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LIFE IN CHRIST:
A STUDY OF THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE
ON
THE NATURE OF MAN,
THE OBJECT OF THE DIVINE
INCARNATION,
AND THE CONDITIONS OF HUMAN
IMMORTALITY.
OF THE
UNIVERSITY
BY EDWARD WHITE,
AUTHOR OF THE 'MYSTERY OF GROWTH,' ETC.
' But the angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them forth, and
said, Go stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this Life. And when
they heard that they entered into the temple early in the -morning and taught.'
THIRD JZgyyM'flMWfiKP' AND'MNLARGED.
LONDON :
ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1878.
YES, EVEN THE LIFELESS STONE IS DEAR,
FOR THOUGHTS OF HIM WHO LATE LAY HERE ;
AND THE BASE WORLD, NOW CHRIST HATH DIED,
ENNOBLED IS AND GLORIFIED.
NO MORE A CHARNEL HOUSE TO FENCE
THE RELICS OF LOST INNOCENCE,
A VAULT OF RUIN AND DECAY;
THE IMPRISONING STONE IS ROLLED AWAY !
'TIS NOW A CELL WHERE ANGELS USE
TO COME AND GO WITH HEAVENLY NEWS,
AND IN THE EARS OF MOURNERS SAY,
' COME SEE THE PLACE WHERE JESUS LAY.'
KEBLE.
HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, Printers, London and Aylesbury.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
THE present edition of this work is not a mere reprint of the
last, but has been revised with the utmost care, and represents
the effect of the friendly and adverse criticisms to which the two
former editions have been subjected. Of the adverse notices the
foremost place belongs to the thoughtful article in the Church
Quarterly Review. Since, however, the able and generous writer
distinctly ' eschews textual criticism and detailed argument,' and
prefers to discuss the doctrine set forth only in its ' general bear-
ings,' and under what he terms ' comprehensive views,' I have
been able to derive little advantage from his labour. This book
rests the question of Immortality wholly on interpretation o
Scripture ; and with those who decline that line of thought, the
author also must decline to enter into controversy. The British
Quarterly and London Quarterly Reviewers have each advanced
objections to previous statements, which I have here attempted to
show are either founded on misconception, or else are suggestive
of amended modes of representation. Archdeacon Garbett has
published some papers in the Christian Observer for 1877, which
I am compelled to say, after respectful and repeated perusals,
seem to me to consist chiefly of authoritative assertions, or appeals
to authority, on the immortality of the soul, and which wholly
avoid the discussion of weighty objections even to that tenet. A
very able and generally candid anonymous writer in the Methodist
101829
ivr PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
Magazine of the present year, has made the most of the case on
the side of traditional opinion ; but. while suggesting some valuable
improvements in the argument, he has avoided the discussion of
the most important exegetical and theological questions. From
each of these writers, however, I have learned something ; and I
wish to explain in this place that in order to avoid encumbering a
book, intended now for popular use, with numberless foot-notes
and references, I have without further comment either modified
or withdrawn statements in matters of detail which seem to
me to have been reasonably censured. Each of my critics who
cares to examine closely this edition will discover in such modi-
fication the effect of his observations, and is at liberty to conclude
that, in whole or in part, I have been convinced by his criticism.
While desirous of rendering justice to all opponents, I have to
regret that the main argument, scriptural and complex, for the
doctrine here defended has been scarcely adverted to. Reviewers
have nibbled at phrases and special criticisms, but have avoided
the principal questions both of interpretation and of a harmonious
theology. When they do theologise, as in the remarks of the
Church Quarterly and London Quarterly Reviewers, on the ques-
tion whether the existing human race owes its being to law or to
grace, their mutual contradictions, as I have pointed out in the
proper place, might suggest to each a less confident tone of exclu-
sive 'orthodoxy.'
In this edition will be found a new note On Jewish and
Rabbinical Opinion, affixed to chapter xvii. ; and the substance
of my recent replies to the Rev. J. Baldwin Brown's Lectures on
Conditional Immortality is incorporated with the text.
In again offering to the public a work of which the wider
circulation must needs be fraught with consequences of incal-
culable moment for spiritual good or evil, I can but repeat the
conviction that although, as in other revolutions of religious
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. v
opinion, some evil attends change, the ultimate result will be
wholly for good. It was originally written, and has now again
been revised, under a deep sense of responsibility to the Most
Righteous Judge Eternal \ and the persuasion of truth borne in
upon my own mind by the study of the Holy Scripture has now
been sanctioned, not only by the confirmatory faith of many of
the most learned and able critics in our generation, but by the
assenting voice of a great multitude of thoughtful and devout
Christian people in Europe, Asia, and America.
If the reader who cares little for scientific opinion finds the
opening sections not to his taste, he can commence the perusal
of this book at the fifth chapter, without serious hindrance to the
understanding of the general argument. The English reader will
find the occasional occurrence of Hebrew and Greek type no
obstacle to his ready comprehension of the discussion.
I shall conclude this preface with four notable citations. The
First is from an incisive reply to Canon Liddon's sermon On
Conditional Immortality, in S. Paul's Cathedral, by my friend
and fellow-labourer, the Rev. Samuel Minton, M.A., who, by
his works on The Glory of Christ in the reconciliation of all
things. The Way Everlasting, and The Harmony of Scripture, and
not less by his singular ability, judgment, temper, and self-
sacrifice, has made the idea that immortal life is in Christ alone a
subject of general interest throughout the English-speaking world,
Mr. Minton thus expresses the drift of our joint contention :
'Scripture is silent on man's necessary immortality. It is
trumpet-tongued on the other side. From beginning to end it
positively labours to impress upon man that he is not an im~
mortal, indestructible, but a dying, perishing creature ; who, if
he desires to inherit eternal life, must accept it as the free gift
of God in Christ, and seek for it by patient continuance in
vi PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
well-doing. The alternatives of life and death, immortality and
destruction, are incessantly put before us in every shape and
form. Dogmatic assertions, warnings, promises, arguments, illus-
trations, and necessary inferences, are massed together in such a
way that it might have been thought impossible for any human
being to misunderstand them. The very object of Christ's death
is again and again declared to be, " that whosoever believeth in
Him should not perish but have everlasting life :" yet Scripture 5
we are told, pre-supposes that man is absolutely imperishable, and
must spend an everlasting life of some kind, whether he believes
or not. It teaches that " whosoever doeth the will of God abideth
for ever ; " but pre-supposes that every one must abide for ever
"either in weal or woe." It teaches that " if any man eat of this
bread he shall live for ever ; " but pre-supposes that every man
must live for ever, whether he eat of it or not, pre-supposes the
" unutterably solemn fact that each one of us in this cathedral
must live on for ever and ever." It teaches that " the wages of
sin is death;" but pre-supposes that man's spirit is essentially
deathless, and that his body having been raised from its first
temporary death, can incur no second death, but must "live
eternally on in weal or in woe." It teaches that the "end" of
impenitent sinners "is destruction," even "everlasting destruc-
tion;" that "like natural brute beasts, made to be taken and
destroyed," they " will utterly perish in their own corruption ; "
ihat they will be " cast forth as a branch and withered .... cast
into the fire and burned," burnt up like " chaff " with unquench-
able fire ; that " a fiery indignation " will " devour " them ; that
they " shall be cut off," and " shall not be ; " that " into smoke
they shall consume away ;" that they shall "lose their own souls,"
"lose themselves;" all of which pre-suppose what? why,
something that would render it absolutely impossible for any
one of these things ever to occur. In fact Scripture is tortured
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. vii
by this human philosophy into meaning the very reverse of what
it says.'
The Second Citation is from a letter with which I have been
favoured by Mr. Stokes, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at
Cambridge, and Secretary of the Royal Society; in which he
deals with the objection often made that, according to us, ' the
wicked are raised from the dead only to suffer,' and that this
throws a dark shadow upon the attributes of God, Professor
Stokes says : ' I never could share 'in the difficulty which some
seem to feel heavily, regarding the doctrine of life in Christ, on
the ground that, on that supposition, the raising again of the
wicked, which Scripture unequivocally teaches, would be an act
of cruelty on the part of God. The difficulty seems to me to be
based on the assumption that the sole object of their resurrection
was that they might be punished. Even if it were so, I think it
could be shown to be consistent with, or even conceivably re-
quired by, a scheme in which mercy and justice are blended
together ; but it appears to me that Scripture represents judgment
(jcpto-ts), the display to the whole rational creation of the justice
of the ways of God, rather than punishment as such (K/oi'/xa), as
the primary object, so to speak, of the resurrection of the unjust
as well as of the just. (See for instance, 2 Cor. v. 9, ' For we
must all be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ, in
order that each man may receive the things done in the body,
according to the things that he did, whether it were good or bad.'
See also John v. 29; Rom. xiv. u.) And though to the wicked
judgment will issue in condemnation, and they will receive their
final doom, it is surely as easy to regard this, and whatever
suffering may either accompany (see Matt. xi. 22) or follow the
judgment, as a necessary result of the manifestation, as it is to
regard it as a consequence of a supposed immortality of the soul.'
viii PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
The Third Citation is on the practical working of the tradi-
tional dogma on future retribution, from a speech by the Rev. R.
Suffield. At a meeting held in 1873 in Sion College, an interest-
ing paper was read by the late Lord Lyttelton, which subsequently
appeared in the April number of the Contemporary Review.
In the course of the debate which followed, a remarkable state-
ment was made by the Rev. Rudolph Suffield, formerly a Roman
Catholic priest. He observed that no one knew so well as a
priest what was passing in other men's minds on religious sub-
jects ; and that his own opportunities of ascertaining the effect of
the popular doctrine upon the minds of those who really believed
it had been very considerable. At the request of one who was
present, he afterwards wrote out the following abstract of the
testimony which he then gave from his own experience :
' I am bound by honour now to observe faithfully the regula-
tions to which I was pledged when a Roman Catholic priest. I
am permitted by those to be guided by the knowledge of charac-
ter and results obtained from the confessional, but so as never to
point things to individuals. My extensive experience for twenty
years as confessor to thousands, whilst Apostolic Missionary in
most of the large towns of England, in many portions of Ireland,
in part of Scotland, and also in France, is, that excepting instances
I could count on my fingers, the dogma of hell, though firmly
believed in by English and Irish Roman Catholics, did no moral
or spiritual good, but rather the reverse. It never affected the
right persons ; it frightened, nay tortured, innocent young women,
and virtuous boys; it drove men and women into superstitious
practices which all here would lament. It appealed to the lowest
motives and the lowest characters; not however to deter from
vice, but to make them the willing subjects of sad and often
puerile superstitions. It never (excepting in the rarest case) deterred
from the commission of sin. It caused unceasing mental and moral
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. ix
difficulties, lowered the idea of God, and drove devout persons
from the God of hell to Mary. When a Roman Catholic, I on
different occasions conferred on this subject with thoughtful
friends among the clergy ; who agreed with me in noticing and
deploring the same sad results. From the fear of hell we never
expected virtue, or high motives, or a noble life ; but we practi-
cally found it useless as a deterrent. It always influenced the
wrong people, and in a wrong way. It caused "infidelity" to
some, " temptations " to others, and misery without virtue to most.
The Roman Catholics are very sincere and " real ; " and we found
it difficult to avoid violating the conscience, when we told them
to love and revere a God compromised to the creation of a hell
of eternal wretchedness, a God perpetrating what would be scorned
as horrible by the most cruel, revengeful, unjust tyrant on earth.'
The Fourth Citation is from the contribution of Mr. W. R.
Greg (author of the Enigmas of Life) to the ' Symposium ' on
The Future Life, in the Nineteenth Century for October, 1877.
His words are surely among the most pathetic and mournful ever
written in modern literature, and prove the necessity for some
further discussion of that doctrine of Christianity which enables
its believers to say, ' We know that if this earthly house of our
tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not
made with hands, eternal in the heavens ' :
' I have of course read most of the pleadings in favour of the
ordinary doctrine of the Future State ; naturally also, in common
with all graver natures, I have meditated yet more ; but these
pleadings, for the most part, sound to anxious ears little else than
the passionate outcries of souls that cannot endure to part with
hopes on which they have been nurtured and which are inter-
twined with their tenderest affections. Logical reasons to compel
conviction, I have met with none even from the interlocutors in
x PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
this actual Symposium. Yet few can have sought for such more
yearningly. I may say I share in the anticipations of believers ;
but I share them as aspirations, sometimes approaching almost
to a faith, occasionally and for a few moments perhaps rising
into something like a trust, but never able to settle into the con-
sistency of a definite and enduring creed. I do not know how
far even this incomplete state of mind may not be merely the
residuum of early upbringing and habitual associations. But I
must be true to my darkness as courageously as to my light. I
cannot rest in comfort on arguments that to my spirit have no
cogency, nor can I pretend to respect or be content with reasons
which carry no penetrating conviction along with them. I will
not make buttresses do the work or assume the posture of
foundations. I will not cry "Peace, peace, when there is no
peace." I have said elsewhere and at various epochs of life why
the ordinary " proofs " confidently put forward and gorgeously
arrayed " have no help in them ; " while, nevertheless, the pictures
which imagination depicts are so inexpressibly alluring. The
more I think and question the more do doubts and difficulties
crowd around my horizon and cloud over my sky. Thus it is
that I am unable to bring aid or sustainment to minds as
troubled as my own, and perhaps less willing to admit that the
great enigma is, and must remain, insoluble.'
It remains only to add that in preparing the present edition I
have been again much indebted to the revising accuracy of my
friend Dr. Emmanuel Pe'tavel of Geneva, the leading advocate of
the same views on the continent of Europe ; and also for some
valuable suggestions to the Rev. Charles Byse, of Bex, Canton de
Vaud, who has kindly undertaken a French translation of these
pages, which will be published at Geneva in 1878.
E. W.
December, 1877.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
THIRTY years ago, in 1846, 1 ventured to publish a volume setting
forth the doctrine of Immortality through the Incarnation, which
at that time had few other public advocates in this country. If
the idea had been original it would have been self-condemned.
It was but a revival of the oft-repeated and unsuccessful protest
of better men. For example, Dr. Isaac Watts himself, the flower
of Nonconformist orthodoxy, had maintained, one hundred and
fifty years before, all the essential principles of that work in his
book on The Ruin and Recovery of Mankind. Speaking of the
sentence of Death passed upon Adam he says (Question xi.),
' Who can say whether the word death might not be fairly con-
strued to extend to the utter destruction of the life of the soul as
well as of the body ? For man by sin had forfeited all that God
had given him, that is the life and existence of his soul as well as of
his body ; and why might not the threatening declare the right
that even a God of goodness had to resume all back again, and
utterly destroy and annihilate His creatures for ever ? There is
not one place of Scripture that occurs to me, where the word
death, as it was first threatened in the law of innocency, neces-
sarily signifies a certain miserable immortality of the soul, either
to Adam, the actual sinner, or to his posterity.' And again,
building on that foundation, he maintains the total destruction
of their spirits, in the death of the children of wicked men, all
over the world (a detail in which I do not agree with Dr. Watts) ;
denying the natural immortality of their souls. 'It does not
follow that the Great God will punish the mere imputed guilt of
Adam's infant posterity in so severe a manner [as to consign
them to eternal misery], or that He will continue their souls in
being, whose whole life and being is forfeited by Adam's sin.'
(Question xvi.) These premisses carry with them logically all
the critical and theological conclusions which have been deduced
from them by us, in relation to the Christian economy ; yet the
whole church of Christ has continued to honour Dr. Watts as one
xii PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
of the chief singers of the orthodox faith. The modern repro-
duction of the same ideas was nevertheless assailed on all sides
as heresy, and the inevitable penalty for that offence in England
has ensued in ecclesiastical experiences none the less painful
because cheerfully endured in humble trust of the Highest
Approval.
The volume with which, after so many years of additional
thought and experience, I no\v appear before the public, except-
ing a few pages revised from its earlier predecessor and later
pamphlets, is entirely new ; though for convenience in future
reference bearing the old title. After the labours of so many
learned writers the question may fairly be asked whether there
was room for another discussion ; above all, whether there was
room for so large a volume treating on a wide range of topics in
which, partly through want of space, and partly through lack of
ability, few of the subjects could be exhaustively handled. The
defence is simple, and I hope sufficient ; firstly, that my early
ideas have somewhat cleared up in certain directions in the course
of subsequent reflection ; and next, that the object of this book
is to exhibit the bearings of the central doctrine of Immortality
on the present state of Anthropology, and on the acknowledged
truths of Revelation, rather than to elaborate any one branch of
the argument. No one hitherto has treated the question precisely
in this coherent method : and yet conviction often comes when
men can be persuaded to look round a large circle of ideas, while
doubt remains so long as they consider only a few of its degrees.
The reader, therefore, will not anticipate a treatise exclusively or
chiefly on Future Punishment, but rather a discussion of the
Source and Conditions of human Immortality ; and no one will
even comprehend the scope of this book who regards it merely
as an argument for ' Annihilation.'
In contemplating the reception which may be given to my
labour, I know that no one who questions an ancient and
established belief, supported by a large majority of learned Chris-
tians, has either right or reason to expect contemporary praise.
For his mistakes he does not deserve it, and his demerits therein
will be plentifully rewarded. For the truth which perchance he
may also maintain society is scarcely prepared. Such an enter-
prise, therefore, should be taken in hand by those alone who,
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. xiif
feeling what Roger Williams called * the rocky strength of their
grounds,' are satisfied, for the present, with an appeal to the
Master of Truth in Heaven, to the judgment of some few careful
and thorough readers on earth, and to the better opinion of
posterity. This is indeed an appeal which is made by every
futile dreamer, but it has been also made by all who have laboured
and suffered effectually for forgotten truths in times gone by.
The system of ideas here presented has yet scarcely passed
through the stage of obstinate British misrepresentation. When
our notice-writers and preachers have ended their declamations
against the ' miserable doctrine of Annihilation,' the public will
begin to see that 'the more part' have mistaken the general
question altogether; and then religious students will probably
gather courage to proclaim what must first be held somewhat
in reserve. Perhaps all lasting and beneficial changes of belief
are brought about with less danger to the fabric of faith when
thus allowed slowly to percolate through society, rather than
when forced indiscriminately or before their time on the attention
of the multitude.
It is inevitable, then, I regret to acknowledge, that even in a
tolerant age, this work, if regarded at all, should incur at present
in many quarters severe reprehension. Its basis, a thorough
belief in the Divine Authority of Christ and His Apostles, in-
cluding faith in their Doctrine of Evil Spirits, as an essential part
of Christianity, will deeply displease some, as old-fashioned and
uncritical. It will also incur the reproof of the easy-going
thinkers in all churches, by whom definite persuasion, founded on
painstaking interpretation of Scripture, is declared to be the
certain mark of a narrow and shallow capacity : as though it
were quite certain that the subject which is most obscure and
beyond our reach, in a Divine Revelation, would be the very
scope of Redemption ; or, if not obscure, then unimportant; as
though anything whatever is important, if not to know the re-
vealed character of God, the true end of the Incarnation, and the
real nature and destiny of Man. The issue of this argument, the
supposed establishment of the Evangelical Theology on a firmer
foundation, will displease perhaps still more, since this form of
faith is just now much out of fashion. The organs of opinion
appointed to defend systems of belief already established, rather
xiv PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
than to inquire into their truth, cannot be expected, however
generous the spirit of their writers, to regard favourably a book
which combines ideas gathered from so many schools and
churches. Its abandonment of the doctrine of endless misery
will be denounced as dangerous by men whose disapproval cannot
but occasion regret ; while its earnest inculcation of a ' wrath to
come,' of the nature of positive and even physical infliction from
the hand of Heaven, will be regarded as intolerable by nearly all
parties alike. A long experience has made known the price
which must be paid for so much individuality of faith, and so
much freedom of confession.
Nevertheless, although this book, having so hard and unequal
a battle to fight, may be found too sceptical by the orthodox, and
by far too orthodox for the sceptical, I believe that its main
argument (to be carefully distinguished from those secondary
opinions which accompany it) will gradually win the adhesion of
a large and growing class, who, knowing the outlines of present
scientific doctrine, and likewise the history of theology, have
found the truth to lie partly in what is termed scepticism, and
partly in the ancient creeds of Christendom. My chief desire is
that these pages may assist the Christian belief of some whose
faith is a half doubt, and also of some whose doubts have expelled
faith altogether. For there are many scientific men who have
concluded too hastily, that because biology reveals no future state,
there is therefore neither ' Judgment to come ' nor ' Life everlast-
ing.' I meet such reasoners here, on their own ground, with
'glad tidings,' and proclaim to them ' JESUS AND THE RESURREC-
TION.' Unless there were a loftier object in view than a negative
reform of the doctrine of retribution, my life should not have
been devoted to the promulgation of these principles. It is the
positive truth on Christ's Salvation, now more than ever en-
dangered in Europe, which has been throughout the main con-
cern ; and it is with such aims that I now respectfully submit
these endeavours to the judgment, not however exclusively, of
the theological public.
E. W.
BRATHAY HOUSE,
TUFNELL PARK, LONDON,
September, 1875.
CONTENTS.
BOOK THE FIRST.
ON THE NATURE OF MAN AS CONSIDERED UNDER THE LIGHT OF
SCIENCE ONLY; WITH OTHER PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I. The Alternatives of Human Destiny Extinction or Immor-
tality ......... 3
CHAPTER II. The Mind of Animals as Real as the Mind of Man . . 14
CHAPTER III. On the Mortality of Animals . . . . .22
CHAPTER IV. A Brief Review of the Relation of Man to the Animal Races,
as considered under the light of Science only . . . .27
CHAPTER V. On the Numbers and Intellectual Condition of Mankind . 40
CHAPTER VI. The Orthodox Doctrine on the Nature and Destiny of Man-
kind . . . . . . . . . -49
CHAPTER VII. On the possibility that Christendom has erred on the
Doctrine of Human Destiny . . . . . .65
CHAPTER VIII. On the Immortality of the Soul . . . .71
BOOK THE SECOND.
THE OLD TESTAMENT DOCTRINE ON LIFE AND DEATH.
CHAPTER IX. On the Account given in Scripture of the Original Constitu-
tion of Man ........ 85
CHAPTER X. On the Nature of the Death threatened to the Ancestors of
Mankind in Paradise as the Penalty of Sin . . . .99
CHAPTER XL On the Results of the Trial of Adam in Paradise, and the
Entrance of Redeeming Mercy . . . . . . 113
CHAPTER XII. The Serpent in Genesis : an Excursus on the Scripture
Doctrine of an Evil Superhuman Agency concerned in the Destruction
of Mankind ........ 123
CHAPTER XIII. The Patriarchal Doctrine of a Future State: Animal Sacri-
ficeIndications of Patriarchal Faith in a Future Life by Resurrection 145
CHAPTER XIV. On the Death-Penalty of the Mosaic Law . . . 155
CHAPTER XV. The Doctrine of Future Rewards and Punishments in the
Poetic and Prophetic Books of the Old Testament . . . 162
CHAPTER XVI. On the Opposed Doctrines of the Pharisees and Sadducees
in relation to a Future Life ; and on Christ's Rejection of both . 180
CONTENTS.
BOOK THE THIRD.
THE NEW TESTAMENT DOCTRINE ON THE OBJECT OF THE DIVINE
INCARNATION, AND THE METHOD OF REDEMPTION.
PAGE
CHAPTER XVII.- The Incarnation of the Life ; or, the Logos made Flesh
that Man may live eternally .... . . 193
SUPPLEMENT TO CHAPTER XVII. i. Note on Christ's Discourse on Life
at Capernaum . . . . . . . . 216
2. Note on the question, whether the words of Christ on Future Life
are to be interpreted according to the sense of the Pharisees ; with
a view of subsequent Rabbinical opinion .... 220
CHAPTER XVIII. Justification of Life ..... 225
CHAPTER XIX. The New Covenant of Life in the Blood of Christ ; or, the
Nature of the Death of Christ, and its place in the Divine Government
as an Atonement for Sin . . . . . . 238
CHAPTER XX. On Regeneration unto Life, through Union with the Incar-
nate Word, by the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life . . 261
CHAPTER XXI. Hades, or the State of Man between Death and the Resur-
rection, under the Economy of Redemption .... 291
CHAPTER XXII. On the Question, Whether the Holy Scriptures teach that
any sinful persons, dying in ignorance of Christ, are evangelised in
Hades ......... 313
CHAPTER XXIII. The Resurrection to Life Eternal at the Coming and
Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ ..... 329
BOOK THE FOURTH.
THE NEW TESTAMENT DOCTRINE OF FUTURE PUNISHMENT.
CHAPTER XXIV. On the Future Punishment of the Second Death . . 345
Excursus, on the Moral Ideas associated with the Terms
Life and Death . . . . ,369
CHAPTER XXV. Examination of the Principal Scripture Texts supposed to
leach the Everlasting Duration of Sin and Misery . . . 391
CHAPTER XXVI. On the Support given by some Fathers of the Primitive
Church to the Doctrine of Life in Christ ; and on the process by which
the prevailing opinion of Man's Immortality became the Creed of
Catholic Christendom ....... 416
CHAPTER XXVII. On the Doctrine of the Ultimate Salvation of all Men,
commonly called Universalism . . . . . 438
BOOK THE FIFTH.
THE BEARING OF THE DOCTRINE OF LIFE IN CHRIST ON THE
FAITH AND PRACTICE OF MANKIND.
CHAPTER XXVIII. On the Influence of this Theodicy on the Christian Life 457
CHAPTER XXIX. The Practical Influence of the Doctrine of Life and Death
Eternal on the Hopes and Fears of Ungodly Men . . . 480
CHAPTER XXX. Missionary Theology : an Inquiry into the Influence of
this Theodicy on the Method and Spirit of Missions to the Heathen . 506
CHAPTER XXXI. The probable Influence of the Doctrine of Christianity,
as here presented on prevailing Atheistic and Deistic Scepticisms . 552
BOOK THE FIRST.
ON THE NATURE OF MAN, AS CONSIDERED UNDER
THE LIGHT OF SCIENCE ONLY; WITH OTHER
PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS.
UNIVERSITY
CHAPTER I.
THE ALTERNATIVES OF HUMAN DESTINY, EXTINCTION OR
IMMORTALITY.
MAN, who has scaled the heavens by the ladder of his astronomy,
and by the study of the rocks divined the history of the globe,
finds a more insoluble problem in his own nature and destiny.
Though wearing so many crowns, as Earth-subduer, Legislator,
Soldier, Poet, Philosopher, and Saint, this Image of the Infinite,
nevertheless, scarcely arrives at the maturity of his powers ere
death carries him away. He perishes like the moss or lichen
beneath his feet.
Thoughtful men are asking on every side, with ever-deepening
intensity of passion, What is this mysterious doom of death which
overshadows all, which awaits and engulfs us all ? Is it indeed
the end of our individual being? Does man, the 'myriad-
minded,' when he expires close his eyes for ever on these star-lit
heavens, to which he has gazed upward so steadfastly and so
wistfully for a few brief moments in the midst of eternity ? Does
the bubble of life then burst, and resolve itself, as half Asia
imagines, into the Eternal Substance ; as the water, separated in
the floating flask (so Buddhists speak), when the flask is broken,
mingles with the ocean? Or does the thinking individuality
survive, for a little while, or for endless ages? Is there, as
Christendom affirms, a Spirit in every man which defies destruc-
tion, and is destined, as of divine original, to soar aloft the
immortal companion of the Necessary Being ?
Apart from a direct communication from that Being, what can
we positively learn on these questions? Strange that the judg-
ment of millions should be compelled to hover, in uncertainty,
even for an hour, between two prospects so different, as approach-
4 EXTINCTION OR IMMORTALITY,
ing extinction, and the promise of an endless life, drawn by
turns to believ.e in each by strong contradictory arguments. It is
a difficulty which has been felt in all ages ; for men have ever
been divided, as now, into two parties those who have judged
that our portion is in this world only, death ending all, and those
who with varying degrees of confidence have embraced the hope
of immortality.
Whence this divided judgment of mankind? Plainly it has
been caused by our double relations, to the mind which is below
and to that which is above us. Beneath us is a world of animals,
to a large extent intelligent and sensitive, to which we are allied
by manifest and deep-seated similarities of structure. This world
of animated natures is for ever dying out of life, affording no
indication whatever that in a single known instance the vital
principle survives in dissolution. Are man's relationships with
these neighbouring organisms so inseparable as to involve a
similar destiny ?
But whence the violent recoil from such a belief? This recoil
itself argues some superiority, for we cannot imagine even the
highest rank of the animals speculating on the arguments for and
against a future life. Whence the grand desire of eternal sur-
vival? It springs from man's perception of the Divine; for in
addition to one world of mind and will beneath us in the animal
races, man, looking around and above himself, perceives on all
sides clear indications of a Divine Mind, unseen, but pervading
nature, a Mind which evidently exists in independence of material
organisation, and endures for ever. Is man the closer kindred of
those transitory organisms, or of this Intelligent Power that lives
through eternity, from whom he has manifestly sprung ? There
is a confounding balance of evidence on either side of these
appalling alternatives.
The very power of apprehending God, the eternal Author of
nature, as a physical Agent and moral Governor, of rising in the
strength of a spiritual faculty to conceive of the Everlasting Cause,
argues surely, it is said, some real and deep relation with the all-
creating Spirit. This longing of the purest and loftiest souls for
an endless life, this apprehension of judgment to come, suggested
by an evil conscience, this instinctive shock at the prospect of
speedy extinction in the perfection of our powers, surely indicates
EXTINCTION OR IMMORTALITY. 5
some relations with the permanent forms of being, even with that
original and unchangeable Essence. But is this a relation abso-
lute and permanent, or only conditional? Is it common and
essential to the human race, or does it depend on individual
development ? If a part of man's nature is thus eternal, where-
fore death ? What is death ? What faculties survive the stroke ?
Why is a future union with God coincident with a destruction
of the organism which unites us with the physical universe?
If man has a portion in eternal life, why should apparent death
be the doorway into perpetual being?
From age to age we ask these questions with earnestness of the
heavenly Power ; who nevertheless regards us with a silence un-
broken from century to century, unless what is commonly called
Revelation be the answer of the Eternal Being to the aspirations
of man. Apart from such revelation nature offers no satisfying
solution to our doubts. The thought indeed soars to the heavens
during our lifetime, but for all that the brain returns to the dust.
The relation of man to the Deity as his destined coeval, is,
indeed, under natural conditions, rather a sublime speculation
than an established fact, I mean this relation which carries with
it the certain prospect of abiding for ever in God. For it may be
that moral disobedience, or a persistent choice of evil, has in-
curred the penalty of a death which closes the gates of eternal
life on the offenders. It is not enough to prove our immortality
that we can meditate upon it or even desire it. Why, it may still
be asked, if we are to live for ever, is the Infinite Creator Himself
so regardless when we die ? Whence this dumbness of the Ever-
lasting Cause ? Why, if immortality is ours, is Nature so silent
as to our destiny, or so threatening?
