gatory resemble those of the Inferno, but they are borne with patience, because they lead to eternal bliss. Angelic resignation sits on every countenance, and a throng of elect, slowly purging their sins away in the ages of contrition, meets the poet's eye as he ascends from sphere to sphere. The P.vradiso. At last the prospect of heaven opens upon him. Led by Beatrice, he views the thrones of the Immortals and the seats of perpetual bliss. Paradise, too has its ascending spheres, rising from the moon to the limits of the stars and the centre of the uni- verse. Dante rises upward amidst the songs of rejoicing spirits and scenes of endless joy. There he sees the martyred saints who have suffered on earth, now clad in their robes of triumph ; there are meek women and lowly men, who on earth were forgotten, now raised above kings and princes ; there are holy anchorites and faithful monks, who on earth fed on herbs and roots, and were clothed in coarse attire, now radiant with the gems of the New Jerusalem, and fed with the viands of P iradise ; there are St Mark, St. Peter, St. John, and all the holy band of the apostles, who by serving the Master so faithfully on earth have become the princes and rulers of heaven. And there at length, in the highest sphere, Dante is permitted to gaze upon the Almighty Creator, the source of love and purity, the mind by which all things are moved, the radiant centre of light, the ineffable Divine, the ruler of the hea''t, the victor of the skies, whose fallen foe the poet had not long ago beheld flapi)ing his vulture wings in the icy fetters of the Inferno. The Char.vcter of D.\nte'.s Geniu.s. The character of Dante's genius has been well described by Mr, Oscar Browning, in the ninth edition of the " Encyclopaedia Britan- nica." " Dante," says Mr. Browning, "may be said to have con- Beatrice. Irausiigured aud gloritied 'lesceudiug from heaven appears to the Poet, after he lias passed thioiigh the cleansiug lire of piirgaiA)ry. — Tlie Vision of Purgatory, Cauto xxj; DANTF.AN TIIliORY OF I'lIYSICAL SUFFERING. 249 centratcd in liimsclf the spirit of the middle afjcs. Whatever there was of piety, of philosophy, of poetry, of love of nature, and of love of knowledge in those times, is drawn to a focus in his writings. He is the first great name in literature after the night of the dark ages. "The Italian langiiaj]je, in all its purity and sweetness, in its aptness for the tenderness of love and the violence of passion, or the clearness of philosophical arguments, sprang fully grown and fully armed from his brain. His metre is as pliable and flexible to every mood of emotion ; his diction as plaintive and as sonorous. Like him, he can immortalize, by a simple expression, a person, a place, or a phase of nature. Dante is even truer in description than Virgil, whether he paints the snow falling in the Alps, or the home- ward flight of birds, or the swelling of an angry torrent. But under this gorgeous pageantry of poetry there lies a unity of conception, a power of philosophic grasp and earnestness of religion, which to the Roman poet were entirely unknown. "Still more striking is the similarity between Dante and Milton. This may be said to lie rather in the kindred nature of their sub- jects, and in the parallel development of their minds, than in any mere external resemblance. In both, the man was greater than the poet, the souls of both were ' like a star and dwelt apart.' Both were academically trained in the deepest studies of their age ; the labor which made Dante lean made Milton blind. 'On evil days, though fallen, and evil tongues,' they gathered the concentrated experience of their lives into one immortal work, the quintessence of their hopes, their knowledge, and their sufferings. " Looked at outwardly, the life of Dante seems to have been an utter and disastrous failure. What its inward satisfaction must have been, we, with Paradiso open before us, can form some con- ception. To him, longing with an intensity which only the word DANTESQUE will express, to realize an ideal upon earth, and con- 2SO FUTUKH rUNISIIMKNT. tinually baffled and misunderstood, the far ^^catcr part of IviV mature life must have been labor and sorrow." Tin<: PoKT's Dkatii. In 1 3 17- 1 8, Dante appears to have been still wandcrinjr about Italy. In 13 19, he repaired aj^^ain to Guido da I'olenta, lord of' Ravenna, by whom he was hospitably received, and with whom he' appears to have remained till his death. There he was seized by an illness which terminated fatally either in July or September,. 1321. Scarce was Dante at rest in his grave when Italy felt instinc-' lively that this was her great man. In 1350, the repu! lie of Florence voted the sum of ten goldeni florins, to be paid by the hands of Messrs. Giovanni Bocaccio to Dante's daughter Beatrice, a nun in the convent of Santa Chiara at Ravenna. In 1396, Florence voted a monument, and begged in vain for the metaphorical ashes of the man of whom she :.ad threatened to make literal cinders if she could catch him alive. In 1429, she begged again, but Ravenna, a dead city, was tenacious of the dead poet. In 1I519, Michael Angelo would have built the monument, but Leo X. refused to allow the sacred dust to be removed. F'inally, in 1829, five hundred and eight years after the death of Dante, Florence got a cenotaph fairly built in Santa Croce (by Ricci), ugly even beyond the usual lot of such, with three colossal figures on it, Dante in the middle, with Italy on one side, and Poesy on the other. The tomb at Ravenna, built originally in 1483, was restored in 1692, and finally rebuilt in its present form in 1780. It is a little shrine, covered with a dome, not unlike the tomb of a Mohammedar* .saint, and is now the chief magnet which draws foreigners and their gold to Ravenna. The VALKT DK I'LACK says that Dante is not buried under it, but beneath the pavement of the street in front of it. NOTES ON PROBATION ISM & PURGATORY. NOTES ON PROBATIONISM AND PURGATORY. UTURE Probation, is the phrase which is commonly used to denote the doctrine that after this Hfe is ended* men will still have opportunity for faith and repent- ance. It may not be amiss to remark, that this doctrine has no necessary logical connection with a belief in the final restoration of all rational creatures to the favor of While it is plain, in view of the manifest fact that a large part of the human race die in sin, that one who believes in final universal salvation, must either believe in a regeneration and sanc- tification accomplished in the article of death, or else, with the great majority of restorationists, in a faith and repentance in the life to come ; yet, on the other hand, it is no less clear that a man may believe that the offer of salvation will not be restricted to this life, while yet sincerely accepting the Scripture testimony that many will be lost forever. Again, it is of consequence to observe, that the doctrine of the conti'iuance of the Gospel offer after death is held in various forms- Those who maintain this differ among themselves, (i) as to the DURATION of future probation, and (2) as to its EXTENT. There are those who hold that to all eternity it will be possible, upon the condition of repenting of sin, and believing upon Christ as Saviour, for any soul to be saved from sin and woe. Others, again, main- tain that, although the possibility of salvation does not end with death, yet there is a f'rn**. for every one, if not here, then hereafter, 254 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. after which it will be forever too late to be saved. The most of those who hold this view, as many evangelical theologians of Europe, maintain that this point is or will be reached for each person, whensoever and wheresoever Christ shall be definitely and intelli- gibly offered, and consciously and deliberately rejected. It seems to be the common opinion with such, however, that before the final judgment, Christ will have been thus offered to every human being who has ever lived, either before death or after. Thus we may fiistinguish, in a general way, different views regarding the duration of future probation, as the belief is an everlasting probation, and the belief in a probation terminated, at the farthest, by the day ot judgment. We have also to distinguish two opinions as to the extent of the future offer of salvation. There are those who believe that all who fdie impenitent, will still, for a time, limited or unlimited, after death, have the opportunity of salvation ; a large number restrict this privilege to those who, like the most of men in heathen lands, and not a few in so-called Christian countries, have not had in their life- time any opportunity of hearing about Christ in any intelligible way, and so have never intelligently rejected him. It is not easy to exaggerate the practical importance of this question. If the offer of salvation will be continued after death to some or to all who die impenitent, then it should be most clearly shown. We need the consolation which the knowledge of this would give, so often are our hearts overburdened with the inscrutable mystery of permitted sin. But if on the other hand, the almost universal belief of the Church in all ages to the contrary, be indeed founded on the teachings of God's word, then do we need to know this with assurance. Life is serious enough, in any view of the case ; but what shall be said of the awful solemnity of living, if, on the decisions of three score years and ten, really turns the question whether we shall be holy and happy, or sinful and miserable forever and ever? or what, again, shall be said of the responsibility which NOTES ON PROBATION ISM AND PURGATORV. 2$^ rests upon the Church of Christ, if, althoufrh the offer of salvation Ibc for this life only, she is anything less than most intensely earnest in carrying the tidings of the great salvation to those who are sit- ting in darkness? As to how our hearts would have this question answered, with the light we have, there can be no doubt. From many a soul would a hc!:ivy burden be lifted, could the assurance be given from God's word, that for all or any who had died impenitent, there was still room for hope. Especially is this the case with regard to the heathen world. We do not greatly wonder that so many believe in a future preach- ing of the gospel, to these at least, if to no others. And while we would be far from calling in question the sincerity and piety of in any, who confidently hold to the extension of the gospel offer after death, we cannot resist the conviction forced upon us by many of the arguments one hears, that with very many such, these inward desires and longings of the heart, as well as the intellectual difficul- ties which render so inscrutable the permission of sin by God, and the apparent inequality of his dealings, have often had — no doubt unconsciously to the individual — a decisive influence on the inter- pretation of God's word. Considering this doctrine now under each of the forms under which it is presented, we asic, first, whether there is reason to be- lieve that the offer of salvation will ALWAYS stand open, so that it will never be too late for any one to be saved ? The theory which maintains this, as commonly held, seems to us to rest upon an erroneous view as to the nature of free agency. It is conceived that in oi-der to free agency, man must ever have plenary power to choose for God. Hence is inferred an eternal possibility of repent- ance. It is apart from the scope of this argument to go into a full discussior. of this question. We can only say that the theory of freedom to which we refer, seems to us to stand in direct contra- diction to undisputed facts of experience. If any man has doubt on this subject, and thinks that because he is free, he can by voli- 250 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. tion reverse at pleasure the current of his love or hate, let him at once, by all means, try the experiment, and so test his theory. Let the man who is conscious of hating his enemy, will to begin to love him heartily and sincerely from a certain definite hour. Moreover, it must not be overlooked that if this argument be assumed to prove the continuance of the possibility of salvation for ever, by logical necessity this involves the perpetual possibility of apostasy from God among the saved — a doctrine which finds few advocates ! On the other hand, if the certainty that a man will never sin, — a certainty which we all believe will be attained by the saved hereafter, — is compatible with freedom, then plainly a cer- tainty that a man will never stop sinning, may be no less compati- ble with freedom. But even if this conception of free agency were not false, still the conclusion would not follow, that there could never be a time too late to be delivered from the punishment of sin. For mere re- pentance and forsaking of sin does not of itself bring deliverance from penal evil. That it does this, in the case of the christian, is due, not to anything in the nature of faith and repentance, but solely to the Grace of God, through the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. In order, therefore, to prove that there can never be a time when salvation shall not be attainable, it must be shown, not only that an irreversible fixedness of character is impossible, but also that there never will be a time when God, who is now ready to save from the penal consequences of sin, on condition of faith and repentance, will be willing no longer. It must be shown from the Scriptures, — the only possible source of knowledge on such a subject, — that it is not possible for a sinner to exhaust the patience and long-suffering of God. Again, this theory of an eternal possibility of salvation over- looks patent facts of observation and experience. For is it not plain that the will ever tends to set itself, to all appearance change- lessly, with the most astonishing rapidity, especially in evil ? Is it NOTES ON I'ROBATIONISM AND PUKGATOKV. 257 not the fact that very rarely do wc see a man turn to God wlio is past fifty? Are there many who turn even at forty? Is it not clear that moral character instead of never becoming unchangeably fixed in evil, in multitudes of cases appears to be already settled here in this life, for this side of death? And if practically this fixity of character is often reached here on the earth within so short a time as fifty years, what is the probability that a man who has successfully resisted the Gospel for centuries, — supposing it to be offered for so long, — will yet accept it, — say, after a thousand years ? l^ut others, assuming now a different view of human freedom, argue that there is hope yet even in such a case from the almighty power of God. To this we answer that the question is not as to what God can do, but as to what he has revealed that he has deter- mined to do. What the answer to that question must be, does not, with regard to this life, admit of dispute. Although i-t is true that God is almighty, and although, as we believe, regeneration is an act of his almighty power, yet it is evident that he gives this grace, as a general rule, not without regard to the laws of habit. It is a fact that God very rarely renews any who are past middle life. This is a most significant fact in its bearing on the present controversy. Tlie will rapidly tends to set and harden, as the result of repeated acts of choice, and, so far as all appearances go, with multitudes has already taken an irreversible set against God and holiness, even before life is half gone. It is a fact that God, in the bestowal of his regenerating grace, commonly regards this law. This does not look like an everlasting possibility of salvation. Finally, against this theory of a probation without limit stan:' all the representations of the Scriptures as to the issues of the day of judgment. In every instance they represent those issues as final and irreversible. It was the Lord Jesus who declared to many he would yet speak those awful words, " Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels !" As to rejoinders based upon other interpretations of the word AiONlOS, 17 258 FUTURE I'UNISIIMF.NT. it may, wc think, l)c fairly said that the New Testament usap;c of that term has jjcen finally settled by the highest lexical authority, as dcnotinj^ endless duration. Whatever opinion, then, any may hold as to the precise time when for each one probation ends, if anything is plain from the Scriptures it is this, that it will not continue for ever. It will cer- tainly not last beyond the day of judgment. The issues of that day arc final. The great burden of all the Divine expostulations is ever just this, — the coming of a time when it shall be forever too late. Thus, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, we read: "To-day, if yc will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the days of the temptation in the wilderness. * * To whom I swarc -n my wrath, thcj' shall not enter into my rest." Of what force such words as these, if there shall never be a time when it shall be too late to repent ? But this is so clear that the most of those who deny a universal restoration, and yet affirm a doctrine of future probation, arc care- ful to say that this probation will yet have a limit. We arc told that in no case will it last beyond the intermediate .state ; while for many, thn, ugh their free self-decision against Christ, or the sin against the Holy Ghost, it may end much sooner, even in this life. Among those who hold that in the intermediate state, salvation will still be offered, we may, however, distinguish, as above re- marked, two classes. There are those who hold that this side of the day of judgment the offer of salvation will be absolutely closed for none, excei)t for those who have been guilty of the sin against the H(^ly S[)irit ; while others, probably a much larger number, think that the future offer of salvation will be restricted to those who had not in this life the opportunity of deciding for or .against 'Christ. We have first to consider the view of the former class. As to these, in the first place, no one pretends to have discovered a single formal statement in the Scriptures teaching that those who reject Christ when offered to them here, will have the opportunity NOTES ON PROBATIONISM AND rURGATOKY. 259 to reverse their decision herciiftcr. If this be not decisive ajjainst the supposed doctrine, yet the absence of such statement is cer- tainly of ominous significance In the second place, agaii.-.i: this theory stands the fact already noted, that the Scriptures attach such transcendent importance to this earthly life. If all, with the exception of the one small class already noted, shall have the opportunity to believe on Christ here- after, how explain the burning urgency of the apostle Paul, for ex- ample, — his more than willingness, his intense eagerness to become anything, or do anything, so that he "might by all means save some." However painful the conclusion, and however dark the mystery which veils the judgment of God, the more that we study the Scrip- tures, the more are we constrained to hold with steadfastness to the teaching of the church catholic upon this subject, that if the Scrip- tures are to be allowed to decide the question, then we must believe that for all at least who hear the Gospel and reject it, the opportu- nity of salvation ends with death. For all such \vc feel compelled to believe that if there be any meaning in words, tiien the interme- diate state is not a state of continued probation, but the beginning of a woe which is endless. But is it also this for all ? This brings us to the consideration of the other form in which a doctrine of probation between death and judgment is maintained. Granting that for all who here have the opportunity of accepting Christ as Saviour and reject him, the inter- mediate state will offer no chance to reverse their decision and retrieve their error, may we not, with many, suppose that for those who, through no fault of their own, have never heard of Christ on earth, the opportunity to know his gospel and accept it will be given after death, so that at last to every human being, cither in this life or the next, before the final day of judgment, Christ will have been clearly offered, to be accepted or rejected ? 2(JO FUTURE rUNlSIIMKNT. This qu'^stion must not be confounded, as it sometimes is, with the perfectly distinct question, whether it be permitted to suppose that possibly the Spirit of God may, in exceptional cases here in this world, renew the hearts of men who have never heard of a Christ, thus leading them to true repentance and holy living with- out the knowledge of a Saviour. Whether this be true, indeed, wc greatly doubt ; never among the heathen have we met or heard of one meeting any person who gave evidence of being born again, before that they had heard the Gospel. But whether true or not, this is not the question now before us. What it really is, may be stated again in the words of Prof. Dorncr, who advocates this view. He says : " The absoluteness of Christianity demands that no one be judged before Christianity has been made acceptable and brought near to him. But that is not the case in this life with mil- lions of human beings. Nay, even within the Church there arc periods and circles where the Gospel does not really approach men as that which it is. Moreover, those dying in childhood have not been able to ' cide personally for Christianity." In regard to this question we have to remark, first, as to infants : their case does not oblige us to suppose that because they have not yet been able to believe, therefore they must enter on the in- termediate state with their spiritual condition undecided. For as many as believe in the possibility and the fact of infant regener- ation, it should be plain that it is quite possible for God, by his almighty power, without interfering with human freedom, by his regenerating grace to make the future free decisions of all such absolutely certain before they leave this world. For infants, there- fore, while we must as Prof. Dorner suggests, admit that their first conscious personal choice of Christ as Lord and Saviour must be made in the future life, yet it by no means follows, as he and others have assumed, that for this reason their regeneration must also take place in the intermediate state. In such a first free choice of Christ one need only see the assured result of a regenerating change NOTES ON I'ROUATIONISM AND PURGATORY. 26l which passed upon them while yet in this present Ufe. Where God, however, has revealed so little, we shall do well that our own words be few. The chief interest of the question before us, centres in the case of the heathen. I?*oes the word of God warrant the belief that to all those to whom, throufi[h no fault of their own, the Gospel has not in their lifetime been preached, it will be preached, bringing them the offer of salvation, in the world of the dead? Gladly, indeed, would one welcome such a doctrine. We do not wonder that so many have eagerly caught at such a hope. Such a truth, if a truth, would lift from the heart of many a thoughtful Christian a very heavy burden. Nevertheless we are compelled to say for our part, we are able to find in the word of God no warrant for such a cheer- ing hope, but on the contrary much that seems to be very clear against it. In the first place, the Scriptures uniformly assume that what is done for the salvation of the heathen must be done in this life. This seems to be suggested, for example, if not distinctly implied, in the account which they give of the missionary labors of the apostle Paul. Again, in Rom. x. 9-17, Paul first lays down the necessity of faith, — of calling on the name of the Lord — in order to salvation. To this necessity he makes no exceptions, suggests no qualifica- tions whatever. But then he rtTiinds us that men cannot " call upon him of whom they have not heard " ; that " faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God "; and argues that, again, it is impossible for men to hear without preaching, and for any to preach, •* except they be sent." From these words, as from the apostle's own actions, the natural inference is that he believed that if the heathen are to be saved, they must hear of Christ from the living preacher. Will any one venture to say that Paul in this language had in mind also a preach- ing of the Gospel to the dead ? Surely his words must refer to the 262 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. sending of the Gospel by the h'ving Church to unevangelized lands — as to Africa, China, and India — and not to missionary work in Hades ! Most explicit of all, however, are the words of the same apostle in Rom. ii. 12, where we read, "As many as have sinned without law " — what ? shall have a chance to hear the lavv' in the next life, and so to repent and be saved ? That is far enough from being what he says, for the words are, " As many as have sinned without law, SHALL ALSO PERISH without law." No words could be more categorical or all-inclusive in their scope. " As MANY AS have sinned without law, SHALL ALSO perish without law"! This single passage seems to us to stand like a wall, forbidding to all who acknowledge the inspired authority of the apostle any further speculation on the matter. To these strictly Scriptural arguments we do not feel that it should be necessary to add anything else. Where the Holy Spirit has spoken, it befits us to be silent. But it is right that we should hear what is argued on the other side of this question. In the first place, then, from the dogmatic point of view, the doctrine of a future probation, for at least the heathen, is argued from the nature of God as infinitely good and just, For if we are to believe that God has provided a salvation sufficient for all, and that yet multitudes, through no fault of their own, are in the provi- dence of God precluded from any chance of hearing of Christ in this life, and because of this are helplessly lost, and that forever, then, it is said, it is quite impossible to vindicate the goodness and justice of God. That, assuming this to be the real state of the case, we find our- selves confronting a dark and most painful mystery, no one wul deny. And yet a very little reflection should make it clear to any one that arguments such as this, from the justice and goodness of God, to what God will do or will not do, cannot be always pressed NOTES ON PROBATIONISM AND PURGATORY. 263 ivith much confidence, plausible as they seem at first hearing. For, as already remarked, it will nol do to ignore the fact that although God is infinite in justice, goodness and mercy, yet sin and pain are here. And where is there anything in this common argument from the goodness and justice of God as demanding a future probatioi> for the heathen, which would not have applied, A FORTIORI, against the permission of sin and misery at all ? It is here that the real mystery lies ; and not in fixing a certain limit to probation, or in denying the offer of pardon to many of the sinful sons of men. Surely the fact that sin is here, notwithstanding the moral perfec- tion of God, should make us more cautious and less confident than some are in the inference, that the nature of God ensures to any or all among the heathen an offer of salvation after death. In the second place, now that sin has mysteriously come into the world, it is at least quite conceivable, that the universal limita- tion of the offer of salvation to the present life, niay be just the best way that infinite wisdom could devise for restraining the evils of sin within the narrowest possible limits. Certain it is that no man living knows enough of the divine government to be able to show that this may not indeed be so. Again, the argument assumes a low and false estimate of the moral intelligence and consequent guilt of the heathen. When it is asked whether the heathen can justly be punished for their sin, the answer turns upon the question, whether they have any valid excuse for their sin. If they neither know, nor by any possible effort could know, what the holy God requires of man, then indeed we must confess that to punish them would be unjust, and that a future revelation would be necessary before they could be justly condemned. But we must insist that the moral ignorance of the heathen, by thinkers of this class is very often grossly exagger- ated. The plain teaching of the Holy Scriptures is, that while the heathen have not from the light of nature light enough to save them, they do have enough to condemn them. As regards the 264 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. revelation of God in external nature \vc read, that "the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that arc made, — so that they are without excuse, because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful." In like manner as regards the revelation of God's will in the heart, — the law which is written on the natural conscience, — we read again, that these vhich have not the law, arc yet " a law unto themselves, which show tlie work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing wit- ness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing, or else excusinj,^ one another." That the heathen are so totally and helplessly ignor- ant that they could not be justly punished for their sin, is in these passages formally denied. And the argument of the apostle is confirmed by the testimony of the heathen themselves in numberless instances. Evil as their life is, they know, or, at least, if they but stop and think, they may know that it is evil. This is shown, for example, by the fact that among idolatrous peoples, again and again, have thoughtful indi- viduals seen the folly and the sin of idol worship, and, led by the light of nature only, have condemned and forsaken it, And the stern charge of God's Word is the more acknowledged in the mul- titude of testimonies which we have from heathen in every part of the world — testimonies at once to their knowledge of the right and the wrong, and their consciousness of guilt and ill-desert. But it is rejoined that still, although the heathen may for their sins deserve to be punished, as indeed do we all ; yet, since God has offered salvation to many, he must therefore in justice offer it to all, and at least give all an equal chance to accept or reject the salvation, else he were become partial and unjust. Hence it is inferred with great confidence, that since, beyond doubt, the Gospel is not offered to all in this life, it will certainly be offered after death, before the final judgment, to all who could not hear the Gospel while in this present life. To this argument one might NOTES ON PROBATIONISM AND PURGATORY. 265 answer, that it is contradicted even by the voice of human reason as expressed in human government. For, in the case of a revolt among men, who would venture to maintain that in the event of an amnesty being offered to some, the Government could not do less in justice than offer amnesty to all whose guilt was similar ? Can any one deny that in such a case a human government may reserve, and righteously reserve, its rights of sovereignty ? Where in the history of our race was the theory ever propounded or acted on, that in such cases amnesty must be offered to all under the same circumstances, if offered to any ? But this argument derives its whole force from the tacit assump- tion already mentioned, that man has some claim on God for saving mercy. For if he has not, what basis then for the assump- tion that those to whom the Gospel is not offered in this life, MUST have it offered after death ? But to assume such a claim of man on God is to assume what is contradicted by the plainest declarations of the Scriptures. Everywhere and always they insist that man's salvation is "ALL oF GRACE ;" whereas this argument assumes that the heathen somehow have a claim in righteousness on God for the offer of the Gospel, so that the Gospel is therefore not ALL of grace, but in part, at least, of debt ! Last of all, whether any man like it or not, the fact remains and cannot be explained away, that God actually claims and uses this absolute sovereignty in the dispensations of his mercy. Are all men treated alike in the general providential government of God ? Neither, according to the Scripture, will they be in his redemptive administrations. For it is written, " He saith, I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy." What then ? Must we conclude that, as far as man can see, there must be injustice with God, if the heathen, many of them, have not here or hereafter the offer of salvation ? How shall this lie ? Injustice to whom ? Not surely to those who hear the Gospel, believe and a"« saved ; they are saved righteously by the expiating 266 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. blood. Not surely to those who hear the Gospel in this life, and" reject it ; they have acted freely in rejecting Christ and suffer justly, and cannot complain or justly demand a second probation. Is there then injustice toward the heathen who never hear the Gospel, and so perish in their sins ? Neither can this be. For in the first place, they did not deserve to be saved any more than others ; in the second place, because they will not be punished for rot believing on him of whom they never heard nor could hear, but only for not living up to the light that they either had or could have had ; and lastly, because God, as he tells us, will in the final judgment take full account of all the disadvantages under which any have lived. " He that knew his Master's will and did it not, shall be beaten with many stripes, and he that knew not his Master's will and did it not, shall be beaten with few stripes." — Professor S. H. Kellogg, D. D., (Presbyterian Review, April, 1885.) 1ST Peter 3, v. 18-20.* The Apostle has been led through what seemed at first a train of ethical counsels, to the exemple of the meekness and patience of Christ. But he cannot rest in the thought of his Lord's passion as being only an example, and so he passes on to speak of its redeeming power. It was a sacrifice for sins ; in some mysterious, transcendent way, vicarious. Its purpose was nothing less than to bring mankind to God. But then the thought rose up before him that the work looked backward as well as for- ward ; that those who had fallen asleep in past ages, even under conditions that seemed most hopeless, were not shut out from hope, .Starting either from a wide-spread belief among the Jews as to the extent of the Messiah's work ; or from the direct teaching of his Master after that resurrection ; or from one of those flashes of truth which were revealed to him not by flesh and blood, but by his Father in heaven, he speaks of that wider work. The Lord was • This is the view of those who hold, that this much disputed passaso tpsches ilia poRsibility of repeutance after death. We deem it only fair to place it before tho lekOeri along with the more generally accepted interpretations that follow. NOTES ON PROBATION ISM AND PURGATORY. 267 "put to death in the flesh," but was "quickened in the spirit." That cry, " Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit," was the begin- ning of a new activity. He passed into the world of the dead to be the herald of His own victory. As our Lord in speaking of God's judgments in the past, had taken the days of Noah and the destruction of Tyre and Sidon, and the Cities of the Plain, as repre- sentative instances of what was true of countless others, so docs Peter. The spirits of whom he thought as hearing that message were those who had been unbelieving, disobedient, corrupt, ungodly ; but who had not hardened themselves in the one irremediable an- tagonism to good which has never forgiveness. The words, taken by themselves, might leave us in doubt as to the nature and effect of the proclamation. But it is surely altoge- ther monstrous to think, as some have thought, that He who a short time before had breathed the prayer, " Father, for they know not what they do ;" who had welcomed, with a marvellous tenderness, the cravings of the repentant robber ; who had felt, though but for a moment, the agony of abandonment, as other children of God have felt it without ceasing to be children — should pass into the world of the unseen only to tell the souls of the lost of a kingdom from which they are excluded, a blessedness in which they had neither part nor lot ; to mock with the proclamation of a victory those who were only to be crushed under the chariot wheels of the conqueror. We have not so learnt Christ as to think of that as possible. But whatever doubt might linger round the words is removed by the reiterated assertion of the same truth a few verses further on (ist Peter iv. 6.) That which was " preached also to them that are dead," was nothing else but a gospel — the good news of the redeeming love of Christ. And it was published to them, not to exempt them from the penalty, but that they having been judged, in all that belonged to the relations of their human life, with a true and righteous judgment, should yet. in all that affected their rela- 268 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. tion to God, "live in the spirit." Death came upon them, and they accepted their punishment as awarded by the loving and righteous Judge, and so ceased from the sin to which they had before been slaves, and thus it became to their" the gate of life. So, the Apostle says to his disciples, it should be with them in times of calamity and persecution. They were to arm themselves with that thought, and so to cease from sin, as those who were sharers in the sufferings and death of Christ, crucified, buried, risen again with Him, accepting pain, privation, ignominy, as working out a like purification in this present life. * * The words of the Apostle lead us to the belief of a capacity for repentance, faith, love — for growth, discipline, education in those who have passed away. We have no sufficient grounds for limiting the work on which they dwell to the representative instance or the time — boundaries, of which they speak. — E. H. Plumptre, D. D., Dean of Wells. The doctrine of the Church of Rome respecting the state of de- parted souls is, that the saints do not immediately pass into glory, but first go into a place called purgatory, where they arc purified by fire from the stains of sin, which had not been washed out, dur- ing the present life. This doctrine, Protestants affirm, was unknown to the Church till the days of Gregory the Great, about the end of the sixth or the beginning of the seventh century ; but the way seems to have been prepared for it by certain opinions, which pre- vailed prior to that period, as we learn from the writings of the Fathers. A strange notion was entertained by some respecting the fire which will burn up the earth and its works ; that all should pass through it, that it would completely purify the bodies of those who were to be glorified, and that the more holy any person had been, he should feel the less pain from this process. With regard to the souls of the righteous they believed, that they were in a place of rest and enjoyment, but that they should not be admitted to the beatific vision till the resurrection was past. Hence arose the prac- tice of praying for the dead. Conceiving that they had not yet I AutaouB, Olio of Lhn Kiiiiits of th« pit, takinj; Daiite ami Virgil in liia arms, places th»ui at tlie Uttum of tke eircis or sUore, wiiich Ib turretted wiiU giants. NOTES ON PROBATIONISM AND PURGATORY. 269 attained full felicity, the Ancients thought that they might be bene- fited by their prayers, which would procure to them a greater degree of enjoyment. Although these opinions were fit material for fancy and superstition to work up into a still more extravagant form, they were widely different from the doctrine afterwards estab- lished by the Church of Rome as an article of faith. The prototype of Purgatory is to be found in heathenism, from which have been borrowed the cumbersome apparatus of cere- monies, and many of the religious opinions held by the Church of Rome. The existence of a purgatory is plainly taught in the writ- ings of both poets and philosophers. In the sixth book of the Mneld, Anchises explains to his son, who had visited him in the Shades, the process which souls were doomed to undergo, before they could be admitted into the Elysian fields, that they might be freed from the stains of sin which adhered to them at death (yEneid VI. 739- 740). Some he says, are stretched out to the winds ; others are purified by being plunged into an immense whirlpool or lake ; and others are subjected to the operation of fire, (/Eneid VI. 743). In his dialogue entitled Phaedro, Plato informs us that when men enter into the invisible state, they are judged. Those who are neither truly virtuous, nor consummately wicked, are carried away to the Acherusian lake, where, having suffered the punishment o^ their unjust deeds, they are dismissed, and then receive the reward of their good actions. Those who on account of the greatness of their sins, are incurable, are cast into Tartarus, from which they shall never escape. Those who have committed curable sins and have repented, must fall into Tartarus, but after a certain period they will be delivered from it. In both these passages, we have a very exact description of Purgatory ; and as there is no trace of it in the Bible, we conclude that this is the source from which it has been derived. The resem- blance appears more striking, if we reflect, that in both cases it rests 270 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. precisely upon the same foundation, the curable and incurable sins of Plato, answering exactly to the venial and mortal sins of Roman Catholics. By mortal sins, they understand those which alienate men entirely from God, and are worthy of eternal death ; and they may be compared to those bodily wounds, which, by their own nature, cause the destruction of life. Venial sins do not turn away the sinner entirely from God, although they impec'e his approach to him ; and they may be expiated, because their nature is so light that they do not exclude a person from grace, or render him an enemy to God. Mortal sins are few, and even these are so ex- plained away, that scarcely one is left upon the list. All others are venial, or pardonable. They are expiated partly by penances in this life, and partly by the pains of purgatory, the place appointed for completing the atonement. Another distinction is made, with a view to support the doctrine concerning satisfaction for sin in the future state. The pardon of sin we understand to consist in the full remission of guilt or of the obligation to punishment, so that to the pardoned man there is no condemnation. Those who hold the doctrine of purgatory, take a different view. They affirm that there are two kinds of guilt, the guilt of the fault, and the guilt of the punishment. The former is remitted, and the latter is retained ; or in other words, the penitent sinner is absolved from the sentence of eternal death, but is still subject to temporal punishment. Thus s;ieaks the Council of Trent : " If any man shall say, that after justification the fault is so remitted to a penitent sinner, or the guilt of eternal punishment is so blotted out, that there remains no guilt of temporal punishment to be endured, in this life or in the future life in purgatory, before he can be admitted into the Kingdom of Heaven ; let him be accursed." Now, purgatory is of the nature of a great penitentiary, into which the half-pardoned culprits are sent, that they may un- dergo the painful but wholesome discipline, by which they will be glorified for full restoration to the favor of God. NOTES 0\ TROIJATIONISM AND PURGATORY. 