For, notwithstanding these loftier thoughts, the progress of
exact knowledge in physiology brings out into ever clearer view
our intimate relations with that organic world which seems to
exist but for a moment. So long as man was studied apart from
the system of living creatures around him, it was possible, by a
persistent reviling of the animals, and a resolute exaltation of
humanity, to hold almost any magnificent opinion respecting our
nature and destiny. Theologians and poets had it all their
own way. But since the scientific survey has embraced in one
panorama the complex system of life upon the globe, it has been
6 M4N A PART OF NATURE.
impossible to found theories under natural light on the view of a
single species ; or to establish hypotheses of man's exclusive im-
mortality on physical or metaphysical phenomena which are found
to characterise all living things.
Professor Haeckel, the boldest of the Evolutionists, assumes
that the old argument for survival has been completely swept
away. The birth and the death of man are now studied in con-
nection with the birth and the death of all animated beings, and
the result hitherto has not been to confirm the popular opinion
respecting the infinity of the prospects of any part of man's con-
stitution under the law of its creation.
Setting aside (says the physical inquirer) any supposed revela-
tion from God, and restricting the view only to the world of
animals and of man, what do we really know respecting any life
beyond death ; know with a clearness of evidence which deserves
to be called science ? For we have no reason to be governed by
a belief in that life except as it is proved to exist by evidence.
What, then, are the conclusions which are reached when we con-
scientiously study under one view the organic world of which man
forms a part?
First of all, the animal races are produced by a generative
process of which every step is wonderful, but in which there is no
ascertainable distinction between the vital and the organic elements
of their constitution. In each creature produced under these
processes there is a living germ which has power to build up the
organisation with all its members, faculties, and mental or sensi-
tive capacities. No one can separate in observation the life from
the organism in which it coheres. The faculty is the effect of the
development. When the organism dissolves the life seems to
dissolve with it.
Mankind, say these biologists (whose judgment we now simply
represent, as illustrative of the course of modern thought apart
from revelation), is produced by processes not merely analogous
but identical. There is absolutely no difference, as an ancient
philosopher observed, between the process through which is born
the 'wild ass's colt,' and that by which man is brought forth
upon the earth. What we call mind in man is created under
universal laws of the brain-producing energy of nature. We trace
up sensation, perception, instinct, thought, developed in constant
REPRESENTATION OF EVOLUTIONIST DOCTRINE. 7
connection with nervous and cerebral systems, from the lowest to
the highest organisms. There is a steady progress in the organisa-
tion, but in all cases alike the generative process is one. With
brain and ganglia there is mind, without them none. The laws
which govern the hereditary transmission of qualities and powers
are the same for all. If a common mode of origination may
furnish any indication of destiny, comparative physiology holds
out, we are told, no hope of survival for the human intelligence in
that death, common to animals and mankind, which seems to
swallow up organism and faculty in one abyss of destruction.
The processes of development, nutrition, and decay, are iden-
tical for animals and for mankind. The faculty, whether of body
or brain, gradually developed, as gradually wastes away. What
ground for the confident assertion of a perishable life in the one
case, of a deathless being in the other ? Rather is it not evident
that all through the lower world Mind is but one of the manifold
energies of life, and that life, whatever its essence, dissolves with
the organisation? Science knows nothing, affirms nothing re-
specting substance or essence. It affirms nothing respecting
metaphysical annihilation of the material out of which organisms
are built. It declares simply that Man and the Animals belong
to one system of life. They are brought into being under one
law. And there is no material or positive evidence of the con-
crete survival of any portion of the one series of organisms more
than of the other. Any expectation of the survival of the vital
force of man in death must then be founded on something that
is not science. We know nothing of the post-mortem existence of
the thinking willing energy of man. It is known to us only as
dependent on the brain and the circulation, developing with the
brain, not developing if the brain be not developed (as in idiots),
suffering disorder when the brain is injured, lapsing into insanity
when the brain is inflamed, decaying when the brain decays,
sleeping when the brain sleeps, and seeming to die away when
the brain dies. The mind obtains all her knowledge of outward
things and all enjoyment of them, as the animals do, through
nerves, and ultimately through the brain. In childhood the
brain is soft and tender, and the mind is feeble and soon over-
done. In health the mind is strong, in sickness it loses its energy
and grasp. In old age, when the brain is stiff and dry, the
8 MAN AND THE ANIMALS.
thinking power loses its pliability. It must go on in the old
track. A blow to the brain is a blow to the mind. Mental
disease, too, is hereditary, as every other bodily affection. Mental
peculiarities are hereditary. Each child is manifestly the com-
plex result of many individualities transmitting those peculiarities
to posterity. Intellect varies not only with the mass but with the
texture of the brain. Narcotics and stimulants directly affect the
mind. If the mind were absolutely material, or the result of
material combinations, it could not be more completely under the
influence of material agencies. Lastly, all the positive evidence
is in favour of the transmission of mind or thinking power and
will in generation, along with the other elements of the fabric.
Where and what is this Soul or Spirit, so independent of the
organism as to be created by a separate act of power, so self-sub-
sisting as to survive naturally in its integrity when the body dies ?
If it be replied, that it is inconceivably appalling that this
universe should be a thing of one substance only ; that thinking
power should be the last and highest product of its development ;
that this intellectual Eye should open for a moment on nature
which produced it, and should then be reingulfed by the dead
ruthless force which had given it birth ; the answer is ready, that
sentiment must vanish before fact ; and that it is wholly impossible
from a scientific point of view any longer to contemplate the
human species apart from the immense life-system of the globe
to which it belongs. The origin of man must be accounted for
from the facts of nature, and those facts all point to a probable
development of the human race from pre-existent forms of life.
The last idea to be admitted by inductive study is the creation of
species. Not until every possible change producible by life and
force has been exhausted in theory, can biology allow the entrance
of the hypothesis of direct creation.
Such are the arguments of the ever-strengthening school of
evolutionists ; and under these views the prospects of mankind in
futurity are restricted to the horizon which contains the animal
races ; since an immortal life cannot be supposed to have sprung
from a perishable source.
But even if the repeated creation of species be admitted as
a hypothesis, it is further argued that the case of man is not
A MILLION TO ONE AGAINST SURVIVAL. 9
materially improved. Here are nearly a million of species on the
earth. Man at the head of them appears, in his barbarous and
savage state, superior to them, indeed, but not so superior as to
suggest either to himself in that state, or to us, the idea of a
wholly different nature. Why should 999,999 species of living
creatures be voted mortal and perishable, and the millionth
declared to be immortal as to the animating principle, just
because he sometimes wishes to maintain a continued existence ?
Perhaps the higher animals wish it too. How know we that the
thinking principle can survive the breaking up of the organisa
tion in the one species, when it is dissipated in the cases of the
999,999 ? All that goes on within us, and within the animals,
of the nature of sensation, feeling, thought, will, is a product of
the organisation of the brain and nervous system, and therefore
must be believed to cease wholly when the brain organisation
breaks up in death. Since the production of mental and volun-
tary power in men and animals is subject to precisely the same
laws, why should it be held that the dissolution of the brain
is attended by such marvellously different results as these, in
the case of all other species to bring the individuality to an end,
in the case of man to set free the animating force for a life
immortal ?
Besides, under either theory of the production of Man, whether
by development, or by creation of species, humanity must be con-
sidered only as the highest manifestation of the life which covers
the globe in air, water, and dry land. On earth we see life
beginning in the form of a simple cell, passing by stages which
are quite imperceptible from irritability into sensation, slowly
ascending in an immense succession of grades through the various
tribes of vegetables and animals, and finally culminating in Man,
who, viewed as a whole, is much more marked by his resem-
blance in constitution and character to the animals than by his
differentia. Man being thus zoologically a member of the life-
system of the globe must not be imagined to exist under a special
destiny. All life on earth ends in death, with no sign whatever
cognisable by science of the survival of any element of conscious-
ness. Doubtless, then, Man's life exists under the same law,
and is absorbed and swallowed up by the powers of destruction.
It may be rejoined, however, to these frightful vaticinations
io DIRECTION OF SCIENTIFIC OPINION.
that there is one physical consideration which, under certain
circumstances, might materially modify this conclusion. It is
that Nature itself gives, even in the physical sphere, an emphatic
warning against the assumption that all parts of an organisation,
which are produced at once, always perish together. We have
but to look around to detect the weakness of this assumption.
Look, it may be said, at any annual or biennial plant, the mignon-
ette or hollyhock. The plant grows up from a seed in sun
and rain, and produces its stems, its leaves, its buds, its flowers.
In the flower the seed is produced, each seed possessing a life
originating in the life of the plant, but capable of an independent
survival The autumn comes. The plant dies down. Does it
all die, though all orginating in a single organism ? No, the seed
survives, separates itself from the ruin, and is ready to spring up a
new hollyhock in the following year. Suppose the gardener fails
to clear away the ruin of the old plant. Its substance dissolves
and melts into the earth. The seed then drops where the plant
grew, takes root and shoots, composed in part of the material of
its former self, a veritable survival of the soul, and resurrection
of the body.
Throughout nature we discern this law of survival in operation.
Portions of organisms survive the dissolution of the structure,
with a life of their own. Thus, then, may it not be with the
thinking power in men, or in animals, in one or in both ? The
' soul ' may be produced along with the body, and through a
physical process ; yet notwithstanding the dissolution of the brain,
it is conceivable that it might survive in dissolution.
It is impossible to prove, bn the ground of purely physical
evidence, that there is nothing in this argument. It is obvious
that insect transformation even somewhat aids the speculation.
Look at the moth, with his wondrous wings. What is his
history ? He is the ' soul ' of a caterpillar. Here again life-
germs, which are all born together, do not die together. It is
at least possible that there may be in animals, or in man, as
Dr. Lionel Beale supposes, a life-force, a germ, which, though pro-
duced along with the bodily organisation, may perhaps survive it.
May perhaps survive it. This, however, is not science. Yet
this, on the ground of physical knowledge, is all that can be
suggested in support of a life beyond.
DIRECTION OF SCIENTIFIC OPINION. 11
Summing up the evidence in a rough preliminary way, we
must conclude with Haeckel, in his History of Creation, that the
results of unaided physical inquiry at present are not favourable
to faith in immortal life for man, as the outcome of the constitu-
tion of his nature. Among contemporary students who ignore
moral considerations the direction of scientific opinion is strongly
towards this tremendous conclusion that death ends all, a con-
clusion so awful in itself, and so disastrous in its spiritual effects
among the people, that we turn to examine afresh every link of
the argument on which it depends. The more we examine
them, the less pleasing is the prospect that opens, so long as we
restrict our view to physical phenomena alone. The darkness
thickens, and the grand old auguries of a metaphysical theology
do not avail to dispel the deepening gloom. The outer and the
inner worlds seem to be at war on the loftiest problems.
Meantime some of our native sceptics are becoming strangely
enamoured of the doom which they anticipate. The Fortnightly
Review in 1873 gathered courage to encounter the darkness of
non-entity in these words : ' To pluck so gracious a flower of hope
on the edge of the sombre echoless gulf of nothingness, into
which our friend has slid silently down, is a natural impulse of
the sensitive soul, numbing remorse, and giving a moment's
relief to the hunger and thirst of a tenderness that has been
robbed of its object ; yet would not men be more likely to have
a deeper love for those about them, and a keener dread of filling
a house with aching hearts, if they courageously realised from the
beginning of their days that we have none of this perfect com-
panionable bliss to promise ourselves in other worlds that the
black and horrible grave is indeed the end of our communion
and that we know one another no more ? '
It is thus that the leading school of Biology reasons on the
nature of man, deducing from its studies a conclusion in direct
contravention to those large hopes of survival which the mind
gathers from her intellectual being, from her communion with
nature, from her apprehension of judgment, and from her aspira-
tions after God.*
The prevailing speculations on the animal origin of mankind
* See Dr. Alexander Bain on Mind and Bedy, 1874.
12 OBJECT OF DIVINE REVELATION.
in no degree qualify the blackness of the outlook. If, yielding
to the spirit of revolt against the hypothesis of interferences and
creations, science presses forward her conjectural principle of
Continuity, as she has so much a priori reason to do, into the
department of life, the result is certain to be, unless hindered by
a positive revelation contradicting the conclusion, to infer that
all life is one, and that as species are now varied under differing
conditions, so they have been themselves produced by wider
differences of condition in the past duration of the world ; until
at length Man has appeared as the outcome of the life-evolution.
Mr. Darwin's theory is not indeed proved ; it halts on one leg
for lack of positive evidence, as Dr. Elam and Professor Carruthers
have clearly shown. But apart from Revelation, it must be
allowed that it carries, at least on the physical side, a strong
appearance of probability. And its whole weight, such as it is,
goes into the scale of despair. If humanity be but a fractional
link of the general biological series, the foundation of the hope
of a special destiny melts away, like an ice-island in the sun-
beams, from beneath our feet. The nature which has been
evolved by a gradual development from perishable saurians
or simians possesses no intrinsic immortality. Body and life
with all their functions belong to the * dust ' to that universe
of material forms which pass away as we behold them. *
It is in the midst of such contradictory arguments as these,
the reasoning-grounds respectively of two opposing schools in
every age, that the Christian Revelation appears, to compose
the disputes of Idealists and Materialists ; by showing that there
has occurred a catastrophe in the beginning of man's history, that
his yearnings after life in the midst of death are the haunting
remembrances of a ruined greatness, that he was originally
created for an immortality conditional on obedience to God,
but came under the law of Death by Sin, and that it is the
object of Eternal Love in Redemption to ' create him anew ' in
* Many readers will recollect the pathetic grace with which Mr. Hawthorne
has described, in Transformation, the physical and moral characteristics of the
Faun, supposed by the ancients to represent human nature in its earlier rela-
tion with the animal world.
OBJECT OF DIVINE REVELATION. 13
the image of the Everlasting, by regeneration of nature, and by a
resurrection from the dead.
It will be the aim of the following chapters gradually to unfold
the argument for the survival of the fittest, on which these con-
clusions rest, and to maintain it against immemorial errors. But
it is necessary to add some further preliminary studies in order
to ascertain more exactly man's place in nature, his actual con-
dition, and the relation in which he stands to the million species
of organisms of which he is the short-lived lord.
CHAPTER II.
THE MIND OF ANIMALS AS REAL AS THE MIND OF MAN.
THE study of comparative psychology, of mind and sensibility
in their successive grades of development on earth, has been
hindered by that traditional theology which has arrested the
steps of science in every direction. The Bible has been held up
as the standard of truth on all subjects of knowledge, from the
highest to the lowest, and even the most gratuitously perverse
misinterpretations of its statements have served with equal
authority as effectual obstacles to the examination of nature.
For two thousand years after its first discovery the true theory of
the Solar System was hindered from attaining its right position
in the world by a few vague quotations from the popular and
poetic language of psalmists and prophets. The opening of
Genesis, understood as a scientific cosmogony, effectually closed
' the infinite book of secrets ' in the geological record up till
the present century. The notion of a universal flood and a
mistaken view of the tenth chapter of Genesis have exerted,
under like treatment, a similarly restrictive influence upon
ethnology. The moral nature of the Deity Himself has been
concealed behind clouds of sacerdotal metaphysics. What
wonder, then, if the natures of Man and of the Animals have
been misconceived through the doubly refracting atmosphere
of two erroneous but correlated theories respecting their place
in the creation ? In this case, however, the excuse of being led
astray by the primitive documents of the Old Testament does
not exist, for they conform in a remarkable manner to the
facts of nature, and directly contradict the more modern
pyschology.
There is no theological doctrine more firmly established
than that there is an infinite difference between man and the
HUMAN REASON AND ANIMAL INSTINCT. 15
animals in the essential quality of their inner being, and in
their consequent natural duration. Man, says the Church, has
a soul, the animals have no souls. Man has reason, animals
possess ' instinct' only. Mind is peculiar to man. The
animals have no moral nature j they have no understanding ;
the destinies of the two are therefore diverse. The animals
perish totally in death. But man's soul is spiritual, is of the
nature of God, and therefore will naturally endure for ever.
The mind of man is indestructible. Its immortality is of its
essence. It must live as long as its Eternal Maker. Being a
simple and indivisible substance, the soul is indissoluble by
any natural cause acting from without ; and being once in
existence, it exists for ever. Even in matter nothing is an-
nihilated. No atom perishes. Forms are changed. Organi-
sations dissolve, but substance remains. Much more must
spiritual substance endure for ever. The canon of the Ever-
lasting has affixed an eternal destiny to mind ; and the moral
quality of man's mind implies and demands eternal retribution
from the Eternal Being whom it pleases or offends.
Throughout Christendom it is held that the ' inner man '
is a natural heir of immortality, herein being distinguished from
the beasts that perish, and this principle is maintained as a
postulate of the religious life, co-ordinate with the recognition
of the Being and Moral Government of God. It is held that
the one idea suggests and implies the other. Belief in God and
in the Immortality of the Soul are the two indispensable bases
of religion. The soul which can meditate and long for the
Eternal must be itself eternal. Moral relations with the Infinite
compel an endless destiny. That which good men hope for,
great souls aspire to, and bad men profoundly dread, in a world
of reward and punishment, is supposed to depend wholly on the
establishment of the doctrine of the soul's immortality. It is not
enough to rest on the purpose of God ' to give to every man
according to his works' a greater or a less punishment or
reward. It is held that the only safe foundation for faith in a
future state, or for any divine worship^, must be laid in the doc-
trine of man's natural eternity of being.
It has been difficult under such views to render justice to the
animal world. Beside beings endowed with the divine attribute
1 6 IMMATERIALITY AND IMMORTALITY.
of eternal duration, these humble creatures have enjoyed but
a small chance of consideration, and the sublime ' Immortals '
have exercised but a sorry government over their perishable slaves.
A more exact study of these enslaved races, however, is
gradually opening the eyes of men to their delusions, and lead-
ing to that wider observation of organised natures on which alone
solid opinion can be established. A few misquoted texts of
Scripture can no longer avail to conceal the fact that a science
of comparative psychology has sprung up, which shatters the
metaphysical arguments on which hitherto theologians have
so unwisely rested their hope of life eternal.
For if man's prospects in the future depend on the posses-
sion of mind, then must he either share this immortality with
his animal neighbours, or consent to abandon his own expecta-
tion on that ground along with theirs. Whatever evidence
there is that man possesses intelligence, there is equally clear
evidence that it is possessed by them. The animals have real
minds, cognisant of real ideas, and acting in various methods
upon them. Mind is as varied in its developments as matter,
though we know nothing of the nature of either. Whatever
evidence there is that consciousness in man resides in an
immaterial essence, there is the same evidence that it is im-
material in ' the beasts that perish.' If man's immateriality
is to be made a basis for the argument of immortality, it must
be extended logically over the whole area of life. The immor-
tality of the animating principle of amoebae and zoophytes
is the legitimate inference from its immaterial quality, if the
same inference is insisted on in the case of man. The argu-
ment which is good for man is equally available for animalculae
and for all intermediate grades. If the reply be made, by
some enthusiasts, that the inference is accepted, it will suffice
to rejoin that a bold inference, unsupported by a single particle
of evidence, such as the known survival of one tiger's, or even
of one coral insect's ' soul,' is but a weak foundation on which
to build the eternal hopes of mankind. For, here, as else-
where, the strength of the popular belief is inversely commensurate
with the force of the evidence on which it reposes.
Abandoning deceptive generalities, let us then observe the
VARIETIES OF ANIMAL MIND. 17
facts of nature. The general principles on which all material
organisms are constructed are the same throughout the world
yet there is a boundless diversity in the application of those
principles to the forms, sizes, powers, habits, and conditions, in
the numerous orders of living creatures. In the same manner
sensitive substance, whether in its essence differing from the
substances of which chemistry takes account, or identical with
them, is found from the lowest to the highest rank of the animals ;
but it is as varied in its developments as is the physical
organisation to which it is mysteriously united. From zoo-
phytic life up to the mammalia there is a vast ascending scale
of growing perfection in the body ; but the scale is not less
extended in respect of the animating moving principle, from
the dull and sluggish sensibility which hovers on the borders
of the insensate vegetable kingdom, up to the speechless reason
of the elephant or the dog, which almost rivals, if it does not
conspicuously surpass, the earlier developments of the childhood
of man.
What this inconceivable diversity of animating souls really
is can be apprehended better by those who have somewhat
studied the actions, propensities, and powers of the thousands
of living species actually described by zoology. To each species
there is an appropriate sensibility, either a power of sensation
and automatic action, or of observation, or of imitation, or of
constructive invention, or of reason ; capacities for varied enjoy-
ment, passions wild or gentle, attachments individual or gre-
garious, propensities and instincts fitted to the element in which
the creature lives, or to the circumstances under which its food
is to be obtained. And if the consideration of the series of
intellectual ranks among men from the lowest idiot up to a
Newton or a Helmholtz fills us with wonder at the Power which
from elements so few can elicit a variety so enormous of capa-
cities, attainments, and character, that reverent wonder may well
be increased when we turn to examine this lower frame of
sentient beings in the animal world, alike the work of that
One Eternal Mind, whose reflected light dazzles us in the firma-
ment and glimmers in the glowworm, blazes like lightning in a
Shakespere's countenance, and illuminates the darkling labours
of the honey-bee.
1 8 THE BEE.
Through a million of species, then, there is this widely varied
creation of sensibility, consciousness, and power ; but a fuller
impression of the fact can be obtained only by remembering the
countless myriads of individuals comprised under each denomin-
ation. Take one familiar instance, the bee, to which allusion
has just been made. A hive may contain on the average about
30,000 bees. In this number there is first the Queen, with her
appropriate mind, her perceptions, tastes, capacities, in common
with her subjects ; and in addition the royal qualities of spirit,
whatever they may be, which incite or enable her to take the
lead in migrations or swarmings, and the instincts which prompt
her patiently to undergo the task of depositing the eggs of the
future progeny, one by one, in the cells prepared for their re-
ception. Secondly, there are the drones, as remarkably inspired
with a love of home and of apparent idleness, as their sisters are
endowed with a passion for perpetual labour. And thirdly, there
are the true working bees composing the principal population
of the hive, each one containing in its tiny form a ganglionic
apparatus whose implanted instincts have occupied the labours
of a hundred naturalists in imperfectly understanding them.
In every working bee there are, i, the senses of sight, hearing,
taste, feeling, and smell ; 2, the implanted love of work and love
of honey ; 3, the impulse to wander through the fields and
flowers ; 4, the skill to discover and carry off the three different
materials needed in the hive; 5, the inconceivable power of
remembering the way home again; however distant, although
the shortest line is certain to be taken in returning, with the in-
fallible selection of the native hive if many are together ; 6, the
instinct to build the cells, after wax has been elaborated by
digestion, or to deposit honey in them if that has been the
object of the airy voyage ; 7, the mathematical impulse to build
in hexagons, the most economical form in respect of material,
space, and labour; 8, the intelligence which can adapt general
operations to peculiar circumstances ; 9, the defensive passions
which govern the action of the sting ; 10, the loyal and gregarious
affections which bind the workers to their maiden or dronish
companions, and the whole colony to its parental queen.
In every working bee there is all this mind, instinct, intel-
lectual automatic machinery, call it what we will ; but what
INSTINCT AND REASON. 19
now is that power which, like the most delicate engraving on
a gem, stamps these numerous minute energies upon the tiny
brain of every bee of the innumerable swarms which from the
birth of time have diffused the murmur of their music over the
meadows of the temperate and torrid zone ? We can scarcely
be surprised if men in ages of hazier thought resolved such
miracles of nature into the direct agency of the world-pervading
Almighty Intelligence.
1 For what if all of animated natures
Be but organic harps, diversely framed,
That tremble into life as o'er them sweeps,
Plastic and vast, one Intellectual Breeze,
At once the Soul of each, and God of all.'
It has been common in former times to sum up the facts of
animal intelligence by stating that they possess instinct only, while
man possesses reason and a moral nature. Their understanding,
therefore, needed not to be considered as of the quality of mind
properly so called, and doubtless it was mortal. Man's intelli-
gence, on the other hand, was of a wholly different nature, and
doubtless immortal. It will assist correct thought on this subject
to remember that by instinct is intended an impulse to the blind
pursuit of some end which the agent does not understand or per-
ceive a definition which will comprehend a large portion doubt-
less of the operations of the animal mind. But not the whole,
perhaps not half of the phenomena. An implanted instinct governs
the action of the bee, the spider, the mole, the beaver, the nest-
building and incubating birds ; and the human infant resembles
the new-born colt in the instinct by which its life is sustained.
But if it be intended to assert that none of the animals are con-
scious of aiming at a purpose, or perceiving the adaptation of
means to ends, or of intelligently contriving such means under
certain limitations, then the theory does not correspond with the
facts. To speak of an elephant, a horse, or a dog doing by
' instinct ' such things as it has been taught would be as absurd
as to talk ot a child learning to read by Instinct. Docility is
evidently characteristic of Reason. Moreover, ' brutes are in
many instances,' adds Archbishop Whately, ' capable of learning
what they have not been taught by man, They have been found
20 REAL MIND IN ANIMALS.
able to combine (more or less) the means of accomplishing a
certain end from having learned by experience that such and such
means so applied would conduce to it. The higher animals show
more of reason than the lower.'
The difference between men and animals does not then consist
in this, that animals are destitute of mind. They possess most of
the faculties which we call mind in man. They possess sensation,
perception, memory governed by fixed law of association, imagina-
tion, invention, reasoning power up to a certain degree; they
possess the sense of beauty, and greatly enjoy beauty of form,
of colour, and of motion ; and they signally excel in the various
affections which bind them to each other, or to mankind.* There
has been a general philosophical conspiracy to underrate the
animals, Descartes even going so far as to declare that they were
unconscious automata, in order to exalt the supremacy of man.
It has been readily seen that if it is proper to argue the immateri-
ality of man's mind from the difficulty of imputing intelligence to
matter or to atomic combinations, it would be necessary to impute
equally immateriality to the sentient principle in brutes, if that
sentient principle were allowed to be a true understanding. But
both premiss and conclusion must be conceded. The animals
are widely intelligent ; and if that argues immateriality of the
mind for man, it argues immateriality for them likewise. If non-
materiality in the thinking power compels the inference of immor-
tality for mankind, it compels it also for the thinking principle in
animals ; or conversely, if there may be a certain degree of mind
in animals, and yet it may be neither immaterial nor immortal, it
follows by necessity that human expectations of an eternal being,
based on the sandy foundation of speculation on the essence of
the soul, are as worthless as would be similar expectations indulged
* The materials for forming a judgment on the limited but real intelligence
of animals are easily accessible in a few well-known works of which the follow-
ing may be mentioned : Dialogues on Instinct, by Lord Brougham. Instinct,
by Archbishop Whately. Instinct, or Curiosities of Animal Life, by S. Garratt.
Entomology. Kirby and Spence. Passions of Animals. E. P. Thompson.
Chapters on Animals. E. Hamerton. Intelligence of Animals. E. Leroy.
Etudes sur les facultes mentales des animaux, comparees a celles de rhommc.
Houzeau, De F Instinct. Flourens, Paris, 1864. On Atttomata.l. Huxley.
See also on Animal Intelligence, Porphyry de Abstincntia, Book II. Porphyry
evidently thinks it is next door to cannibalism to eat such intelligent creatures.
SCRIPTURAL PSYCHOLOGY. 21
on behalf of the animal races around us. Arnobius, one of the
Christian Fathers of the third century, vigorously exposes this
fallacy in his second book Adversus gentes.
In a following page it will be shown that the Hebrew Scriptures
with remarkable consent adhere to a representation of animal life,
and of the relations between it and human life, equally removed
from the errors of antiquity, and of modern times, while agreeing
with the best deductions of science. The simple psychology
and theology of the Scripture are interwoven with each other, and
it is difficult to account for the persistent adhesion of so many
primitive writers to one generally unwelcome but important series
of statements and silences, except through the presence of some
marvellous genius for correct thought in their nation, or some real
inspiring guidance.
22
CHAPTER III.
ON THE MORTALITY OF ANIMALS.
THE animal species already taken account of have each their
allotted term of life, and then without exception Death attacks
and devours all their hosts. There is no exception to this uni-
versal law. Their existence is limited to a few days, hours, or
years, and they then 'return to their dust.' The denizens of the
land, the air, the water, alike die, and after a space no trace
remains of their individual being. The atomic elements which
compose their forms are dissolved and dissipated, or are recom-
bined by a wondrous chemistry; but the animals as individual
beings utterly and wholly cease to be.
This has been the popular and also the scientific view of animal
dissolution. They were formed to endure but for a little while,
and when their hour comes their existence ends absolutely. No
argument of superiority on the part of higher quadrupeds, no
delicacy or refinement of instinct in the insect races, is allowed
by nature as a plea against the execution of the law which consigns
the entire animal world to extinction. Such is the conclusion of
observation and reason respecting the animals. Their animating
principle, whatever its nature, was called into being for purposes
which are found in the physical structure alone, and which have
no intelligible basis apart from the functions of that organism.
When, therefore, the organism dies, the forces which ruled and
animated it are dissipated also. Each organism is developed
from a germ which unfolds both the energies and their instru-
ments woven together into an inextricable unity. So long as this
unity of life is preserved the ponderable and the imponderable
forces work together to maintain the fabric. Everywhere oxidation
is going on. oxidation either of the circulating fluid itself, or of
SURVIVAL OF ANIMAL SOULS. 23
the structures which it bathes, and whose losses it has to make
good. Little by little every ,part of the body is continually
mouldering away, and as continually being made new by the
blood. The blood is the life. When that ceases to flow, it
ceases both to nourish and to be nourished. The brain is as
dependent for its energies upon the blood, and upon continual
combustion and reparation, as any other portion of the frame.
Death is the cessation of all functions. It is followed by the
speedy dissipation of the combined elements which formed the
organism. The ultimate atoms enter into new combinations.
The forces are conserved in other forms. But the Integer, the
Animal which resulted from the former combination, is no more.
Science knows nothing of the continuance after death of any
willing or thinking or feeling faculty which the animal may have
possessed in life.*
The desire to find some basis for hope of the soul's survival
in death for the human race has led not a few to attempt the
establishment of a more general doctrine of survival which may
include all higher animated natures ; but this is simply a reaction
from the opposite extreme of injustice which once refused to
admit the reality of animal intelligence altogether. Once the
brutes had no ' souls,' nothing but ' instinct,' and even ' no
sensation ' ; now we are taught that they leave behind in death,
at least in some cases, a spiritual residuum which is destined to
immortality, f
* ' The animal soul also terminates ; the animal souls of beasts are simply
special individualizations of the spirit of nature, and at death are resolved into
the general spirit of nature of which they are manifestations.' Delitzsch's
Psychol.
f The Spectator newspaper has distinguished itself of late years very much in
its defence of the immortality of domestic animals. This seems a somewhat
arbitrary choice of favourites. Dogs, cats, and horses are useful creatures, but
why should they be elected to live for ever when so many denizens of land and
water, though less familiar with man, appear to possess at least equal personal
recommendations ; and nearly all animals, under suitable tuition, might be
developed into cattle similarly worthy of immortality? But our Spectator's
antipathies are sometimes as groundless as its sympathies even towards its
human fellow-creatures. Its unreasoning dislike of the Free Churches, for
example, is only less marked than its zealous advocacy of the heavenly destiny
of its own dogs and feline associates.