2/1 The notion of purgatory seems so gross, that the common sense of every man rejects it, unless perverted and overpowered by autho- rity and piejudice. Can a person have any idea in his mind, when he talks of souls being purified by fire ? Might he not, with equal propriety, speak of a spirit being nourished with bread and wine ? The soul is supposed on this theory to be a material substance, upon which fire can act, contrary to the belief even ot the abettors of purgatory, who admit the spirituality of its essence. The whole fabric must therefore tumble to the ground. Purgatory is physi- cally impossible. — Dr. John DiCK, (Lectures on Theology.) There can be no doubt that there does appear something very unnatural in introducing our Lord, in the midst of what is plainly a description of the results of his atoning sufferings, as having in the Spirit, by which he was quickened after he had been put to death, gone many centuries before, in the antediluvian age, to preach to an ungodly world ; and there is just as little doubt that the only meaning that the words will bear, without violence being done them, is, that it was when he had been put to death in the flesh and quickened in the Spirit, or by the Spirit, whatever that m-^y mean, he went and preached ; and that " the Spirits," whoever they may be, were " in prison," whatever that may mean, when he preached to them. Interpreters holding in common that our Lord went down to Hades, are considerably divided as to what was his object in going there, as described or hinted at in the passage before us ; one class holding that he went to hell (Gehenna), the place of torment, to, proclaim to fallen angels, who are kept there under chains of dark- ness, as the spirits in prison — (though how they could be said to be disobedient in the days of Noah does not appear, and besides these spirits seem plainly to belong to the same class of beings as " the souls" that were saved, verse 20) — to proclaim throughout that dis- mal region his triumph over them and their apostate chief ; another class holding that he went to this place of torment to announce his / 272 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. triumph over the powers of darkness, and to offer salvation through his death to those human spirits who had died in their sins ; a third class holding that he went to purgatory to release those who had been sufficiently improved by their disciplinary sufferings, and to remove them to paradise ; and a fourth class who translate " the spirits in prison," " the spirits in safe keeping," holding that he went to paradise, the residence of the separate spirits of good men, to announce to them the glad tidings, that the great salvation, which had been the object of their faith and hope, was now completed. Each of these varieties of interpretation is attended with its own difficulties, which appear to me insuperable. Some of them go upon principles obviously and demonstratively false ; and all of them attempt to bring much out of the words which plainly is not in them. It seems incredible, if such events as are darkly hinted at, rather than distinctly described in these words thus interpreted, had taken place, that we should have no account of them, indeed, no certain allusion to them in any other part of Scripture. It seems quite unaccountable why the separate spirits of those who had lived in the days of Noah, and perished in the deluge, are specially mentioned, as those among the inhabitants of the unseen world, to whom the quickened Redeemer went and preached, the much greater multitude who, before that time and since that time, had gone down to the land of darkness, being passed by without notice. And what will weigh much with a judicious student of Scripture is, that it is impossible to perceive how these events, supposing them to have taken place, were, as they are represented by the construc- tion of the language to be, the effects of Christ's suffering for sins in the room, of sinners, and how these statements at all serve to promote the apostle's practical object, which was to persuade per- secuted Christians patiently and cheerfully to submit to sufferings for righteousness sake, from the consideration, exemplified in the ca.se of our Lord, that suffering in a good cau.se, and in a right spirit, however severe, was calculated to lead to the happiest results. No NOTES ON PROBATION ISM AND PURGATORY. 2/5 interpretation, we apprehend, can be the right one, which does not correspond with the obvious construction of the passage, and with the avowed design of the writer. Keeping these general principles steadily in view, I proceed now to state, as briefly, and as plainly as I can what appears to me the probable meaning of this difficult passage, " a passage " as Leighton says " somewhat obscure in itself" but as it usually falls, made more so by the various fancies and contests of interpreters aiming sor pretending to clear it." The first consequence of those penal, vicarious expiator}' suffer- ings which Christ, the just One, endured by the appointment of his Father, the righteous Judge, for sins in the room of the unjust, noticed here is, that he " was put to death in the flesh." But his becoming thus bodily dead and powerless was not more certainly the effect of his penal, vicarious, expiatory, sufferings, than the second circumstance here mentioned, his " being quickened in the Spirit." The spiritual life, and power conferred on the Saviour as the icward of his disinterested labors in the cause of God's honor and man's salvation, were illustriously manifested in that wonderful quickening of his apostles by the communication of the Holy Ghost en the day of Pentecost ; and in communicating through the in- strumentality of their ministry spiritual life, and all its concomit- ant and following blessings, to multitudes of souls dead in sins. It is to this, I apprehend, that the Apostle refers, when he says, "by which," or "whereby ;" by this spiritual quickening, or "wherefor" being thus spiritually quickened, " he went and preached to the spirits 'n prison, who beforetime were disobedient." If our general scheme of interpretation is well founded, there can be no doubt as to who those "spirits in prison " are. They are not human spirits, confined in bodies like so many prisons, as a punishment for sin in some previous state of being ; that is a heathenish doctrine, to which Scripture, rightly interpreted, gives no sanction ; but sinful men righteously condemned, the slaves and captives of Satan, shackled 18 274 FUTURE PUNISHMENT with the fetters of sin. These are the captives to whom the Mes- siah, " anointed by the spirit of the Lord," that is, just in other words, "quickened in the spirit," was to proclaim Hberty, the bound ones to whom he was to announce the opening of the prison. It is not unnatural, then, that guilty and depraved men should be represented as captives in prison ; but the phrase, " spirits in prison," seems a strange one for spiritually captive men. It is so; but the use of it, rather than the word " men " in prison, or prison- ers, seems to have grown out of the previous phrase, " quickened in spirit." He who was quickened in the spirit had to do with the spirits of men, with men as spiritual beings. This seems to have given a color to the whole passage ; the eight persons saved from the deluge arc termed eight " souls." But then it seems as if the spirits in prison, to whom our Lord, quickened in spirit, is repre- sented as coming and preaching, were the unbelieving generation who lived before the flood, " the spirits in prison, who aforetime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah." This difficulty is not a formidable one. This stumbling block may easily be removed. " Spirits in prison," is a phrase character- istic of men in all ages. We see nothing perplexing in the state- ment, " God sent the gospel to the Britons, who in the days of Caesar were painted savages ;" the persons to whom God sent the gospel, were not the same individuals who were painted savages in the days of Caesar, but they belonged to the same race. Neither should we find anj-thing perplexing in the statement, Jesus Christ came, and preached to spiritually captive men, who were hard to be convinced in former times, especially in the days of Noah. The reason why there is reference to the disobedience of men in former times and especially in the days of Noah, will probably come out in the course of our future illustrations. Having endeavored to dispose of these verbal difficulties, let us now attend to the sentiment contained in the words "Jesus Christ, NOTES ON PROBATIONISM AND PURGATORY. 2/5 spiritually quickened, came and preached to the spirits in pri:jon, who in time past were disobedient." The coming and prer .ling describe not what our Lord did "bodily," but what he did spiritu- ally, not what he did personally, but what he did by the instru- mentality of others. Thus then, is Christ, quickened in consequence of his suffering, the just one in the room of the unjust, going and preaching to the spirits in prison. There are two subsidiary ideas in reference to this preaching of Christ quickened in the spirit, io the spirits in prison, that are sug- gested by the words of the apostle, and these are : the success of his preaching, and the extent of that success. These spirits in prison had "aforetime been disobedient." Christ had preached to them not only by Noah, but by all the prophets, for the spirits in the prophets was "the spirit of Christ;" but he had preached in a great measure in vain. But now, Jesus Christ being quickened by the spirit, and quickening others by the spirit, the consequence was, " the disobedient were turned to the wisdom of the just," and " the spirits in prison " appeared a people made ready, prepared, for the Lord. The word attended by the spirit, in consequence of the shedding of the blood of the covenant, had free course, and was p;lorified, and " the prisoners were sent forth out of the pit wherein there was no water." The prey was taken from the mighty, the captive of the terrible one was delivered. The sealed among the tribes of Israel were a hundred forty and four thousand, and the converted from among the nations, the people taken out from among the Gentiles, to the name of Jehovah, formed an innumerable company, "a multitude which no man could number, out of every kindred, and people, and tribe and nation." It was not then, " as in the days of Noah, when few, that is, eight souls were saved " — multitudes heard and knew the joyful sound ; the shackles dropped from their limbs, and they walked at liberty, keeping God's commandments. And still does the fountain 276 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. of life spring up in the quickened Redeemer's heart, and well forth giving life to the world. Still does the great Deliverer prosecute his glorious work of spiritual emancipation. Still is he going and preaching to the "spirits in prison;" and though all have not obeyed, yet many already have obeyed, many are obeying, many more will yet obey. — Dr. John Brown. (Expository discourses on first Peter.) The difficult passage, ist Peter 3, v. 18-19, however it may be interpreted, proves nothing against the Protestant doctrine, that the souls of believers do at death immediately pass into glory. What happens to ordinary men, happened to Christ when He died. His cold and lifeless body was laid in the tomb. His human soul passed into the invisible world. This is all that the creed, com- monly called the Apostle's, means, when it says Christ was buried, and descended into Hell, or Hades, the unseen world. This is all that the passage in question clearly teaches. Men may doubt and differ as to what Christ did during the three days of his sojourn in the invisible world. They may differ as to who the spirits were to whom he preached, or rather made proclamation : whether they were the Antediluvians ; or the souls of the people of God detained in Shcol ; or the mass of the dead of all antecedent generations and of all nations, which is the favorite hypothesis of modern interpre- ters. They may differ also as to what the proclamation was which Christ made to thos? imprisoned spirits : whether it was the gospel ; or his own triumph ; or deliverance from Sheol ; or the coming judgment. However these subordinate questions may be decided, all that remains certain is that Christ, after his death upon the cross, entered the invisible world, and there, in some way, made proclamation of what He had done on earth. All this is very far from teaching the doctrine of a " Limbus Patrum," as taught by the Jews, the Fathers, or the Romanists. — Dr. Charles Hodge, (Theology, vol. 3, p. 736.) NOTES ON PRODATIONISM AND PURGATORY. 277 Those verses read, in the revised version, as follows : " Christ also suffered for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God ; being put to death in the flesh, but quick- ened in the spirit ; in which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which aforetime were disobedient, when the long- suffering God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing." Of these words Prof Dorner says, that what is here said of our Lord is to be regarded as the application of the benefit of his atone- ment, as seems to be intimated by " the preaching " among the departed. The same conclusion from the words is also drawn by Dean Alford, and by many others. Prof. Dorner adds that this descent into Hades, expresses the universality of Christ's signifi- cance, also for former generations and for the entire kingdom of the dead. The distinction between earlier and later generations, between the time of ignorance and the time of knowledge of him- self is done away by Christ. * * The future world, like the present, is the scene of his activity." All this is exceedingly plausible, but still we cannot see that these words really prove a possible offer of Christ to the departed heathen or to any others. Many, as is well known, have doubted whether these words really refer to any descent of Christ into Hades, and not rather to a work done by Christ by his spirit, in the days of Noah. With such we do not agree, but only remark in passing that if these interpreters after all should be right, then plainly this passage drops from the list of those which can by any possibility be referred to the case before us. We assume, however, that these words do really describe a work of Christ during the three days of his existence after his crucifixion in the intermediate state, as the majority of modern evangelical cxegetes maintain. But that the conclusion which is drawn therefrom, in favor of the doc- trine of a future offer of Christ to those who have died in sin, 2/8 FUTURE PHNISILMENT. follows from this interpretation — this wc must certainly deny, and that on the following grounds. In the first place, it must be observed that at present we have to do with those who refer us to this passage, in proof that the gospel will be preached to all the heathen, who have never heard of Christ in this life, while they yet profess to believe that it will not be thus offered hereafter, to those who have had the offer of salvation in the present life. As thus applied, wc answer that this passage cannot be thus restricted in its application. If it teach an offer of salvation to any, it must teach it for ALL the impenitent. For those who arc particularly mentioned as the objects of this preachingof Christ, arc not those who had not the offer of salvation in this life. They arc explicitly said to be those, " who were aforetime disobedient in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing." Thr\- were persons therefore, to whom Noah, the preacher of righteousness, had already in their lifetime faithfully made known the saving truth of God, and who had rejected it. The obvious conclusion from this, accord- ing to the principles of Prof Dorner and others, is not merely that the Gospel will be preached after death to men who did not in this life hear the Gospel, but that it will be preached also to those who did here have the Gospel offered and rejected it. But this in- terpretation would bring the passage into direct contradiction with the words in Luke xvi. 26, which so plainly tell us that those who, like the rich man, have in this life the revelation of God, and reject it to live a worldly life, are at their death separated from those who are saved, by a gulf so deep and broad that no man can cross it. If, then, the words of Peter cannot be taken to teach a possi- bility of salvation after aeath, for those who in this life have the Gospel and reject it, what right has any one to make it teach this for the other class who had not the Gospel, to whom there is no allusion in these verses ? NOTES ON TROBATIONISM AND I'URGATORY.. 279 In the second place, it is assumed by Prof. Dorner and others, that the word " to proclaim," which is here employed, must refer to a proclamation of the Gospel. This meaning of the word is essen- tial to their argument. If thus standing by itself, it cannot be proved to mean the preaching of the Gospel, then future probation cannot be proved from these verses. But for this assumption neither the context nor the usage of this verb in the New Testa- ment affords any warrant. The passage simply states that there was a proclamation made by Christ to the persons named ; that it was a proclamation of mercy, offered for the salvation of those who heard it, is not so much as hinted in the text. Nor does the word in the New Testament, when standing by itself, as here, ever denote the preaching of the Gospel, but only proclamation in gen- eral. The only exceptions are in those cases where the Gospel, as the subject of the proclamation, can be supplied from the context. This can be seen by any one in a Concordance. To assume, then, that this word here, without anything in the context which should .supply the idea of the Gospel, should yet by itself denote the preaching of the Gospel, is in contradiction to the usage of the word. The issue is quite too serious to base an argument upon an unproved exception to general usage. Yet again, even if we waive this argument alsn, and admit that as a solitary exception to the ordinary usage of the word, this verb here denotes a proclamation of the Gospel, still the doctrine of a possible salvation of any after death will not yet be established. For though we should grant. that the proclamation made to those antediluvian sinners was a proclamation of our Lord's redemp- tive work, yet it would not follow that such proclamation MUST have been made with a view to their salvation. This is not true of all preaching of the Gospel, even in this present life. We are told in so many words, for example, that this was not the pur- pose of the preaching of the word of God by Ezekiel. For it is written that the Lord said unto him, " Go, get thee unto the house 280 FUTURE PUNISH \ii:n'i. of Israel, and speak witli my words unto them : but they will not hearken unto thee : for they will not hearken unto me." If a proc- lamation of the great work of redemption was really made by our Lord between his death and resurrection in the world of lost spirits, God may easily have had therein good and sufficient reasons, other than the salvation of those who w hen living had chosen to please themselves rather than to please him. But it is argued that the words in the sixth verse of the next chapter teach, that the preaching was in order to the salvation of those who heard it. That verse reads in the revised version : " For unto this end was the gospel preached even to the dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the Spirit." In this verse, we are told, the reference is still to the antediluvian dinners, mentioned in the previous chap- ter, and that the proclamation of the previous chapter is here more precisel}' defined as a proclamation of the Gospel ; and that this preaching of the Gospel, moreover, is there plainly said to be, " that they might live according to God in the spirit." Whence, it is argued, this makes it perfectly clear that the Gospel was preached by our Lord after he was put to death in the flesh and quickened in the spirit in the world of the dead, to the antediluvian sinners, and that this was done for their salvation ; whence, again, it is inferred that this life does not end the opportunity for salvation. In considering this verse it is of importance to observe, that it is not said in this passage nor in the context that the dead of this verse are the dead antediluvians spoken of in "hap. 3rd. This is merely an inference of expositors. That such a reference is in itself possible, need not be denied, but it will not do to assume it without proof When we look for proof of this, it is not easy to find. On the contrary, there is much that points to an entirely different refer- ence of the words. The very terms of the passage seem to forbid us to apply them to the dead of the days of Noah. For it will not do to tajve only the last half of the final clause, — " that they might NOTES ON PROBATION ISM AND lURGATORY. 28 1 be judged according to men in the flesh." This last-mentioned clause is in the same grammatical construction with the latter clause of the verse. It states no less than that clause, a part of the pur- pose of the preaching here mentioned. The Gospel, we are herein told, was preached to the dead, NOT ONLY in order that they might live according to God in the spirit, BUT ALSO that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, — for the latter purpose, as much as for the former. But what possible meaning can we attach to the former half of the final clause, if we apply it to the case of those who were destroyed in the days of Noah ? If the "judgment according to men " be assumed, as it commonly is, to be the fleshly judgment of the deluge, then what is meant by calling that judg- ment a judgment " according to men ?" And, again, assuming that that is the meaning, then what can be meant by saying, as this makes the passage say, that Christ in his three days in the world of the dead preached the Gospel to those dead antediluvians in order " that they might be destroyed in the deluge," whish deluge or "judgment according to men " occurred more than two thousand }cars before the preaching which is supposed to be the subject of discourse ? Last of all, if we assume this interpretation, what bearing can it be shown to have on the argument of the context in which the verse occurs ? The purport of that argument is to encourage the Chris- tians of that time to arm themselves with the martyr spirit, in view of " the fiery trial which was to try some of them," wherein they would be called upon to suffer for Christ's sake. What could a preaching of the Gospel to the dead antediluvians have to do with that? For these reasons, even though we should grant that the pass- age in chapter iii. refers to a proclamation of the Gospel made by Christ to those who perished in the deluge, we should still be com- pelled to deny that these words in chapter iv. could refer to the same event. Let the adjective dead, be referred to those who had 282 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. already suffered martyrdom for Christ's sake, and all these difficul- ties disappear. In the first place, as we have seen, the preaching must have preceded in time the judgment according to men in the flesh, because it is said to have been IN ORDER TO that judgment in the flesh. It must therefore have been a preaching to persons who were dead in deed at the time Peter was writing, but who at the time of the preaching here mentioned were alive. For how could they have been judged in the flesh after they were dead ? The passage thus states, as we understand it, that the Gospel was preached to certain persons who had already suffered martyrdom for Christ's sake and were now numbered with the dead, in order that they might by a human judgment be condemned, and thus by suffering glorify their Master, in thus becoming conformed to him. in suffering and death. But to continue the paraphrase — God had yet another purpose in causing his Gospe! to be preached to these persons ; it was no less in order that they might also live according to God in the spirit ; that is, that their death might be followed by the same glorious result as the death upon the cross of the Lord Jesus, — a making alive in the spirit, and that unto glory everlasting. Thus interpreted, the words form an argument of the greatest pertinence to the object that the apostle has before him in the con- text. For what greater encourageme.it to them t~ suffer with joy- ful faith and courage a martyr's death, than to remind them of those who had already fallen in like manner, and who, although thus judged and condemned in the flesh by a human judgment, had entered into a higher life according to God in the spirit, therein in death and life becoming more closely conformed to the Lord Jesus. Finally, while to our own mind these considerations seem quite decisive against the interpretation which makes Peter teach that the Gospel was preached on the occasion mentioned to the dead for their salvation ; yet even if all thus far said be set aside as in- conclusive, still the inference of a future offer of salvation to the heathen or to all will not yet be justified. For even though we NOTES ON PROBATIONISM AND PURGATORY. 283 should admit what the text docs not say, that the Gospel was preached by Christ during his three days in Hades to the antedi- luvian sinners, and that some or all were saved by it, which also the text does not say ; still this would not give us any adequate warrant for the inference that the Gospel will be preached in the intermediate state to any others, or at any other time. It has in- deed been urged that there is no mention of this work of preach- ing to the dead having ceased, and therefore we may rightly infer that it has not ceased. But surely it were much more reasonable to argue that as there is no indication that this proclamation, what- ever it was, continued for a longer time than the three days that our Lord remained in the disembodied state, therefore we have no right to assume that it continued longer. For the conditions under which the Gospel was offered to those souls at that time — assum- ing, contrary to fact, as we believe, that it was offered — were abso- lutely unique. Never had there been an occasion like that of the descent of the disembodied soul of the incarnate Son of God into Hades, and, in the nature of the case, there never will be such an occasion again. Looking at the practical aspect of the question, must we not say , with abundant reason, that in the face of such clear words as those of Christ concerning that impassable gulf between the right- eo is and the wicked in the other world, the man who on any such > onsiderations as we have reviewed, neglects to make sure of his salvation in this present life, is what the Bible so often calls the sinner, a " fool "? Again, what must we say to those who on the ground of any such arguments, venture to hold forth to sinners the hope of a second chance after death to repent and accept Christ ? And what, of any who for like reasons excuse themselves from the most earnest efforts to carry or send the gospel to the unevangel- ized ? Is there not great reason to fear that such will find them- selves in the last day with the blood of souls upon their skirts ? Professor S. H. Kellogg. (Presbyterian Review, April 1885.) AGNOSTICISM. ■'One Christmas Eve, in meaiseval times, Philip Von Sternberg, one who strove to know The enigma of the worlds of Fact and Thought, Sat in the midnight, while his lamp burned dim, Like his own unfed spirit. To the east A window, frosted, in the wintry night, , With ghosts of plumy flowers and tropic ferns Seemed, of a sudden, lighted by a beam Which was not dawn or moonlight, but a star Unseen before ; and, gliding through the glass, An angel stood, more radiant than the morn. " Surely this is Athene," thought the sage In his mute wonder. "Will she give to me The key to unlock the secret of the world?" Lowly he bowed his head, and waited there The word divine philosophers of old Gave their life's strength to hear, but never heard. " Philip" — the Presence seemed to say to him — Seek not to solve the riddle of the world, Shut in thy labyrinth of circling thought. Life, life alone, in deeds of use and love, Can free thee from the dungeon of thj- thoughts. He knoweth the truth who doth the Master's will." "Thenceforth, the scholar, self-involved, was lost ; Philip, the working saint, appeared — and lived A life which was a steady train of light, Whose radiance drowned the darting swarms of doubts As the sun drowns the meteors' earthward fires." "The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead ; so that they are without excuse." AGNOSTICISM. ^mB >sL' ^^ ICFORE concentrating our attention upon Univcrsalism, pure and simple, all that now remains is to refer to the Agnostic theory, which we have already defined, as 'v^A follows : " We know nothing whatever of the future ^Pv state. Nature throws no light upon the question, and the ^-^ Bible reveals nothing of a definite character to solve the mystery. No one has ever come back to tell us anything in regard to his welfare beyond the grave. We are, therefore, at liberty to think as we please. There may be, and there may not be, a future world. Wlien man dies that may be the end of him, or he may enter some fair land, to be forever free from the ills of the pres- ent life. It is to b'' "«=marked that ^hs term Agnasticism embraces eve./ shade of atheistic and infidel opinion. It has never, indeed, been authoritatively defined. Like the Athenians, it is "an unknown God" that Agnostics worship, if they worship a god at al', and so varied are the shades of belief held by its advocates, and so much do they differ as to a creed, that no specific definition can be given as to their real views. As Dr. Robert Watts, of Belfast, however, remarl.d, Agnosticism goes far beyond its Athenian prototype. The aliar which Paul fcund at Athens was dedicated "to an unknown God." The Athe- nians simply confessed a present ignorance of God : the Agnostics add to this nescient creed an article couched in the language of 288 FUTURE' PUNISHMENT. eternal despair, which places between moral intelligence of what- soever order, and the source- whence it is admittc J they and all things proceed, a gulf which is absolutely impassable. While the Athenian motto was " IGNORAMUS," we are ignorant, that of the Agnostics is " IGNORAMIBUS," we shall be ignorant. In the second century we find "the Gnostics" — the men who know : in the nineteenth the Agnostics," the men who do not know, and who boast of their ignorance. The Gnostics held that man could know something beyond the present ; — that God is made known to particular men, or to men at particular times, but only in virtue of a specially imparted power of vision. The Agnostics hold that beyond the testimony of the senses, and the range of experi- ence, he knows and can know nothing. " The vision of God which he sees is but his own shadow : the sight of heaven which he beholds is but his own dream ;" — thi^t the existence of any faculty for knowing God is a delusion ; and that of all that transcends the data furnished by observation and consciousness, there is nothing but total and hopeless ignorance. The Gnostics held that man pos- sessed a faculty, which far transcended the natural reason, and by which he had knowledge of the supernatural. The Agnostic denies to man all knowledge of the infinite and supernatural. The future world is shrouded in impenetrable mystery. Agnostics refuse to be- lieve in the cardinal doctrines of the Christian creed, such as the exist- ence of God and a future state, because as they allege, the human mind is inherently and constitutionally incapable of ascertaining anything concerning such things, and of deciding what may be true and what may be false. While David Hume, the atheistical Scotch philosopher, regarded the soul as neither material or spiritual, on the theory that we know nothing either of matter or spirit except as mo.Tientary impressions, the Agnostic says : " I believe neither in mind nor matter, nor in a God.' Agnosticism is not a ncv heresy, but has been held more or less in every age, although n.w more prominently avowed. Call it AGNOSTICISM 289 by its older names, Xcscicncc or Nihilism or its newer appellation it is the same — it affirms we know nothing. While Atheists deny the existence of a God possessing the attributes of omnipotence, intelligence and will, Agnostics say, that the nature of, or existence of any God, is unknowable. That there may or must be, some kind of first cause to account for the existence and order of the universe, Agnostics seem to admit. But instead of the language of Cv-."'pture, " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," they say, " an infinite and eternal energy by which all things are created and sustained," or according to the latest Agnostic creed, " An infinite and eternal energy from which all things pro- ceed." The Agnostic creed is as follows : " We believe in the conversation of the physical forces, in the law of evolution, and in the dissipation of energy. We believe in such other results of science as are known to us. But beyond this, nothing as to the powers in the world is clear to us. We know nothing about individual immortality ; nothing about any endless future progress of our species; nothing about the certainty that what men call from without goodness, must empirically triumph just here in this little world about us. All that is dark. " Wc confine ourselves to what we know : we do not venture into the unknowable. We do not ask about the first cause of the world, or whether it has a final end. We do not busy ourselves with the beginning of the universe, if the universe had a beginning, nor yet with what happens to living things, plants, animals or men after their death. We do not deny that there may be a God : we onl)- deny the existence of such a one as the Bible sets forth. Wc attack only the gods whom barbarous peoples have fashioned in their own imaginations and set up for our worship, and not any high or noble conception of a Deity. We fully admit the existence of a great and mysterious power or force in the universe which we cannot understand or comprehend. We believe in the great Unknown and Unknowable, and have no attack to make upon this power, 19 290 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. no word of ridicule, no blasphemy ; but stand in its presence with reverence and awe, acknowledging our ignorance. While, however, acknowledging this unseen Power, we decline to anthropomorphisc it — to call it a PERSON or being, and invest it with mental and moral functions similar to our own, differing only in degree not in kind. " Beyond this universe, all knowledge is a blank. We know nothing as to what set this vast moving mechanism in motion ; it may have moved from all eternity : it may go on moving ever- lastingly, or it ma}' wear itself out." The Marquis of Queensberry, who was rejected by the British House of Lords because he was an avowed Agnostic, in replying recently to Monsign* Capel, the distinguished Roman Catholic lecturer, gives the following, as the latest definition of the Agnostic creed : "The Agnostic has never said there is no divine, almighty inscrutable power, which, to the orthodox mind, would amount to the same thing as saying, •' There is no God." He may object to the word God. He does so, in fact,- when he perceives how many different impressions the word conveys in its attempted definition of an unknown power. Not because he denies the existence of some almighty, inscrutable power, but because he objects to the giving a name, such as God is, to that which he believes to be un- definable — aye, unthinkable of — by man. And in doing this he conveys the wrong impression to the orthodox mind — viz. : that he is denying the possibility of the existence of any such power that may be unknown. The question then, really, between the ortho- dox thinker and the Agnostic is not a question of the denial of the possible existence of an inscrutable power, but a squabble over the right of attempting to define it." Thus the Agnostic, unlike the Atheist who boldly says " there is no God," tries to keep his mind in this suspended state of doubt, yielding neither to the evidences that God is, nor to the theories which would account for the universe without a God. A century AGNOSTICISM. 29 1 ago men were more positive, in their convictions and avowals. The revolutionary Atheists of France, issued a decree prohibiting the worship of God, dethroning him from His supremacy, and in the Cathedral of Notre Dame knelt before a new deity of their own selection, the Goddess of Reason, personified by a degraded woman. In the language of Coleridge depicting the blasphemy of that age : " Forth from his dark and lonely hiding-place, (Portentous sight !) the owlet Atheism, Sailing on obscene wings, athwart the noon, Drops his blue-fringed lids and holds them close. And hooting at the glorious sun in heaven cries out, ' Where is it ?' " But Agnosticism stops short of such an honest declaration of its creed. It falls b xk upon the ignorance of man as to what lies back of the outward appearance of things. It acknowledges the facts and forces of the universe, but denies that we can go behind them and affirm anything positive of their origin. " Every house is built by some man," says the Theist. " Yes," replies the Agnostic, " but as to who or what built all things we do not know, for we were not there." Yet such men deny that they are Atheists. They only ignore God. Belief in a supreme Being was perhaps a useful hypothesis, in the ages prior to civilization and culture, but the better judgment of men now sees in nature, sufficient to account for all the material and moral changes in the world. Belief in a personality that sur- vives the grave, is now an exploded dogma, and trust in a God of omnipotent power and infinite wisdom, is no longer regarded as a requisite to man's happiness. Like the prayer said to have been offered by a soldier on the eve of battle, the Agnostic says : " O God, if there be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul !" Agnostics reject all forms of religion, yet claim to be religious. They cannot wor- ship in a Christian church, but they can bow the head before that Great Unknown of which they are assured only that IT IS. They 292 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. look on with pitying eye at men limiting themselves by their creeds, and hindering the day of their emancipation, but anticipate hope- fully a time when culture shall have taken the place of ignorance, and men will reverence more and more the phenomenal and the unknown NOUMENAL behind it, and gradually the one creed that will rise on the ruins of all others will be, that " amid all the mys- teries, which become more mysterious the more they are thought about, there will remain the one absolute certainty, that man is ever in the presence of an Infinite and Eternal Energy, from which all things proceed." One is amazed to understand how intelligent men, far less such as profess a profound knowledge of the advanced science and phil- osophy of the age, can subscribe to such a creed, and endeavor to urge its acceptance upon others. " Hopeless, because Godless," in the language of the apostle, is its characteristic. Hitherto ignor- ance of God has been regarded as a calamity or a sin. Now it is taught to be a necessity of reason. Agnosticism is formulated as a Philosophy, defended as a Theology, and hallowed as a Religion. It is not to be denied as Dr. McCosh remarks, that Mr. Herbert Spencer, one of the prominent apostles of this system, has advanced certain bold generalizations, that may in the end be established as the profoundest laws of the knowable universe. " But starting with the unknown and unknowable, he sets agoing a mechanical devel- opement out of physical data, in which there is no r quirement of moral law and no free will, the whole ending in a conflagration, having as the ashes only the unknown and unknowable with which it started." Principal Caird of the University of Glasgow says : " If this philosophy be true, it is the apotheosis of zero, its high- est type of religion would be sheer vacuity of mind, and of all human beings the idiot would be the most devout. The God of whom it proves us to be ignorant is not the God either of reason or of reve- lation — nor our infinitely wise, holy, loving, gracious Father in the Heavens, who has manifested Himself, His very nature and being, AGNOSTICISM. 