24 NO EVIDENCE OF SURVIVAL
But this is not science. Science knows nothing of such sur-
vival, and all that we do know of the mode of the production of
the sentient powers of the animal leads to a strong persuasion
that death ends every individuality. It is impossible any longer
to indulge in fantasies founded on a partial attachment to domesti-
cated animals, or arbitrarily to assert that the higher types of life
are distinguished from the lower by immortality. That the system
of life on the earth is one, and is either evolved in succession
from preceding forms, or, if separately created, is created on a
homogeneous and progressive plan, is now demonstrated beyond
reasonable contradiction. The phenomena of life, whether of
nutrition, growth, movement, sensation, perception, intelligence,
volition, enjoyment, are systematically evolved in nature without
a break, from the lowest animal cell up to the highest of the
mammalia ; and science, notwithstanding the chemical diversity,
declares her inability even to place her finger distinctly upon the
line where vegetable life passes into the animal* The highest
are bound by the conditions of organic existence to the lowest,
being part of the same family, as closely as the lowest are bound
to the highest. It is contrary to solid knowledge to say that we
have any evidence of the survival of the sentient or animating
energy, as individual life, in the death of the higher animals. It
is equally contrary to all that is known to dream of any mighty
distinction between remote links of the series, such as would be
found in the survival of some, and the final death of others.
Where shall the line be drawn ? The animal ' mind ' is a thing
* The apprehension of this difficulty is at length compelling some of our
popular religious writers to advocate the broader doctrine of the survival of all
life, including that of vegetation. In a paper in the Christian World Magazine
for Nov., 1874, a pious writer informs his readers that in death 'there is no
reason for saying that the organising principle has ceased to exist. This is as
true of plants and of animals as of men, and there is no reason for supposing
that when they die their principle of life is ended.' One may ask, perhaps,
whether each flower-soul enjoys a separate immortality, or is that privilege
restricted to the root or stem ? We cannot but agree with these authors that
the ' reason ' for believing in the survival of animals is precisely of equal force
with that which encourages the belief in the survival of plants, that is, as they
put it, 'there is no reason at all for saying 'anything on the subject. A
complete absence of evidence for one position, however, is not the same thing
with an absolute proof of the contrary.
OF ANIMAL SOULS. 25
of infinite degrees, and one type of brain or nerve-energy passes
by imperceptible shades into a higher or a lower. Why should a
dog's soul live for ever, and a jackal's sink into eternal death ; or
a leopard live on, while a rat or a toad shall perish ? The longer
we look upon the phenomena of life the deeper becomes the con-
viction that the law of nature for all living things on earth is, and
has been always, death, dissolution, destruction of the individuality,
dissipation of the component elements whether of confervae,
grasses, trees, sensitive plants, zoophytes, mollusks, or mammalia.
Perhaps it is the law of planetary life throughout the universe. It
deserves observation that the chemical difference between well-
developed plants and animals is clearly fixed in this, that plants
deoxidise and accumulate in excess, while animals oxidise and
expend in excess ; but, although the life-principle operates in
these two opposite methods, and there is considerable difficulty
in determining where the one excess is established over the other,
there is no radical difference between them. There seems, then,
to be as little ground for anticipating its survival in one case as in
the other. Professor Michael Foster says that ' in the fungi the
double chemical process is found in . equilibria ; and it may be
clearly seen that the protoplasm, while continually being oxidised,
is yet capable of constructing itself out of inorganic elements,
though it flourishes much better when fed with ready-made
material.'
The geological record witnesses historically to the action of the
law of death, from the beginning of the earth's inhabited state.
The fossil remains of animals form a large part of the substance
of the sedimentary rocks of the globe. ' Of old,' says Professor
Owen, 'the earth was a scene of conflict and carnage.' Through
past ' eternal ages ' death has reigned relentlessly over the
organisms of this planet. The earth is an enormous sepulchre of
buried forms. Fifty thousand extinct species of animals have
been already exhumed and described. The existing species are
slowly following their predecessors to the dust. The globe has
passed through many transformations, through long-enduring
summers, through long and dreary winters ; oceans and conti-
nents have exchanged their places. Nature, prodigal of life, has
filled the world with her wonders. Multitudes of creatures have
been caused to find their very aliment of being in the slaughtered
26 MR. CONSTABLE ON DEATH.
bodies of others ; but all alike, without one single exception,
having fulfilled their brief period of activity, have relapsed into
the nothingness whence they sprang.
Mr. Constable remarks with great force, that 'there is no
doubt that before the fall of man the penalty attached to sin, viz.
death, could have had but one sense, and that sense the primary.'
(Future Punishment, p. 77.) By which no doubt he intends
that if before Adam * fell ' the word death had been used in con-
versation in such a world as this, the word could have had but
one meaning, in view of the cessation of animal life, namely that
of extinction. All living things ' died,' vegetable and animal, in
the sense of ceasing to be and this was the sense which would
therefore be naturally affixed to the term in the threat which
warned the human pair to avoid the forbidden tree, if they would
continue to eat of the tree of life and live for ever. This is
indeed to anticipate the argument of a future chapter ; but the
biblical threatening of death to Adam in paradise derives a clear
significance from the history of this globe before he trod the
earth. Nature was an all-devouring destroyer of the life which
she produced. ' In the variety, the beauty, the polish, the sharp-
ness, the strength, the barbed perfection of lethal weapons, no
armoury can compete with that of the fossil world.' The
goodness revealed in the earth was not 'infinite.' Nature's plan
of working on, through untold ages, was to shed a ray of light
upon a life, then swiftly to swallow it up in eternal darkness.
The Creative Energy was equalled by the Destructive Energy.
The law of the planet was to ' make alive,' and then to ' kill ' ;
and not a single organic form rose out of nothingness for more
than a short space of time. Nature was a volcano that threw
up from her depths millions of sparks and flashes of life, to be
extinguished straightway in the eternal gloom.
CHAPTER IV.
A BRIEF REVIEW OF THE RELATION OF MAN TO THE ANIMAL
RACES AS CONSIDERED UNDER THE LIGHT OF SCIENCE
ONLY.
BEFORE we advance to the study of the doctrine of Divine
Revelation on the origin and destiny of man, it is necessary to
consider more exactly the state of our knowledge on these sub-
jects under the light of modern inquiry. The extent and limita-
tion of this knowledge are faithfully represented by the speculations
of contemporary philosophers.
Mr. Darwin's arguments on the descent of mankind from
common ancestors of the simians form a portion, and but a small
portion, of a far wider and more complex hypothesis, of the unity
of the entire life-system of the globe, and of the descent or rather
ascent of the higher animals from those of lower organization in
the course of the past eternity. Apart from absolute proof of
the truth of the general hypothesis of evolution respecting the
animal races, it is clear that the theory of a semi-simian descent
for man has not even a locus standi among probabilities. Not
until it has been decisively proved that the mammalia in their
present form are the result of a long precedent series of gradual
transformations, so that the simians themselves can be traced to
their predecessors and ancestral congeners, can it be seriously
held as determined that man has ascended from the lower
organisms. At present the theory, however strongly supported
by the presence of rudimentary but undeveloped organs, halts,
as Professor Agazziz in his latest papers frequently points out,
rom the striking predominance of hypothesis over evidence.
For the variations in species under long tracts of duration, as
28 THE GEOLOGICAL RECORD.
in the crocodiles and marsupials, or under domestication, as in
the dog and the pigeon, leave us still destitute of a single clear
example of this transmutation of species into wholly new fertile
types. The present law of nature steadily refuses to allow of the
perpetuation even of hybrids, and hybrids are never bred except
from congeners. While, therefore, there is an elastic capacity in
many species to accommodate themselves to a certain extent to a
change of circumstances, and there may thus arise changes of
appearance, and even of structure, transmissible to offspring, these
mutations, it is said, are governed by constant laws and are con-
fined within certain limits. Species in our time have a real
existence in nature ; and a transmutation from one to another,
so far as our present exact knowledge extends, does not exist.
Thus, as Cuvier long ago remarked, all the differences of size,
appearance, and habits which we find in dogs, leave the skeletons
of this animal and the relations of the bones to each other
essentially the same, and with all the varieties of their shape and
size there are characters which resist all the influences of external
nature, of human interference, and of time.*
The geological record in its fossil remains fails to supply the
missing links of animals under process of transmutation. If the
hypothesis be true that in the past eternal ages all existing forms
have been evolved from preceding organisms in a direct succes-
sion, there ought, since the rocks contain fossil remains which
carry us back to the beginning of life, to be found at least some
clear examples of species in transitu. No such fossil forms are
discovered.! Fact, so far, opposes the theory.
The result of observation, it may be further alleged, is the same
in every land. Nature has preserved no general traces of the
action of the supposed transmuting energy. Biology lays as firm
* See Whewell's Indications oj the Creator^ p. 100.
t ' As far as I have been able to read the records of the rocks, I confess I
have failed to discover any lineal series among the vast assemblage of extinct
species which might form a basis and lend reliable biological support to such
a theory. Instead of a gradation upwards in certain groups and classes of
fossil animals, we find, on the contrary, that their first representatives are not
the lowest, but often highly organized types of the class to which they belong.'
DR. THOMAS WRIGHT, F.R.S., President of Geological Section of British
Association at Bristol. 1875.
THE DESCENT OF MAN. 29
a classifying hand upon tribes and orders of fossil animals as upon
those of living genera. She is never lost in a haze of uncertain-
ties, but finds her materials for classification in developments
which are separated by fixed intervals or special combinations in
the organisation, showing that if animals of different families have
successively grown out of each other, at least no evidence remains
of so wonderful a transformation.
Since no considerable accession is likely to be made to the world-
wide materials of our knowledge on this subject, it can scarcely
occur even to sanguine minds to anticipate a physiological or
geological proof of the ascent of man from preceding races ; and
this the less if the genesis of man is carried back to the quater-
nary period. All that can be determined seems to be, that the
actual variations of species within their own limits shows that even
the transmutation of one species into another is not an idea which
ought to be summarily dismissed from the field of speculation.
So far as we know, such a transmutation is possible ; and (apart
from the antagonistic testimony of fossil geology, which is con-
trary to it) might be regarded as probable. So far as the physical
structure is concerned, a view of the remarkable similarity of the
anatomy of the Simiadcz and Anthropomorpha to the anatomy of
man, as may be seen in detail in Professor Huxley's Manual of
the Anatomy of Vertebrated Animals (pp. 458-498), compels the
admission that to whatever extent (no very serious concession)
transmutation is probable in the case of animals generally, it is
also probable in the case of humanity itself; but even here there
is a serious difficulty in man's loss of a furry coat and lengthened
tail, and still more in the gain of so vast a brain.
Embryology, which has been relied on to exhibit the actual
passage of each individual of the higher orders, in the prenatal
condition, through the forms of the lower ranks in nature, in the
process of production while it certainly adds some support to
the general hypothesis of the unity of life fails in several im-
portant respects to supply decisive evidence ; since in every
known instance nature leaps over whole orders in the embryonic
development of the mammalia, and proceeds with a firm hand
to the evolution of the permanent type, while resisting the per-
petuation of hybrids.
The general result, therefore, of recent investigations into the
3 o EMBRYOLOGY.
origin of man is this. There are certain presumptions that under
different terrestrial conditions the formative power which now
produces animal life, and brings about marvellous changes of size,
form, colour, and function within the limits of species, may have
operated in former ages to the gradual or even saltatory develop-
ment of really new species, and even of new genera, in an ascend-
ing series. And in the absence of distinct information to the
contrary, we might conclude with precisely the same measure of
inclination towards the opinion (an opinion which is not science)
that mankind sprang from the Animal Races. But it is impossible
to affirm that there is decisive evidence of such an origin. The
geological record is distinctly in favour of the creation of groups
by successive acts of divine power, or at least by successive acts
of the plastic force of nature, whatever that may be. And hence
the conclusion that man was created, as were the distinct species
before him, is still at least as defensible as the opposite hypothesis.
The Power which interposed at first to create germs may just
as reasonably be believed to have interposed again and again, to
create orders, genera, and species. The contest between the
probabilities raised on one side by embryology and the observation
of specific varieties, and the probabilities raised on the other by
the contradictory evidence of the geological record, leave us at last
uncertain as to the Whence and Whither of humanity. We require
more light, and above all a direct revelation from the Creator.*
The question of the Antiquity of Man is closely connected with
that of his origin, and with that of the history of the globe. Apart
from the statement of any supposed revelation, assuredly the last
idea which would be suggested by the phenomena of the earth's
surface, or the condition of man upon it, would be that Man saw
* As for Haeckel's theory of the spontaneous generation from material
atoms of those original vital germs out of which the living world has grown,
this is clearly as distinct a * leap into the supernatural ' as that of which he
complains in the Theistic hypothesis, with this difference, that the theory of
God will account for the origin and development of life, but the theory of
atomic generation will not. See Dr. Elam's important work, Winds of Doctrine ;
or, Automatism and Evolution (Smith, Elder, and Co., 1876) ; and Professor
Carruthers on Evolution in Plants {Contemporary Review, 1877) ; in both of
which a formidable scientific opposition is offered to certain hasty assumptions'
of the more advanced Evolutionists.
GEOLOGICAL CHRONOLOGY. 31
the light for the first time a few thousand years ago. All heathen
who have speculated under natural conditions upon human life
have assigned a vast if indefinite antiquity to the earth and its
living races. And such undoubtedly would be, as Mr. McCaus-
land argues, the conclusion derived both from the study of the
recent relics of man found in the quaternary gravels, and from
the ethnic variations of the human race itself as seen in the dif-
ferent countries of the world.
But here again we are met by opposing and counterbalancing
evidence, which perplexes the judgment, and leaves the mind
halting between two opinions. Vague at best are the inferences
which can be derived from fossil geology as to the date of the
production of successive species. It is as easy to speak of
millions of years as of thousands, and as unsatisfactory as it is
easy. There are clear indications of comparatively recent move-
ments of the crust of the earth in certain portions, movements
which, in conjunction with secular changes of temperature, may
have initiated watershed conditions equal to the destruction of
sedimentary strata of large extent in a comparatively small space of
time. Nothing is more vaguely known than the age of gravels.
That this was earlier and that later, may be safely declared ; but
when this river cut its bed through the sand and chalk of the
Somme or of Southern Hampshire is more than the skilled
geologist can tell. It may have been myriads of years ago, or it
may have been in quite recent geological times.*
The question of the birth of humanity is entangled with these
geological uncertainties.
* Dr. Dawson, of Montreal College, who enjoys a respectable European
reputation as a geologist, thus writes of the Somme gravels : 'In 1865 I had
an opportunity to examine the gravels of St. Acheul on the Somme, by some
supposed to go back to a very ancient period. With the papers of Prestwich
and other able observers in my hand, I could conclude merely that the undis-
turbed gravels were older than the Roman period ; but how much older only
detailed topographical surveys could prove ; and that taking into account the
probabilities of a different level of the land, a wooded condition of the country,
a greater rainfall, and a glacial filling up of the Somme valley Math clay and
stones subsequently cut out by running waters, the gravels could scarcely be
older than the Abbeville peat, less than 4000 years. Tylor and Andrews have
subsequently shown that my impressions were correct.' Journal of Geological
Society, vol. xxv. Silliman's Journal, 1 868. Story of the Earth and Man,
p. 294. 1873.
32 ANTIQUITY OF MAN.
In recent years a large and cautious induction of phenomena
seems to have satisfied many able inquirers of the existence of
man upon the earth in an age when not a few now extinct species
of animals were living. The revelations of Kent's Hole, near
Torquay, where human utensils are found together with long
extinct species, under twelve feet of stalagmite, upon which are
piled fresh strata of earth and stalagmite, and then fresh relics of
more recent races of men, are typical of numerous correlated facts
brought to light in all parts of the world. It has seemed to
follow that the men who fashioned the implements, found em-
bedded in the same gravel or stalagmite or bone earth with the
remains of cave-bears, hyaenas, and tigers, lived at the same time
when these predacious animals inhabited the north of Europe, a
time when elephants, rhinoceroses, and hippopotami wandered
through its forests and tenanted its rivers. How many ages ago
was it when the diluvium of Abbeville, East Croydon, or Bourne-
mouth was laid down, when the implements were deposited,
which are not found only in the loam, nor in the brick earth of
the surface, nor in the intermediate beds of clay, sand, and small
flints, but, beneath all these, in the breccia, among the relics of
species belonging to the epoch immediately preceding the cata-
clysm by which they were destroyed? After all possible de-
ductions made (i) on the hypothesis that the elevating and
depressing forces were anciently more active than at present ;
that the action of water and subterranean fire was much more
violent and efficacious than we see it now to be ; and (2) on the
further hypothesis that many of the extinct animals whose bones
are found in conjunction with signs of human life may have
lingered far into recent historic times as in the example of the
wild ox of the Roman period there still remains a large and ac-
cumulating mass of seeming evidence, that the antiquity of man,
or manlike beings, reaches far beyond the narrow limits of the
popular biblical chronology, which begins only with yesterday."
* For the opposite view, see Dawson's Story of the Earth and Man.
Dr. Dawson is not satisfied even with the current geological conclusions re-
specting the valley of the Somme and the Acheul flint implements. He thinks
there was probably a flood caused by sinking of the European surface then
inhabited by men, at the close of the glacial period ; a flood which brought
clay and gravel into the Somme valley, afterwards excavated by a powerful
THEORIES OP MANS ORIGIN. 33
But here, as before, decisive evidence, under purely scientific
conditions, of the unity and continuity of the human race, fails
us at last. If the descent of man from the animals cannot be
really established ; if the descent even of one animal species from
another cannot be thoroughly demonstrated ; much less can the
descent of modern humanity from the ancient types of the same
genus be demonstrated by adequate proof. There may have
existed on earth different contemporaneous or successive species
of men, as of animals ; whose terms of being may have been
closed by a catastrophe, to make way for a new creation. Or
there may have been one human race only, of immense antiquity,
varied by time and circumstance into the successive families who
lived at the close of the glacial epoch, and afterwards multiplied
into the many coloured varieties of the whole earth in subsequent
ages.* We seem to be gazing into a dim twilight where evidence
on both sides of the problem may be gathered by a creative
imagination in the gloom.
If now, from considering the physical structure of men and of
animals, we turn to their mental differences, the probable argu-
ment for a separate origin and a direct creation of man, strengthens
at every step in the inquiry. We find ourselves confronted with
evidence which leads to conclusions directly contrary to those
which on anatomical grounds favoured the hypothesis of descent
from the simians. Mr. Tylor himself has shown in his work on
Primitive Culture, that as far back as we can trace human history,
and as accurately as we can estimate the working of thought
among primitive races and savage men, there is evidence of an
intellectual, moral, and religious nature in Man, which, under
even the direst debasement, distinguishes him from the brutes by
an enormous superiority of endowment. No evidence has ever
yet been adduced of the existence of races of men past or present,
living in an absolutely brutal or irrational condition. No races
are anywhere to be found or heard of in a condition which is less
remote from mere animal existence than it is from the highest
river from the south, within historic times. Nothing seems to rest on flimsier
evidence than the doctrine of uniformitarian upheaval and depression. His-
tory gives us some assistance towards a definite recent chronology, but geology
none whatever.
* See Professor Ansted, Stray Chapters on Earth and Ocean, p. 251.
3
34 DIFFERENTIAE OF HUMANITY.
human development of which we have as yet experience. No
evidence has been found of any animal race rising above itself
into a wholly different rank of intelligence, and therefore there is
the utmost improbability, on psychological grounds, against the
opinion of human evolution from the apes. But there seems also
to be a difference in kind between the lowest races of men and
the highest brutes, pointing to a difference of essential principle
and therefore of origin in this ' quaternary mammal.' That
difference has been .described by Archbishop Whately in his brief
treatise on Instinct in the following terms : ' Almost any animal
which is capable of being tamed can, in some degree, use
language as an indication of what passes within. But no animal
uses language as an instrument of thought. Man makes use of
general signs in the application of his power of abstraction, by
which he is enabled to reason, and the use of arbitrary general
signs, what logicians call " common terms," with a facility of thus
using abstraction at pleasure, is a characteristic of man only.'
A writer in the Quarterly Review has recently shown further that
we may have, (i) animal sounds neither rational nor articulate,
(2) sounds both articulate and rational, (3) sounds articulate but
not rational, (4) sounds rational but not articulate. Now it is in
Man's speech that we find the first proof of a difference in kind.
It is not speech which has created man's perfect reason, it is
reason which has created speech. The difference between vocal
sounds capable of expressing general conceptions and abstract
ideas, and vocal utterances which express sensations and emotions
only, is a specific distinction. Therefore the most imperfect
human languages offer to us an indication of a transition from
irrational cries, while they differ from the highest speech only in
degree.*
* The usual difference of opinion, however, attends an inquiry in this depart-
ment also. Professor Whitney, in replying to Professor Max MUller's Lectures
on Mr. Darwin's Philosophy of Language, finds that animals possess the germ
of the generalizing power ; that a dog recognizes a man ' in the abstract '
before he recognizes the particular man ; that there is no ground for doubting
that speech and reason have been developed together ; nor for doubting that
both alike have been developed in untold ages from the animals who lived
before us. See a paper by G. H. Darwin in Contemporary Review ', Nov. 1874.
Professor Max Midler rejoins in the number for Jan. 1875.
DIFFERENTIA OF HUMANITY. 35
A second evidence of man's specific difference from the
animals is seen in the existence of his moral nature. When men
assert that anything is right they mean to assert something
different from its being pleasurable or advantageous. Even men
who assert that the principle regulating human action should be
the production of the greatest amount of pleasure to all sentient
beings, must assert that there is either no obligation at all to
accept this principle itself, or that such obligation is a moral one.
It is needless to speak of the finer developments of morality in
civilised lands. The present point of interest is that no nation or
race has been found without some morality founded on a sense of
right, and rendering them amenable to law or tribal custom.
And this is again a peculiar characteristic of man.
Religion is a still more marked distinction of humanity. Its
fundamental ideas and emotions spring from a development of
thought of which animals are apparently incapable. And these
ideas and emotions are found, in an elementary stage, even in the
lowest types of superstition.
Lastly, the capacity for a boundless progress individually and
socially distinguishes man from all the inferior races. There is
surely some specific difference between those organisms which
remain for ever at the same level of intelligence and that mind
which observes and studies the phenomena of earth and heaven,
and subdues the whole world to its designs.
Whether, therefore, we consider man's power of Speech, his
Moral nature, his capacity for Religion and Worship, or his
power of indefinite Progression, we are led to the same probable
conclusion, on purely scientific grounds, that this creature
though often sunk into the darkest depths of barbarism, so as to
approximate towards the animals in the methods and ends of life
to a degree which almost abolishes the human sense of superiority
to them was a distinct creation of the Infinite Power, and has
not simply grown out of the next order of primates beneath him
by a natural evolution. A ' beast's heart ' was not given to him
at his origin.
It remains only in this chapter to advert to the evidence of the
age and origin of human nature supplied by written or unwritten
Tradition.
36 EARLY VARIATIONS OF TYPE.
The distinctions between the variously coloured and figured
races of men in Asia, Africa, and Europe were as deeply marked
five thousand years ago as they are to-day, as may be seen in the
wonderfully preserved monuments and wall-paintings of Egypt.
It is natural to argue, with Professor Owen, that no brief interval
of time such as that permitted by the biblical post-diluvian
chronology would have sufficed to allow of variations so enormous
as those which then already separated the black races of Africa
from the yellow men of China, or the white-skinned men of
northern Europe, or western Asia. In what remote ages began
these variations? How many myriads of years sufficed for the
establishment of differences in the bony structure of the skeleton
itself, in the cerebral capacity, in the external contour of the
frame, in the tint and texture of the hair, the aspect of the
countenance, the conceptions of the mind, and the general colour
and expression of the entire organism ? How many millenniums
sufficed to produce the differences in language which are fixed
and decisive at the time when we first catch a glimpse of the early
men ? Apart from heaven-sent information, science will naturally
infer, that if no causes were in operation different in force and in
quality from those now acting, the ages required for producing
these variations carry us back into an antiquity where darkness
covers all things. The wildest dreams of Indian cosmogony on
the long eras of past history correspond better with the facts, if
the facts have all been gradually produced, than do the trifling
allowance of Mosaic millenniums which can be counted on your
fingers.
Yet here once more strangely conflicting evidence awaits us ;
for the history of the human race, actually known, in no
instance goes backward to a period much more ancient than may
be reached by a liberal stretching of the biblical chronology.
The authentic histories of China, of India, and of Egypt, the
three most ancient and most civilised states of the earlier world,
carry us back a few thousand years, and there either leave us to
gaze into total darkness, or supplement the lack of reliable narra-
tion by a fancy-picture of gods and demons of whose existence
there is no evidence whatever. Now if mankind has inhabited
this planet during numerous ages, possessed of the properly human
faculties of speech and progressive intellect, it seems strange and
DEFECTS IN THE FOSSIL RECORD. 37
almost incredible that no relics of the human population should
be discovered answerable to so great a multitude and so prolonged
a duration. The existing monuments of historic nations are
certainly not ten thousand years old ; the earliest temples, pyra-
mids, sepulchres, literary works, works of engineering art, are
certainly of more recent origin. It is truly confounding to the
judgment to learn that the only indications of the existence of
innumerable men, or manlike beings, on earth in the quaternary
ages are comprised in some flint implements for the destruction of
wild beasts, and a questionable tooth, or skull, while there arc
no remains of dwellings, temples, or tombs of the palaeolithic
epoch. It seems wholly unaccountable that a strictly rational
order of beings should have lived on the earth through perhaps
100,000 years since the glacial age, and have left no signs of their
presence or of their works except a few hunting tools ; while their
supposed descendants, the races of China, India, and Egypt,
when they first appear in history, stand forth in possession of the
arts and sciences, at least in a germinant form, and already have
established great and mighty monarchies. The facts of history
are more consistent with the hypothesis of a recent origin of the
present race of mankind ; and the osteological character of the
alluvial record offers a signal confirmation to it. For it is un-
questionable that even if human races have existed for many
thousands of years on the globe, they have at least left no per-
manent signs of their habitations or their tombs in those distant
ages, and no tradition which throws even the faintest light upon
their history. The traditions which have descended to us from
the earliest times in all nations in most respects resemble those
which have taken a prominent place in the literature of the world
in the recent monuments of the Hebrews and Assyrians. All
authentic history begins with a flood, while the ethnology of
Western Asia and Africa fairly agrees with the narratives of
Genesis. The story of the Ark, and of the Deluge, with the very
names of the patriarchs of Noah's family and of his reputed
descendants (as given in Genesis x.), are found in the ethnic and
territorial names of widely separated historic lands, and so far
yield confirmation to the Semitic tradition.
[The earlier illustration of this statement will be found in
Bochart's Phaleg, in Bryant and Faber's works, on the Origin
33 MOSAIC ARCHAEOLOGY.
of Pagan Idolatry, and the Mysteries of the Cabiri ; in all of
which some substantial truth was taught with old-fashioned and
imperfect learning. But the complete evidence under modern
treatment will be found in Smith's and Kitto's great Biblical
Dictionaries, under the names of the Patriarchs referred to in
Genesis x., and in the Bampton Lectures and Five Great Monarchies
of Dr. Rawlinson ; where the broader light of a new learning is
thrown upon the first ten chapters of the Pentateuch, and their
historical value asserted against the superficial, loose guesses of
idle theorists. I have been informed by the eminent linguist and
missionary Skrefsriid that the ancient Santal traditions among
the aboriginal Turanian mountaineers of Bengal agree in every
respect with those of the Assyrians and Hebrews. Dr. Dawson,
of Montreal College, a leading American geologist, goes so far as
to suppose that the aqueous cataclysm which followed on the
glacial period, and destroyed, by sinking of the earth's surface, so
many animals whose relics are found in the quaternary gravels and
in caverns, occurred as recently as historic times, and was in fact
Noah's 'flood.']
Here therefore once more we are encountered and discouraged
by evidence leading in opposite directions. There is a certain
measure of anatomical and biological presumption inclining us to
think, under unassisted study, that all life on the earth is one, and
that as the animals may have descended from earlier organisms,
so man may have descended from the later types. There is,
however, stronger geological evidence of a negative character to
throw the utmost doubt upon any positive theory of evolution,
while the psychological evidence in favour of a distinct creation of
man, on a higher level, is such as cannot be fairly overcome by
the present resources of biology. Again, there is some seeming
evidence of the antiquity of man in relics and implements found
in conjunction with extinct animals of the quaternary age. But,
on the other hand, there are no remains of the buildings, and,
many leading authorities add, no unquestionable remains of the
bony fabric of the men themselves, who are thus supposed to
have lived through untold centuries in the possession at least of
elementary reason and speech. And when we scrutinise the
positive historic evidence, we discover that no human history, not
even the faintest authentic tradition, carries us back in any part
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT. 39
of the world beyond the last few thousand years ; while at the
dawn of credible literature we find nations and kingdoms which
offer to our study in their names and traditions a remarkable
similarity to those of Moses and the Bible.
The sum of this argument is that by the unassisted light of
science and history we are able to reach no coherent or satisfac-
tory conclusion as to the origin of mankind, its relation to the
animal races, or its future destiny. Lower thoughts on each of
these topics are at once checked by higher, and higher thoughts
and hopes are equally checked by arguments which, if gloomy,
spring from evidence that seems secure. We hover in doubt after
all our pains between two conclusions, and know not certainly
whether our ancestry is from the perishable life of the globe, or
directly from the hand of Heaven ; whether our destiny is to
return wholly to the dust, or to spend eternity with God. Our
nature bears traces of a double alliance, with earth and with
heaven ; we ' know not what we shall be,' till we inquire at the
oracle of Him that made us. The phenomena are such as well
consist with the hypothesis of a nature whose destiny depends on
its moral qualities, and, above all, a nature which has suffered
under some deflection, which science may dimly divine without
being able to elucidate or to remedy.