293 in the perfect manhood of Christ — but a mere metaphysical ab- straction, loveless, lifeless, inane, of whom you can neither affirm anything nor deny anything ; who may, therefore, be just as likely foolish as wise, malignant as benign, evil as good. Who cares to be told that we labor under an inherent incapacity of knowing such a God ? These teachers come to us with an air of humility ; their philosophy is vaunted as the suppressor of all piide of reason. " Vain man would be wise," say they ; " but, henceforth, let intellec- tual arrogance hide its head. Let not human reason presume to erect itself into the criterion of truth, or to scan the being and ways of the Infinite !" But there is no real lesson of humility in such teaching. It IS a humiliating acknowledgment that through indolence or moral obliquity we lack a knowledge which we might have possessed, but there is no humility in confessing a necessary and involuntary ignorance. It does not imply any great meekness of spirit in a man to admit that he cannot fly, or walk on the sea, or that he does not possess a 7th, or loth, or 20th sense — for all these are natural incapacities which distinguish no one man from his neighbors. And so it is not humiliating to acknowledge; with our philosophers, that we do not know that which no mortal, no finite being, by any conceivable effort could ever know." It is not indeed difficult to summarize certain consequences that must follow the acceptance of such a creed. To deny that God is a person, naturally and logically leads to the denial of man's per- sonality. " He is only a highly-developed set of phenomena flower- ing out from a hidden root — the unknowable unknown." Next, the denial of a God must, to be consistent, be followed by the denial of a future state. Agnosticism teaches that of another life there are no tidings and few suggestions — a possibility, or perhaps a proba- bility, but no hope. Even this possibility is denied by many, and the probability against such a life argued as a certainty. All the analogies of nature are interpreted to prove the extinction of man's being at the moment of death. No God, or none that can be 294 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. known, or worshipped, or loved ; no soul, nothing but a succession of experiences proceeding under an inevitable law ; no immortality ; nothing but a future influence as useless as our lives, since it pro- ceeds from shadows, and only shadows are to be influenced by it ; no eternal laws of right and wrong ; no blame for guilt, or praise for patient, self-denying service ; no religion, and no true, high and hopeful life, for either the here or the hereafter — this is the creed of the creedless Agnostic, the belief of unbelievers, for which we arc asked to give up the faith and worship of our fathers. It is true that all Agnostics do not hold all the articles of this creed of unbelief. Perhaps very few do. But that is because they are not logical. He who accepts the premises — no power in me to perceive the invisible — cannot logically stop short of the conclusion : no God, no soul, no immortal future, no right and wrong, for these are all invisible. When we have thrown faith away, logic can give us for a God only a hypothetical IT ; for a conscious personality, a succession of phantasmagoria ; for a triumphant immortality. Nir- vana ; and for Right and Wrong, eternal and immutable, a supreme allegiance of conscience (if there be a conscience) to the commu- nity. There is, in a word, no true resting place between the full faith of the Christian in the Christian's Father-God, and the abso- lute negation of all faith, the sorrowful contentment of a mind which has emptied itself of all hope, and is at rest only because it has ceased to strive against a fate which is as inexorable as it is cruel. In perfect consistency then, Agnostics teach that another life would be of no value, that it is weak and ignoble to expect it, and that an ideal existence in the lives of others by the continuance of our thoughts and activities, is all that is necessary to complete and perfect man's destiny. In an account given of a funeral service in New York City conducted by Professor Felix Adlcr, an apostle of this new philosophy, these words occur : " I am here in the name of you all, to pronounce the last words of farewell : Friends, I say the AGNOSTICISM. 295 '•\st word — a long, sweet good night"! And moio recently when Dr. Damrosch the great musician died, and the coffin lay before the vast audience which filled the Mctrooolitan Opera House from floor to dome, and he is called upon to speak to the solemn and sor- rowing hearts in that vast assembly, this is all his message : " I have come to lay upon this bier three wreaths. The wreath of success : he had just grasped it when death paralyzed his arm, and it dropped from his helpless hand. I pick it up and lay it on his bier. The wreath of fame : his name we will cherish though he is gone ; he is no more, but the memory of his honored life lives on. The wreath of an earthly immortality : we may not see his face again, but his influence survives him, and shall reproduce his spirit in our earthly lives." What a barren consolation beside the prom- ise, " In ni / Father's house are many mansions ; I go to prepare a place for you ; and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, that where I am, there ye may be also ;" or beside the tri- umphant welcome to a death no longer grim : " This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. Death is swallowed up in victory, O death, where is thy sting? grave, where is thy victory ?" It is freely admitted that there are many things, matters of divine revelation, which must be accepted by faith, or not at all, which the human mind cannot understand or grasp. We see them but through a glass darkly, and only know them in part. Such doc- trines as the Trinity, the origin of evil, the method of the Spirit's operations upon the soul, embracing God's sovereignty and man's free agency — the state of the disembodied between death and the resurrection, the nature of the resurrection body, the manner and time of the Lord's return to earth, the heavenly state and the nature of future punishment — these are only outlined to human concep- tion, a dark veil prevents us entering the holy shrine, where such things belong ; " they are placed behind a crystal banner, transpar- ent but strong," so that however reverently we may study them, we cannot handle them and examine them on every side. 290 ' FUTURE I'UNlSHMliNT. "But to know that we know nothing, is already to have reached a fact of knowledge. When a man says, that the Power which rules the universe is inscrutable to him, he is not merely making a state- ment that he knows nothing about it — he is making a positive and not a negative statement : he is declaring that the Power which rules the universe has awakened within him a sense of mysterj', and has caused him to become conscious of a barrier to his own con- sciousness. To feel that the primal force of the universe is inscru- ♦^ablc is to be conscious of our own ignorance, and to be one step removed from absolute ignorance, is to know something of God. To know something of God, is to have something of God in us. The life which perceives ils human limitation has already in some sense surmounted its limits ; and it can only have surmounted its limits by having received into some phase of its being, a portion of that illimitable force whose presence has created within a vision of the illimitable." " For surely there is hope to find. Wherever there is power to seek ; And wc could never think or speak Of light, had we from birth been blind." But this is very different from the allegations of Agnostics, who teach that nothing can be known of God and the future ; that to ascribe personality to the Supreme Being is unphilosophical ; that the affirmation of theology, regarding the incomprehensible God, is unjustifiable ; that there can be no knowledge of supersensual ob- jects ; that the mind cannot be perceptive beyond the impressions received through the senses, and that we cannot even say whether there is a being outside of and controlling this visible world. Regard- ing the more important and fundamental doctrines of the Christian creed, Agnosticism says they cannot be known, and no one can make an honest profession of knowing them ; the mind is inher- ently and constitutionally incapable of ascertaining anything regard- ing such themes ; the powers bestowed upon the creature by the AC^OSTICISM. ' 297 Creator L.e not trustworthy, and cannot be relied upon ; religion and revelation must therefore be rejected as presenting only cre- dentials which the human mind is incapable of testing, and therefore there can be no real objective knowledge of God and divine things. Agnosticism does not say that there is no God, no immortality, no future state of rewards and punishments, no heaven and no hell, but it says no one can predicate with perfect assurance that such a being and such things exist. It is blank infidelity as regards all that con- cerns man in his present relations to his Maker and his future con- dition in the world to come — death, in the language of the Agnostic, is after all a leap in the dark. Spurgeon's description of sucn a creed is perhaps as good as any that can be found. Speaking of such men he says : " They arc as a rolling thing before the whirlwind, having no fixed basis, no abiding foundation of belief. They set themselves as industri- ously to breed doubt as if salvation came by it. Doubt and be saved is t^heir Gospel. Such uncertainty suits me not. I must know something or I cannot live. I must be sure of something, or 1 have no motive from which to act. God never meant us to live in perpetual questioning. His revelation is not, and cannot be that shapeless cloud, which certain philosophic divines rr ake it out to be. There must be something true, and Christ must have come into the world to teach us something saving and reliable. There is assuredly some ascertainable, infallible, revealed truth for com- mon people, something sure to rest upon. Until the preacher knows the Gospel in his own heart as the power of God unto sal- vation, let him sit on the penitent form, and ask to be prayed for, but never enter a pulpit." How different from the negative, halting, uncertain attitude of certain teachers in our day, who speak of the Bible as only an uncertain and progressive revelation, are the clear ringing words of the late Dr. Candlish, when he say : " I avow it as my sole aim, to advocate as best I may, that, not only is the word of God in the Bible, but that the Bible is itself in the strictest 298 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. and fullest sense, in every particular of its contents, and in every expression which it uses, the infallible word of the only living and true God." Now in opposition to Agnosticism, we hold that God is not unknowable. " If there are some who know Him not, ii is because they have determined before hand that He is unknowable ; if they see Him not, it is because they have raised a cloud before their eyes ; if they hear Him not, it is because they scorn to hearken. It is because they consider Him a problem of Euclid to be dem- onstrated, and approach Him with the intellect, .md leave the heart behind." If unknowable, to all practical purposes, he ceases to exist, and as to loving a God of whom we know nothing, and of whose very existence we are in doubt, the thing is impossible. We believe that God has given us an infallible revelation — we believe in the fact of human depravity — we believe in the incarnation, death, and the resurrection of Christ — we believe in the testimony of Scripture, that atonement is necessary for the remission of sin, and believing that those who avail themselves of the salvation offered by Christ shall be saved, and those who reject it shall be lost, we must come to certain conclusions as to a future existence, and cannot if wc would, treat such momentous questions with in- difference. That men can avow such absolute and abject ignorance ; that they should not only be contented with such a negative creed, but compass sea and land to make new diciples, is marvellous in an age, when the deepest problems of philosophy, are being solved, and new evidence discovered, not only of the being of a God, but of a far-reaching and unending future, when He shall ^^eal Himself still more clearly to the gaze of perfected humanity. No man, it seems to me, can be an agnostic with the convicticns of conscience within him, apart altogether from the teaching of the Bible. The old Hebrew patriarchs saw God everywhere, not as an object of superstitious devotion, but as the sublime ruler of the universe. The AGNOSTICISM. 299 globe was not materialized as it is to-day, and deified. God was associated in their minds with everything in external nature, and so it should be to-day, with the increased acuteness of mind, that characterizes civiiiz'^d and christian lands. The beauty and grandeur and wise adaptations of nature, should call forth the intelligent ador- ation of every reflecting mind. " Insects as well as angels, the lowers that spangle the meadow, as well as the stars that spangle the sky, the lamp of the glow-worm as well as the light of the sun, the lark that sings in the air and the saint that is singing in Par- adise, the still, small voice of conscience as well as the thunders that rend the clouds, or the trump that shall rend the tomb, these and all things else reveal God's attributes and proclaim His praise." The men who c fivocate Agnostic principles, are not generally examples of humility, but are boastful of their intellectual powers. It is not an honest consciousness, and frank acknowledgment of the littleness of the creature, compared with the Creator, that makes them profess such utter helplessness in arriving at some distinct idea, of the nature of that shoreless eternity upon which we are soon to enter. It is rather the pride of human reason, that cha'- lenges the need of a superior being. Vain conceited man would in the language of Pope : " Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod, Rejudge his justice, be the God of God.'"' Schiller, whose muse was conscience, well says : " God hides himself behind eternal laws. Which, and not Hirr the skeptic seeing, exclaims, There is no God ; And never did a Christian's adoration So praise Him as this skeptic's blasphemy." Augustine spent many ^ rs, m a vain endeavor to grasp the xloctrine of the Trinity in its i. 11 significance. He rushed one day with burning brow, to seek the breezes of the seaside. He found 300 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. there a child vvno had scooped away the sand, and was pouring water into the hole he had made. With boyish glee the youth told the grey-haired saint, in answer to his question, that he would dip all the waters of the ocean and pour them into the sand. " No, no," replied Augustine, " your hollow will not hold the ocean, and can I, a creature, comprehend the Creator?" Theology is indeed, as Lyman Beechcr says, a mighty deep. It has its calms and storms, its joys and dangers. Weak souls, and some strong ones also, may be wrecked if they venture too far without taking their proper bearings. But this is very different from saying that there is nothing certain in the whole circle of Christian doctrine, and that we have no fuller knowledge of God than the agnosticism of the old Athenian altar. There arc certain revealed truths that we are as assured of as we are of our own existence. Should we hold our peace concerning them, the very stones would cry out against us and rebuke our infidelity. The story is told us of a y^oung German Countess who lived about a hundred years ago — a noted unbeliever, and especially op- posed to the doctrine of the resurrection. She died when about thirty years of age, and before her death gave orders that her grave should be covered with a solid slab of granite ; that around it should be placed a square block of stone, and that the corners should be fastened to each other and to the granite slab by heavy iron clamps. Upon the covering this inscription was placed : " This burial place, purchased to all eternity, must never be opened." All that human power could do to prevent any change in that grave was done, but a little seed sprouted, and the tiny shoot found its way between the side stone and the upper slab, and grew there slowly but steadily, forcing its way until the iron clamps were torn asunder and the granite lid was raised, and is now resting upon the trunk of the tree, which is large and flourishing. Thus does nature silently foreshadow the unfoldings of the future with its resurrection to damnation or eternal life. AGNOSTICISM. 30I Agnosticism it has well been said, can never become the creed of the great body of any people ; but should it ever be taught by the science and philosophy of the day, its influence on the youths who might be led not to amuse themsel/es with it, but by faith to receive it, would be that they would find some of the hindrances to vice removed, and perhaps some of the incentives to evil encour- aged. Under its blighting influences, humanity would retrograde and repeat the barbarism of the dark ages. It fails to satisfy the yearn- ings of the soul ; it takes from man, all those consolations that sustain in the hour of trial : it affords no help to bear patiently, the burdens of the present life : it gives no promise of a future, for which this is but a preparation, and sheds no light upon the grave. Frederick Harrison the Apostle of Humanitarianism, as against Herbert Spencer's Agnosticism (although both systems are essen- tially Atheistic) with merciless sarcasm, thus shows the falsity and futility of the latter. A child looks up in the wise and meditative face of the Agnostic philosopher and says : Oh ! wise and great master, what is religion ? He tells that child, it is the presence of the unknowable. But what asks the child am I to believe about it? Believe that you can never know anything about IT ! And a mother wrung with agony for the loss of her child, or the wife crushed by the death of her children's father, or the help- less and the oppressed, the poor and the needy, men, women and children, in sorrow, doubt, and want, longing for something to com- fort them and to guide them, something to believe in, to hope for, to love and to worship — they come to the philosopher and they say, Your men of science have routed our priests and have silenced our old teachers. What religious faith do you give us in its place? And the philosopher replies (his full heart bleeding for them) " Think on the Unknowable !" If such a theory can never be accepted by the masses, much less can it ever become the creed of a sound philosophy. The remark that a really great man cannot be a Materialist is founded 302 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. on reason. He is conscious of something- within him superior to the subtlest forms and forces of matter. Neither can he be an Agnostic, for he finds the imap-e of God's attributes and the echo of God's voice in his soul. This consciousness of immortality which is inseparable from true genius, is beautifully expressed by the late Victor Hugo when he says : . "There are no occult forces, there are only luminous forces. Occult force is chaos, the luminous force is God. Man is an infi- nitely little copy of God ; this is glory enough for man. I am a man, an invisible atom, a drop in the ocean, a grain of sand on the shore. Little as I am, I feci the God in me, because I can also bring form out of my chaos. I make books which are creations. I feel in myself the future life. I am like a forest which has been more than once cut down — the new shoots are stronger and livelier than ever. I am n'sing, I know, toward the sky. The sunshine is on my head. The earth gives me its generous sap, but heaven lights me "/jth the reflection of unknown worlds. You say the soul is nothing bu<- the resultant of bodily powers. Why, then, is my soul the more 'uminous when my bodily powers begin to fail? Winter is on my head, and eternal spring is in my heart. There I breathe at this hour the fragrance of the lilies, the violets, and the roses, as at twenty year? ago. The nearer I approach the end, the plainer I hear around me the immortal symphonies of the worlds which invite me. It is mat vel'ous, yet simple. It is a fairy talc, and it is histo''y. For half a century I have been writing my thoughts in pros'' and verse — history, philosophy, drama, romance, tradition, sa*:**'e, ode. ard song — I have tried all. But I feel I have not said the thousandth part of what is in me. When I go down to the grave I can say, like so many others, " I have finished my day's work," but I cannot say " I have finished my life." My day's work will begin again the next morning. The tomb is not a blind alley ; it is a thoroughfare. It closes on the twilight to open with the dawn." AGNOSTICISM. 303 To ask men to give up the stable truths of Revelation for sucli a baseless system, is presumptuous folly : to ask them to worship an unknown and unknowable divinity, instead of a living, personal, almighty and all-wise God ;s an insult to man's judgment. And yet this is what Agnosticis, /ainly seeks after. On the principle that ignorance is the mother of devotion, Agnostics put forth high claims for their theory, because of the reverence and awe which this unknown essence is fitted to inspire. " But there can be no true reverence or affection cherished towards anything that is un- known. The mind does not experience the emotion of the beauti- ful, or the grand, or the sublime, when the objects necessary to awaken it are absent, or kept in abeyance. The same is true of the moral emotions. They can have no existence, where there have not been presented to the moral agent the materials for a moral judgment. We experience the emotion of awe toward nothing which does not impress us by the manifestations of awe-inspiring attributes. And when these emotions of awe and reverence rise into the sublime rapture of genuine adoration, their elevation is due not to cessation of thought, but to the apprehended glory of Him, before whose presence the seraphims veil their vision with their wings. Agnosticism, despite its pretensions, must be adjudged unphilosophic, unscientific, and irreligious." NOTES ON AGNOSTICISM. NOTES ON AGNOSTICISM. F MAN is naturally ungodly and ungrateful, he Is not naturally an atheist. Mankind are disposed to believe in a being, or at least a power, above this world, regu- ^■^ lating it, and making it bestow those gifts which we are constantly receiving. I am not inclined to maintain *^ that this belief is gendered by some separate instinct, or God consciousness, as the German theologian, Schleiermacher, calls it. It is the product simply of the ordinary operating powers of the mind, as men observe the world above and around them, and the still more wonderful world within. We have as clear proof of the being of God as we have of the existence of our fellow creatures. I am conscious of my own soul ; and it is a very easy and a very logical argument which leads me to be sure that my fellow men also have souls. I discover intelligent acts, and I conclude that there must be intelligent actors. On the same principle, on discov- ering the adaptation of one thing to another, and the wonderful provision made for the protection and preservation of sentient crea- tures, I argue a designing mind. In the exercise of my intelligence I discover intelligence, and benevolence as well, everywhere around me. I must absolutely abnegate my own intelligence if I am not allowed to perceive intelligence in that plant, in that animal, in these goodly frames of ours, and in the bounties daily received by us. There thus comes a voice from without us, re-echoed in the depths of our own hearts, proclaiming a power to be revered and loved. 