In following chapters I shall attempt the task of interpreting
the only series of writings which bear marks of a truly divine
original. In attaching importance to those writings as the records
of a divine revelation the censure must be incurred of many who
may have partially assented to the statements of the preceding
pages. I shall offer no argument to such readers in support of
faith in Revelation, except one, and that is the evidence of its
heavenly character which may appear in the course of our com-
ments on its facts and doctrines. The books which convey, in
concurrence with the tradition of Christendom, so marvellous a
revelation of Immortality to man through Union with God, carry
with them an all-sufficing proof of their divine original. An
effectual apology for the Scripture will be found in its right
interpretation.
CHAPTER V.
ON THE NUMBERS AND INTELLECTUAL CONDITION OF MANKIND.
IN a work of which the main object is an inquiry into the destiny
of mankind it is proper to attempt at least some vague representa-
tion of the numbers of sentient beings who are concerned in the
question of death or immortality. And this is the more fitting,
since any consideration of their numbers at once draws attention
to their condition in respect of barbarism or civilisation ; with the
advantages or disadvantages in religious training which have
marked their earthly history. So feeble is the popular imagination
that almost any device is excusable, however aesthetically unworthy,
in the attempt to arouse a feeling of wonder at the stupendous
facts of the world's population.
One of the most recent and carefully prepared estimates of the
present population of the globe, published by Major Bell,* gives
the following figures as an approximate view of their numbers,
arranged under the head of ' Religions ' :
Buddhists ... ... ... ... 483,000,000
Christians ... ... ,.. ... 353,000,000
Brahminists ... ... ... ... 120.000,000
Mohammedans ... ... ... ... 120.000,000
Parsees ... ... ... ... 1,000,000
Jews ... ... ... ... ... 8,000,000
Miscellaneous barbarians, fetish worshippers, and
atheists ... ... ... ... 189,000,000
1,274,000,000
giving a total of 921,000,000 non Christians, even by profession.
Out of these throngs let the population of modern India and
its contiguous provinces be taken as an example. Under the
* Other Countries. Chapman and Hall.
INDIA AND CHINA. 41
last census the numbers are estimated to be two hundred and
eighty millions. Now if this number of men, women, and children,
composing the variously-tinted races of Hindostan and Burmah,
could pass in single file before the presence of a person able to fix
a transient gaze of one minute's duration (and a minute is not much
to expend in thinking on an eternal destiny), sufficient to allow of
the mind's forming a distinct idea, that in each instance a being
having in prospect the alternative of death or an eternal life was
present to his view, then if the stream should roll on night and
day, and the observer continue his task of looking on each in turn
without intermission until all had passed by, it would require five
hundred and seventy years to bestow this momentary notice on all
the people now living in our Eastern Empire. Or, if they were
arranged in lines of thirty abreast, forming a column as broad as
that which fills the nave of an ordinary church, with a yard
between the ranks, then that column would extend, if marching
towards us, from the extreme border of Affghanistan, all through
the Turkish empire, and across the continent of Europe, to the
Atlantic shore 5,300 miles. And this prodigious total of living
beings represents but one fleeting generation of the inhabitants of
a single country under heaven.
Starting with such an integer of thought it may be easier to
imagine what is meant when statisticians speak of the present
population of China as four hundred millions. We have but to
increase by a third the breadth or the length of the supposed
Indian column to form an idea of the army of yellow men, Con-
fucianists, Buddhists, Laoutzeists, marching westward upon our
borders, and then to conceive of the repetition of those enormous
masses many times over in the past generations, diminishing the
tale according to the due proportion for the remotest ages.
The mind is overpowered by even this first effort to imagine
the multitudinous throngs of ignorant idolaters who, in their
various races and nations, have peopled the eastern world. We
attain only the image of a tide broad and deep of living waters
flowing on' perpetually for ages, whose drops are individual souls,
passing away into the depths of oblivion.
A similar process of thought is required in application to the
other habitable portions of the globe, i. Northern Asia. On
referring to the map it will be seen that all the great empires of
42 NORTHERN ASIA.
the earlier world lie below the 4oth parallel of latitude. To the
north of that parallel, however, and over the whole breadth of Asia,
there are extended two vast chains of mountains, forming by their
connecting ramifications a species of gigantic network, or as it
were the skeleton on which the surface of the whole country is
disposed, and to which it is attached. The first of these and the
more northerly extends through the southern part of Siberia, and
with many changes of name is styled in general the Altaic range.
The other great range commences in Asia Minor as the Taurus ;
thence passes through Media, to the north of Hindostan, as the
Himalayas ; thence through Thibet, till it loses itself in Central
China. The vast interval of territory, across which flow the
rivers descending from these mountain ranges, is measured by
thousands of miles, and consists of lofty mountain plains, the
haunts of numberless eagles and vast battalions of nomadic birds.
These plains are on an average 10,000 feet above the sea-level,
and have from the earliest ages been inhabited by tribes of
pastoral and wandering barbarians, who have fed their flocks on
the luxuriant herbage. They have been known in different eras
and under different circumstances as Scythians, Huns, Tartars,
Turcomans, Mongols, Kalmucks, and Mantchoos. These bound-
less tracts, exposed to an invigorating climate, have been studded
in every age, not with cities and houses, but with the tents and
encampments of migratory nations, often surrounded for leagues
with their flocks and herds of cattle, horses, and camels, which
constitute their wealth and supply nearly all their limited wants.
To form a conception of the numbers of mankind who have
inhabited these upland mountain plains of the Asiatic continent
during even the last 6,000 years would be difficult indeed. Pro-
fessor Heeren and the Abbe Hue may aid the imagination. The
perpetual plagues of Asia, of China, of India, of Persia, in their
multitudinous armies they have kept up nearly ceaseless war with
the more civilised south. Millions beyond computation have
from time to time descended to conquer the fair provinces that
lay below them. In vain did China rear her northern wall, in
vain the Indian aborigines trust for protection to the Himalayas,
in vain the Persian empire make head against their incursions,
in vain the Greeks oppose the pitiless unceasing storm that beat
upon them from the mountains. The Tartars and Turcomans,
ARABIA, PERSIA, THE PACIFIC. 43
and their more ancient congeners, have always proved the de-
stroyers of Asiatic power, and their various races reign with more
or less of independence at this very hour from Pekin to the Bos-
phorus. Empire after empire has fallen submerged beneath the
deluges of savage force that broke age after age upon the south
from these over-streaming fountains of barbaric life; and the
population of Nothern Asia is greater to-day than when Zenghis
Khan led the swarming clans to battle, or a hundred years later
the victorious Tamerlane.
2. Next, let a moderately instructed reader, assisted by
Mr. Layard and Mr. Palgrave, remember the names of Assyria,
Persia and Arabia, and try to imagine how many millions of
soldiers, similar to those sculptured in endless ranks upon the slabs
of Nineveh, have lived, since the beginning, in those various
empires. The more closely we fasten the mind upon a single
populous territory, the deeper is the sense of incompetence even
to imagine as a visual conception the mass of human beings who
have tenanted it. What armies of ignorant fanatics have rolled
forth age after age from ancient and modern Arabia alone ! What
a world of teeming life is suggested by even the merest shadowy
outline of her history !
3. Turning to the history of the Southern Oceanic hemisphere,
a new barbaric scene opens, in the hundred thousand isles and
islets of the great Pacific Archipelago. It is but recently that the
veil has been lifted from these populous regions. In the vast
islands on the equator Sumatra, Borneo, Java, the Celebes,
Ceram, New Guinea the population is of a mixed blood. The
numerous isles that lie to the south, comprehended under the names
of Polynesia and Australia, are peopled by two races of men.
The one race is allied to the negro in possessing a Herculean
frame, black skin, and crisped but not woolly hair, while the other
race has skin of a light copper colour, and hair bright, lank, and
glossy, the countenance resemblmg that of the Malay. These
islands contain a population, the whole of which, until recent im-
provements under Christian civilisation, were in the proper sense
of the word barbaric, and such they seem to have been from time
immemorial. Everlasting and omnipresent war, carried on by
savages who in infancy had been compelled to swallow stones in
order to ' give them hearts of stone for battle,' cannibalism, the
44 EARLY EUROPE.
last brutal revenge against a fallen adversary, infanticide so
common that three mothers accidentally present at once con-
fessed to the missionaries that between them they had slaughtered
twenty-one children by burying them alive in the ground so
common that one chief at his conversion to Christianity exclaimed
in agony that he had killed nearly twenty of his own the degrada-
tion of women carried to an excess from which northern barbarism
would have revolted the immolation of wives at the funerals of
their husbands, inhuman conduct to the sick and aged at which
the hearer stands aghast with indignation a habit of worshipping
a set of gods, when they worshipped anything at all, the sight of
which in our Museum moves horror, laughter, unspeakable con-
tempt by turns customs so filthy that the pen refuses to relate
them a taste so foul that a rat was a proverb among them for
sweetness an ignorance so profound that all manner of reading,
writing, and arithmetic beyond the counting of a few digits, were
beyond their comprehension all these features combined to form
as hideous a portrait of humanity as the globe could furnish.
And it would be impossible to form even an approximate estimate
of the number of millions upon millions who thus grew up in the
Pacific Archipelago 'without God in the world,' and apparently
for the most part fallen from His likeness.
4. Turning to Europe, we find that every step of progress made
in prehistoric ethnology deepens the conviction that the earliest
settlement of this continent is lost in the darkness of a remote
antiquity; and some account of indefinite yet incalculable
numbers must be taken in the general estimate for the clans
and tribes and families who wandered or fixed their tents in the
primeval forests. Arriving at historic times, there are distinct
indications of a European population 2,000 years before Christ.
At the Christian era, indeed, Europe still presented a far different
scene to the eye of Tacitus from that which it offers in the present
day. A gloomy ' black forest ' extended through its centre, pene-
trated here and there by rivers, glades, and pathways. Immense
tracts were damp and uninhabitable morasses, but free space was
still afforded or created for a numerous population.
Travelling westward from the eastern centres, among the first,
though not the earliest pioneers of humanity through these dread
solitudes, seem to have been tribes who bore the general name of
EARLY AND MODERN EUROPE. 45
Cymry, the most powerful branch of whom were the Keltae, or
Gauls, the ancestors of the Gaels, the Welsh, the Irish, and of all
the European Gallic tribes of France, Spain, and Italy.
Following them after unknown intervals came the Gothic or
Teutonic hosts who settled in northern and midland Europe.
Lastly came the Sclavonic or Sarmatian inundation, the ancestors
of the Russians, Poles, and kindred nations.
Here, then, is another world of human beings extended over
the whole breadth of a continent, and existing for ages and ages
in a condition of comparative barbarism. Let any tolerably in-
formed reader of the ancient history of Europe meditate on the
names of Norway and Sweden, Ireland, Wales, England, France,
Spain, Germany, Russia, Poland, and he will quickly perceive that
another mass of barbaric life extended itself in many strata over
these territories ; and lasted for many centuries, in incalculable
numbers, long before history began to take account of the deeds
of individual men.
5. Add, now, to these reminiscences of the dim and remote
past those approximate views of the number and condition of the
human race in Europe which come with some adequate know-
ledge of the history of the ancient and modern civilised world.
It will be necessary to repeat the imaginary operations before
ventured upon for assisting the mind to bring into conception the
facts of the Asiatic population. Let the student pronounce
thoughtfully the names of the countries which border on the
Mediterranean Sea, and which finally formed the stage of the
Roman Empire, and strive at the same time to think of the
ancient and modern populations of the shores of Western Asia,
in Syria and Palestine ; of Asia Minor in all its provinces and
kingdoms; then, in Europe, of Greece in its wildest extension
and complex development ; of the countries south of the Danube,
and north of the Alps ; of Italy and its adjacent isles ; of Switzer-
land, of France, of Spain and Portugal, and modern Germany ; of
England, and Denmark, and Sweden, and Russia. What imagina-
tion can picture the endless millions who have moved and lived
and died over these countries during historic time ? We reach after
all efforts of imagination but a vague sense of watching the passage
of a dense illimitable throng, that fills the wide area of vision as
from a mountain-top, and slowly but steadily passes away, to give
46 AFRICA.
place to fresh masses of living beings in the endless series onward
and onward travelling in their armies into the great darkness.
And though we now behold a still mightier stream of European
life moving before our eyes, we know that these millions form but
a fractional representation of the majority who have preceded
them. The mind is lost under an oppressive sense of the multi-
tudes who fleet like shadows across the scene.
6. But the end is not yet. Another world opens before us in
Africa, that fruitful mother of barbarians and slaves.
Africa is 5,000 miles in length, and nearly 4,600 miles in ex-
treme breadth. Its present population is estimated at 100,000,000.
In order to think correctly of the contributions of Africa to the
general sum of the human race, it must be remembered that this
continent was settled very early that as far back as even the
earliest twilight of authentic history reaches we find the valley of the
Nile swarming with that ingenious and industrious nation whose
sublime monuments remain amidst the wreck of ages to move
the wonder of the latest generations. Consider the millions ot
Egypt from the time of its earliest settlement until now, under its
ancient rulers and under its modern tyrants. Then extend the
view from Nubia and Ethiopia and the eastern coast to that
populous northern range of maritime states settled by the ancient
Sidonians, thickly peopled at least 2,000 years before Christ.
The most ancient sepulchral pictures and records of Egypt repre-
sent Africa as densely inhabited by swarming nations, and the
interior not less than the sea-coast. As soon as men could paint
they painted the negroes of the interior, as distinct in their type
and colour as they are to-day : thus leading us to think of ages
preceding during which those types were forming. It is mani-
festly idle to attempt an estimate in millions of those hosts of the
African continent in old times. All that we know for certain is
that they exceeded computation. The more recent history of
the continent in Roman and in modern times, from the days
of Hannibal and Masinissa down to the latest discoveries of
Livingstone and Stanley, must be considered in any attempt to
imagine the stupendous total of African population in the northern
half of its extent.
There will then still remain to claim some notice the black
world of southern barbarism, only in the present century made
AMERICA. 47
known to Europeans. Descending from the outlaws of the
northern kingdoms, or from the slave-dealing nations of the
interior, or mingled with immigrants from Insular Asia, the whole
south is alive with tribes whose origin is lost in a dim antiquity.
Bamanquatos, Bakones, Bakuenas, Baphiris, Bamagala-silas,
Banaug-ketsies, Bakous, Kalagares, Barolongs, Matabeles, Zulus,
Basutos, Bechuanas, Namaquas, Tambookies, Hottentots, such
are some of the strange titles of these now improving nations,
whose forefathers divided the wilderness with the elephant, the
tiger, the lion, and the rhinoceros, during untold ages. It is
only when the mind is directed to the close study of some par-
ticular tribe of men that it awakes to a due sense of the numbers
of human beings who are designated, from century to century, by
a single tribal appellation. And it is when the student descends
to a careful examination of the works of travellers and missionaries
that he forms an adequate conception of the vile degradation of
mankind, or learns how much lower than the animals, in many of
the habits of life, humanity has sunk, over a large proportion of
the territories of the earth.
7. It remains now to close this rapid survey, designed to
awaken thought rather than to satisfy it, by pointing to the broad
expanse of the two Americas. The result of recent research and
discovery is to render it certain that these two vast worlds of life
have been tenanted from remote times by an enormous popula-
tion. The reader will find the evidence of this for South America
in the well-known works of Mr. Prescott, and for North America
in those of Mr. Bancroft. This population has included mighty
civilised nations such as the Mexicans and Peruvians, and tribes
of Amazonian clay-eaters, as described by Humboldt, sunk as low
in imbecility as man can sink when overpowered by the forces of
nature, or his own vices. Over the north have swarmed the
innumerable myriads of the Red Men from times now lost in a
dim antiquity. At the rediscovery of North America by Europeans
eight principal languages covered it, spoken by a wide variety of
tribes. The first language was the Algonquin, spoken by about
twenty nations, of whom the chief were the Delawares, Illinois,
and Chippeways or Ojibbeways. The second was that of the
Dahcottas. The third was that of the Hurons and Iroquois,
including the Mohawks, Oneidas, and Eries. The fourth was
48 WHENCE? AND WHITHER?
that of the Catawbas. The fifth was that of the Cherokees. The
sixth was that of the Uchees. The seventh was that of the
Natchez. The eighth was that of the Chock taws, including the
Chiccasaws and the Muskogees.
Let the reader reflect upon the meaning of this statement, and
try to imagine, however vaguely, the swarms of men who in suc-
cessive centuries spoke any one of these dialects and even
though the enormous woods of America were inhabited but by
vagrant tribes, it will be speedily acknowledged that here again
was a ' multitude that no man can number.'
But indeed every branch of historical study awakes a fresh
sense of the multitudinousness of men in the ages departed. The
simple names and habitats of families and clans who have left
some trace behind them would fill volumes, and the longer we
look at the past the more overwhelming becomes the view of the
throngs who have laboured, and loved, and warred, and sinned,
and wrought righteousness upon the various zones of this planet.
Language breaks down into idle expressions of wonder at the
thought of all the tribes of the earth who are gone ; for even
a single specimen of each smaller company, gathered into one
contemporaneous crowd, would leave us still astounded at the
spectacle of a multitude which defied computation, and exceeded
the utmost stretch of individual vision.
And it is of these unimaginable pagan multitudes of Asia,
Africa, Europe, America, and the Oceanic Archipelagoes, that
the question is asked, Whence ? and Whither ?
The established doctrine of European Christianity respecting
them we shall attempt to describe in the next chapter. It is true
that moral and religious doctrines cannot be decided exclusively
by the numbers of the persons affected by them ; yet even Divine
Justice itself may in the matter of eternal judgment be presumed
to take into account the numerical strength of the population
which, like that of Nineveh, ' knows not its right hand from its
left.' And it is a very idle affectation of stoicism which would
wholly exclude the view of the numbers of the victims of any
overwhelming calamity, or the hereditary ignorance or weakness
which rendered them so easily its prey.
49
CHAPTER VI.
THE ORTHODOX DOCTRINE ON THE NATURE AND DESTINY
OF MANKIND.
THE term 'orthodox' is employed in this connection as the
most convenient mode of designating the doctrine which has
prevailed in Christendom both most widely and most durably;
for, although the Roman, Greek, and Protestant Churches have
differed exceedingly on other questions of interpretation, there
has existed a singular unanimity between them as to the facts and
general principles which underlie what is held to be a correct
view of the condition and destiny of mankind.
The Reformation attempted no modification whatever of the
basis of theology in respect of the doctrine of the Fall of Man,
and its consequences to the human race. The dissident Pro-
testant sects during all their earlier history stood fast on the old
ways, and reiterated the principles which have prevailed in the
Church at least since the age of Augustine. It is in the writings
of Augustine that the first full and complete development of this
system of ideas respecting God's dealings with men is to be found.
There is nothing entirely resembling it either in the New Testa-
ment or in the Ante-Nicene Fathers.
The central thought of this doctrine springs from a belief, in
which we sympathise, in the historical truth of the narrative of the
trial and sin of Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis ; but it
branches out into several subordinate doctrines of vast extent and
importance, not so plainly contained in that narrative.
It has been held, with the nearly unanimous consent of the
ancient theological authorities, and has been embodied as an
article of faith in the judgment of the Church, that Adam the
ancestor of mankind was created at first under a complex con-
4
50 DEATH, TEMPORAL, SPIRITUAL, ETERNAL.
stitution; endued with a body that could die, which, however,
served but as the shrine and tabernacle of a soul that should
never die ; this immortality ' of the soul depending ultimately on
the will of God.
It has been held that the death threatened to Adam in case
of transgression is to be understood in several distinct senses,
according to the part of his complex nature which was affected by
the judgment of God, and the relations to time or eternity borne
by the different portions of the punishment. With nearly abso-
lute unanimity it has been held by all the great historical Churches
that when Adam sinned the sentence of death took effect upon
his body, by ensuring the physical dissolution of his animal struc-
ture. This is technically called temporal death. Next, it is held
that as soon as he sinned his soul was separated morally from
God, and, since God is the fountain of ' spiritual life,' that apos-
tate condition of Adam's soul is described in sacred language as
spiritual death a description which is considered to be authorised
by the Apostle Paul when he speaks of sinners being ' dead in
trespasses and sins' (Eph. ii. i). And, lastly, it is held that when
this life ended, and the naturally never-dying soul went forth into
the unseen world of judgment, it was doomed to enter upon a
prospect of everlasting suffering in hell, which is termed eternal
death.
It has been for ages the fundamental doctrine of Christian
theology in Europe that in the original trial of Man in Paradise
Adam was thus threatened with temporal, spiritual, and eternal
death, this last sense of the term standing for everlasting damna-
tion, or conscious punishment throughout the future eternity.
Whether Adam as an individual person actually will undergo this
triple condemnation is a wholly different question. But, as a
representative man, there is a wonderful concurrence of divines
that by his sin he incurred this appalling complex doom.
The Confession of Faith of the Assembly of Divines of West-
minster, representing the best thought in theology up to that
time, only confirms the general judgment of Roman and Protes-
tant Christendom when it declares, in the sixth paragraph of its
sixth chapter, under the title of * The Fall of Man, of Sin, and
of the Punishment thereof that 'every sin, both original and
actual, being a transgression of the righteous law of God, and
HEREDITARY CURSE OF ENDLESS MISERY. 51
contrary thereto, doth in its own nature bring guilt upon the
sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God, and curse
of the law, and so made subject to DEATH, with all miseries,
spiritual, temporal, and eternal.'
This, however, is but the beginning of sorrows. For the next
universally received doctrine of the orthodox Church was, and is,
that this direful destiny descended by inheritance from Adam
upon the whole human race, so that every fallen human being,
under the 'covenant of works,' is born, i, liable to temporal
death ; 2, under the curse of spiritual death ; and, 3, certain to
endure the woe of death eternal, or endless misery. It is held
that this is the doom under which every human infant is conceived
and born into the world (thrice happy the unborn !) : so that
endless misery is its destiny by the law, as the natural result of
its descent from Adam, and before it has 'done good or evil.'
The Protestant Articles of Religion, framed herein on the lines
of the ancient Church, expressly repudiate the idea that the curse
of ' eternal death ' comes upon men only in consequence of per-
sonal active imitation of the sin of Adam.
It is declared to be a congenital inheritance. Adam by his
sin incurred eternal damnation in hell in the sense of endless
misery ; and this is the curse which has descended as an heir-
loom on his infant posterity. Let us hear the Church of England
in her IXth Article, ' Of Original or Birth Sin?
' Original Sin standeth not in the following of Adam (as the
Pelagians do vainly talk) ; but it is the fault and corruption of the
Nature of every man that naturally is engendered of the offspring
of Adam ; whereby man is very far gone from original righteous-
ness (quam longissime), and is of his own nature inclined to evil,
so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit ; and there-
fore in every person born into this world it deserveth Gods wrath
and damnation /' by which the authors of the Article intended
endless misery.
The Westminster Assembly of Divines in the sixth chapter of
its Confession is even more explicit.
' Our first parents being the root of all mankind, the guilt of
their sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted
nature conveyed to all their posterity, descending from them by
ordinary generation.
52 HEREDITARY CURSE OF ENDLESS MISERY.
'From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indis-
posed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly in-
clined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions.'
Then follows the fore-cited sentence. ' Every sin, both original
and actual, doth in its own nature bring guilt upon the sinner
whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God, and so made sub-
ject to death, with all miseries, spiritual, temporal, and eternal.'
It thus appears to be unquestionably the orthodox faith of
Christendom that, before they have done good or evil, all mankind
are born liable to eternal misery through original sin, and that
the development of their corrupt nature, whereby they are made
' opposite to all good,' can only aggravate an eternal destiny to
suffering already incurred through the transgression of Adam.
The Augustinian divines of the Church of Rome, no small
portion of the whole body, and the Calvinistic divines of the
Protestant Churches, add to these terrible conclusions the
further doctrine of predestination to damnation. The Assembly
of Divines (setting forth the present accredited faith of the
Church of Scotland) explicitly teach in their third chapter
that ' By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory,
some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life,
and others foreordained to everlasting death.' And of the non-
elect they say, ' The rest of mankind God was pleased, accord-
ing to the unsearchable counsel of His own will, whereby He
extendeth or withholdeth mercy as He pleaseth, for the glory of
His sovereign power over His creatures, to pass by, and to ordain
them to dishonour and wrath for their sin, to the praise of His
glorious justice.'
Since, however, these formidable super-additions are held by
but a portion of orthodox Christendom, it is better to leave them
out of present view. The statements in which the orthodox
Churches are agreed suffice for the present purpose. The sum
of the whole is, that mankind is born in a state of everlasting
damnation, under a curse of Death, which is to be taken in the
three senses, of bodily decease, moral apostasy, and everlasting
misery. And from this doom there is no escape except by the
grace of God in regeneration. ' Except a man be born again,
he cannot see the Kingdom of God.' All the unregenerate
portion of mankind is destined to suffer in ' everlasting fire.'
TEACHING OF S. FRANCIS XAVIER. 53
There can be no question that these are the views under which
the historical Churches of Christendom have contemplated the
condition and destiny of the human race, and under which they
have sought to apply the remedy in missionary enterprise and
benevolence. In his letters from India, Xavier speaks only the
uniform sense of his Church when he describes the destiny of
the unbaptised millions around him as involving the prospect
of eternal torment, and maintains that the unevangelised millions
of previous ages had descended to that irrevocable doom. In a
letter of S. Francis Xavier, written in 1552 (edited in 1873 by
Rev. E. Coleridge, of the Society of Jesus), he says, ' One of
the things that most of all pains and torments these Japanese is
that we teach them that the prison of Hell is irrevocably shut
so that there is no egress therefrom. For they grieve over the
fate of their departed children, of their parents and relatives and
they often show their grief by their tears. So they ask us if there
is any hope any way to free them by prayer from that eternal
misery, and I am obliged to answer that there is absolutely none.
Their grief at this affects and torments them wonderfully they
almost pine away with sorrow. But there is this good thing about
their trouble it makes one hope that they will all be the more
laborious for their own salvation, lest they, like their forefathers,
should be condemned to everlasting punishment.' 'They often
ask if God cannot take their fathers out of hell, and why their
punishment must never have an end. We gave them a satis-
factory answer; but they did not cease to grieve over the mis-
fortunes of their relatives, and I can hardly restrain my tears
sometimes at seeing men so dear to my heart suffer such intense
pain about a thing which is already done with, and can never be
undone.'
Not so logically or consistently have some Protestant divines
of recent time sought to mitigate the terribleness of the prospect
by tampering arbitrarily with the interpretation of the threatening
of Death, on which hangs the system of Augustinian theology.
Dr. Payne of Exeter (Congregational Lecturer on Original Sin)
speaks indeed the general sense of English theologians of the
latter portion of this age when he attempts to discriminate
between the various senses of this threatening, and to direct
their incidence more mercifully than has been the ancient wont
54 MODERN ATTEMPTS AT ALLEVIATION,
of the Churches; but in so doing he opens the door to the
entrance of a principle of interpretation which will inevitably
destroy both his own doctrine and the elder scheme of doctrine
which he assails.
Smitten to the heart by the terrific dogma of the descent of
the curse of eternal death, in the sense of endless suffering, upon
the infant posterity of Adam, these ' merciful doctors ' have insisted
upon a limitation of the signification of this curse as respects
the personally guiltless. The old Roman divines had found in
S. Paul's argument addressed to their own Church (Rom. v. 12)
decisive evidence that the Death which ' entered by one offence,'
or ' the offence of one,' 'passed upon all men? without any
limitation, ' even,' as S. Paul declares specially, ' upon them
that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression,'
Whatever reason, therefore, there was for understanding this
threat in the triple sense, so as to include eternal misery for
Adam himself (a point of belief on which no one seems to have
entertained a doubt), there was exactly the same reason for
believing that it descended in its direful integrity upon all his
posterity. The case of infants might be indeed fearful, but there
was no loophole of escape for them from the system which em-
braced in its iron grip the whole race of man. To insinuate that
for them the ' eternal death ' formed no part of the inherited
curse was to break up the foundation of faith in redemption, and
in the descent of original sin. Accordingly this position was
maintained with the utmost firmness by all the Roman theolo-
gians, and not less by the Reformers. Augustine had set the
example of such firmness. 'It may, therefore, be rightly said
(says he) that little ones dying without baptism will be in the
mildest damnation of all (in damnatione mitissima). Yet he
greatly deceives and is deceived who preaches that they will not
be in damnation; since the apostle says, Judgment was by one
to condemnation.' (Multum autem fallit et fallitur, qui eos in
damnatione predicat non futures. Opp. vii. p. 142.)
But that which they dreaded, as fatal to systematic divinity,
has been asserted by our English and American divines of
recent times. These affirm, apparently without any evidence,
except that derived from their own sense of moral fitness, that
although the death threatened to Adam himself included the;
MODERN EXPLANATIONS OF DEATH. 55
threefold curse with eternal misery, the curse as it descended
on the posterity dropt its most fearful signification, and came
upon the human race in its birth only as a twofold doom, as
temporal death, and an inherited corruption of their nature which
is termed ' death spiritual.' Thus, it is supposed, all man-
kind are born, not under sentence of eternal misery for Adam's
sin, but only under a corrupt constitution of nature, by which,
when they come to years, they will incur that sentence by their
own transgressions.*
There is no doubt that this mode of treatment of the language
of Scripture offers an immense alleviation. We learn no longer
to look upon the countenance of a child, with all our orthodox
progenitors, as on a wretched being under sentence of eternal
misery for the offence of a distant ancestor. Some would even
encourage us to regard the new-born child as born under
Redemption, and by its birth into a world where Christ has died,
entitled thereby to regenerating grace and everlasting glory. But
this is an extreme view towards which few incline.
The chief objection to this brighter representation of the results
of the Fall of Man on the prospects of Mankind is that it proceeds
on a method of interpretation fatal to the whole fabric of theology
which it seeks to uphold.
If, from regard to our supposed sense of right, we operate upon
the term death which describes in apostolic language the curse
which has 'passed upon' mankind (Rom. v. 12) if by an
ipse dixit the enlightened Protestant expositor may sweep away
at one stroke of his pen the whole tremendous prospect of ever-
* Mr. Peill, an able representative of this opinion, says, ' Thus it is evident
from Scripture itself that the second death [or eternal misery] is not included in
the penalty threatened against Adam, which began to take effect the day that
he sinned. The second death comes only through personal unbelief, and not
as the necessary result of the conduct of another. Reason and Scripture are
both at variance with the doctrine that eternal death was included in the
punishment incurred by Adam's transgression. Reason declares it unjust that
one man's eternal destiny should be determined for him by the act of another.
Such a view outrages man's moral sense, conflicts with his personal responsi-
bility, and is utterly incompatible with the equitable character of his present
trial and its issues.' Man's Immortality Proved, p. 38.
Mr. Peill, therefore, will doubtless offer no objection to the use of our
' reason ' and ' moral sense ' in still further discriminating the meaning of the
threatening of death contained in the Scriptural account of the fall of Adam.