308 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. As observing these things, as feeling in this way, there is an impulse prompting every man to acknowledge this superior power or being, and in a sense to worship it — the worship all the while, in consequence of the weakness and ungodliness of our nature, being so far an ignorant one. When special favors are bestowed, man's natural propensity is to give thanks — it may be, to an unknown God. When, on the other hand, sudden calamity comes, he is tempted to rebel against the power which has prostrated him, but quite as frequently the prayer will burst from him, " O God help me I" When man is in perplexity, and knows not whither to turn, he feels relief in appealing to One, who from a greater height, sees farther than he himself does. When we have wandered, we look anxiously round for some one to show us the right path. When we are sinking in the waves, we cry for a hand to lift us up. These spontaneous impulses and acts of the heart are the homage which mankind unconsciousiy pay to God and to religion. The leading philosophic and religious error of this day is not Unitarianism, which, in fact, is dead and laid out for decent burial. It is not Rationalism, for thinking men now see that human reason cannot construct a religion. It is not exactly Atheism. Few are so bold as to assert or argue that there is no God. They claim : " We do not deny the existence of God, we are not so presumptous as this ; we make no denials, we simply maintain that we have no evidence." The most influential error of the day, the one underlying every other, is what is called " Agnosticism." The founder of it in modern times is David Hume, usually called the Skeptic ; he would be called in the present day an Agnostic. According to this system we do not know things, we simply know appearances ; and we know not and cannot know whether there is any reality beyond, or, if there be, what the reality is. Its sup- porters virtually affirm that truth cannot be found. When thor- oughly and conscientiously carried out, it means that we cannot know anything. More frequently it means that We cannot discover NOTES ON AGNOSTICISM. 309 any truth beyond what the senses reveal, that we can have no cer- tainty of spiritual truth, or indeed of moral truth, except as utility, or the power of imparting pleasure. This want of creed, or rather sentiment, is lowering the moral tone and religious faith of educated young men. It is bred in the damps of the earth ; it rises up and is in the air ; it covers the heavens from the view, and we breathe it as malaria. It is easy to show that it is suicidal. It is contradictory to maintain that we know, that we can know nothing. But when we have done this, we have not destroyed the error any more than we have killed a specter by thrusting a sword into it. For the strength of its de- fense, is, that supposed truth is contradictory, and therefore not to be believed. The only way to meet it is to stand firm, and to point to truth which we know as being self evident, and which we arp constrained to believe. What we have to do with those who favor the system is to set the truth before them and let it shine in its own light. Wc know that we exist, we know that others exist. Proceeding on in the same way, wc find that God exists, that we are capable of knowing the distinction between right and wrong, and that we are responsi- ble to God for the deeds done in the body, whether they have been ^T^ood, or whether they have been evil. We have as strong evidence of the higher and spiritual truths as we have of the lower. I have evidence that I exist, but I have also proof that God exists, the Author of my being. These men would accept the lower truths, what can be seen and felt in pleasure and in pain, in what they eat, and what they drink, in meat and in money, and some are anxious to secure as many earthly goods as possible. Their Agnosticism^ practically, and in fact, consists simply in their affirming and trying to persuade others, especially young men, that we know nothing of the higher truths, of moral and spiritual truth, of God, of immor- tality, and a judgment day. This is the deadly influence of the system. It is seeking to kill the germs of spiritual life, which are 3IO FUTURE PUNISHMENT. deep down in our nature, so as to keep them from germinating. It is undermining the faith of the rising generation, and holding back all the aspirations of the soul, which lead to high ideals, and to deeds of heroism and self-sacrifice. It is filling the air with doubts, difficulties, uncertainties, and perplexities. It can be shown that we have good and valid proofs of these higher truths of morality and religion, even as we have of the lower ones of sense and sight. If we neglect either kind of truth, evil consequences must follow. If we do not eat and drink, we must die. If we refuse to believe in ethical and spiritual truth, we offend God and must suffer the penalties of a broken law, and live wi'Vout the grand belief and hopes that elevate and cheer the mind. God is declared in His works. " The heavens declare the glory of God," the whole earth is full of His praise. It is the declared doctrine of Paul, and, I may add, of the highest philosophy which ever carries us up to this high region. " The invisible things of God are clearly seen, being understood from the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead." — REV. Jajmes McCoSH, D. D., Presi- dent, Princeton College, N. J. . AGNOSTICISM. BY Tim REV'D JOHN BURTON, B. D., TORONTO. HE late Sir William Hamilton, in his discussions on -^ mental philosophy, wrote : " The last and highest con- ';) secration of all true relifiion must be an altar Ag- NOSTO TilEO, to the unknown and unknowable God." Agnostic is a word anglicised during the latter half of this *^ nineteenth century. Worcester's large dictionary of 1864 does not contain it. It has fallen to the lot of this present genera- tion, to erect in the midst of our Christian civilization and thought, the Athenian altar anew, to worship the unknown and the un- knowable. There has been much conjecture as to the occasion of such an altar being erected as Paul found in Athens. There is a story of a pestilence being stayed by Epimenides taking white and black sheep to the Areopagus, letting them go, and commanding those who followed to sacrifice them when they stopped, to the god to whom these things pertained. Thus, it is said, the custom began of dedi- cating altars to Gods unknown. To us the suggestion has greater probability, that the Athenian altar was an outcome of schools of philosophy, which, very much after that Sir Wm. Hamilton followed, taught the hopelessness of 312 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. man seeking to know the Infinite. We know such teachings pre- vailed, the rvy of iiroo^ence, the evasion of responsibility. Among the rich *reasii''es or the past in the Vatican at Rome, is an altar tablet dug up at Ostia, on which is inscribed " Signum indeprchensi- bilis dei " — The sign of the incomprehensible God. At Sais, a sacred city of Lower Egypt, over the veil of the presiding deity Isis, there is said to have been the inscription : " I am all that has been, and all that is, and all that shall be, and no mortal hath lifted my veil." It will be seen therefore that the " Unknown " and the " Unknowable " God, is not a mere conception of modern thought, — that humili*:y of philosophy which would thus belittle man's powers, the old world had. There is little new in human thought, there- fore, we propose no novelty in meeting the Agnostic position, that God cannot be known. Nor shall I attempt a philosophical trea- tise, only in so far as metaphysics meet us in its more popular form, wild any effort be made to make manifest its subtleties. Any conception we may have of God must be of an infinite being, at least thus have we been taught ; but says Agnosticism, the finite cannot know the infinite, therefore God cannot with cer- tainty be known. Speaking in general terms, there exists a belief, primitive or evolved it matters not, in infinity. Is this belief a mere negation ? a conviction simply of ignorance ? That we can form no picture of the infinite is confessed, that it surpasses know- ledge is true ; but did Paul write nonsense when he wrote of "know- ing that which passeth knowledge?" Eph. iii. 19. We can form no image of boundless space or of endless existence, and yet if on morning wings we fly to the outmost bound of visible creation, wc are irresistibly carried on in thought to the beyond, and death com- pels the conviction of an " AFTER death." The conceptions may not be grasped in their vastness, but they are real conceptions, and matters of irresistible conviction. What being is we may not be able to divine ; that It Is, we are constrained to confess, let reason do its worst or its best. Our knowledge may be bounded within AGNOSTICISM. 313 the bounds we know ; but the consciousness of a bound is not merely negative, it carries with it the irresistible conviction of a beyond. When then the Agnostic speaks to me of God as "the Eternal Why, to which no man has replied ; the Infinite Enigma, which no Sphinx has solved," I can only say the Why exists, the Enigma remains ; and my entire spiritual nature rebels against the negative creed : from its impotence, and from the compelled ambi- guity of terms, I turn, and I say, the Why must be answered, the Enigma must be read. What do men mean when they say they know ? Plainly we do not know the fragrance of spring flowers as we know the hardness of stone ; the latter gives a sense of resistance to our touch, the other brings simply a pleasurable sensation ; in popular speech, we have a knowledge of both. What do we know of the social rela- tions of life ? Can a child prove his relationshship to father, brother, or relatives ? And yet society rests securely on this know- ledge of faith. The child accepts the relationship first as a simple matter of surroundings, then, experience confirming, the faith of childhood grows into the assurance of manhood ; and this article of faith possesses more practical strength than many beliefs logically demonstrated. I readily admit it to be an easy matter to raise doubts about this or anything, but I suspect we should listen some- what impatiently to a demand that every man should prove his parentage, upon the same principle that would satisfy an engineer that a bridge was safe. The piano tuner does not adjust the strings by the same faculty a mason employs in building his wall perpen- dicular ; aud a man may know perfectly that a line of posts is straight, yet be utterly unable to discern the shade of a picture. To ask that we should know God, who is spirit, as A^e know even an electric shock, would therefore seem to be an absurdity. Before we accept Agnostic helplessness as our Ultima Thule, we may justly enquire whether there may not be an overlooked faculty, by means of which we may discern a God. AGNOSTICISM. 3 1 5 speaks no more of God. Let them be reverenced, and wherever m the history of mankind, or among our fellows, we observe lives moved by high aspiration, cherishing loyalty to duty, and that rev- erence for goodness and truth, which speaks of the great destiny to be revealed, we must also acknowledge the revelation of the Most High." This is the truth of Isaiah Ivii. 17. The evil heart is the hiding from us, of the light of God's countenance. No man need expect a revelation of God, as he follows after covetousness. Surely the sordid spirit is not the sense by which to perceive the God of mercy, nor the ways of sin the means to discern the Lord of right- eousness and truth. The old prophets taught true philosophy in such verses as Isaiah Ixvi. 1-2. Here the rejoinder is ready, that this is simply the heart mak- ing its own God. Let us examine this a moment. Is the multi- plication table a fiction because man has formulated it, and the mind needs culture to comprehend it ? Is the difference between notes unreal, because the practised ear alone can nicely adjust them ? Men do not take a stunted flower or a deformed animal to describe a class or a species. Why take the distorted life, or the faculties of the lower plane to discern and to verify the true relation sustained to the infinite ? It is not to an imperfect telescope the astronomer looks for his discoveries, nor to the ill constructed model, the mechanic, whereby his invention may be tested. True, discoveries have been made with the aid of poor instruments, and mechanisms tested by inferior models. So the poor Indian with untutored mind, may see God in clouds, and hear Him in the wind. Nev'_''theless we desire keener spiritual sight, whereby to discern the King in His beauty, and the land that is afar off. It is a great thing to be a conscientious man. We must respect, even with fear, a man who orders himself by the sense of duty. What is duty if it be not a sense of relationship to a ^oral power, not ourselves ? And what moral power can there be without per- sonality ? Evolution would account for conscience and for its moral 3l6 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. cestinctions, by the accumulated experience of the race finding certain lines of action to be in the main such as give pleasure. Yet herein is the marvel. There IS a special course of action which ultimately prevails, which is exactly the position of the writer of Ecclesiastes : " Though a sinner do evil an hundred times, and pro- long his days, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God." Ecclesiastes viii. 12-13. Only the Bible makes the Evolutionists course of nature the way of God, which at least has the virtue of simplicity. How are we to get gold from a vault if it has not been put there ? An empty pocket is helpless in the world's exchange. How is evolution to take place where involution has not been ? Whence came the possibility of that evolved sense of responsibility? My conscience brings me into the very presence of a Being who searches the heart and trieth the reins of the children of men. I cannot evade the conviction ; and when the gospel proclaims the waj'^ of access to God to be by faith, and faith to be gained by obedience : " If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doc- trine," I cannot say God is unknowable until I have endeavored in that way. He that is of the truth heareth my voice, saith ihc Christ, to understand which, even though we cannot at first cm- brace, we must be at least willing to " enter in." Leaving out of question the character of the Bible as a direct re . elation from God, it is at least a wonderful record of hum.m experience, and it speaks of a knowledge some at least have gained. " Beloved, let us love one another : for love is of God, and every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God, for God is love." The record of the life that found not God in THIS way of seeking, has yet to be written, has yet to be found. Reader, your life, what is it ? A sacrifice upon an altar to an unknown God ? or a consecrated service to the God of love ? The spirit of the age may say, " where is thy God ?" Nevertheless God lias written His witness on every heart that waiteth for Him ; and AGNOSTICISM. 317 the man who enters teachably the school of Christ, will learn with an assurance not to be gainsaid, " He that hath seen the Christ hath seen the Father." Agnosticism is Pessimism. We do not need it. Christianity smgs "O hearts of love ! O souls that turn, Like sunflowers, to the pure and best! To you the truth is manifest. For they the mind of God discern Who lean, like John, on Jesus' breast.' -jp'^^i^V 314 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. An old and skeptical surgeon is reported to have said, that he had dissected many bodies and cut into many a living frame with- out finding any trace of a soul. I have examined many vegetable cells under the microscope, without finding any trace of that li'"e which causes to bud and bloom. I never expect to see life by means of a lens. Is life the less a reality, because neither surgeon's knife or optician's glass discern it ? Nor can science lay bare the living God to the heart of man. We must search for God in that region where his presence is to be found, and not speak of an unknowable, because a God-discerning faculty has been neglected or overlooked, or because other senses have failed to see. When Paul wrote, "the world through its wisdom knew not God,"(i Cor. i. 2i), he wrote not merely a fact in history, but also one of the most profound of philosophic truths. God is not to be discovered by the teaching of the schools, nor to be worked out as a problem in mathematics. That does not, however, declare him to be either unknown or unknowable. Paul's declaration still stands that the truth of God may be known : " because tha*" which may be known of God is manifested in them. For the invisible things of Him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity." Rom. i. 19-20. The Christ taught : " The pure in heart shall see God." Matt. V. 8, If this be true — it is at least reasonable — we need not rise on fancy's wing, or search through infinite space, nor walk along lines of intricate reasoning. God is known to the humble heart, revealed to the contrite spirit, the pure in heart — they see Him. Let but the eyes of such an heart be opened, and like the servant of Elisha of old, we shall find ourselves environed by His glory. " There are sanctities of life and of duty, of home and affection, of sympatliy and of helpfulness, of penitence and of prayer, which daily speak of him to those who will lend an car. Let these be neglected or profaned, and wc do not wonder if earth loses its consecration, and UNIVERSALISM. "And is there in God's world so drear a place Where the loud bitter cry is raised in vain ? Where tears of penance come too late for grace, As on th' uprooted flower the genial rain ? "Tis even so : the sovereign Lord of souls, Stores in the dungeon of his boundless realm, Each bolt, that o'er the sinner vainly rolls, With gather'd wrath the reprobate to whelm." "These shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal." "If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city," UNIVERSALISM. HE word Universalism is used in two senses: as the common appellation of a whole system of faith, and as the name of a single distinctive doctrine. Universal- ists profess to believe and teach the authenticity, gen- uineness and inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, in the same manner as they are held by Christians generally. They believe that the Old and New Testaments contain the revealed will of God ; and, with all Protestants, they maintain that the Bible is the only and sufficient rule of faith and practise. They believe and teach the existence of the one living and true God, the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of all worlds, beings, and things. They believe that God is self-existent, independent and eternal : omnis- cient and omnipotent : infinite in wisdom, goodness and power : in justice, mercy and truth. They believe that to manifest his love for the human race, God sent his son Jesus Christ i .to the world, to reveal more perfectly the divine character and purposes, and finally, through death and the resurrection, to bring life and immortality to light. They believe in the Holy Spirit, whose fruits in the believing soul are love, joy, peace, longsuffering, &c. ; in the necessity of repentance, and reformation of heart and life: in the nt'w birth, or change of heart, effected in the soul by a cordial belief of gospel truth, and accompanied by the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit : in the importance of good works, not to purchase salvation or gain the love of God — for salvation is of free grace 81 322 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. alone — but as the natural fruits of thj ryospel cordially received, the evidences of indwelling grace, and because they are good and profitable to men. They believe in the universal resurrection of the dead : in a life and immortality for the human race beyond the grave, where the mortal shall put on immortality, and where men can die no more, but shall be as the angels, and be children of God. They reject the doctrine of vicarious atonement, and assert the fundamental truth that every transgressor must suffer the punish- ment of his own sins, either here or hereafter. They teach the forgiveness or removal of sin, but not of pun- ishment. They deny the doctrine of total depravity and original sin, and assert the natural goodness of the human heart. They teach that salvation is not deliverance from the torment- of an endless hell, but from the bondage of sin ; that it is inward and spiritual, and not from any outward evil. They teach the necessity of repentance and regeneration as the equivalent of salvation ; that there can be no salvation without these, since without them there can be no abandonment of sin. They teach that all punishment, whether here or hereafter, is corrective, and must, therefore, come to an end. And finally, that through the agencies of His infinite wisdom and love, God will reconcile and restore all souls to himself Briefly stated the Universalist creed is as follows : " That there is one God, whose nature is love, revealed in one Lord Jesus Christ by one holy spirit of grace, who will finally restore the whole family of mankind to holiness and happiness." Or, quoting the language of a prominent minister of the denomination, who has written largely in defence of the doctrine, it may be expressed in the fol- lowing terms : " All nations who ever have, do now, or will here- after exist on earth, all whom God has made, or ever will make in our world, shall in due time be brought into a condition of mind UNIVERSALISM. 