56 ROMAN REPLIES TO SUCH EXPLANATIONS.
lasting misery from before the world of Adam-born children
what is to hinder, asks the more consistent Roman theologian
the sweeping away of that third sense of death or eternal misery
in its supposed application to Adam himself, and all other persons
affected by his behaviour? A precedent in interpretation is
established which will certainly be acted upon in a larger signifi-
cation. The difficulty is already great of teaching that the
' death ' of the body, in the death threatened to Adam, signified
its dissolution, while in the ' Second Death ' the same term,
even in reference to the body, is taken for endless misery. But
how much greater the difficulty of maintaining that the original
curse was designed to convey the meaning of eternal suffering, if
at the first occurrence of an objection, occasioned only by our
tender compassion for infants, it is held that the word must be
stripped of its infinite meaning in its application to them.
The Augustinian system is best defended in its integrity.
Take away one of its fundamental definitions, and it falls to the
ground. The recent Protestant glosses breathe a compassionate
leniency, but they endanger far more than they defend. Augus-
tine and Calvin were solid logicians, and may be trusted in their
estimate of what is necessary to the coherency of their theological
system.
We return, therefore, to the ancient doctrine, which is that
the whole multitudinous human race, either through an here-
ditary curse, or through a transmitted corruption of nature which
leads to an ungodly life, is, and has always been, in danger of a
Hell never-ending ; from which danger it is delivered only by a
remedy, so far as the present world is concerned, apparently of
most limited application.
1 Broad is the road that leadeth to Destruction, and many
there be that go in thereat.' If the word destruction is rightly
taken for the idea of endless misery, the force of Christ's words
agrees with the general and ancient sense of Christendom, that
the majority of mankind have in all ages gone forward to endure
an eternity of woe.
That such ' woe ' will be proportioned to the deserts of the
offenders no believer in Divine Justice, not even S. Augustine,
can for one moment have doubted or denied. The extreme
AN ATTEMPT TO REALISE THIS FAITH. 57
ignorance of multitudes of wicked men may be regarded with
comparative lenity. On the other hand, the offences of the
most guilty, because the best informed, would with equal
justice be followed by far more awful inflictions. Let us, there-
fore, now attempt to arouse the reader's mind to consider what
it is which Christendom professes in its standards to believe,
whether in the case of those most lightly punished, or of those
on whom will descend the heavier dooms. The main force of
the orthodox doctrine on the effects of the Fall on the condition
of mankind lies in the eternity of those effects. Sin brings
Death as its wages; and Death signifies eternal misery. It
must be, then, a wholesome exercise to strive to realise the
prospect. Every divine truth seems to be more true the more
we dwell upon it and consider it. Truth unveils itself in its
evidence and completeness to those who impartially endeavour
to apprehend its bearings. God the Lord also is best known
by His works ; and if the issue of human life in its overwhelm-
ing numbers will be to fix, whether a majority, as most suppose,
or a minority, as some few affirm, in an unchangeable state of tor-
ment, or misery, or even of darkness and sorrow, it must serve
the interests of truth and righteousness, and of theology itself,
to follow in the path of the poets and divines who have taught
us how to meditate, first of all on future suffering, and, secondly,
upon that everlastingness which is the measure of its duration.
The writers who have of late years come forward to maintain
the orthodox doctrine agree in their general conclusion. Let us
seriously endeavour to understand what that conclusion is.
It is that, notwithstanding denial, there is compelling reason
to believe that all who die unforgiven shall suffer for ever and
ever in hell. Words easily spoken and written, but which
reveal their meaning, or rather a glimmer of their meaning, only
to those who set themselves steadily to the task of realising the
doctrine. The significance of words is limited also by men's
experience, most persons being deficient in the power of
vigorously conceiving of either suffering or duration. Those
who have endured severe chronic pain for several decades of
years, and those who have been visited by the more dreadful
forms of mental anguish, are likely to attach a deeper meaning
to such a phrase as ' endless misery ' than men whose strong
58 PRESIDENT EDWARDS.
health, or unchequered history, or unimaginative natures have
concealed from them the more woful experiences of life. The
generality of teachers who insist upon a literal eternity of pain
seem to have little capacity for picturing to themselves what
their doctrine portends. On some it seems to exert a hardening
influence. They speak with something like contempt of a
1 sensational recoil ' from the idea of endless torment as if
there were nothing in it that ought to cause any difficulty to a
devout, considering man. They evince no need of those alle-
viations by which gentler spirits seek to shade their eyes from
the blinding prospect* The believers in that prospect, indeed,
are not agreed upon the degree or kind of suffering which is
revealed as eternal ; and those who anticipate the deepest
horrors might seem, as is natural, to stagger at them less than
those who believe in lighter inflictions.
Unwillingly I add a few specimens of the mode of present-
ing the supposed threatenings of Revelation from approved
divines. That holy man, President Jonathan Edwards, says :
' Here all judges have a mixture of mercy, but the wrath of God will be
poured out upon the wicked without mixture, and vengeance will have its
full weight. We can conceive but little of the matter. We cannot conceive
what the sinking of the soul in such a case is. But to help your conception,
imagine yourself to be cast into a fiery oven, all of a glowing heat, or into
the midst of a glowing brick-kiln, or of a great furnace, where your pain
would be as much greater than that occasioned by accidentally touching a
coal of fire as the heat is greater ; and imagine also that your body were to
lie there for a quarter of an hour, full of fire, as full within and without as a
bright coal fire, all the while full of quick sense : what horror would you feel
at the entrance of such a furnace ! Oh, then, how would your heart sink, if
you thought, if you knew, that you must bear it for ever and ever ! that there
would be no end ! that after millions and millions of ages your torment
would be no nearer to an end than ever it was ! and that you never, never
* ' Popular conceptions are taken largely from the imagery of Scripture, and
from lurid sketches drawn by Dante and the poets. Hence men have come to
speak of the lost as in flames. What if much of this teaching is a mistake ?
The fire that is never quenched may be the burning eagerness with which they
cherish perverse desires, an eagerness that blights and blasts everything
generous, as it has long since blasted everything holy. There are no doubt
positive punishments as there are positive rewards ; but the descriptions of
each are largely figurative " pearly gates," " golden str-eets," " flaming fire,"
"ascending smoke." Here again there is some relief." DR. ANGUS on
Future Punishment,
MR. SPURGEON. 59
should be delivered J But your torment in hell will be immensely greater than
this illustration represents.' Vol. iii., p. 260.
Mr. Spurgeon, whose opinions represent in the most vigorous
form, and with striking sincerity, the theology of the middle
and lower classes of England, does not hesitate to hold before
his hearers a prospect of endless physical agony :
' Only conceive that poor wretch in the flames, who is saying, " O for one
drop of water to cool my parched tongue ! " See 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 close up by saying, that the hell of hells
will be to thee, poor sinner, the thought that it is to be for ever. Thou wilt
look up there on the throne of God, and on it shall be written, " For ever ! "
When the damned jingle the burning irons of their torments, they shall say
(t For ever ! " When they howl, echo cries, " For ever ! "
' " For ever " is written on their racks,
" For ever " on their chains ;
" For ever " burneth in the fire,
" For ever" ever reigns.'
Doleful thought ! "If I could but get out, then I should be happy." "If
there were a hope of deliverance, then I might be peaceful ; but here I am
for ever ! " Sirs ! if ye would escape eternal torments, if ye would be found
amongst the number of the blessed, the road to heaven can only be found by
prayer,' etc. Sermon preached in 1855.
It may be objected that this sermon was preached twenty
years ago ; but only three years since Mr. Spurgeon declared
his adhesion to the former style of discourse on future punish-
ment in these words :
"We are sometimes accused, my brethren, of using language too harsh, too
ghastly, too alarming, with regard to the world to come ; but we shall not
soon change ottr note ; for we solemnly believe that if we could speak thunder-
bolts, and our every look were a lightning flash, and if our eyes dropped blood
instead of tears, no tones, words, gestures, or similitudes of dread, could
exaggerate the awful condition of a soul which has refused the gospel and
is delivered over to justice.' Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit (revised and
corrected), p. 186.
A still more graphic style of representation is common among
Roman Catholic preachers. Those who believe in the beneficial
effect of pictorial horrors on young and ignorant people might
take a lesson from the religious manuals of the Roman priests.
Mr. Lecky quotes the following, in his History of European
60 MR. FURNISS ON CHILDREN IN HELL.
Morals, from a Tract ' for children and young persons,' called
The Sight of Hell, by Rev. J. Furniss ; published ' permissu
superiorum,' by Duffy (London and Dublin). It is a detailed
description of the dungeons of hell :
1 See on the middle of that red-hot floor stands a girl : she looks about
sixteen years old. Her feet are bare. Listen; she speaks. "I have been
standing on this red-hot floor for years ! Look at my burnt and bleeding feet !
Let me go off this burning floor for one moment ! " The fifth dungeon is
the red-hot oven. The little child is in the red-hot oven. 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.
God was very good to this little child. Very likely God saw it would get
worse and worse, and would never repent, and so it would have to be punished
more severely in hell. So God in His mercy called it out of the world in
early childhood.'
All this, says Mr. Furniss, is to last for ever.
Such representations would, however, be severely reprehended
by the majority of educated orthodox preachers in our own time.
To them the eternal hell is of a more spiritual character ; but it
is still eternal, its pains are to endure as long as the Nature
which is unchangeable and divine.
For in addition to these inflictions, whether literal or largely
figurative, our divines believe in a spiritual misery of lost souls,
which is not figurative, but will consist partly in their remorse
for the sins of time, and partly in the fact that, being immortal,
they are condemned to sin, and to suffer for fresh sins, through-
out ETERNITY. But who knows what that means? The dura-
tion which is immeasurable ! It signifies that all the arithmetical
power in the creation, after labouring for millions of years to
invent numerical methods of expressing enormous successions
of time, would thereby succeed in reaching in imagination only
the beginning the threshold the earlier moments, of that un-
searchable futurity which is the lifetime of the SELF-EXISTENT
BEING, and, it is said, the lifetime of the condemned. It means
that beyond all such imagined epochs, counted out by human
or angelic faculty, there will extend an infinite prospect of misery
for sinful beings, in graduated but everlasting pain.
I shall offer some reflections on these beliefs of various types
in the language of the late Mr. Foster, author of Essays on
LETTER Y THE LATE MR. FOSTER. 6t
Decision of Character, contained in a memorable letter to the
writer, in the year 1841.*
'Nevertheless,' says Mr. Foster, 'I acknowledge myself not convinced
of the orthodox doctrine. If asked, why not ? I should have little to say in
the way of criticism, of implications found or sought in what may be called
incidental expressions of Scripture, or of the passages dubiously cited in favour
of final, universal restitution. It is the moral argument, as it may be named,
that presses irresistibly on my mind that which comes in the stupendous
idea of eternity.
' It appears to me that the teachers and believers of the orthodox doctrine
hardly ever make an earnest, strenuous effort to form a conception of eternity ;
or rather a conception somewhat of the nature of a faint incipient approxi-
mation. Because it is confessedly beyond the compass of thought, it is
suffered to go without an attempt at thinking of it. They utter the term in
the easy currency of language ; have a vague and transitory idea of something
obscurely vast, and do not labour to place and detain the mind in intense
protracted contemplation, seeking all expedients for expanding and aggra-
vating the awful import of such a word. Though every mode of illus-
tration is feeble and impotent, one would surely think there would be an
insuppressible impulse to send forth the thoughts to the utmost possible reach
into the immensity when it is an immensity into which our own most
essential interests are infinitely extended. Truly it is very strange that even
religious minds can keep so quietly aloof from the amazing, the overwhelming
contemplation of what they have the destiny and the near prospect of entering
upon.
' Expedients of illustration of what eternity is not, supply the best attainable
means of assisting remotely toward a glimmering apprehension of what it is.
All that is within human capacity is to imagine the vastest measures of time,
and to look to the termination of these as only touching the mere commence-
ment of eternity.
' For example : It has been suggested to imagine the number of particles,
atoms, contained in this globe, and suppose them one by one annihilated,
each in a thousand years, till all were gone ; but just as well say, a million,
or a million of millions of years or ages, it is all the same, as against infinite
duration.
* Extend the thought of such a process to our whole mundane system, and
finally to the whole material universe : it is still the same. Or, imagine a
series of numerical figures, in close order, extended to a line of such a length
that it would encircle the globe, like the equator or that would run along
with the earth's orbit round the sun or with the outermost planet, Uranus
or that would draw a circle of which the radius should be from the earth or
sun to Sirius or that should encompass the entire material universe, which,
as being material, cannot be infinite. ' The most stupendous of these measures
* Reprinted at length in the Life and Correspondence of John Foster, vol. i.
62 LETTEk OF MR. FOSTER,
of time would have an end ; and would, when completed, be still nothing to
eternity.
* Now think of an infliction of misery protracted through such a periods
and at the end of it being only commencing, not one smallest step nearer a
conclusion : the case just the same if that sum of figures were multiplied by
itself. And then think of Man his nature, his situation, the circumstances
of his brief sojourn and trial on earth. Far be it from us to make light of
the demerit of sin, and to remonstrate with the Supreme Judge against a severe
chastisement, of whatever moral nature we may regard the infliction to be.
But still, what is man? He comes into the world with a nature fatally
corrupt, and powerfully tending to actual evil. He comes among a crowd of
temptations adapted to his innate evil propensities. He grows up (incom-
parably the greater proportion of the race) in great ignorance ; his judgment
weak ; and under numberless beguilements into error ; while his passions and
appetites are strong ; his conscience unequally matched against their power ;
in the majority of men, but feebly and rudely constituted. The influence of
whatever good instructions he may receive is counteracted by a combination
of opposite influences almost constantly acting on him. He is essentially and
inevitably unapt to be powerfully acted on by what is invisible and future. In
addition to all which, there is the intervention and activity of the great
tempter and destroyer.
' I acknowledge my inability (I would say it reverently) to admit this
belief, together with a belief in the Divine Goodness the belief that " God
is love," that His tender mercies are over all His works. Goodness, bene-
volence, charity, as ascribed in supreme perfection to Him, cannot mean a
quality foreign to all human conceptions of goodness ; it must be something
analogous in principle to what Himself has defined and required as goodness
in His moral creatures, that, in adoring the Divine Goodness, we may not be
worshipping an "unknown God." But if so, how would all our ideas be
confounded, while contemplating Him bringing, of His own Sovereign will, a
race of creatures into existence, in such a condition that they will and must,
must, by their nature and circumstances, go wrong and be miserable, unless
prevented by especial grace, which is the privilege of only a small propor-
tion of them, and, at the same time, affixing on their delinquency a doom, of
which it is infinitely beyond the highest archangel's faculty to apprehend a
thousandth part of the horror.
* Can we, I would say with reverence can we realise it as possible that a
lost soul, after countless millions of ages, and in prospect of an interminable
succession of such enormous periods, can be made to have the conviction,
absolute and perfect, that all this is a just, an equitable infliction, and from a
power as good as He is just, for a few short sinful years on earth years and
sins presumed to be retained most vividly in memory, and everlastingly grow-
ing clearer, vaster, and more terrible to retrospective view in their magnitude
of infinite evil every stupendous period of duration, by which they have
actually been left at a distance, seeming to bring them, in contrariety to all
laws of memory, nearer and ever nearer to view, by the continually aggravated
experience of their consequences ?
AUTHOR Of 'DECISION Of CHARACTERS 63
' Yes, those twenty, forty, seventy years, growing up to infinity of horror,
in the review, in proportion to the distance which the condemned spirit
recedes from them ; all eternity not sufficing to reveal fully what those years
contained ! millions of ages for each single evil thought or word.
'But it is usually alleged that there will be an endless cotitinuance of
sinning, with probably an endless aggravation, and therefore the punishment
must be endless. Is not this like an admission of disproportion between the
punishment and the original cause of its infliction ? But suppose the case to
be so that is to say, that the punishment is not a retribution simply for the
guilt of the momentary existence on earth, but a continued punishment of the
continued, ever-aggravated guilt in the eternal state ; the allegation is of no
avail in vindication of the doctrine ; because the first consignment to the
dreadful state necessitates a contimiance of the criminality ; the doctrine teaching
that it is of the essence, and is an awful aggravation, of the original consign-
ment, that it dooms the condemned to maintain the criminal spirit unchanged
for ever. The doom to sin as well as suffer, and, according to the argument,
to sin in order to suffer, is afflicted as the punishment of the sin committed in
the moral state. Virtually, therefore, the eternal punishment is the punishment
of the sins of time.
' Under the light (or the darkness) of this doctrine, how inconceivably
mysterious and awful is the aspect of the whole economy of this h uman world !
The immensely greater number of the race hitherto, through all ages and
regions, passing a short life under no illuminating, transforming influence of
their Creator ; ninety-nine in a hundred of them perhaps having never even
received any authenticated message from Heaven ; passing off the world in a
state unfit for a spiritual, heavenly, and happy kingdom elsewhere ; and all
destined to everlasting misery. The thoughtful spirit has a question silently
suggested to it of far more emphatic import than that of him who exclaimed,
" Hast thou made all men in -vain ? " '
It was the absorbing meditation on such conclusions as these
in early days which created in the writer the life-lasting purpose
of at least striving to enforce them on his fellow-beings, if truths
they were ; or of shaking their pernicious hold on the public mind
if one could solidly learn that they were delusions. It is a ques-
tion in which all that is of profoundest import in the definition
of the Divine Attributes of Justice and Goodness is concerned,
which touches more deeply than any other the springs of faith
and unbelief, and which clearly has bearings of the utmost
moment on the whole system of human thought respecting both
this world and the world to come.
If these things plainly are indeed as described by theologians,
it is as wicked as useless to palter with the evidence, or to conceal
it from the world ; and it is nothing better than cruelty to talk of
64 VAST IMPORTANCE OP THE QUEST/CM
alleviating the prospect. If it be true, let the truth be spoken,
and let men recognise the facts of their existence on earth and
beyond. Truth needs no alleviations.
But, at all events, these things ought not to be believed except
on decisive evidence, for a mistake either way will exert a pro-
digious influence on the religion of mankind. The danger is not
all on one side, as most suppose. For there is nothing less than
an infinite difference between a BEING who will so act towards
His creatures and One who will not; between a God who will
inflict eternal suffering, however slight, whether of mind, or body,
or both, on creatures born of a degenerate race, and generally
educated in ignorance of divine things, even when intellectually
cultivated, and One who will not. A different feeling and a
different worship will grow up out of the two systems of thought,
just in proportion as they are realised by the worshipper.
And the determination of the question is of equal importance
in relation to the Creator's will. If the Eternal Power will act as
these writers suppose, it must, as they truly affirm, be highly
offensive to Him to deny or dispute it. If true religion consist
so largely in the element of fear, as it must on this theory, it is to
detract from truth to represent God as less than He really is an
object of terror to His creatures. But, on the other hand, if such
thoughts never ' entered into His mind,' so the Almighty is
represented in the book of Jeremiah as exclaiming, in reference
to the momentary passage of children through the fire to Moloch,
if the whole doctrine comes, as many learned and pious men
think, men as learned and pious as any others, from a violent
wresting of the ordinary' language of Scripture ; if it have no surer
basis than a determination to maintain the figment of the natural
immortality of one part of man's nature, of which the Bible itself
never once speaks ; if the doctrine of pain that shall never end be
the offspring of the combination of a false psychology with the
traditionary interpretations of a superstitious and uncritical anti-
quity, it is easy to see that the Deity must abhor the falsehoods
taught in His name, in Europe as in Asia, and will highly com-
mend the work of those who set themselves to overturn this
stumbling-block, and to rend the dogma which at once veils
from sinful men His real and awful Justice, and from His children
so much of the light of the eternal Love.
CHAPTER VII.
ON THE POSSIBILITY THAT CHRISTENDOM HAS ERRED ON THE
DOCTRINE OF HUMAN DESTINY.
' The history of the Christian Church for the greater portion of its existence
has been so little in consistent practical accordance with any Idea or Principle
that is obviously divine, that the merely being opposed to such a majority as it
presents need not be to any spiritual mind a very distressing or a very dangerous
position.' FREDERIC MYERS, CatJiolic Thoughts, p. 15.
IT cannot be denied that the frightful doctrines on the future of
humanity, described in the preceding chapter, though supported
by the general authority of nearly all Christendom for at least
fourteen centuries, are regarded with contemptuous scepticism by
the bulk of the existing male population of Europe, who assign
these articles of ' the faith ' as the chief reason for their ever-
extending and fierce revolt against Christianity. The external
evidence of ancient miracle and prophecy, and even the stronger
moral evidence of the Gospel, do not suffice to overpower the
antagonistic conviction of the masses of educated and uneducated
men in civilised Europe, that the ' Catholic Religion ' cannot be
of divine original. The people who dwell in the interior of
Churches have in general but a slight acquaintance with the
ideas of those who are without. If by any remarkable awakening
the Christian people could be made to understand the world of
modern thought which surrounds them, they would discover from
one side of Europe to the other that faith in the supposed divine
revelation has almost faded away from the classes who are alienated
from traditionary religion. And the chief cause of such decaying
faith is found beyond question in the views of the future which
have been set forth in the preceding pages.
Men hold that such conceptions of moral government cannot
.possibly be in accord with the thoughts of God, ' whose tender
5
66 UNWILLING INFIDELS.
mercies are over all His works.' This disbelief is not, indeed, a
sufficient reason for rejecting Catholic Christianity ; but it is a
sufficient reason for subjecting it to a resolute re-examination.
That which practically works so ill certainly cannot claim to be
exempt from fresh scrutiny : especially since the disorder of latent
scepticism has eaten like a cancer into the breast of the Church
itself. Christians on all sides, exactly in proportion to their
knowledge and culture, are tormented in our time with agonising
doubts as to the truth of the whole system of Divine Revelation,
in consequence of the doctrine imputed to it on the destination
of mankind. The positive declarations sometimes made, on the
final salvation of all men, as the result of the present or future
terms of probation, seem to rest on no solid foundation. They
contradict the ordinary language of the Bible. The fact of general
ungodliness remains ; and the Scripture record also remains,
which consigns all persistently wicked men to death. If death
signifies endless misery, there seems no escape from the established
dogma ; but this dogma shakes the Christian faith even of its
most devoted adherents. Richard Baxter himself describes the
inward and dangerous struggle which he often experienced in
the effort to submit his mind to these supposed doctrines of
1 revelation.'
There is especially one class whose case deserves attention, that
of unwilling infidels. For it is right to add that infidelity is of
two kinds, malignant and involuntary ; and that there is a descrip-
tion of unbelief widely spread which does not take the form of
virulent attack upon the Scriptures, but rather stands aloof in the
dim intermediate territory between friendship and hostility. This
is the infidelity of persons who, although not denying the apparent
existence of some strong evidence for the divine mission of Christ,
are yet so much confounded at the character of what they have
been led to suppose are His doctrines as to pass their lives in a
state of equilibrium or indifference ; never breaking out into open
scepticism, but never seeing their way to a clear persuasion and
bold avowal of the truth of the gospel revelation. They have
been taught that the doctrine of Christ is, that in Adam all fell
directly or indirectly under the curse of everlasting misery, and
that a certain number are to be saved from this dreadful doom in
consequence of a divine decree in their favour from eternity past ;
fS THE ESTABLISHED ALWAYS TRUE? 67
all the rest departing to endless suffering for the glory of the
justice of God. This, which is the common and popular belief,
staggers them ; their minds become confused, and finding no
relief from the believers in Christianity, who maintain their
' faith ' in such doctrines mostly by a decided habit of not
thinking upon them, they vibrate between the twilight of a half
unbelief, and the thick darkness of a gloomy atheism. There are
hundreds of thousands of minds of the class now described,
souls surely as valuable as the souls of the inhabitants of the
South Sea Islands, on whose behalf all zeal is accounted praise-
worthy. It is conceivable that a fresh examination of our theology
under another hypothesis might bring to light for such minds a
' hope full of immortality.'
One question, however, of discouraging aspect confronts the
earliest movements of the mind towards such re-examination of
Christianity, in dim hope of discovering a more benignant yet
tenable interpretation of its records : Is it possible that God
can have permitted a conception of His own character, so false
as this must be, if false at all, to prevail during nearly the whole
Christian era ? Must we not regard the fact of the general accept-
ance of these doctrines, as articles of faith, as a sufficient evidence of
their truth ? And, further, can it be for a moment believed that
instructed divines, who are to be counted by hundreds of thou-
sands, belonging to all Churches, in every successive century of
Christianity, can have erred so egregiously, as they must have
erred who have mistaken the sense of the Divine Revelation,
supposing these doctrines to be not in the Bible, and to have
formed no part of original Christianity ? This is a question which
suffices at the outset to quell and suppress the rising spirit of
inquiry, by an appeal to the conscious insignificance of the in-
dividual. And it might well prohibit a single step in advance,
were it not that the continuous history of Christendom, both in
science and religion, bids us take courage, and compels us, as the
first of all duties, to fling aside resolutely theMelusive fear imposed
by paralysing appeals to authority.
For when it is asked whether it be possible or conceivable that
Providence can have allowed any doctrine grievously misrepre-
senting the Divine Majesty to have taken root on earth, or in
Christendom, the answer is obvious and direct, that the Almighty
68 EXAMPLES OF WIDESPREAD ERROR.
Creator has allowed every imaginable error respecting His attri-
butes, physical, intellectual, and moral, to prevail among men,
age after age, since the beginning of the world. One-half the
world to-day is still idolatrous, or devoted to Buddhistic atheism.
And the Apostles departed from life (however wonderful this may
be), declaring with one voice that. ' strong delusion ' awaited the
subsequent generations of Christendom.
When further it is naturally asked whether it be possible that
so many millions of learned and pious divines and their followers
in former ages can have erred in so great a matter as this, the
answer must be, assuredly it is possible. The Reformation is
expressly founded on the fact that all Europe had erred on the
most important doctrine of Christianity for more than a thousand
years, during the darkness of the middle age, even on the central
doctrine of our justification. There is no Church or Church
party in Christendom which does not hold it for certain that it
is quite possible for whole sanhedrims of the most respectable
divines, notwithstanding their learning, and millions of the
common people, to misunderstand important doctrines of revela-
tion. Both Roman Catholics and Protestants believe that after
the learned rabbins of Judaism have studied the Old Testament
for eighteen hundred years, since the fall of Jerusalem, they are
still wrong in regarding our Lord Jesus Christ as an impostor.
The Protestants believe that all the learned and pious men of
Romanism err in religion fundamentally. The Roman Catholics,
in turn, believe that all the learned men of Protestant countries,
and all their disciples, ' have erred ' on the foundation truths of
Christianity. In the same manner all the Calvinistic divines of
Europe believe that all the Arminian divines misunderstand two
important doctrines of revelation ; and the Arminians think the
same of the Calvinists.
Thus also the popular opinion, maintained by the large majority
of Protestant divines, is in favour of the doctrine of Christ's second
advent after the millennium. But multitudes of learned Chris-
tians in each century have maintained that the right doctrine
clearly is that Christ will return from the heavens before that
epoch, and they therefore regard the doctrine of the majority as
erroneous. In the same manner the majority of Englishmen
profess to believe that the Book of Common Prayer ' containeth
GREAT ERRORS STILL POSSIBLE. 69
nothing which cannot be proved by warrant of holy Scripture ; *
and to all is known how many thousands of learned men, oc-
cupants of the benefices of the English Church, have upheld that
position for nearly three hundred and fifty years. But all the
learned Scottish divines, and all the English Nonconformists,
many of whom have been the equals of their opponents in litera-
ture and ability, while fully sensible of the many excellences of
the Prayer Book, maintain that the New Testament manifestly
contains no warrant for Prelacy, Ecclesiastical Courts, baptismal
regeneration, or the compulsory support of religion. Thus, finally,
the opinion of Christendom, generally, is in favour of infant bap-
tism, and the doctrine of baptismal regeneration ; yet this does
not hinder a minority, scattered through Europe and America
but earnest, learned, and able, from maintaining, with Neander,
that the practice of the apostles obviously was to baptise only
intelligent confessors of Christ, and that infant baptism, notwith-
standing its universality and antiquity, is a pernicious error.
On these grounds, then, we conclude that it is within the limits
of parallel experience for Christendom to have erred even on
matters so grave as those which now occupy our attention. The
history of opinion shows nothing more clearly than the immense
influence of ancient traditions on learned criticism, and the gross
ignorance or perverseness of many of the expositors who in ancient
times pitched the tune which has been diligently followed in after
ages. Let any one remember the critical processes by which
modern Roman divines of the first distinction operate upon the
Scriptures for the support of their ecclesiastical and doctrinal
system ; and think also of the armies of great names adduced in
support even of the most audacious pretensions of that system ;
and he will thenceforth learn to admit that other leading ideas
in Christendom may be false' and falsifying ; so that even solid
masses of Protestant authority may be found buttressing inter-
pretations having a deceptive show of argument, while rotten at
their very foundations. And it is not improbable that the errors
which have proved more dangerous and pervasive than any others
may be found lurking in those psychological assumptions, which,
unquestioned in Europe, as in Asia, underlie in both continents
the fabric of strictly theological doctrine. In Europe the doctrine
of the Immortality of the Soul is the source whence has sprung
70 THE 1 FONS ET ORIGO^ OF HERESY.
the mighty determining tide of past thought on the destiny of
man ; and if that source has been a well-spring of delusion, its
influence has extended over both time and eternity.
The general object of this book is to show that here, in the
popular doctrine of the soul's immortality, is the fans et origo of
a system of theological error ; that in its denial we return at once
to scientific truth and to sacred Scripture; at the same time
clearing the way for the right understanding of the object of the
Incarnation, of the nature and issue of redemption in the Life
Eternal, and of the true doctrine of divine judgment on the
unsaved.
CHAPTER VIII.
ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
THE not far from universal judgment of modern Christendom
regards as one of the two foundation truths of religion the im-
mortality of the soul ; the other being the existence and moral
character of God.
It is held by the Christian community, as a first principle of
faith, that man possesses a spiritual soul ; and that this soul,
either as the result of the simplicity of its substance, indissoluble
by any natural cause acting from within or from without, or as a
consequence of a general law fixed by the Sovereign Will, that all
thinking, free, and accountable agents shall live for ever, or as
the effect of a special decree in relation to man, is destined in
every case to everlasting duration.
By some writers the moral relations of the soul with the Eternal
Nature of God are held to necessitate a corresponding perpetuity
of existence. The soul's relation to God as Moral Governor is
held to involve an eternal continuance in being, to imply and
compel an infinite destiny.* Such arguments may impose on the
imagination of devout metaphysicians, but they do not carry with
them any rational evidence. It might be answered, even out of
the Scripture, that while to be 'a God ' to Abraham doubtless
requires the eternal perpetuation of Abraham's life, the renuncia-
* ' As it is essentially bound up with a moral system which is undoubtedly
everlasting, we have no other conclusion open to us than that the soul so con-
stituted and related is destined for an immortal existence.' PEILL'S Immortality
Proved, p. 28.