323 and heart to worship the Lord in the beauty of hoh'ness. It is God's will, His purpose, His determination that all men shall be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth." It ought in fairness to be added, that Universalists are not fully agreed upon all points of doctrine. They differ in their views regarding the freedom of the will, some adopting the theory of Edwards, and others that of his opponents, and also as to the place and duration of punishment, some believing in limited punishment in the future state, and others not. In these points, however, they are all agreed : ist. That a being of infinite wisdom, power and benevolence, never would bring into existence creatures to be etern- ally miserable. 2nd. That the eternal existence of sin is incompa- tible with the holiness of God. 3rd. That the sins of finite creatures never can merit eternal punishment. 4th. That inasmuch as every benevolent man desires the salvation of the race, it is not to be supposed that God is less benevolent than His creatures. The orthodox or evangelical view of future punishment as opposed to Universalism is as already stated : Future punishment is everlasting. At death the state is fixed for eternity. No man who dies impenitent will after death change his character and obtain pardon. Sin is self propagating. Where sin continues punishment will continue. Reform in another state of existence is not suppos- able. Men who persevere in sin from the beginning to the end of life will persevere in sin forever, and such as refuse forgiveness here will never obtain it hereafter. It is appointed unto men once to die, and afterwards there comes — not probation — not the offer of mercy, but the judgment. Thus far we have seen that the doctrine of eternal punishment is attacked on all sides. Some teach that there is no future exist- ence after death ; others that there is no hell ; others again, that it matters little, whether they suffer or not. Universalists, who form- erly denied all future punishment, on the grounds that it would be 324 FUTUFiK I'UNISIIMKNT. evidence of the cruelty of God, now believe in a punishment that comes to an end. It is not now tau^dit that nobody ^oes in, but that cverbody pets out. That has an end, of which they said formerly, it had no beginning. Hell is now said to be on the way to heaven a sort of traininjj school, — as against the old doctrine, that it was the final portion of such as refused heaven. This much however is certain, that belief in some kind of future punishment is increas- ing, althoui^h, the almost universal belief as to its nature and dura- tion, may be chant,n'n^f. Indecxl, save in the case of materialists, who (\cny the immortality of the soul, the fact of future punishmtMit is conceded. We need not then pcrph^x ourselves so much about its nature, if we believe that the sinner shall assuredly suffer tlu.- full penalty of his sin. Is it possibN.* for sin to exhaust [)ower in a bcinp who dies impenitent? Is there anything in God's word, or in the divine character, that pj^ives reasonable hope of future restor- ation to the favor and friendship of God ? This, more than tii(; nature of future retribution, is the all important questicjn w(- have to solve — and that not .so much by the teachinj^rs of nature, and 'lIio conflicting opinions of reasf)n, as by the testimony of God's worrl. Every one knows, however, that Qnivcrsalists have not c(;nfined themselves to this simi)le question, but have endeavored to bias simple minds by asserting that the generally accepted creed of the (Christian Church declares punishment to be not only endless, but consisting of physical tf)rturc. The writings of Jonathan ICdwards have been largely quoted in sui)port of this view. And in such .sermons as "Sinners in the hands of an angry God," if we make no allowance for the age in which he lived, the mode of preaching then adopted, and the fervent spirit of the man himself, it is possible to give the color of truth to such a belief But even had Jonathan Edwards taught explicitly, the bodily torment of the impenitent wicked, it would after all be simply the opinion of one man, and not the sentiment of the Christian world. Not only so, but his lan- guage, which has been greatly exaggerated and misconstrued, to UNIVKKSAMSM. 325 pervo a purpose, may with very little abatement, be used in every evaii{Tclical pulpit at the present day. His opinions on the subject, in a somewhat condensed form, are as follows: "There is nothing' that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of GckI. There is no want of power in Ciod to cast wicked men into hell at any moment. Men's hands cannot be stronji; when God rises up. The stronj^est have m) i)ower to resist iiim, nor can any deliver out of his hands. It is not, therefore, because God is unmindful of their wickedness that he does not resent it — that he does not let loose his hand and cut them off. God is not alto},fether such an one as themselves, thouf^h they may imagine I lim to be so. The wrath of God burns against them, their damna- tion does not slumber ; the pit is prepared ; the fire is made ready ; the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them ; the flames do now rage and glow. The glittering sword is whetted and held over them, and the pit hath opened its mouth under them. They de- serve to be cast into hell ; justice never stands in the way, it makes no objection against God's using his power at any moment to des- troy them. Yea, on the contrary, justice calls aloud for an infinite punishment of their sins. They are already under a sentence of condemnation to hell. They do not only justly deserve to be cast dfjwn thither, but the sentence of the law of God is gone out against them, and stands against them, so that they are bound over already to hell. The bow of God's wrath is bent and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice directs the arrow to your heart and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood. He will crush you under his feet without mercy, and your blood shall be sprinkled on his garments, so as to stain all his raiment." See, says the Universalist, after reading such sentences, what a revolting image — God treating the sinner like the insect, swollen with loathscjine and venomous juices, whicli in a moment 326 ' FUTURE PUNISHMENT. of hate a man crushes under his foot? Now we submit, such criti- cism is unfair. It makes no allowance for the rhetoric and verbal drapery, which impassioned and godly preachers were wont to use in addressing large masses of unconverted men, on whom persuasion and tender words had no effect ; it imputes to them a doctrine which they did not in many cases hold, and having put a false construc- tion upon their language, it makes it the creed of the Christian world. Other Theologians eminent for their scholarship, have used strong language in depicting the state of woe. Dr Fusey says : " Gather in your mind an assembly of all those men and women, from whom, whether in history or fiction your memory shrinks, (no fiction can reach the reality of sin) gather in mind all which is most loathsome, most revolting, the most treacherous, malicious, coarse, ^brutal, invective, fiendish cruelty, unsoftened by any remains of human feeling, such as thou couldcst not endure for a single hour : conceive the fierce fiery eyes of hate, spite, frenzied rage, ever fixed on thee, looking through and through with hate, sleepless in their horrible gaze : felt, if not seen : never turning from thee, never to be turned from, except to quail under the piercing sight of hate. Hear those yells of blasphemy and concentrated hate, as they echo along the lurid vaults of hell ; every one hating every one, and venting that hate unceasingly, with every inconceivable expression of malignity : conceive all this, multiplied, intensified, reflected on all around on every side : and amid it, the special hatred of any one whose sins thou sharest, whom thou did'st thoughtlessly en- courage in sin, or teach some sin unknown before, — a deathlessness of hate were in itself everlasting misery. A fixedness in that state in which the hardened, malignant sinner lies, involves without any future retribution from God, endless misery." Archer Butler says : " The punishments of hell are but the perpetual vengeance that accompanies the sins of hell. An eternity of wickedness brings with it an eternity of woe. The sinner is to suffer for everlasting : UNIVERSALISM. 327 biititisbccau.se the sin itself is as everlastinf]^ as the suffering;.'' Professor Mansel says: " In that mysterious condition of the de- praved will, compelled and yet free : the slave of sinful habit, yet responsible for every act of sin, and gathering deeper condemnation as the power of amendment grows less and less ; may we not see somfc possible foreshadowing of the yet deeper guilt and the yet more hopeless misery of the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched." Spurgeon in one of his leading sermons says : " Only conceive the poor wretch in flames. Sec how his tongue hangs from between his blistered lips ! How it excoriates and burns the roof of his mouth, as if it were a firebrand ! Behold him crying for a drop of water. I will not picture the scene, suffice it for me to say that the hell of hells will be to thee, poor sinner, the thought that it is to be FOREVER. Thou wilt look up there on the throne of God — and on it shall be written Forever ; when the damned jingle the burning irons of their torments they shall say rOREVER. "'Forever' is written on their racks, * Forever ' on their chains : ' Forever' burncth in the fire, 'Forever' ever reigns." We are sometimes accused of using language too harsh, too ghastly, too alarming, with regard to the world to come. But if we could speak thunderbolts, and our every look were a lightning flash, and our eyes dropped blood, instead of tears, no tones, words or gestures or similitudes of dread could exaggerate the awful con- dition of a soul, which has refused the Gospel, and is delivered over to justice. When thou diest, O sinner, thy soul will be tormented alone: that will be a hell for it : but at the day of judgment thy body will join thy soul, and then thou shalt have twin hells, thy soul sweating drops of blood, and thy body suffused with agony. In fire exactly like that which we have on earth, thy body will lie, 328 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. asbcstos-Iik-c, forever unconsumed, all thy veins, roads for the feet of pain to travel on, every nerv^c a string on which the devil shall play his diabolical tune of hell's unutterable lament." ! Such lan- guage Universalists well know, is but seldom heard in evangelical pulpits at the present day. Speaking on this point, Dr. Charles Hodge, who is generally regarded as representing the most rigidly orthodox school of theology at the present day, says on this point, " There seems to be no more reason for supposing that the fire spoken of in Scripture is to be literal fire than that the worm that never dies is literally a worm. The devil and his angels who are to suffer the vengeance of eternal fire, and whose doom the finally impenitent are to share, have no material bodies to be acted upon by elemental fire. As there are to be degrees in the glory and blessedness of heaven, so there will be differences as to degree in the sufferings of the lost; some will be beaten with few stripes, some with many." To the same purport also Professor Phelps of Andover Semin- ary says : " The use so often made of the Biblical symbol of FIRE, to make the letributive idea odious and hideous, seems to me un- worthy of manly and cultured controversy. We must e.xpect it from ignorant and passionate thinkers ; but as argument it is very shallow. You and I know that that symbol is not a dogmatic form of truth. In common speech we use the same and similar ideas. We speak of "burning passages," of "fiery lusts," of "flaming anger." We tell of a man who frothed at the mouth or ground his teeth in impotent rage. Our Saviour takes similar liberties with figurative and dramatic speech. Suppose, now, that some one should report us as affirming that we saw a man roasting over a slow fire in his lusts, or showing signs of hydrophobia in his wrath. Would that be ARGUMENT? He might raise a ripple of inane laughter at his own conceit ; but would he discredit our story? " So I take all attempts of men to render odious the doctrine of endless punishment, by putting the symbol of fire to a use for which UNIVERSALISM. 329 it was never employed by Him who originated it. In His lips it moant the most solemn and appalling reality in the history of the universe, so fai as it is known to us — that guilt at its climax of fixed and finished character involves in its own nature a spiritual misery which literal speech cannot portray, and of which no other material emblem can give us so truthful an impression as that of a surging sea of flame. This, if it HE a reality, of which some who walk our streets and give us daily greeting may be in peril, is too terrible a reality to be set in the frame of burlesque." In replying to the question, Is the future punishment of thn wicked material or mental, Dr. Bartlett, of Dartmouth Collef;e, U. S., says : " From the necessity of the case, the sufferings of the lost and the blessedness of the saved are set forth by material imagery, the one quite as much as the other. But as heaven is no literal wed- ding, feasting with Abraham, reclining on his bosom, wearing of palm branches and crowns, and playing on harps, so we do not un- derstand the sensuous imagery concerning the condition of the lost ill a literal sense, but as accumulated pictures of horror. We are also warned off from a literal interpretation by the variety and incompatibility of the images, sometimes even in the same sentence : the worm and the fire ; cutting asunder, and yet receiving a 'portion ;' outer darkness, and the like. These images have often been too literally pressed, Metaphors and symbols, however, represent a REALITY and are images of dread and dreadful reality. When we i'lquire for the exact mode of suffering, it is left much in the same manner as the enjoyments of heaven, certain but undescribed. One reason probably is, that in our present state it could not be fully made known to us ; another, that no directly practical object, such as the Scriptures alwaj's seek, would be accomplished by it. Still, wc naturally suppose that to a being pre-eminently spiritual, the prime suffering will be that of the spirit. The intensity of such suffering in this life has tasked the novelist and dramatist to des- 330 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. cribe. Knowing, as we do, something of the agonies of envy, hatred, bafflled malignity, remorse, and even of perpetual disappointment here, we should be dull indeed not to recognize their probable power and stringency there." Is our imagination, says a recent writer, so poor and barren, that we can conceive of no adequate and ample form of punish- ment, without having recourse to the figures of the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched ? A future world in itself must bring with it dreadful retribution to the wicked. In the mere fact of their cleared perceptions, in the realization of their low posi- tion, in seeing themselves as they really are, in beholding all those they loved and venerated far before them, — away from them, fading in the bright distance, may be a torture, a purifying fire, in compar- ison with which the representations of Dante and Milton shrivel into lameness and inadequacy. Because a certain sect holds the doctrine of a purgatory for children, it surely is grossly unjust to argue, as Universalists do, "that a large section of the Christian Church still believe in the damnation of infants who die unbaptized !" In a book lately pub- lished by a prominent clergyman of the broad church school, the following extract is given from a Roman Catholic book published in England by the Rev. J. Furniss, in which he describes the pur- gatorial fires prepared for infants: "The fourth dungeon is 'the boiling kettle.' Listen, there is a sound like that of a kettle boil- ing. Is it really a kettle which is boiling ? No. Then what is it ? Hear what it is. The blood is boiling in the scalded veins of that boy, the brain is boiling and bubbling in his head, the marrow is boiling in his bones. The fifth dungeon is ' the red hot oven,' in which is a little child. Hear how it screams to come out ; see how it turns and twists itself about in the fire ; it beats its head against the roof of the oven. It stamps its little feet on the floor of the oven. To this child God was very good. Very likely God saw UNIVFRSALISM. 331 that this child would g*!*- worse and worse and would never repent, and so would have to be punished much more in hell. So God in His mercy called it out of the world in its early childhood." Now this may be the writer's belief, and that of the Church to which he belonfcs, but the Churches of Christendom, as a whole, cannot be committed to such a doctrine. Such a style of argument is revolt- ing to every candid mind, and surely ought ncv'er to be used by men who boast so much of their reason, in judging of Scripture. It is not the literal language used by Christ, in speaking of future punishment, that constitutes the essential idea of the Christian faith, but the fact of a final separation between the good and the bad. Sin in this life brings its just recompense in the next. The punish- ment continues as long as the sin continues, which for all that now appears, is for ever. If our Saviour and his apostles did not teach this doctrine — which indeed underlies and pervades the whole of their ethical utterances — nothing can be learned of the matter in dispute. The New Testament then becomes practically useless, so far as giving us any reliable information regarding a future state. And certainly if Christ taught the doctrine of universal restitution and restoration, he did it so indistinctly and obscurely, that his hearers and disciples failed to apprehend it. To the English reader of the Bible, the plainest and most obvious doctrine concerning the destruction of the wicked, is banishment from the presence of the Lord, and unending punishment. In opposition to this, Universalists hold that by a course of severe discipline and chastisement, continued no one knows how long, the worst specimens of human beings may be — nay, will be — reclaimed and saved. Man according to such a theory, is not re- sponsible for the actions of the life. He is the creature of circum- stances, and not a free agent. Sin is misfortune, without guilt. It is due to ignorance and not wilful. This will be taken into account by a merciful God, who cannot consistently doom men to endless retribution. 332 futurp: punishment. Before examining certain texts of Scripture, which arc differ- ently interpreted by Universalists and orthodox Christians, let us start in our enquiry from what is common ground to both dis- putants, namely : that sins committed in the present life, shall unquestionably be dealt with in some way in the next. There is no difference of opinion regarding this. What we sow now wc shall reap hereafter. " He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting." " They that plough iniquity, and sow wicked- ness, reap the same." " By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed." ', They that sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind." Sin perpetuates itself Left to itself, with no remedial influences from without, it increases in heinousness. Crimes never sink to foibles. Passions never subside into innocent eccentricities or venial sins. Once a sinner always a sinner, is the law of moral being, no external power interposing. " Where the tree falleth it lies, not by fatality, but by the self-perpetuating force of moral choice. "A sinner incorrigible in guilt and matured in depravity, makes his own hell. No damnation can surpass that which a malign being inflicts upon himself Swedenborg says, that " God never thrusts a i .an into hell : he thrusts himself in — he goes of his own accord." His whole nature gravitates thither. If this is so, it follows that pun- ishment will last as long as sin lasts, and he who remains incorrigi- ble remains under the just condemnation of God. No one can tell what awful depths of wickedness a man may reach, for wickedness possesses no elements of exhaustion. If it makes a hell upon earth, why may it not make a hell in the future as everlasting as itself? If the seeds of sin remain in man at death, what presumptive evidence have we that they do not continue to exist in an intensi- fied degree in the future life? The wicked are driven away in their wickedness. The seeds of evil rankle in the soul. When dust returns to dust, they do not cease to germinate. Thc>' bear fruit in the UNIVERSALISM. 