' We hold by this principle of a God-consciousness in man, a sense of the
Infinite, the Perfect, the Eternal, which stamps him with the awful character
of Immortality, for it could have no root, no permanent hold in a being whose
nature is merely mortal.' A. THOMPSON, Doctrine, the Old and the New, p. 22.
72 SUPPOSED INDESTRUCTIBLENESS OF SUBSTANCE.
tion of the relationship of a ' God ' to the disobedient on the
part of the Almighty may involve the destruction of individual
being. Human destiny does not depend, we may be assured, on
any abstract ontological relation of the finite mind to the Infinite,
but on the moral relations between the two, as declared by the
Deity ; and to be cast off by God may be to perish.
A second argument much depended on by some writers is
derived from the general doctrine of the indestructibleness of
substance. All things that exist, it is said, continue in being.
Matter changes its form, but never passes out of existence.
There is a perpetual conservation of substance and of energy.
Nothing perishes. Nature makes known no example of anni-
hilation. Combinations alter, but substance endures. This,
which is demonstrably true of material things around us, must
be true also, it is thought, of things spiritual The whole analogy
of nature, so far as known, is opposed to the idea of the destruc-
tion of substance ; whence it is argued the soul will last for ever.
In the poetic language of John Smith, the Platonist of Cambridge,
' Nothing dies that can discourse, that can reflect in perfect
circles.' Why should mind be less durable than matter? Why
should intellect vanish out of being when every gaseous atom is
naturally eternal ? It is to assail a fundamental law of nature to
presume on the destruction of mind. Nothing was made to
perish ; all substance was formed at first for an endless use under
varying forms. Therefore also mind was formed to live for ever.
Such reasonings may amuse a theologian's leisure, but it is
wonderful that they can satisfy as a basis of hope any serious
inquirer. That the soul of man is an uncompounded substance,
or indivisible essence, has never been proved, and cannot be
proved. All the evidence of comparative physiology rather
favours the opinion that it is a complex and therefore dissoluble
structure.* Of its essence we really know nothing. Of the de-
struction of its substance we know nothing. But as, when the
body dies, it dissolves, and is no more a living organism, so, if it
shall please God to break up the soul, its substance may or may
not remain, but its individual life will perish, and it shall be no
more a soul. That the soul of man is in its nature less dissoluble
than the ' souls ' of animals, to use the Biblical idiom, has never
* See Dr. A. BAIN on Mind and Body.
tORTALITY OF THE EPHEMERA. 73
been shown nor is likely to be shown on scientific grounds alone
All modern observation tends to the belief in the unity and con-
tinuity of nature. The sharp distinction between vegetable and
animal is passing away. The sharp distinction between matter
and spirit is vanishing also. Meantime this argument for im-
mortality derived from the perpetuity of substance is equally valid
for the eternal duration of all life ; and no decisive anticipation
of immortality fof mankind as a substructure for religious faitb
can be deduced from a premiss which compels the conclusion of
an equal immortality for the life-force of zoophytes and infusoria,*
A third, and more promising argument has, in all ages, frffit
derived from the moral instincts of mankind There is in men
a widely developed instinctive expectation of survival in death
for judgment The good hope for, great souls desire, and bad
men often profoundly dread, a * something after death ; ' and this
instinctive expectation of continued life with a view to irtiMwn-
tion is thought to prove the soul's indestructible dotation,
Men in all ages, and in nearly all lands, have looked with note
or less of confidence lor a life to come. The tombs of the
ancient Egyptians testify to the established belief in a
* Ifr Frill ifnainn rtir M!rin null 5 nf
decided **-**FMy 'The
sett<xck^ and raponahk the
of the iBil body, HI ! f nliriMftj, dote Ms pr-'V-^"-
vpon the death of tie body/ /w^rtofifr /V/, p. 15, But
of the arguments om whidh flat denoat writer depends in proof of
on behalf of flie aamais to OK **<>
John Wedej is fawwu to
of fer greater weight ftea Me. Peffl, tie
ee to allow that their physical
m nua's death is of equal rahe for
Jifr^ 1 "*
of
of the whole amnl creation Seep. i6z. Is it
74 SURVIVAL AN ANCIENT EXPECTATION.
of blessedness or misery. It was not simply a speculation of the
priesthood, but a fixed persuasion of the people. In every burial
scroll and on every mummy-case there is a picture of the Balance
of Justice in which the soul is weighed against the image of truth
in the presence of Osiris, the lord of the under-world. The
ancient literatures of India and China attest on every page the
prevalence of a similar faith in the soul's survival. In Greece
Socrates expressed in death the common hope of good men, that
they had an inheritance beyond the present life. Before Germany
was Christianised the faith in the soul's immortality was widely
diffused over barbaric Europe. In modern ages the irrepressible
instinct of survival practically triumphs in every country over the
opposition of scientific materialism. No stress of physiological
evidence on the structure and development of the brain, on the
relation of the human brain to that of animals, on the dependence
of thought on cerebral machinery, avails completely to silence the
' oracle of God ' within the heart, which tells us that ' it* is
appointed unto men once to die, and after this, judgment*
No valid answer, I think, can be given to these arguments, if
they are taken only for what they are worth, as morally probable
evidence of survival or of revival ; but if we are to be governed
by accurate criticism it will be seen (i) that this probable evidence
of survival is far from carrying with it an equal probability of
eternal sut vival. The souls of men may survive for a time, and
then lapse one by one -into the universum, as four hundred
millions of Buddhists still believe ; or some may survive eternally,
and some may perish. The light of Nature can give no assurance
of everlasting duration for all souls. There may be a survival and
a transformation, as in the example of many physical organisms,
the last transformation to be followed by death. The butterfly
rises from the chrysalis, yet the butterfly is not eternal. And (2)
the probable evidence of survival arising from the moral con-
sciousness, though it may hold out to men of the better sort, like
Socrates, the prospect dimly seen, even of an eternal existence of
some kind, whether material or immaterial, throws no light what-
ever on the cause or quality of that survival or resurrection. The
fact may seem to be probable to the moral judgment, yet the
reason of the fact be completely concealed. Thus, in the ever
touching dialogue of the Phcedon, it is easy to distinguish between
PHYSICAL ARGUMENTS FOR SURVIVAL. 75
the comparative solidity of the main hope of some future life, held
by the Athenian martyr, and the worthlessness of most of the
arguments for pre-existence and immortality by which that hope
was supported. 'Contradictories generate each other, therefore
death leads to life eternal.' Plato might think it worth while, as
a literary man, to spin such gossamer threads as these, but it was
not by them that Socrates anchored his soul in his dying hour.
No physical argument reaches further than to show that survival
of the living energy is barely possible. No argument derived
from the progressive nature of intellect offers solid ground until
we are assured of the purpose of a benevolent Deity, which is not
made very clearly known by the light of Nature. The apparent
dependence of intellect on the brain, the black and ugly fact of
death, and the ever-strengthening force of the argument for non-
survival derived from the side of comparative biology, leave but
a faint glimmer of hope to be drawn from some imaginary law of
' everlasting progression.'
Nature ' red in tooth and claw ' may be thought to yield
small signs of any special regard for humanity as one species of
the million who consume the fruits of the earth. No, it is the
moral argument alone which carries weight, the probability of
retribution or salvation by a living God. Good men like Socrates
are drawn to believe, feebly or firmly, in an Eternal Justice which
will receive their souls beyond. But this shows that the onto-
logical arguments for the soul's immortality are practically value-
less. The fact of survival may be correctly appreciated; the
reason of it may be concealed, or concealed from many who have
rightly believed the fact. It may not result from the nature of
the soul as essentially immortal, but solely from the pleasure of
God, that souls of men, of the character of Socrates, will survive
in death, and live for ever. It may not be in any degree from the
nature of the soul, but from the purpose of God in judgment
(who, adding fresh opportunities of salvation to human life,
' exacts the more,' and inflicts fresh penalties on the whole nature),
that wicked men are often led instinctively to apprehend a terrible
future.
Persons who accept the New Testament theology must more-
over allow that no man, however 'good,' can deserve an ever-
lasting life in happiness. All men by nature are sinful, and by
76 SURVIVAL NOT ALWAYS IMMORTALITY.
their sins have deserved future punishment, of which conscience
warns the wicked in some degree. Therefore nature, if it teach
the immortality of the soul, might seem to teach for all sinners,
that is for all men, only an immortality in punishment. But
indeed nature, which is the voice of Law, teaches nothing of the
kind. So far as strict evidence is concerned, we are in the dark
under natural conditions as to the future of the soul, except that
judgment to come looms in the distance to some men's fears.
One philosopher dreams in one manner of its destiny, another in
a different manner. (See this shown with great effect in Joseph
Hallet's Observations on the Soul and its Immortality ^ an excellent
book, published in 1729.)
An affecting summary of the arguments for immortality under
natural light has been given by Mr. John Stuart Mill in his recent
work on Religion. They are in part cited here, because by many
Mr. Mill will probably be accounted an able expositor of what
nature, carefully reasoning, really teaches as to the probability of
survival, on most of the grounds on which theologians have
rested hitherto ; and it will be seen that his judgment is not on
the side of hope :
'The common arguments (for immortality) are the goodness
of God ; the improbability that He would ordain the annihilation
of His noblest and richest work, after the greater part of its few
years of life had been spent in the acquisition of faculties which
time is not allowed him to turn to fruit ; and the special impro-
bability that He would have implanted in us an instinctive desire
for eternal life and doomed that desire to complete disappoint-
ment. These might be arguments in a world the constitution of
which made it possible without contradiction to hold it for the
work of a Being at once omnipotent and benevolent. But they
are not arguments in a world like that in which we live. ... One
thing is quite certain in respect to God's government of the
world, that He either could not or would not grant to us every-
thing we wish. We wish for life, and He has granted some life.
That we wish, or some of us wish, for a boundless extent of life,
and that it is not granted, is no exception to the ordinary modes
of His government. Many a man would like to be a Croesus or
an Augustus Caesar, but has his wishes gratified only to the
moderate extent of a pound a week or the secretaryship of his
OPINIONS OF WHATELY, PEROWNE, AND MILL. 77
trade union. There is, therefore, no assurance whatever of a life
after death on grounds of natural religion.'
To the same conclusion came the late Archbishop Whately,
who says : ' That the natural immortality of man's soul is dis-
coverable by reason may be denied on the ground that it has not
in fact been discovered yet. No arguments from reason, inde-
pendent of revelation, have been brought forward that amount to
a decisive proof that the soul must survive bodily death.' *
Dr. J. J. S. Perowne, after a careful summary of all the pro-
babilities for survival alleged by Dr. M'Cosh, M. Renan, and
Jules Simon, thus concludes : ' It cannot be said that such
arguments make a future life certain. They make a future life
not improbable, but they do not prove it. So far as they are
strong, it is because in a degree which we little suspect we bring
them in aid of our Christian faith ; but apart from that faith they
have no solid ground. Take away this faith, and these arguments
lose their force. You are left in a world of shadows. The
immortality of the soul is a phantom which eludes your eager
grasp. 'f
It offers too remarkable an analogy between the teaching of
Natural and Revealed Religion to allow of its postponement to a
future page in this work (as a strict method might demand), that
the Scripture, regarded as the multifarious record of divine move-
ments for man's salvation, speaks as little as Mr. John Stuart
Mill, or any one else who utters the language of reason, of the
abstract or essential Immortality of the Soul. Of the survival of
souls in a Sheol, or Hades, it seems to speak often ; of the actual
eternal survival of the saved it also often speaks; but it never
once places the eternal hope of mankind on the abstract dogma
of the Immortality of the Soul, or declares that Man will live for
ever because he is naturally Immortal.
That the doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul is never once
explicitly delivered throughout the whole range of the Jewish and
Christian Scriptures is a fact of which every reader may satisfy
himself by examination ; and it is a fact which long ago his
drawn the attention of thoughtful and exact inquirers.
If the doctrine be true that the spirit of man is a deathless
* Archbishop Whately on Future Life, p. 17.
f Hulsean Lectures on Immortality, 1868, p. 31.
78 THE IMMORTALITY OF TtiE SOUL NOT TA UGHT
intelligence, a power destined by its God-imposed nature to
endure as long as the NECESSARY BEING, we might surely have
expected to find at least some few traces of this fundamental
truth in the ages which were illustrated by direct communication
with heaven. Neither men nor languages were so differently
formed in antiquity as to necessitate a steadfast neglect of every
verbal reference to an idea which is alleged to lie at the basis of
the system of Redemption ; and one of transcendent importance
in every aspect of the case, as the zeal of its modern upholders
sufficiently testifies. If Redemption, and the Incarnation of the
Deity which gave it its force, were ' wasted ' unless man were an
immortal, and the object were to redeem him from endless misery,
the idea of Immortality would have occurred at least as often as
the idea of Redemption. In every other instance we obtain from
the Prophets and Apostles clear and frequent expressions of the
doctrines which they were commissioned to deliver ; even of those
which unaided reason was able to discover, as the existence of
God and the difference between good and evil. But in this
instance nearly a hundred writers have by some astonishing
fatality omitted, with one consent, all reference to the Immor-
tality of the Soul ; no sentence of the Bible containing that brief
declaration ' from God,' or even a passing reference, which would
have set the controversy for ever at rest. In our own times
scarcely a religious work issues from the press addressed to sinful
men, scarcely is a public exhortation directed to them, without a
distinct exhibition of the doctrine of Immortality, of deathless
being in the nature of man, as the basis of the whole theological
superstructure. Now, how shall we explain the remarkable fact
that neither Apostles nor Prophets have ever once employed this
argument in dealing with the wicked ' You have immortal souls,
and must live for ever in joy or woe, therefore repent ! ' an
argument of almost irresistible force, if it be true ? How, other-
wise than by concluding that this was not their philosophy, that
this doctrine formed no part of the ' wisdom of God,' and that
they were withheld from proposing it to the world by Him who
has declared that the eternal life of the righteous is the gift of
His grace, and that ' all the wicked He will destroy ' ? We are
taught, in certain cases, to argue confidently from the silence of
the Scriptures ; and since, as in the case of the priesthood of
IN THE BIBLE AS A GENERAL TRUTH. 79
Judah (Heb. vii. 14), the Bible has 'spoken nothing' in any of
its numerous books, during the fifteen centuries of its composition,
concerning man's natural or necessary immortality, one gathers
courage to ask for the proofs of so important a doctrine.*
An eminent writer tells us, indeed, that 'this is an old and
futile argument. The word Trinity never occurs once in Scrip-
ture, nor Providence. Are both, therefore, to be denied? Was
there no death under the old economy, or no everlasting life for
the holy, for angels, for the blessed God ? The complete fact is
all in favour of the common view : men are said to be mortal, but
mortal or mortality is never applied in either Testament to soul
or spirit.' But this is to evade the argument. In every modern
sermon, prayer, and hymn, you hear of ' immortal souls,' and
every modern address to men is founded on a declaration of their
immortality ; it is not so in any one of the many books ivhich com-
pose the Bible. And not only is the word not used, or any equi-
valent in Hebrew or Greek, but no single expression of Scripture
can be pointed out in which man's natural immortality is affirmed
directly or indirectly. The argument is, that if the doctrine were
true and important, it would not be left to divines to teach us
that we are by nature immortal, any more than it has been left to
them to teach us the doctrine of the plurality of Persons in the
Godhead, or of God's Providence ; but it would be found every-
where in Scripture in one form of speech or another, that all
men shall live for ever.
It may nevertheless be asked with reason : ' How is it that a
doctrine which, according to you, is destitute of solid foundation
in ontological fact, and which is not once explicitly acknowledged
in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, has nevertheless taken
a hold on the mind of the world in ancient and modern times so
firm that the denial of it, even by conscientious inquirers, offers a
^erious shock to the religious consciousness of the age ? '
The answer to this question leads to the consideration of a
remarkable portion of the method of the divine government. The
practical work of man's world is carried forward for the most part
* The silence of Scripture on man's natural Immortality is treated with
great ability by the lamented PROFESSOR HUDSON, of Cambridge, U. S.
America, in his works on Debt and Grace in relation to a Future Life and
Christ our Life. Kellaway and Co., Warwick Lane, London.
So INTERIM BELIEFS.
under imperfect conceptions of the material system, and the prac-
tical work of the moral world has been carried forward under
equally unscientific conditions. Until quite recently men laboured
and navigated under a false conviction that the earth was a plane,
and stationary in the centre, while the sun, moon, and stars were
whirled round it by a daily revolution of the sky. It is an advan-
tage to know the truth of the Newtonian astronomy ; but much
sound work was done by mankind under an unshaken conviction
of the truth of the Ptolemaic theory. In the 1 same manner if
an erroneous psychology and theology have for ages dominated
over the western world, as over the eastern, even under such un-
favourable conditions it has been possible to answer the chief
ends of being in a life devoted to the service of God. The shock
occasioned by hearing that there is no reason to place our hope
of eternal life on the basis of the soul's immortality, but on the pro-
mise of the grace of God, is, after all, not greater than was the
shock of learning, as Europe two hundred years since was com-
pelled to learn, that the antipodes existed, that the earth was a
rapidly moving globe, and that it revolved once a year round the
central sun. In the ages which precede the popular establish-
ment of physical, intellectual, and psychological truth there are
interim beliefs which serve well enough the purposes of practical
life, although attended with many limitations and disadvantages-.
There is an elementary revelation of half truth to the senses, and
a subsequent revelation of scientific truth to the soul.
Such an interim belief may have been that on the immor-
tality of the spirit. It is, as we hold, when taken in the absolute
sense, an error in philosophy and theology ; but since it carried
with it the belief of retribution it has served the ends of moral
probation, by. extending the views of men to another state of
being, and by carrying the hopes of good men forward into
eternity. As Mr. Heard strongly puts it in his chapter on the^
'Immortality of the Psyche':* 'The mistake of the Greek
thinkers was the most natural one in the world ; so natural that
they are to be excused, nay, honoured, for holding it. But for us
to repeat the error is to betray wilful prejudice. The one hypo-
thesis was as good as the other as a provisional theory to account
for the facts of the case. Without these hypotheses or landing-
* The Tripartite Nature of Man, p. 230-1.
CHRISTENDOM RELAPSED INTO HEATHENISM, Si
places, the heights of discovery would never have been scale$
to this day. But when that which is perfect is come, that which
is in part is to be done away. So with philosophic theories ojf
existence after death. Till life and immortality had been brought
to light by the gospel, it would have been reasonable to argue, as
the philosophers did, that the soul does not die because it cannot
die. As there was no external evidence of existence after death,
they were obliged to fall back on internal. The immortality of
the soul was the hypothesis which accounted very plausibly for
the contradiction between man's inner aspirations and the humili-
ating fact of his early and untimely death. But the resurrection
of Christ as the first-fruits of the dead is a fact in these moral
speculations which is irreconcilable with all previous hypotheses.
Either man is non-mortal because he is immortal ; or he is non-
mortal because the hour is coming in which " all that are in the
graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear
shall live." Those who embrace the latter doctrine as the re-
vealed truth of God may well abandon the interim hypotheses of
a darker time.'
That Christendom should have fallen back upon heathenish
speculations, and returned to the ; beggarly elements ' of Asiatic and
Athenian philosophy as the basis of hope, is consonant with other
parallel portions of the history of European opinion. Europe
sentenced herself to fifteen hundred years of priestcraft and re-
stored paganism, through forgetting the lessons of primitive
Christianity.* The Reformation has vindicated one half of the
original divine revelation against the errors of the middle ages.
It may seem incredible to many that a considerable portion should
remain still to be rescued from the superincumbent accumulations
of pagan and mediaeval thought. Yet wisely does Lord Bacon warn
the modern world : ' Another error,' says he, ' is a conceit that of
former opinions or sects, after variety and examination, the best
hath still prevailed, and suppressed the rest ; so as if a man should
undertake the labour of a new search, he were but like to light
upon somewhat formerly rejected, and by rejection brought into
oblivion ; as if the multitude, or the wisest for the multitude's
sake, were not ready to give passage rather to that which is
* See DRAPER'S History of the Intellectual Development of Europe.
6
82 LORD BACON ON TIME.
popular and superficial than to that which is substantial and pro-
found. For the truth is, that Time seemeth to be of the nature
of a river or stream, which carrieth down to us that which is light
or blown up, and sinketh and drowneth that which is weighty and
solid.'* I must ask an indulgent application of this hypothesis to
explain the facts, at least until the reader has considered the
arguments of the following pages.
* BACON'S Advancement of Learning.
BOOK THE SECOND.
THE OLD TESTAMENT DOCTRINE ON LIFE AND
DEA TH.
CHAPTER IX.
ON THE ACCOUNT GIVEN IN SCRIPTURE OF THE ORIGINAL
CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
* The notion of the separate existence of the soul has so incorporated itself
with Christian theology, that we are apt at this day to regard a belief in it as
essential to orthodox doctrine. I cannot, however, help viewing this popular
belief as a remnant of scholasticism. I feel assured that the truth of the resur-
rection does not rest on such an assumption. What our Lord says, in answer
to Martha's declaration, "I know that he shall rise again," when He pro-
claims Himself the Resurrection and the Life, is to this point. The "jews then
entertained a philosophical belief of a future state. Our Lord tacitly reproves
an assurance on such grounds by His strong reference to Himself: "/am the
Resurrection and the Life : whosoever believetk in me, shall live, though he
die."' BP. HAMPDEN, Bampton Lectures, p. 310.
WE have now reached that stage in this argument where it is
necessary to commence an examination of the teaching of the
Bible. This must be undertaken by us apart from any traditional
theory on its verbal inspiration, for Holy Scripture loses rather
than gains in authority over men's minds by the enforcement of a
uniform church-doctrine respecting the mode of the origination of
its various books.
The earlier chapters in Genesis are thought to bear marks of
being a compilation from earlier documents, and carry with them
admirable evidence of special adaptation to the limited intelligence
of an infant nation. The less men know, the less they can be
taught. A scientific statement of the genesis of the Earth and
Man would have produced more confusion in Hebrew thought
than it cleared away. There is a physical revelation made by
God to the senses, which is neither infallible nor complete, which
requires to be corrected by science, and the vision of the inner
eye yet which is useful, and adapted to the ends of common life.
Thus nature presents the sun and moon of the same size and
86 THE PENTATEUCH FOR THE WORLD'S INFANCY.
distance, and alike moving in the sky. Yet we do not herein
impute to the Deity unveracity, knowing well that the false im-
pression depends on the limitations of sense and the laws of per-
spective, while it answers the practical purposes of human existence
sufficiently well. An analogous revelation in religion was of old
consigned to the patriarchs, including a cosmogony and other
monuments, which received their form rather from the limitations
of man than from the fulness of God. Moses wrote truth on
divinity in a fashion suitable to his times, but his was the un-
scientific eye, the unscientific voice. To see ' God's back-parts '
was the vision vouchsafed to him. He was sent to teach the
world that which would not do, rather than to propose a per-
manent theory either in physics or morals. 'The law made
nothing perfect.'
The books of Moses were designed for the Church in its child-
hood. Partly 'because of the hardness (blindness) of their
hearts,' Moses was permitted to write many things imperfectly
besides the old law of divorce. Astronomy, geology, ethnology,
natural history, were written for the times, and no other mode of
writing them could have profited the readers. It was sufficient
that there should be in every case a certain substratum of fact,
and such fact we doubt not underlies even that first chapter
which describes the latest act of God in the production of new
organisms on earth. At the point where the world's human his-
tory joins on to the past, it was inevitable that ' clouds and dark-
ness' should rest on the beginning of the story ; and the intellectual
condition of the learner dictated in that early age the law which
excludes an excess of light from the eye feebly opening on the
universe.
The modern objections to the book of Genesis appear to be for
the most part as futile as are many of its more slavish defences.
The withholding of truth is not deception ; knowledge is deter-
mined by faculty and experience. Eyesight first then science.
The father speaks to his little sons in such terms as they can
understand, and are likely to profit by. When they become men
it will be time to 'put away childish things.' Moses was the
instructor of the world's infancy; such teaching as his was the
only possible training for the time then present, with a view to the
future. To ask for science at his hands, or even for strict con-
THE ADAM OF MOSES A PROBABLE BEING. 87
formity to all the facts, is to forget that darkness is necessarily the
swaddling-band of mind awakening from nothingness.
From the noble poem of Genesis, embodying the general idea
of Creation by an Eternal Mind, and probably the fact of a recent
local action in six days, he passes on to the still mysterious ground
of primeval history. After carefully studying the mythical theories,
there is no valid reason known to the writer why we should not
accept the history of Adam and Eve as a true narrative. It is not
necessary to deny that there may have been previous human races
upon the earth, as there had been previous animal races. As-
suredly science determines nothing which forbids the belief that
existing mankind is of recent origin, or that its introduction was
accompanied by a fresh creation of animal life in some depart-
ments of nature. There is nothing in the narrative of man's
creation which throws discredit on its truth. If man sprang
directly from the hand of the Infinite Being (at least a more in-
telligible hypothesis than that he blindly forced his way upward
from the brutes, as the brutes originally forced theirs upwards from
an abyss of dead atoms), his first stage in life must have been
passed in a supernatural scene. Some persons seem to consider
that the first chapter of human history ought, in order to be
credible, to resemble the last. Such a narrative, however, as that
of Genesis is far more credible, on the hypothesis of God's action in
creation, than would be an elementary history based on any like-
ness in man's earliest experience to a chapter in subsequent
savage or highly civilised life. The supernatural lustre that shines
over Eden, so far from offering an obstacle to rational belief, is a
spiritual attestation to its truth.
' Trailing clouds of glory do we come,
From God who is our Home ; '
and the credit, which the subjective significance of the narrative
describing the earliest experience of man as a trial of moral
subjection to the Eternal Wisdom wins for it from considerate
readers, is supported by all subsequent divine revelations. The
belief or disbelief in a God working in nature is a potent element
in the determination of scientific opinion.
It is beyond question that the fabric of Christian theology
assumes the truth of this narrative as the foundation of the divine
88 CHRISTIANITY BASED ON GENESIS.
dealings with men. Christ very distinctly affirms in His teaching
the murder of mankind by the Fiend. It is equally evident that
the apostles of Christ make this narrative, as in S. Paul's great
epistle to the Romans (ch. v. 12-20), the foundation of their
system, whether true or false. Redemption has for its object in
part to save men from the results of the sin of Adam ; and his
fall, or ' death,' is referred to as established by the book of
Genesis. Thus the complex evidence of Christianity, miraculous,
prophetic, internal, is brought to bear retrospectively upon the
credit of this early narrative, and verifies it.*
We purpose to treat it, then, notwithstanding the modern
assumption of its mythical character, as a narrative of truth, which
has received the sanction of Christ and His Apostles, and is of
equal value with the gospel history, itself so abnormal. It is
needless to add that under this old-fashioned view it assumes a
momentous aspect, as the starting-point in the method of the
divine government of the earth, for it is only as we understand
rightly the primary condition of man that we can understand the
ruin wrought by the powers of evil, or the redemption wrought by
Incarnate Love.f
We proceed, then, to examine the Mosaic history.
It introduces Man upon the earth in the character of the king
of the world, made immediately by God's hand in God's image.
* And God said, Let us make man in our imagine, after our likeness ; and
let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,
and over the cattle, and over every creeping thing. So God created man in His
* In the preceding paragraphs I do not pretend to argue the case of the
truth of the narrative in Genesis. It is assumed, and these pages are not
addressed primarily to those who deny the authenticity and truth of the Penta-
teuch. My own conviction rests (i) on a persuasion of the reality of Christ's
Divine Character and Miracles, and the consequent truth of His teaching that
teaching being based on the reality of the Mosaic narrative ; and (2) on the
internal evidence of divine revelation regarded as a coherent whole, which
lends confirmation to the earliest portions by showing their organic relations
with those that follow. This is, I think, the sufficient answer to Mr. Draper's
too superficial assertions on thesubject in his recent book on the Conflict bctiwn
Religion and Science ; but men's views of what is ' sufficient ' in argument
differ with their spiritual states.
f See this drawn out in a passage from Athanasius on the Incarnation, cited
in Chapter xxvi.
MOSAIC ACCOUNT OF MAN'S CREATION. 89
own image, in the image of God created He him ; male and female created He
them' (Gen. i. 26, 27).
The second narrative in Genesis thus resumes ' the wondrous
tale/
' And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life ; and man became a living soul. And the
Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden ; and there He put the man
whom He had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow
every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food : the Tree of Life also
in the midst of the garden, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil '
(Gen. ii. 7-9).
' And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to
dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of
every tree in the garden thou mayest freely eat. But of the Tree of the Know-
ledge of Good and Evil, thou shalt not eat of it ; for in the day that thou
eatest thereof thou shalt surely die ' (Gen. ii. 15-17).
In attempting to fix the ideas designed by this narrative it is
obviously just to insist that the main drift of Moses is such as
would be apprehended by an Israelitish reader of the book of
Genesis when it was first published in the wilderness.
1. The first observation suggested by the terms of the history is
that, according to Moses, man was not formed within the precincts
of Paradise, where grew the Tree of Life ; but was created from
the dust, of the ground in the territory outside it, where animal
life abounded, and where, as we now learn from fossil geology,
death had reigned over all organised existence from the beginning
of the creation. ' The Lord God took the man whom He had
formed, and put him in the garden of Eden ' (ii. 15).* This
circumstance seems to point to the conclusion that if the creature
so made enjoyed loftier prospects than those of the animals, to
whose organisation his own bore so strong a resemblance, this was
not from the original constitution of his nature as eternal, but
from superadditions of grace bestowed on a perishable being.
2. The language in which the creation of man is described is
such as to fix with certainty the intention of the writer. ' God
formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life ; and man became a living sour (ii. 7).
* The rabbins have a remarkable myth to the effect that man was formed in
the deep places of the earth, 'made in secret,' and then, at the divine word,
was borne into life by the Great Mother.
90 MAN BECAME A LIVING SOUL.
The notion has prevailed that the design of the sacred writer here
is to teach that when the body was formed of the dust, a soul was
' breathed into it ' by the direct inspiration of God, which was of
the immortal nature of the Creator Himself, and could never die.
There is nothing more certain in criticism than that this is pre-
cisely the reverse of the doctrine intended to be conveyed by
Moses.
First of all, the animation of man by the breath of God proves
the immortality of his 'soul' no more than a similar asserted
animation of brutes proves the immortality of their 'soul.'
' Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, they are created, and Thou re-
newest the face of the earth. Thou takest away Thy Spirit, they
die, and return to their dust* (Psalm civ.). Neither does the
phrase ' man became a living soul ' convey the notion of his
receiving an 'ever-living spirit' but this and nothing more
that he became a ' living being or animal,' placed, so far as im-
mortality was concerned, but not in respect of the image of God,
on a level with other living creatures around him. The same
phrase, as descriptive of the lives of beasts, is employed by Moses
in describing the animals with whom ' God made a covenant '
after the flood, 'fowl, cattle, and beast' (Gen. ix. 10).* The
same phrase is found in the Apocalypse (xvi. 3), to denote the
fishes that died in the sea.f
But we have the advantage of a special comment, fixing the
meaning of this phrase, from the pen of S. Paul himself. In the
fifteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, he speaks
of the burial and resurrection of a Christian in these terms : ' It
is sown a natural body, o-w/xa i/ar^i/coV; it is raised a spiritual
* n;n J$ Heb. nephesh hayah; Eng. V. ' creature that hath life ; ' Gr.
f ' Some of our readers may be surprised at our having translated nephesh
hayah by living animal. There are good interpreters who have maintained
that here is intimated the distinctive pre-eminence of man above the inferior
animals. But we should be acting unfaithfully if we were to affirm that the
doctrine of an immortal spirit is contained in this passage. The two words are
frequently conjoined in Hebrew, and the meaning of the compound phrase will
be apparent to the English reader when he knows that our version readers it,
in Gen. i. 20, creature that hath life, or each living crcattire ; and so in ch. ii.
19, ix. 12, 15, 16. This expression sets before us the organic life of the animal
frame.' Dr. J. PYE SMITH, in Kitto's Diet. Bible, article ADAM.
S. PAUL ON A 'LIVING SOUL: 91
body, <ro>/x,a Tn/eu/xa-riKoi/. And so it is written, The first man
Adam was made a living soul, i/or^i/ worai/; the last Adam
was made a quickening, or life-giving, Spirit, Trvcfyia &OTTOIOVV.
.... The first man is of the earth earthy, XOIKOS, a man of
dust; the second man is the Lord from heaven' (xv. 44-47).
The apostle's argument is lost in the misleading English version.
The English reader must understand that the word translated
1 natural ' in ver. 46 (psuchicori), is an adjective formed from the
noun psuche, translated soul in the phrase * living-soul,' of the
Greek version of Genesis. It is as if our word soul stood for
animal, and we had such an adjective as soulical formed from it.
The comment of the apostle then becomes clear. ' There is
soulical or animal body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it
is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul or animal
(a phrase distinctly applied in the Scripture to the brutes) ; the
last Adam was made a life-giving Spirit. The first man was of
the earth, a man of dust; the second man is the Lord from
heaven.'
Here, then, we have the authority of S. Paul for deciding that
when Moses described the result of the animation of Adam by
the Divine Breath, so far from designing to teach that thereby an
immortal spirit was communicated to him, the object was to teach
exactly the contrary, that he became a ' living creature or animal?
neither possessed of eternal life in himself, nor capable of trans-
mitting it. And the phrase living soul is chosen, not to distinguish
him from the rest of the creation, but to mark his place as a
member of that animal world whose intellectual powers partake of
the perishableness of their material organisations.
In the same manner, the statement that God 'breathed into
his nostrils the breath of life,' so far from being intended to indi-
cate the immortal perpetuity of his nature, is specially chosen to
mark his dependence on the atmosphere for his continued life.
The prophet Isaiah refers to this passage with manifest design of
marking man's present evanescence. 'Cease ye from man,
whose breath is in his nostrils, for wherein is he to be accounted
ofV (ii. 22.)
3. When, then, it is said that 'God made man in His own
Image,' we far exceed the intention of the book of Genesis, if we
affirm that this signifies that God made man absolutely immortal.
92 MEANING OF MORTAL AND IMMORTAL.
There, is, however, a need to distinguish an absolute from a
conditional immortality. Just as the term mortal may be taken
to signify either capable of death, or certain to die, so immortal may
stand for designed to live for ever, or certain to live for ever. The
answer to the question, Was man at first made mortal or im-
mortal ? depends on the nieaning attached to the word. If mortal
means certain to die, then Adam was not created mortal ; if it
means capable of death in body and soul, he was mortal. If
immortal signifies designed to live for ever, then Adam was created
immortal. If it means certain to live for ever, then he was created
mortal. For the meaning of this venerable record plainly is that
man at first was placed on trial for continuous life to be secured
by obedience. If he obeyed, he should live on for ever. If he
transgressed, he should die, according to the law which reigns
over all other earthly organisms.
The ' image of God ' then is to be taken to signify his capacity
for understanding God and His works, his capacity for sove-
reignty, his moral uprightness, and his designed destiny to an
immortal life conditional on obedience. * God made him to be
i.e., that he might be the image of his own eternity ' as an
Apocryphal writer justly declares.
But this continuous life depended at present on an external
aliment. So long as Adam obeyed, and abstained from the tree
of Knowledge, he was permitted to take of the tree of Life, the
effect of which is declared in this narrative to be life eternal.
' Now lest he put forth his hand and take of the tree of Life, and
eat and live for ever, so He drove out the man.'
The account which is given by Moses of the constitution of
man at his creation differs exceedingly from that account of our
nature which is given by modern psychology, and hence the in-
veterate custom has arisen of compelling these primitive docu-
ments to speak a language foreign to their proper meaning. For
many ages the European world, in striking contrariety to the habit
of the Buddhist world, has maintained the inextinguishable and
eternal duration of the animating principle in our nature ; know-
ing of no other basis of hope for a future existence, because
rejecting the testimony of God that our 'eternal life is in His
Son.' Coming to the reading of the Mosaic account of the
MAN MADE IN GOD'S IMAGE. 93
creation of man under such views, men have compelled the
narrative to speak a meaning contrary to its intention.
But of this belief there is no trace in this record. Had the
Mosaic idea of human nature been that of modern psychology,
that man consisted of a mortal body and an immortal soul, it is
inconceivable that it should not have appeared in an authoritative
account of the creation. Clearly Moses desired to say something
as to man's dignity, in respect of the nature bestowed on him, for
he speaks of the Divine Image ; and if deathlessness be his in-
alienable attribute, that was the place in which to declare it. But
neither there, nor elsewhere in the Bible, does Scripture confirm
this lofty opinion of the nature of man. God ' made man in His
own image,' and gave him ' dominion ' over all animals, but
the utmost said of him is that he became a ' living creature,' a
phrase frequently applied to the animal creation itself.
The reason of this silence as to deathlessness will become still
clearer if we consider the definition of humanity that prevails
through the Bible. According to modern conception, the body
is an inconsiderable fraction of our nature, mortal and corruptible.
It is the spirit which is the true man, the unseen and everlasting
personality. The body indeed scarcely deserves the name of
humanity ; it endures but for a moment. The soul is the Inhabi-
tant of Eternity, the ' great Coeval of God,' the coequal of holy
Angels in the possession of immortality. But in the biblical
account of man's creation this grandiose style of thought is reversed.
There this despised body is spoken of as the Man ; ' God formed
man from the dust of the ground ; ' and the whole being takes
his name, from the ground whence it sprang. He was called
Adam, from Adamah, the Earth or ground. His distinguishing
name is taken from that corporeal organisation which is supposed
by modern idealists to be little better than a transient appendage
of the spiritual humanity. And when he sinned, thereby incurring
the curse of death, the words attributed to the Creator are these,
' Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return;' no mention
even being made of that immortal intelligence which is supposed
to constitute the veritable personality which had committed the
offence.
Now in this simple psychology of the Old Testament it is
noticeable that soul, or nephesh, which is attributed to man, is
94 BIBLICAL PSYCHOLOGY.
also frequently attributed to the animals. There is indeed no
word descriptive of man's inner nature which is not also used to
describe that of the animals. If man possesses fc^jJJ a nephesh,
soul or life (as in Gen. ix. 5 ; * at the hand of every man's brother
will I require eth-nephesh, the life of man '), so do they : ' Ye
shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh, for the nepfiesh, the
soul or life of the flesh, is in the blood' (Lev. xvii. 14). 'Ye
shall not eat the nephesh, the life or soul, with the flesh ' (Deut.
xiii. 23). If man possesses a ruach, fl^H or D^H fl^H ' spirit of
life' (Gen. vi. 17), so in biblical phraseology do they. 'Who
knoweth the spirit of a beast that goeth downward?' 'They
have all one ritach" 1 (Eccl. Hi. 19, 21; Psalm civ. 29, 30 (Heb.).
If man possesses a neshamah, or spirit, so do they. ' All in
whose nostrils was the nishmath-ruach chajim, breath of the spirit
of life (which includes the animals, see ver. 21) died'* (Gen. vii.
22). The spirit which is in man is of a superior order, as 'the
candle of the Lord;' he has 'more wisdom than the beasts of
the field;' nevertheless he shares 'spirit' with all animated
natures, although they do not bear the ' image of God.'
The leading feature in the language of the Bible respecting
Man is that it agrees in an unexpected manner with the deduc-
tions of recent science in treating humanity as an integer. In the
language of Mr. Heard,
' We have not yet reached to the point where we can say what the con-
nection between soul and body is ; but all advance is in the direction of a
fusion between physiology and pyschology, when we shall neither speak of the
body without the mind, nor of the mind without the body. When two gases
uniting in definite proportions combine into a new substance with distinct pro-
perties of its own, unlike those of the gases when separate, we call this tertinm
* Even so great a writer as Dr. Delitzsch seems to have been tempted by
the spirit of system, a system which has perhaps but slight foundation in the
inconstant terminology of Scripture, to declare that the brutes in the Bible are
not said to possess neshamah ; but the above-cited passage proves this statement
to be incorrect. Dr. Petavel cites the following passage from The Hebrew
National Tor 1867:
'The Midrash (Bereshith Rabba, chap, xii.) does certainly enumerate five
appellations of the human spirit met with in Scripture : but those alike desig-
nate the principle of life in man and in beast. For that spiritual essence which
exclusively is the portion of man, the Hebrew language affords no term.' i
Struggle for Eternal Life, p. 39.
THE BODY ESSENTIAL TO HUMANITY. 95
quid by a name of its own. For all practical purposes Water is still an element.
It is not a fusion or a mixture as of water with wine, much less of one floating
on the other as of oil or water, but it is a union in which the very substances
themselves of oxygen and hydrogen, and not the phenomenon only, are absorbed
into a new substance with new and distinct phenomena of its own which we
call water. So in the union of mind and matter in the formation of man. Man
is not a mixture of mind and matter, much less an immortal mind in a mortal
body, but he is the identity of two distinct substances which lose their identity
in giving him his. Man is thus the true monad.' HEARD, Tripartite Nature \
P- !35-
Throughout the Scripture the sacred writers, as if acting under
a superintending wisdom, have persistently spoken of this com-
plex humanity, and not of either of its component elements, as
the object of the Divine Government. Under this view the body
cannot be dispensed with either for judgment, or for reward. It
forms an essential element of man's nature ; and apart from its
destined union with that organism the animating spirit is not
spoken of as the veritable humanity.*
When God is represented as speaking of man, He always
describes him as 'dust and ashes,' or 'flesh and blood.' The
blood is said to be 'the life of man,' as of all flesh. When
Redemption is accomplished by the Incarnation, the Divine
LOGOS is said to have ' become flesh] to have taken on Him the
'likeness of sinful flesh,' and to have 'given His flesh for the
life of the world.' And when judgment is administered to both
good and bad, there is a resurrection, or reconstruction of the
body, at least in some of its elements, in order that men may be
rewarded according to their works. Although S. Paul explains,
by the image of a grain sown, and the ear that springs, that
* The Ante-Nicene Fathers are full to over-flowing of the assertion of this
principle that the soul is not man, and that the body is not man, but that
Man is the tertium quid resulting from their union. The whole catena of proof
will be found in the anonymous Defence of Dodwell, 1728, in a work called
The Holy Spirit the Author of Immortality. By a Presbyter of the Church
of England. Dr. Perowne, in his Hulsean lecture on Immortality, vigorously
enforces the same truth. Dr. Thorn of Liverpool holds, in his book on Soul
and Spirit, that the first man possessed an animal body and soul only, naturally
perishing together, and incapable of procreating an immortal progeny. The
immortal nature he attributes to the ' Lord from heaven, ' who confers the
spirit or irvevfjia., and impresses the likeness of His own eternity on the body
and the soul. See in this connection Mr. Dale's tenth Lecture, on the Head-
ship of Christ. Lectures on the Atonement, p. 401.
96 BODY AND SOUL ONE MAN.
there is but a faint atomic relation between the present and
future bodies, he nevertheless insists that there is some relation
between them, as between the rotting grain and the springing ear.
One rises from the other. Thus too Christ says, ' All that are in
the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth.' And
Christ's own resurrection was the revivification even of the body
which had died altered in form and attributes doubtless, but
still atomically identical.
Now such a view of human nature seems to leave no room for
the pseudo-philosophic doctrine of an Immortal Soul, which is the
true human type. The dissolution of the complex nature is the
death of the man, irrespectively of the destruction of its component
elements. When Christ died, He was, as a man, 'destroyed'
(Matt, xxvii.). The 'shedding of His blood' was the pouring
out of the ' life ' of the ' flesh,' which was the shrine of the God-
head. These views of Man's nature are adhered to with marvel-
lous tenacity throughout the Scripture, and they are such as to
commend its teaching to thoughtful biologists.
The Apostle Paul discusses the subject of the Resurrection of
the dead, as if the hope of humanity were bound up with that
supernatural consummation. The thought of the independent and
eternal perpetuity of the ' soul ' of unredeemed man appears never
to have glanced across his mind as affording any prospect of future
bliss or future being. He does not even allow that apart from
redemption effected by Christ's resurrection, there was any hope of
the temporary survival of souls; since the hades-state is, for
good and bad, one of the miraculous results of a new probation.
'If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, ye are yet in your
sins. Then they also which have fallen asleep in Christ have
gone to nothing* dTrcoAorroj for thus he explains the term in the
following verse, ' If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we
are of all men most miserable.' What can be gathered from this
style of reasoning, except that S. Paul regarded the body of the
first Adam as being formally the man, that the animating principle
within us is not alone or formally a man, that without redemption
man would certainly go to nothing at death, and that if redemp-
tion is to be accomplished there must be a ne"w birth of spirit a
union of body and mind with Christ, and a resurrection from the
dead?
DEATH IS DISSOLUTION. 97
If we have correctly interpreted the general sense of the biblical
doctrine on man's constitution, the true idea of death is the break-
ing up of the human integer. When the complex man is dissolved
he i$ dead, no matter what may become of the component elements
of his being ; just as water is put an end to, when the combining
oxygen and hydrogen are separated. And as water might be
destroyed in two ways, by simply separating its elements, leaving
them still to exist, or by annihilating those elements, just so man's
death might be brought about in two ways, by dividing the body
from the soul or animating spirit, leaving both of those elements
to exist in a different manner ; or, by putting them out of existence
altogether. A man may be thus said to be dead both by a
Pharisee and a Sadducee ; although the one would believe that the
animating principle had survived, and the other would believe that
it had perished. The former idea of death is set forth by Christ
in the words, ' Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and
die, it abideth single, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit.'
In this case the death of the grain is its disintegration the break
ing up of the organisation, a process in which one portion survives
to gather around itself fresh materials in a veritable resurrection.
Such was His own death. The humanity was broken up, ' de-
stroyed/ and 'poured out its soul unto death,' but a divine
and spiritual energy remained, around which God built up again
the dissolved Humanity, and made that so restored God-man the
Life of the World/
What shall become of the residuary elements of disintegrated
organisms clearly depends in each case upon their relation to
the general plan. In some instances each liberated fraction
immediately seeks fresh combinations. In others, the specialised
energy, as in the electric fishes, is transmuted into heat in the
ensuing decomposition. In others, one of the elements, as in
the flesh of beasts, becomes the aliment of living organisms. In
others, the disintegration leaves one of the remaining germs to
form, as in transformed insects, a new life, the same yet not the
same. In others, as in the seeds of plants, a portion of the dis-
solving organism remains to form the nucleus of a new plant or
tree, which perhaps gathers its requisite materials from the relics
of the former. In others, as in the case of animals, the ani-
mating principle either passes out of existence, or is absorbed,
7
98 DISSOLUTION OF ORGANISMS.
according to Oersted, by some over-soul of Nature, or * returns
to God who gave it ; ' but in every case the destination of the
component parts, when their union is dissolved, is determined by
the will of God as to the future of the organism. This observa-
tion will be of value somewhat further on. In no case does the
subsequent disposition of the elements affect the reality of the
death of the integer. Its dissolution is its destruction. And
no temptation to play upon the word ' annihilation,' in its meta-
physical sense of abolition of substance, should turn the attention
away from the fact that thus all living things on earth are, one by
one> destroyed.
99
CHAPTER X.
ON THE NATURE OF THE DEATH THREATENED TO THE ANCES-
TORS OF MANKIND IN PARADISE AS THE PENALTY OF SIN.
' "LIFE," as applied to the condition of the blest, is usually understood to
mean a "happy life." And that theirs will be a happy life, we are indeed
plainly taught ; but I do not think we are anywhere taught that the word
" life " does of itself necessarily imply happiness. If so, indeed, it would be a
mere tautology" to speak of a "happy life ; " and a contradiction to speak of a
"miserable life;" which we know is not the case, according to the usage of
any language. In all ages and countries, " life " has always been applied in
ordinary discourse to a wretched life no less properly than to a happy one.
If, therefore, we suppose the hearers of Jesus and His apostles to have under-
stood, as nearly as possible, the words employed in their ordinary sense, they
must naturally have conceived them to mean (if they were taught nothing to the
contrary), that the condemned were really and literally to be " destroyed" and
ceass to exist ; not that they were to continue for ever to exist in a state of
wretchedness.' ABP. WHATELY, Lectures on a Future State.
' THE tree of knowledge of good and evil ' has exercised th e
curiosity of critics in every age ; but the most obvious account of
it appears to be, that it was a tree by touching or refraining from
which our first parents might demonstrate whether they would
or would not lead a life si faith in God. It would seem to have
been conveyed to them that the tasting of this tree would com-
municate to themselves that knowledge of good and evil which
now they were required to receive upon the authority of God.*
Simple, therefore, as the elements of the temptation were, all those
principles were involved which had been illustrated in the most
momentous trials of their descendants, the claims of Divine
Authority, and the rule of choice between the seductions of pride,
passion, or falsehood, and the all-obliging commandment of the
Supreme.
* Mr. Henry Rogers in the first edition of Greysoris Letters has an ingenious
chapter on the impossibility of testing Adam by the ' ten commandments. '
loo SWEDENBORGS DEFINITION OF THE CURSE.
The tree of life in the midst of the garden was plainly accessible
to Adam until the hour of his transgression ; for we read that
permission was granted to eat of every tree of the garden, with
the single exception of the tree of knowledge. The effect of the
tree of life seems to have been to repair the decays of nature,
and to prevent the approach of death ; for we read that after his
sin God said, ' Now, nS&^~|) lest he put forth (or as Swedenborg
rightly interprets, in order that he may not put forth) his hand,
and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever ; '-
implying a strong negative, that having chosen the creature
rather than the Creator he should not possess that immortal life,
which, under the divine will, access to the tree of life would
have sealed to him in obedience.
It is unnecessary to discuss the questions, wherefore the gift of
abiding life was to be communicated through so extraordinary a
medium as a tree in a mortal world ; or whether, after a short
period of probation, Adam would have been made ' equal to the
angels,' and translated to heaven. It is of more importance to
learn the actual results of his probation.
We suppose, then, that from the simple account furnished in
Genesis, we are to understand that Adam was not created in the
possession of immortality either in his body or soul ; yet, also,
that he was not created under a definite sentence of death, as
was the rest of the creation around him, since the prospect of
' living for ever ' by the help of the ' tree of life ' was open to
him upon the condition of obedience during his trial ; in other
words, the first man was not created immortal, but was placed
on probation in order to become so. Viewed as he was in him-
self, there was a noble creature, the offspring of God, endowed
with capacities for ruling over the world, and for holding com-
munion with Heaven ; but as to his origin, his foundation was in
the dust, and the image of the Creator was impressed upon a
nature, if a ' little lower than the angels,' still also no higher than
the animals as to unconditional immortality. His upright form
and * human face divine,' gave token of a spirit formed for in-
tercourse with the Eternal ; yet his feet rested on the same earth
which gave support to all the ' creeping things ' which it brought
forth, and, like the subjects of his dominion, ' his breath was ir\
his nostrils.'
ADAMMIDWA Y BETWEEN ANGELS AND ANIMALS. 101
Thus according to Moses, was Adam placed in Paradise ; mid-
way between the angels and the animals, on trial for everlasting
life ; midway between an existence which was as a shadow that
passeth away, and one, of which it should be beyond the powers
of any created mind to calculate or describe the duration. When
we attempt to conceive of the heights of blessedness which are
attainable in such a life, of that ' far more exceeding and eternal
weight of glory ' which would have been the reward of obedi-
ence ; and contrast with this the alternative of returning to the
dust to perish, what finite mind can appreciate fully the signifi-
cance of the trial of the first Man in the garden of Eden ? But
when, to such reflections upon this destiny, we add the considera-
tion, that in his hand were placed, perhaps, the lives of his count-
less descendants, language can give no utterance to the sense of
infinite loss involved in the conception of his failure.
These statements, however, are founded upon the assumption
of that which must be more particularly investigated, the literal
interpretation of the threatening held out to this first man on
his admission into Paradise : ' IN THE DAY THAT THOU EATEST
THEREOF, THOU SHALT SURELY DIE.'
A person who had not previously formed an acquaintance
with the commentaries of modern times would certainly be
astonished to learn that the threatening of death was explained
to signify something different from a literal loss of life, something
less and yet more than the utter destruction of Adam's nature
as a man. How would the earliest readers of Moses understand
it ? It can scarcely be thought very likely that the terms of
the menace would suggest, under all the circumstances, to an
ordinary reader of those Israelites for whom Moses wrote, any
other idea than that which we assume as the true one, that
the offender should endure the penalty of capital punishment,
and forfeit his life for his sin. 'By death,' says John Locke,
1 some men understand endless torments in hell fire ; but it
seems a strange way of understanding a law, which requires
the plainest and directest words, that by death should be meant
eternal life in misery. Can any one be supposed to intend, by
a law which says for felony thou shalt surely die not that he
should lose his life, but be kept alive in exquisite and per-
102 ADAM'S IDEA OF DEATH.
petual torments ? And would any one think himself fairly
dealt with that was so used ? ' (Reasonableness of Christianity.)
There seems to be nothing in the language employed intended
to convey any other idea than that the punishment for trans-
gression was immediate destruction. There is no intimation of
a prolonged existence to be afterwards permitted, either in time
or eternity ; the threatening is brief, direct, decisive : 'In the
day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.' Since Adam
was not yet immortal, the signification could not be, as is some-
times supposed, that in the day of his sin he should ' become
mortal,' or capable of death (for that which is not yet immortal,
in the sense of incapable of death, must be in that sense mortal
already), and, therefore, it remains only to receive the terms in
their most obvious sense, ' In the day of thy transgression, thou
shalt be destroyed, shalt lose thy being as a Man.'
How would Adam have understood this threat for himself?
It will probably be admitted that the sense in which the first
man would have understood the threatening of death was the
true one; for it would be difficult to reconcile it with justice
or mercy in the Almighty, if He were imagined to deliver His
threatenings to a newly-created being, in enigmas which were
beyond the grasp of his faculties, and whose real meaning
' surpassed in horror the apprehension of every intellect but
the Omniscient.' Now it would appear that unless Adam were
inspired with the knowledge of the comments of Augustinian
divines, or at least of some rhetorical and rare forms of speech
in the Greek poets, he could affix no other interpretation to the
word ' death ' than that to which he was accustomed, when he
employed it, in his short use of language beforehand, in relation
to the animal system around him. Life and death must have
been opposites to him, as to us ; and surely, in the awful crisis
of a world, when, if ever, clear terms should be used, we can
scarcely imagine that words would be employed in a curious
metaphorical sense, entirely opposed to their first signification.
With whatever facility, therefore, readers of modern times can
dismiss the original notion of death in the employment of
the term, and substitute that of endless misery to the exclusion
of the idea of destruction, we cannot impute the same extraor-
dinary process of thought to Adam, but must conclude that he
ADAM'S IDEA OF DEATH. 103
would have understood the threatening to mean the dissolution
of his nature, the opposite of ' taking of the tree of life ' and
' living for ever.'
And when we remember that in all probability Adam had then
no idea whatever of his ' soul,' as capable of a separate, existence,
apart from his body, but conceived of his being as one, we shall
find a still greater difficulty in supposing that he could have been
metaphysical enough to conclude that death signified death for
his body, and everlasting life in misery for that ' understanding
which was in his inward parts.' But if Adam could not ha\e
understood the threatening thus, without some special revelation
to enable him to do so, and if that revelation does not appear
in the record, it follows that theology has no right to make a
gratuitous supposition of its existence, but ought to interpret the
words in such a manner as to avoid a slander on the preventive
justice of Heaven. For if even the Chinese government considers
itself obliged to read to the people periodically the criminal code,
in order that they may know what to expect as its punishments,
it ill becomes us to impute to the Highest Tribunal a complete
concealment of the true meaning of that menace under which the
first man in Paradise commenced his probation. The primitive
sense of the threatening of death must surely go far to determine
its meaning afterwards.
Yet, notwithstanding the existence of these arguments, this
threatening is metaphorically understood in modern times. It
is alleged by innumerable divines, that whether Adam understood
the meaning or not, the menace of death conveyed the complex
notion of literal dissolution for his body, called temporal death,
and of everlasting existence in misery for his disembodied soul.
This latter portion of the curse is denominated spiritual and
eternal death, and is conceived to combine in itself the triple
notion of eternal existence, moral degradation, and consequent
misery in alienation from the Father of spirits. It was supposed
to follow from the immortality of the soul, as an appointment of
God. By these interpreters the expression, ' In the day thou
eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,' is taken to signify, not death
in the day of transgression, but only a liability to death of the
body at some future time ; so that the life of Adam being pro-
104 THE DEATH THREATENED TO ADAM.
longed, and a race in his own image springing from him, that race
is born ' by nature children of wrath ; ' liable not only to death of
the body, but also to everlasting misery of the soul, or death ' in
all its senses.'
It will probably become evident to any one who devotes even a
few moments to the rationally careful study of this phrase, ' ever-
lasting misery,' (a phrase which may indeed convey but little to
a mind armed with a determination not to think of it, but which
confounds and almost paralyses the meditative spirit, ) that such
an interpretation of the term death ought not to be taken for
granted. The allegation of New Testament authority for it is of
little avail ; for those passages of the New Testament, which are
supposed to fix the metaphorical signification of the original curse,
have been themselves first interpreted by the rule of a theory
founded upon a perversion of these earliest statements of Scrip-
ture a theory based on the inadmissible assumption of the
immortality of the soul. And if neither reason nor Scripture
permit us to lay as a foundation that exalted conception of man's
spiritual part, the whole fabric of interpretations, reared afterwards
upon it, falls to the ground.
With a view to a determination of this question, let us now
observe, in reference to the ordinary belief, that the death
threatened to Adam included the curse of everlasting existence
in misery for his ' soul ' :
I. First, that our original authority utters not one syllable on
the subject. It is true that caution is needful in the use of any
argument drawn from the silence of an Old Testament writer,
especially in the earlier portions of the revelation. It may be
urged, that the second and third chapters of Genesis were the
brief statements of ' mysteries,' which succeeding revelations were
given to develop ; and that, therefore, the greater regard is due
to the larger inspired commentary of subsequent prophets, if such
exist. Yet, on the other hand, we cannot but observe that the
chief outlines of the Paradisiacal history have been generally
received in their plain, unvarnished sense; a valid argument in
favour of so understanding all its parts, and in bar of suggested
additions whether of poetry or prose, wherever the literal sense is
THE DEATH THREATENED TO ADAM. 105
not forbidden by subsequent declarations, and does not contradict
the doctrine of redemption.
There is, besides, a wide difference between a veiled promise
and a veiled threatening. The former may be worthy of divine
wisdom and goodness ; the latter seems irreconcilable with divine
justice. The blessing of Christ in the Gospel might fitly be
promised under the figurative expression, that ' the seed of the
woman should crush the serpent's head ; ' but the curse of the
law, which called for the intervention of mercy, should surely
be expressed in all the length and breadth of its terribleness.
Can any ' honest and good heart ' (and let us remember that the
Maker of such men, according to Christ, has ' much more/ rather
than less, goodness Himself; Matt. vii. n) suppose, that in the
original threatening, a term would be employed which must
primarily suggest the idea of an infliction, in its literal sense
already sufficiently tremendous * Thou shalt die ! ' and yet,
that behind that screen there was concealed a deeper meaning,
which transcended the conception of all but the Infinite Intelli-
gence ? Is it credible that He who alone knew what an eternity
of misery involved, and who in after ages sent His prophets to
mourn, without any limit to their loud lamentations, over the
merely temporal calamities of His people, as may be seen in
the Hebrew books of Isaiah and Jeremiah would, in this first
fixing of the conditions of human probation, have failed to denote
as clearly the positive infliction of "suffering intended, as the priva-
tion which transgression required? And again, when the curse
had been incurred, is it to be believed, that a total silence would
be preserved by the Judge on that part of it, which was essentially
the curse, after all, and that the stress of the Divine Attention
would be directed to that bodily decease, as it is termed, which was,
when compared with the impending eternal misery of the spirit,
but as a grain of sand to the universe, or one point of space to
infinity ?
II. In addition to the foregoing consideration, the view which
it has been shown that Scripture takes of the nature of man is
opposed to this interpretation. It has been pointed out that,
according to the Bible, man is essentially a complex being, con-
sisting of body and soul, presenting his characteristic ' image ' in
the 'flesh.' It is this complex nature which the later dispensa-
io6 THE DEATH THREATENED TO ADAM.
tions of Heaven regard, and which, therefore, we may presume,
the primeval dispensation regarded likewise. It follows from this,
that if death, threatened to the man, involved his everlasting
existence in misery, that menace could not have contemplated
the spirit alone ; for the spirit alone is not man. If the Ruler of
Heaven had intended an endless infliction of suffering upon the
Man, the curse would have demanded the associated body to share
in that suffering. The body would not have been permitted to
die. We are borne out in this statement by the fact that when
it is intended, in consequence of the abuse of a new probation,
to punish the wicked of mankind, it is declared that Divine power
will raise the bodies of the ' unjust ' from the grave to undergo the
infliction, of whatever nature that may be. But since it is rightly
admitted, even by the writers in question, that the original curse
contemplated no eternal infliction of pain upon the body of Adam,
but only its dissolution, we argue that it is an unwarrantable
imagination that the spirit alone was destined to endure an
eternity of suffering ; for why should the curse of the law take
an eternal effect of infliction upon one-half of his nature, when
both the promise and the curse of the gospel, or new system of
trial for recovery, are directed to the whole of it ?