333 immortal nature, which apart from the renewing grace of God, must go on from one degree of wickedness to another without possibility of change. Character is thus fixed at death. The habits, lusts and passions, contracted by a long life of sin cannot afterwards be destroyed, but, on the contrary, have unlimited room for develop- ment without remedial agency. This has occn admirably illustrated by Joseph Cook in his Monday lectures, when he says : Under the physical laws of gravitation a ship may careen to the right or left, and only a remedial effect be produced. The danger may make men wise, and teach the crew seamanship. Thus the penalty of violating up to a certain point, the physical law, is remedied in its tendency. But let the ship careen beyond a certain line, and it capsizes. If it be of iron it remains at the bottom of the sea and hundreds of hundreds of years of suffering of that penalty, has no tendency to bring it back. Under the physical laws of nature, plainly, there is such a thing as being too late to mend. There is a distinction between penalty that has no immediate remedial ten- dency, and a penalty that has no remedial tendency at all. Under the organic law, the tropical tree, gashed at a certain point, may throw forth its gums, and even have greater strength than before ; but gashed beyond the centre, cut through, the organic law is so far violated, that the tree falls. After a thousand years that tree can- not escape from the dominion of the law, which enforces such a penalty." And so it is, in matters affecting man's moral and spirit- ual condition beyond the grave. Sin grows by what it feeds on. The essential tendency of evil, when left to itself, is to intensity, accumulate, and perpetuate it? own misery. Repentance is not possible in such circumstances, for there is no will or power, to cause repentance. Life and death, blessing and cursing, having been set before the sinner, and death and cursing having been vol- untarily chosen, what hope can there be of change ? Esau found no place of repentance, after he sold his birthright, though he sought it carefully with tears. The condition of such a soul is graphically described in the poet's words, when he says : 334 FUTURE PUNISHMENT, "Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed In one self-place ; but where we are is hell ; And where hell is there we must ever be. And to be short, when all this world dissolves, And every creature shall be purified, All places shall be hell which are not heaven." And again : "Which way I fly is hell, myself am hen, And in the lowest deep, a lower deep Still gaping to devour me, opens wide. To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven." That numerous passages in the word of God affirm this fact is not denied. There is a general agreement among all, who believe in the authority of the Bible and acknowledge the unequivocal testimony of conscience, that death does not end moral account- ability, and that for the man who has given no evidence of a change of heart and life here, there is reckoning and retribution in the world to come. But while Universalists hold such views, honesty compels us to say, that their teaching leads many criminals to believe that heaven's gates are opened at, or after death, to every one. " What is the good of my striving so hard to keep from sin and temptation, if my neighbor who gives himself up to the world, the flesh and the devil, after this life, gets to heaven ? Is it not best to go my own way and take my chances of life to come ?" Such language is not uncommon, nor is it so unreasonable, viewed from a Universal- ist standpoint. The greatest villains and murderers that expiate their crimes on the scaffold, feel assured that they are about to enter paradise. Absolution received at the eleventh hour, without the least apparent change of mind and a mechanical acquiescence in, and acceptance of, the mercy of God, makes a mockery of a judgment to come, and deludes souls with the hope o( salvation that cannot be realized, if God is a God of holiness, and sin unre- pented of deserves his wrath. UNTVERSALISM. 335 I frcoly grant that Universalism is a doctrine which men would most naturally accept, and towards which many good men would gravitate, were it not for the difficulty of reconciling it with Scrip- ture. Sympathetic and tender natures who mourn over human imperfections, and who at the same time are conscious of their own sad violation of God's law, recoil from the idea of endless punishment. Dr. Albert Barnes, the well known Com.mentator, although a consistent believer in the doctrine of Eternal Punishment, had such feelings. Speaking on this subject on one occasion to his congre- gation, he said : " A hundred difficulties meet the mind when we think upon it ; and they meet us when we endeavor to urge our fellow sinners to be reconciled to God, and to put confidence in Him. I confess for one that I feel these, and feel them more sen- sibly and powerfully the more I look at them, and the longer I live. I do not know that I have a ray of light on this subject, which I had not when it first flashed across my soul. I have read to some extent what wise and good men have written. I have looked at their theories and explanations. I have endeavored to weigh their arguments, for my whole soul pants for light and relief on these questions. But I get neither ; and in the distress and anguish of my own spirit, I confess that I see no light whatever. I see not one ray to disclose to me the reason why sin came into the world ; why the earth is strewed with the dying and the dead ; and why man n;ust suffer to all eternity !" But this question is not to be settled by the moral feeling, or by what is rolled the subjective con- sciousness, nor by ascribing to the Almighty a course of conduct at variance with the principles of His government. Those who reject the doctrine of Eternal Punishment, and em- brace Universalism, are generally persons in whom "the sentimen- tal is largely in excess of the judicial," and who shudder at the thought of eternal misery for any number of their fellow men. The •do';trine they argue is repugnant to the moral constitution of man, 33^ FUTURE PUNISHMENT. and must of necessity be repugnant to the moral character of God, It attributes to God, they say, an imperfect and cruel character, and makes him more malignant and cruel than the most malignant a'u cruel of men, who would not thus treat their worst enemies. Ac- cording to such reasoning, the moral constitution of man is the ultimate standard of appeal, by which God's dealings with his crea- tures are to be judged. As a general rule, it may be admitted, that whatever contradicts man's rroral intuitions cannot be received as just and true, but care must be taken, that what we call our moral intu- itions are genuine, and not mere individual prejudice. " In granting that there are certain primary, necessary, universal moral truths, which a divine revelation cannot contravene, a license is not given to every man who may have a particular theory to maintain, to make out just such a list of propositions as may serve his purpose, and claim for them the authority of ultimate moral intuitions, from which there is no appeal." In saying, again, that the doctrine of Eternal Punishment is opposed to the justice and benevolence of God, the objector grap- ples with questions that are to a great extent beyond the power of mortals to decide. "Justice in God and justice in the creature are not governed by the same rules ;" nor is His benevolence to be judged by ours. Of one thing we may be certain, that there is no contradiction between the love and justice of the Almighty, and that eternal punishment will at last be seen to be not more the effect of justice than of love. Juke, in his book on the restitution of all things, writes as follows ; "When I think of God's justice, which it is said inflicts not only millions of years of pain for each thought, or word, or act of sin during this short life of seventy years — not even millions of ages only for every such act, but a punishment which when millions of ages of judgment have been inflicted for every moment man has lived on earth, is no nearer its end than when it first commenced ; and all this for twenty, forty, or seventy years of sin in a world UNIVERSALISM. 337 which is itself a vale of sorrow ; when I think of this and then of man, his nature, his weakness, all the circumstances of his brief sojourn and trial in this world ; with temptations without and a fool- ish heart within : with his judgment weak, his passions strong, his conscience judging, not helping him : with a tempter always near, with this world to hide a better ; when I remember that this crea- ture, though fallen, was once God's child, and that God is not just only, but loving and longsuffering ; — I cannot conclude, that this creature, failing to avail itself of the mercy of God offered by a Saviour, shall therefore find no mercy any more, but be punished with never-ending torment. Natural conscience protests against any such awful misrepresentation of Him." In the same strain, another Universalist says: "The assertion that endless torments will be inflicted upon a creature by the Being of infinite love, involves a contradict n in terms. I can no more admit the love of God to cease, than I can admit his life or intelli- gence to cease. There is an essential contradiction between the two conceptions — the infinite torment of a creature, and the infinite love of God." In both these quotations, and indeed by all Universalist writers, the generally accepted doctrine of the Church is misrepresented. That doctrine is, that punishment shall be meted out according to the deeds of the individual sinner, and with reference to the light enjoyed by each — those who sinned without law perishing without law, and those who sinned under the law being judged by the law, some being beaten with few, and others with many stripes, and not that in every instance the torment shall be infinite and the agony unutterable. Shall not the Judge of all do right? Freed from all misconceptions and misrepresentations, the question at issue is simply this, — Is it consistent with the love of God to inflict upon transgressors sufferings, varying in degree according to their indi- vidual merits, which shall continue for ever ? 23 33o FUTURE PUNISHMENT, In reply to this question, we condense from the writings of Dr. Watt of Belfast, and Professor Phelps of Andover, The former says : " In so far as the subjects of the infliction are concerned, love has nothing whatever to do with punishment. If the question were, How long, or in what measure a Being of love would chastise ? there would be some show of propriety in urging it: for chastise- ment is at once the offspring and instrument of love. Such a question bears upon its face the impress of propriety, and suggests its own answer ; for as the object of chastisement is the reforma- tion of the subject of it, love will not inflict a single stroke, or extract a single sigh or tear, beyond what is necessary to the attain- ment of that end. Very different, however, is the end aimed at in punishment. The chief end of punishment is the satisfaction of justice ; and whatever collateral ends the infliction of it may sub- serve, it is not for these, as the supreme end, it is inflicted. There is, indeed, one way in which the duration or measure of punishment may involve the question of love, or, at least, of benev- olence. The question may arise, " How long, and in what meas- ure, is it necessary to punish sin so as to secure the interests of the moral universe ?" This is like the question, " How long, and in what measure, is it necessary to punish a band of rebels so as to secure the interests and welfare of the nation at large?" The an- swer, of course, would be, " Just as long as the rebels persist in their rebellion," If they continue to speak treason and plot insurrection, and manifest their hatred of the existing authority, then, apart from the question of justice altogether, it were at variance with benevo- lence to open the prison gates and let such despisers of law and government loose upon society. Under this aspect of it, punish- ment may be regarded as correlative to benevolence ; for it would be not only unrighteous but unkind to remove the restraints where- by these fomenters of social discord are withheld from subverting the pillars which sustain the commonwealth. Nor is the principle involved different when the government is that exercised by God UNIVERSALIS^. 339 over His moral intclliircnces, and the subjects of punitive inflictions, rebels against His authority. If human governments may, without violating the claims of benevolence, erect a prison for rebels, surely the Divine govern- ment may prepare a prison for those who defy its authority : and if it would be unkind, as well as impolitic, for the admistrator of law among men to amnesty avowed rebels, surely it is not unbe- nevolent for the sovereign of the universe to restrain fallen angels and wicked men, from disturbing the harmony and marring the beauty of His empire, so long as their moral estate as rebels re- mains unchanged. Perpetual treason demands, even on the score of benevolence, perpetual imprisonment. Eternal rebellion against the Divine government must carry with it eternal punishment, if the governor have regard for the interests of his loyal subjects. Punishment therefore, and those upon whom it is inflicted, lie out- side the pale of benevolence : and it is simply a confusion of attri- butes, which are as regards their objects and spheres fundamentally distinct and diverse, to represent the Judge of all the earth, as act- ing under the impulses of love in the infliction of penal suffering upon his enemies. If the principle of the objection in question be valid, God cannot rUNlSH sin at all ; for if we are warranted in arguing against infi- nite punishment from the infinite love of God, it muse be on the assumption that love is, in its nature, opposed to PUNISHMENT. On this assumption alone can love furnish any argument against penal suffering. But if love be, in its nature, opposed to punish- ment, perfect love must be absolutely opposed to punishment, that is, must be opposed to the infliction of punishment altogether ; and as infinite love is perfect, it must, on the principle of the objec- tion, be obvious, that a Being possessing such an attribute must, by virtue of His very nature, not only abstain from, but stand infinitely opposed to the infliction of penal suffering upon His creatures. 340 UTURE PUNISHMENT. Professor Phelps in meeting these questions : Is endless punish- ment unjust? Is it inconsistent with the character of God ? writes as follows : " We do not know that the prevention of sin under moral government IS POSSIBLE TO THE POWER OF GOD. In the constitution of things some contingencies involve contradictions. God cannot execute absurdities. He cannot so change the mathe- matical relations of numbers that, to the human mind, twice five shall be more or less than ten. These are changes which God is as powerless to effect as man. They involve absurdities. They bear no relation to omnipotent power. For aught that we know, this same principle may pervade the moral universe. We live under moral government. Our chief distinction is the possession of a moral nature. Within the limits prescribed to moral freedom, a moral being, be he man or angel, is as imperial in his autocracy as God is in the infinite range of his being. This, God has himself ordained. Man's supreme endow- ment is his ability to be what he wills to be, to do what he chooses to do, to become what he elects to become in his growth ot ages. We do not know that the prevention of sin, under a moral gov- ernment, IS POSSIBLE TO THE WISDOM OF GOD. The infinite and eternal expediences of the moral universe may forbid it. We do not know the infinite complications of any act of God. A sublime unity characterizes all God's ways. His government is imperial. One aim, one plan, one animus, rules the whole. Speaking in the dialect of human government, one policy sways the universe. We do not know, therefore, the remote consequences of a policy chosen for the administration of one world. It has invisible convolutions and reticulations in the history of other worlds. To have chosen the policy of prevention in the regulation of sin here might have necessitated changes in government elsewhere, which would have been revolutionary in their working. Convulsions in consequence might have shaken the foundations of moral government every- where. True, we cannot affirm it, but neither can we deny it. UNIVERSALISM, 34^ If it may not be possible to divine power, and if it may not be possible to divine wisdom, to prevent sin in the government of God, then we affirm, further, that it MAY NOT BE POSSIBLE TO DIVINE BENEVOLENCE. A benevolent God can do only practicable things. He can do only wise things. He can do only that which infinite power can do, under the direction of infinite wisdom. The non-prevention of sin, therefore, in this world of ours may have been the best thing which, under the conditions here existing, benevolence could plan for. Speaking after the analogy of human governments, the policy of non-interference may, in many instances of human guilt, have been the policy of love. To let sin alone in some cases may be the dictate of benevolence. To leave it in the awful extremity of evil developed and matured, to which it natur- ally drifts by the force of its own momentum, may be the first and last and best decree of that watchful love which notes the fall of a sparrow. True, again, we cannot, reasoning from the nature of the case, affirm that it is so, but we must prove that it is not so, before we can hold God unworthy in his treatment of endless sin by the infliction of endless pains. Why God should CREATE beings, who will slowly but surely weave around themselves the endless curse, is the mystery which I do not pretend to solve. On that problem I profess no belief. But that some men should go to Hell, being what they are, is no mys- tery. Where else can they go in a spiritual universe? That there should b^ a Hell, sin and sinners at their climax of moral growth being what they are, is no mystery. What other place is in moral affinity ,vith them ? Such a world is inevitable in the nature of things in a universe where sin has any impregnable lodgment. But the reasons of God for creating such beings and permitting the deathless ravages of such an evil are beyond my conception. Must I, therefore, refuse my faith to the fact of their creation and their doom ? If I withhold faith from everything in God's doings for which I do not know the reasons, my creed must be told 342 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. in few words, and its chief dogma must be : "What a monument of unutterable folly I am !" The sentences in the above quotation — " That some men should go to Hell, being what they are is no mystery : where else can they go m a spiritual universe? What other place is in moral affinity with them ?" — are deserving of special notice. While these pages are passing through the press, the Christian world has been startled by fearful revelations of crime, in the great metropolis of England, and righteous indignation expressed at the abettors of such wicked- ness. One of our religious weeklies pertinently asks the question : Do our Univcrsalist friends still think that the Creator could make a perfect moral universe, without 'providing a hell? If the crimes of the London debauchees so inflame the righteous indignation of every just man, how must such crimes effect a God of infinite purity and of infinite pity for the victims of these criminals? Imagine such villains, who boast of destroying innocents, coming before the great white throne. Would any right minded man find any " moral difficulty "' in saying " Amen " to the sentence " Depart, ye cursed." In 1850 v/hen the vigilance committee in the city of San Francisco had done its needed work of expurgation, Dr. Bushnell, who chanccil to be a witness of the crimes there [)crpetrated, preached a .sermon suggested by the alarming condition of society, in which he said : "What kind of heaven would it make to move off bodily into the eternal future, this same people just as they are? Just as good ;is it makes here, and no better. These revenges, frauds, bribes, per- juries and deeds of blood, these abuses of power, the.se factions, fear