III. Still further evidence that literal death, a loss of life for
the compound man, without eternal infliction upon the soul alone,
was the curse of the Adamic trial, occurs in the argument of the
fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. In that place,
summing up his previous reasonings on justification by Christ
alone, without the deeds of the law, S. Paul thus concludes, in
verses, 12-14: 'Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the
world, and DEATH by sin, even so DEATH passed upon all men,
for that all have sinned. (13. For before the law, sin was in the
world; but sin is not imputed where there is no law. 14. Never-
theless, DEATH reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that
had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who
is the figure of Him that is to come.)' In the verses included in
a parenthesis, viz., 13 and 14, it is plainly the object to show that
the statement in the preceding sentence, verse 1 2, was correct ;
to wit, that death entered into the world by the offence of one
man ; that by the offence of that one man, all had been con-
stituted sinners (as it is afterwards expressed), and rendered liable
S. PAUL ON DEATH BY SIN. 107
to death. He therefore desires to prove that it was not the
entrance of the Sinaitic law which brought death, the penalty of
sin, into the world for the first time : since, says he, during
the period which elapsed before the giving of the law, from
Adam to Moses, men died : yes, and even those that had not
sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression ; by which it
is to be apprehended, notwithstanding the objections of some
critics, he means infants and young children for sin, he adds, is
not imputed where there is no law. Yet here sin was imputed, as
is evident from the penalty endured ; therefore there must have
been some law more ancient than the Mosaic reigning from Adam
to Moses, a law which consigned personally-sinless beings to
death, through reckoning to them the act of their ancestor in its
consequences.
Now the argument is as follows : In the fourteenth verse, when
S. Paul declares that death reigned from Adam to Moses, over the
personally innocent, it must be admitted that he intends no other
death than that which is so plainly described, a dissolution of the
humanity, without reference to a future eternal state of suffering
for the soul. Else, we shall find ourselves called upon to receive
the abominable doctrine that the souls of infants, children, idiots,
' from Adam to Moses,' went to a state of everlasting suffering
after their natural death ; and that, as is specially pointed out, for
no fault of their own. But if this be an interpretation, repugnant
alike to the whole temper of revelation, and to the character of
God, it follows, by the rules of clear writing, that the term death
stands for the same idea in the twelfth verse, which introduces the
argument. It is inconceivable that the apostle has changed the
signification of the same word in the distance between two verses ;
for if that be the case here, we might on the same principle
conclude, that when he uses the term faith repeatedly in the
course of his reasonings, he as often changes the meaning of the
word in the same sentence, and thus introduces inextricable con-
fusion into his language. If the terms 'loss of health* were substi-
tuted for death throughout the passage, we should be surprised to
learn that those terms were intended to convey their plain and
obvious meaning in verse 14; but that in verse 12 they signified
a loss of reputation and property, and the transmission of blind-
ness to all his descendants. Yet this alteration of meaning would
loS ON DEATH BY SIN.
be as nothing compared with that supposed in two reputed senses
of ' death : ' dissolution, and interminable suffering in hell. If
this observation be admitted as just and it must be a strange
exigency which requires the abandonment of this principle of
interpretation, in a passage where no variation in the sense of
the term is indicated by any of the usual marks of emphasis or
allusion or explanation then it follows, that the death which Adam
brought into the world, as the wages of sin, was not an immor-
tality in misery, after natural dissolution, but that literal dissolu-
tion of the compound nature of body and soul itself, a definition
which will embrace the cases both of Adam and of his innocent
infantile posterity.
From these considerations, then, we conclude that the original
threatening, ' In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely
die,' was intended to signify a literal, immediate, and final disso-
lution of the nature of Adam as a man ; his death, in the ordinary
sense of the word, without any reference whatever to the state, or
even to the survival, of the spirit beyond.* Adam was placed in
Paradise, a wonderful combination of earth and soul; allied to
the animals, but a little lower than the angels, and endowed with
the image of God ; on probation, to ' see what was in his heart ; '
whether by obedience he would rise to the rank of immortals, and
4 never die;' or whether, by disobedience, he would forfeit for
himself, and for his posterity, the possession of that prospect of
eternal glory which was visible from the heights of his glorious
abode in the garden of Eden. This death was ' the curse of the
law ; ' not merely of the Mosaic law, but of that law under which
Adam was created at first, and of which the thunders of Sinai
were a second manifestation. In the language of S. Paul, ' The
letter killeth ' (2 Cor. iii. 6).
This seems, however, to be the fitting place to enter a caveat
against a misconception which experience shows to exert a mis-
leading influence in this discussion : we refer to the definitions of
Death and Life. The advocates of the theology which is called
in question in these pages have sometimes shown an anxiety to
fasten upon their opponents a definition of death which shall
* In this sense the same words are used by the Almighty in threatening
Abimelech (Gen. xx. 7).
SIGNIFICATION OF LIFE.
109
restrict its meaning sharply to annihilation of substance, and con-
versely to restrict the definition of eternal life to the naked idea
of eternal conscious existence ; knowing well that under such con-
ditions of controversy a temporary verbal advantage is assured.
For nothing can be clearer than that these terms, when used respect-
ing the destiny of a moral being under judgment, carry with them
throughout the Scripture certain secondary associations of thought
and feeling, the exclusion of which from view will lead to grave
error, error just as pernicious as that which arises from an
exaggeration of these secondary associations into the place of the
primary radical signification of the terms. Life in the Scripture,
used in relation to the gift of eternal life, undoubtedly carries
with it associations of holy spiritual blessedness ; and death when
spoken of as the penal destiny of the wicked undoubtedly carries
with it in all cases associations of sin and suffering as its conse-
quence, suffering leading to destruction. The measure of that
suffering and even its nature will depend on the death which the
sinner dies. If it be like that of Adam under the original law, a
death incurred through sore temptation, the case is distinct from
that second death of obstinately impenitent sinners, who have in-
curred ' many stripes ' by rejecting the covenant of Divine mercy.
This observation is required at the outset of the argument, inas-
much as writers of ability have attempted to nullify its general
strength by insisting on the adoption of definitions to which it is
impossible to yield assent.
Not less is it necessary to guard against the recurrence of diffi-
culties springing from the attempt of some ingenious writers to
fasten on us a metaphysical definition of death as an annihilation of
substance. Of such annihilation in its strict sense we know nothing.
The death of which we speak, is both in the first and the second
death the destruction of the life of Humanity, by dissolution. What
becomes of the elements which composed the Integer depends on
circumstances. Where no reconstitution of the complex organism
is designed, we suppose the destination of the spiritual element is
similar to that of the animating principle in the death of animals.
Where such reconstitution is designed, we suppose the spirit is pre-
served with a view to the resurrection of the Man. Those, whose
philosophy requires them to maintain, contrary to their practice in
relation to the animals, that the veritable humanity is found in
i io DR. ANGUS'S DILEMMA.
the mind alone which survives in death, seem unable even to
apprehend an argument in which the humanity is the living
organism, including body and soul. When that complex organism
is dissolved the Man is no more. Those who for any reason do
not assent to this proposition are at war not only with us, but,
may we not add, with true science and philosophy, the whole
body of Scripture, and the best Christian antiquity.
The statement that the threatening of death as a penal infliction
must be taken in the complex sense of suffering ending in de-
struction, has been opposed in the manner following. It has
been said : * * The destruction spoken of in the future cannot
mean annihilation. Most of those who hold ultimate annihila-
tion, hold that it is preceded by years or ages of suffering.
Either these ages of suffering are the destruction, or they are not.
If they are, then clearly destruction is consistent with continued
life. If they are not the destruction but only precede it then the
destruction is not inflicted when Christ comes, as it is said to be,
and the threatened destruction which is always spoken of as a
punishment, is a blessing, not a curse. It is either suffering or a
most welcome release ! From one or other of these conclusions
we see no escape/
Substituting in this extract the words destruction of life for
annihilation, and disclaiming the belief that 'ages' of suffering
are to precede that destruction, it is easy to unlock this dilemma,
by attending to the language used in the Bible respecting the
Death of Christ. All that is comprehended under that designa-
tion, is sometimes spoken of as 'the sufferings of Christ,'
sometimes simply as His ' death,' or the ' laying down of His
life.' Suppose we apply the "above-cited principle of criticism to
these phrases. ' Either those dreadful sufferings precedent were
the death of Christ, or they were not. If they were, then the
death of Christ was not dissolution, but was consistent with His
continued life as a man, and He never died in the sense in which
the evangelists say that He did. If those sufferings were not the
death, but only preceded it, then the Saviour was not ' ' dying "
during the passion, but only at a single moment between the two
evenings at the feast of the passover ; and, moreover, the death
of Christ, which is always spoken of as a curse, was a blessing,
* See this argument in Dr. Angus On Future Punishment, p. 25.
DR. ANGUS' S DILEMMA. in
Christ's death was either suffering, without dissolution, or it was a
most welcome release. From one or other of these conclusions,
we see no escape.' What would be the answer to such an argu-
ment? The general term death, as applied to Christ's sacrifice,
signified the dissolution of His life, but included also the idea of
those fearful mental and bodily sufferings, including the * stripes '
laid on Him by Pilate, which preceded and prepared it.
Another example will further illustrate this rule. In Deut.
xxviii. 58, Moses thus exhorts the Israelites : ' If thou wilt not
observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this
book, then the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful, and the
plagues of thy seed, even great plagues, and of long continuance,
and sore sicknesses, and of long continuance. Also every sickness
and every plague which are not written in the book of the law,
will the Lord bring upon thee, until thou be destroyed. And it
shall come to pass, that as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you
good, and to multiply you ; so the Lord will rejoice over you, to
destroy you and bring you to nought'
A comment on these curses of the law, on the model furnished
above, would run as follows : ' Either these great plagues of long
continuance, and sore sicknesses, and of long continuance, were
the ' destruction ' and the ' bringing to nought ' here threatened, or
they were not. If they were, then the destruction was consistent
with the continued life of Israel on the land whither the Lord
led them to possess it ; and the threatening never contemplated
the literal death of the offenders, but solely the infliction in
Palestine of great plagues of long continuance on a population
which should exist in misery and in imdiminished numbers, from
age to age, and generation to generation. And the ' bringing them
to nought,' and ' leaving them few in number,' meant that they
were to be made exceedingly wretched in the land of their pos-
session. If on the other hand the ' great plagues of long con-
tinuance ' were not the destruction, but only preceded it, then the
destruction was a ' most welcome release ; ' and it was a blessing
that was held out to the Israelites when it was said they should
be ' destroyed from off the land given to their fathers.' Again,
we may surmise that the reader would not find difficulty in
allowing that a general threatening of death and destruction
might well be taken to include the prolonged sufferings of the
ii2 GRADUAL DESTRUCTION.
disobedient people, and the awful abolition of life in which those
sufferings should terminate. He would certainly not argue either
that destruction could not signify a complex curse of plagues and
death, or that the plagues and sicknesses were to be everlasting.
He would pronounce that the threatening intended was prolonged
suffering ending in a death which was a ' curse,' and a loss of all
the blessings of continued life in the holy land and in the Divine
favour. It is a gradual and painful destruction. We propose to
apply the same rule of interpretation to the more awful threaten-
ing of ' many stripes,' and of * destruction of body and soul, in
Gehenna,' held out to those who reject the gospel.
CHAPTER XI.
ON THE RESULTS OF THE TRIAL OF ADAM IN PARADISE, AND
THE ENTRANCE OF REDEEMING MERCY.
' And that He hath withdrawn Himself, and left this His temple desolate,
we have many sad and plain proofs before us. The stately ruins are visible to
every eye, that bear in their front yet extant this doleful inscription HERE
GOD ONCE DWELT. Enough appears of the admirable frame and structure of
the soul of man to show the divine presence did some time reside in it ; more
than enough of vicious deformity to proclaim He is now retired and gone.
The lamps are extinct, the altar overturned, the light and love are now vanished,
which did the one shine with so heavenly brightness, the other burn with so
pious fervour : the golden candlestick is displaced, and thrown away as a useless
thing to make room for the throne of the Prince of Darkness. The faded
glory, the impurity, the disorder, the decayed state in all respects of this temple,
too plainly show the Great Inhabitant is gone.' HOWE'S Living Temple,
Pt. ii., ch. iv.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and
desirable to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she
took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also to her husband
with her, and he did eat' (Genesis iii.). It has been usual under
superficial views to make sport of this narrative, as if it represented
the ruin of a world as turning ' just upon the eating of an apple.'
Such is not the representation of the ancient Sage who has been
employed to preserve the traditions of the earliest world. The
temptation presented was, according to him, one which appealed
to the whole un-moral side of humanity- to the lower appetite
(good for food), to the sense of beauty (desirable to the eyes), and,
above all, to the intellect and Ego-theism'' of the probationer
(it was a tree to be desired to make one wise). And this wisdom is
declared by the ' serpent,' who allures the woman, to be such as
would exalt them to an equality with God in insight. ' Ye shall
be as God, knowing good and evil? The whole strength of the
8
114 THE NATURE OF THE TRIAL
sensuous, imaginative, and ambitious portion of their nature was
brought out, as a test of the strength of that higher will which
should have preserved them, by faith, in union with their Maker.
' The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life '
were set over against the attraction of the Infinite Good, the
Infinite Beauty, and the Infinite Will. And as against these no
attraction in the creation, no fascination of the tempter, ought to
have prevailed. The determining force is represented as lying in
the will ; a real and mighty Cause, which could produce either
life or death eternal, according to its self-direction. There seems
to have been no exceptional hardship in the case of the first
human beings. The higher privileges of divine sonship with us
must be purchased by ' enduring temptation.' Those who 'with
full purpose of heart cleave to the Eternal ' remain in everlasting
union with Him. Those who separate from God, and insist on
an empirical atheism of thought and action, sink into darkness.
The trial of Adam, then, was a trial of faith j and in no essential
respect differed from our own except in this, that he commenced
his probation in a state of healthy moral equilibrium, which made
his sin the greater : and we commence ours with an inherited
degeneracy that entails a weakened power for resistance.
Yielding to the falsehood of the ' Serpent ' (a personage whose
true nature and relationships will be considered in a following
chapter), Adam and Eve, says the record, disobeyed their Creator,
and came under the sentence of Death. This serpent, who is at
once marked as more than a serpent (i) by his speech, (2) by
fixed defiance of God, and (3) by contradiction of His word,
' beguiles the woman ' by an argument drawn from the name of
the ' tree of knowledge of good and evil.' * If it be a tree
whereby you may gain knowledge, then it is clear that it will not
cause death, since the dead cannot know. Your " eyes will be
opened ; " you are now led blindfold by the envious and tyrannical
Power which has made you ; but then you will see and know for
yourselves what is wise.' In such a serpent as this was surely
hidden some mystery of power of evil, which, if not explained at
once, may expect explanation in subsequent revelation.
Death by the law, however, was due to the law-breakers.
Revolting from the rule of the Eternal, they fall back upon
their own mortality, and come under that law of evanescence
OF ADAM IN PARADISE. 115
which had dominated over all living creatures on earth since the
beginning of the kosmos.*
According to the history there was now nothing which should
delay the execution of the sentence. ' In the day that thoti eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die? It has been argued that sometimes
this phrase 'in the day,' is taken in Hebrew in a wider sense, so
as not to involve an immediate action, but the commencement of
a process which should subsequently end in death. No small
importance attaches to this seemingly minute question. For if
in the day was originally designed to signify instantaneous death,
then since Adam's life was spared for a thousand years, according
to Moses, the original sentence was not executed, and the subse-
quent propagation of the human race, their very existence, must
be set down as the first result of the entrance of redemption.
But if ' in the day ' was to be taken only in the sense that the
certainty of death would date from that day, but would be
executed only after a thousand years of life, then the life of the
human race was not due to redemption, but came as part of the
original order of nature under the law. The question is, whether
the human race receives its existence, since the sin of Adam,
under the law, or under redemption ? I venture to think that
there is not much room here for hesitation as to the intention of
Moses. The phrase ' In the day,' often occurring elsewhere, in
the large majority of cases signifies the occurrence of something
on the day referred to. The exceptions to this usage are few and
dubious. The reference to the phrase, attributed to the mysterious
' Serpent ' of the narrative, shows the sense attached to it, both
by the persons concerned, and by the historian. When Eve
replies to the inquiry, ' Yea hath Elohim said, Ye shall not eat of
every tree of the garden ? ' ' Of the fruit of the tree which is in
the midst of the garden Elohim hath said, Ye shall not eat of it,
neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die,' the Serpent rejoins, ' Ye
shall not surely die ; for God doth know that in the day ye eat
thereof then your eyes shall be opened.' Now in this bold con-
tradiction of the express words of the Creator, the Serpent uses
* Mr. Clemance demurs to our reliance on the plain meaning of words in
this narrative, and to our building theology on such a foundation. If the lan-
guage suited popular theories better, we should hear of no objection to its
Authority as a basis of belief, Future Punishment, p. 33.
n 6 THE FALL OF MAN.
the phrase taken from the lips of God in the day, unques-
tionably in the sense of something immediately to occur. ' In the
day ye eat thereof your eyes shall be opened.' We conclude,
therefore, that in the original menace the signification was im-
mediate death.
Accordingly, in ' the cool of the day,' apparently of the day
of their sin. the Judge descends, and summons the offending
pair, now burning all over with a new shame of outward naked-
ness corresponding with the inward consciousness of guilt ; and
' they hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among
the trees of the garden.'
The Judge descends ; but not to inflict the penalty !
What cause has suspended the thunderbolt ? What is it that
arrests the course of law? The soul that sinneth it shall die*
What miracle of mercy unfolds itself before the astonished sinners,
who stand in momentary expectation of their doom the doom of
death eternal !
The answer is familiar to ourselves, but will be a ceaseless
cause of thankfulness to redeemed sinners throughout the coming
eternity. It is, it can be, no other, than that from the moment of
the Sin, the action of Redemption began at once to unfold itself,
* that tender mercy of our God, whereby the dayspring from on
high hath visited us.' And while the sentence of death is post-
poned, not repealed, during that postponement springs to light
the ' manifold wisdom ' of a grace which has resolved on ' bring-
ing many sons unto glory.'
I shall now attempt, under the light cast upon this narrative by
subsequent revelations, to sketch the method of this redeeming
mercy, throwing in at this place a connected statement of the
hypothesis which it will be the object of subsequent chapters to
establish.
In this succinct view of the supposed dispensations of God we
shall assume, since it is not the object of this work to prove it,
that the Bible contains a trustworthy record of the history of
human redemption.
i. The general course of this argument hitherto has prepared
the reader to apprehend that the bestowment of Immortal Life
in the restored divine Image is believed by us to be the very
METHOD OF REDEMPTION. 117
object of the Incarnation of Deity. The prevailing theology
regards man as naturally mortal in the bodily part of his constitu-
tion and naturally immortal in the spiritual part. In his interior
being he is already eternal ; his sin is the sin of a will destined
to endless duration. Redemption contemplates, it is thought, no
change in the quality of his nature or in its durability. The
' resurrection of the body' in glory is a secondary and accidental
accompaniment of salvation. The true humanity is found in 'the
soul/ and that soul is already immortal. Redemption delivers it
from a ' wrath coming ' for ever, on a nature destined to live for
ever. Hence the ' greatness of the salvation.' It is a salvation
from eternal misery. Deliverance from so profound a ruin re-
quired a Divine Saviour and a Divine Atonement. Such is the
idea of the modern age.
These notions we hold to be anti scriptural, and part of the
' mystery of iniquity.' We hold that the Scripture teaches that
the very object of Redemption is to change our nature, not only
from sin to holiness, but from mortality to immortality from a
constitution whose present structure is perishable in all its parts,
to one which is eternal, so that those who are partakers of the
blessing ' pass from death unto life,' from a corruptible nature
into one which is incorruptible in all its parts, physical and
spiritual.
2. We hold next, that this mighty change in human nature and
destiny, involved in the bestowment of everlasting life, is con-
veyed to mankind through the channel of the Incarnation, the
Incarnation of ' the Life,' of the ' Logos,' or Word of God ; who
being before all worlds, and creating all things as the Word of
the Father, 'became flesh/ took on Himself our mortal nature,
' yet without sin/ and as the Christ, or Anointed One, died on
the cross, as a Divine Self-sacrificing Mediator between God and
Man, so reconciling in the Divine Mind^ the act of grace with the
equilibrium of government.
3. We believe, next, that God still further unites the Divine
Essence with man's mortal nature in the Regeneration of the
Individual, by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, * the Lord and
Giver of Life/ whose gracious inhabitation applies the remedy
of redemption by communicating to good men of every age and
generation God-likeness and immortality, to the soul by spiritual
1 1 8 DELA Y OF DEA TH.
regeneration, and to the body by resurrection. Redemption from
death to endless life in God's image thus depends on nothing less
than the union of humanity with Deity the nature which has
broken the law, with the Nature which is above the law ; and
carries out this purpose by a grace which forgives offences, a
meekness which endures the legal curse of sin, and a power
which snatches the victims of the Destroyer from his grasp for
evermore.
This general idea of the object of Redemption we gather from
a comprehensive view of the language which is employed through-
out the Scripture. It is not once, nor twice, but persistently in
the whole series of revelations, declared, that the Son of God
came into the world to give men Life Everlasting. The idea now
flashing upon so many minds, and ever gathering greater clearness,
is that this phraseology must have been designed by the Scripture-
writers to signify the bestowment of immortality that there has
been a mistake of the first magnitude in the traditional turn given
to the term Life, reducing its meaning to a bestowment of
' spiritual life ' or moral goodness on a creature already im-
mortal.
The obvious argument occurs, that when we consider the
absence from the Bible of any distinct reference to the natural
immortality of the soul, and the incomparable fitness of the
selected language on life to denote that the gift of eternal being
as well as holy blessedness was the end of redemption, (supposing
that such was the intention,) it seems incredible that Heaven
should have allowed its messengers to employ terms systematically,
on the chief topics concerned, so liable to be perverted, supposing
that man is naturally immortal, and supposing that the gift of
immortal life signiSes only the gift of immortal perfection and
enjoyment.
4. It follows from this- leading principle that the execution of
the original curse of death denounced on the First Man did not
take effect on the day of his sin ; that it was in fact postponed
fora thousand years in his own person, and that this postponement,
which gave space for the propagation of a race descending from
him, though in the image of his own mortality, was the result of
the action of Redeeming Mercy. Had the sentence of law taken
immediate effect, in the deepest of all senses in Adam we all had
NEW PRIVILEGES, NEW PENALTIES, 119
died ; the human race would never have been born. The exist-
ence of our race then is a boon beyond the limits of law.* We
are born, it is true, to a short and evil life ; exiles from Paradise,
we are born into a world smitten with a curse which cankers half
its blessings ; born in the image of a fallen progenitor, by nature
' children of the indignation ; ' born under the sentence of disso-
lution, and in the valley of the shadow of death, where mortality
not penal but natural has reigned for countless ages over the
races that inhabit it; yet assuredly this is an existence far
better than none, considered even in relation to the blessings of
time, inasmuch as ' all that a man hath will he give for his life j '
but when we consider that the gates of eternal glory open out
of this mortal world for repenting sinners, and that by a wise
numbering of our days during the period of trial we may obtain
immortality, this brief grant of life to the myriads of the earth's
population assumes the aspect of a beneficence of which the true
dimensions ' pass knowledge.'
5. We suppose further that the entrance of Redemption with
new privileges has brought in also new responsibilities upon
mankind, involving fresh penalties on those who have ' done
despite to the spirit of grace.' Hence there will be a ' resurrection
of the unjust,' to give ' account of the deeds done in the body ; '
and in order to permit of the reconstitution of the identical
transgressor we hold that his spirit is preserved in its individuality
from dissipation in the death of the man, to be conjoined again
to the body at the day of judgment. This survival of the ' soul '
we attribute exclusively (with Delitzsch) to the operation of
* Note to yd Edition. Adverse criticism is divided on this question in a
way which shows that a despotic tone in opponents is quite out of place. The
Chtcrch Quarterly Review treats the statement in the text as a figment for
which you ' look in vain ' in Scripture. The London Quarterly Review (a
Methodist organ) affirms it to be ' a necessary implication from the biblical
statement ' p. 326 ; but in this important admission, that the human race
'owes its existence to the Incarnation,' The London Quarterly Review not
only abandons the key to its whole exegetical attack on the interpretation of Life
and Death, but falls back upon the weak theological position, that whereas,
under the original condition of trial, the root of human misery would have
been destroyed if the sentence had been inflicted, now all the wicked will have
received their immortal existence in depravity and misery ultimately as the
result of Redemption. The old Church doctrine is best defended in its integrity.
It at least forms a coherent system.
120 SURVIVAL OF THE SOUL
Redemption with its graces and corresponding judgments. We
hold, further, that the souls of the righteous have in like manner
been upheld in individual being (in ' S/ieol ' or ' Hades ' under
the old law, l with Christ* under the new ), with a view to the
reconstruction of humanity in the resurrection of glory. These
conclusions respecting the survival of the spirits of both evil and
good men that such survival is due not to their inherent
immortality, but to the entrance of the new system of probation
and judgment are derived inferentially from the whole course of
this argument.
6. We suppose that in the evolution of the wisdom of God in
relation to the earth, the multiplication of the surviving human
race was permitted under an hereditary law, similar to that
which operates among animals, but also involving in this case an
awful development of moral degeneracy in man.* Evil was
destined here to work out its will once for all in the history of
the creation. And not only human, but superhuman evil agency,
co-operating and conspiring, was to be permitted to concentrate
its hostility to God upon the earth. To the original Tempter
the world was ' delivered up,' so that he might become the ' God
of this world ' and reign over the creatures whom he had ruined,
as an all-devouring king, who ' had the power of death.'
A new probation was instituted for man under these fearful
circumstances ; and it was the design of the All Merciful to de-
liver the objects of His mercy from out of this seven- walled
Egyptian prison-house of a permitted ' kingdom of darkness.'
For here was to be reared, under a stress of temptation never
known before, a type of faithfulness to God also before unknown,
and every volition of right was to be exerted against the force
of the whole combined strength of evil; while in order to allow
of the fuller freedom of all wills in declaring their choice, judg-
ment was not to be executed speedily, but postponed till a distant
future.
The real existence and frightful activity of Evil Spirits in the
history of man we believe to be an essential element of the truth
respecting this world. Their action from the first days or
humanity until the end of the kingdom of darkness is represented
* See on this head an admirable treatise by the Rev. J. C. Whish, M.A.,
Elementary Truths ttfon Creation. Bemrose & Co,
ATTRIBUTED TO REDEMPTION. 121
as one cause of the special compassion with which God has re-
garded our mortal condition. * The devil was a murderer
(dv#/oG>7roKToVos, man-killer) from the beginning ' (John viii. 44)
There is a conflict between good and evil principles going
forward on earth, a conflict between good and evil men; but
there is a conflict behind that, both more ancient and more awful,
which alone explains the tremendous strength of evil among
mortals, that between the powers of heaven and a wing of the
angelic principalities and powers in bitter revolt against the
authority of God. It is on the earth that that conflict is declared
to be fought out and ended. The human history is treated as an
episode in a direr warfare which divides the universe ; but the
earth is the battlefield of the last encounters, and the scene of
the final suppression of the rebellion.
7. We believe that in the midst of this ( kingdom of darkness '
God has been working from the beginning in the execution of
merciful designs. Where spirits of wickedness have striven most
earnestly to efface His image and to mingle earth and heaven in
confusion, there the Divine Mercy has counterworked the strategy
of these 'murderers,' and has unfolded successive dispensations
of truth and order, suited to the age of the world, and the corn-
prehension of mankind. In every age some sevenfold central
light has been kindled to lead our race into the way of peace.
In every age God has ' showed ' to men, sometimes more dimly
by an inward but unspoken guidance, sometimes by a verbal
revelation, the reality of judgment to come, and the hope of life
eternal. But the full forthshining of the light came only with the
Christ. He has ' revealed the Father ' ' full of grace and truth.'
In Old Testament times men knew that there would be a resur-
rection ; even the Egyptians retained so much as that of the
primeval faith. The Spirit witnessed in every city of future re-
tribution. But the grand secret of redemption was veiled.
When the Christ came, that mystery long hidden was revealed.
' The Life was manifested.' And now all men are summoned to
embrace the amnesty.
8. This Christ, the King of Glory, taken up into heaven as a
pledge of the enthronisation of humanity, and as a proof of the
eternal union of God and Man, will shortly appear again, to over-
122 THE FINAL AWARDS.
throw the adverse Power, to imprison in subterranean darkness
those infernal enemies, to dispossess the ' aerial ' spirits of evil,
and to replace those c world-rulers/ by glorified guardian saints of
human origin ; thus gathering out of His kingdom of the earth,
' all things that oifend and do iniquity/ and establishing the reign
of right among the nations until the hour shall strike for ending
the mystery of God in the final assize. In that judgment the evil
spirits will be consigned to their doom in the ' everlasting fire ; '
and the impenitent part of mankind, who have resisted all ap-
proaches of redeeming mercy, with those whose spirits, ignorant
of God while living, have still persisted in rejecting Him in
Hades, shall be cast also into hell, there to suffer ' few stripes ' or
' many stripes,' ' according to their knowledge of their Lord's
will,' and 'according to their deeds;' but all alike at last to
perish everlastingly, to be ' killed with death,' to be ' blotted from
the book of life,' to suffer oXeOpov atoWov, ' eternal destruction,'
of ' body and soul in hell,' thus dying a ' second death ' as the
' due reward of theh\ deeds,' because persistently choosing evil,
and rejecting good. ' Then shall the righteous shine forth as the
sun in the Kingdom of their Father,' and ' as the stars for ever
and ever.'
If these views of the basis of Redemption and of the Divine
Method be well founded, we may anticipate the confirmation
of them by the testimony of consecutive revelations honestly in-
terpreted. We may expect to find the sacramental institutions
of the patriarchal age, the revelations of the Old Testament
concerning the state of man in death, and the resurrection both
of just and unjust, the partial truth possessed by contending
factions among Jews and Gentiles, the leading doctrine of re-
demption from the curse by a Divine Mediator, as set forth in
the writings of the New Covenant, the teaching of the apostles
on the nature and necessity of regeneration, and on the spiritual
union of the twice-born with the ' Second Man the Lord from
heaven,' and lastly the awful declarations of the evangelists and
apostles upon the penal destiny of those who 'judge themselves
unworthy of eternal life,' consenting to form one intelligible
circle of coherent truth, and commending itself ' to every man's
conscience in the sight of God.'
CHAPTER XII.
THE SERPENT IN GENESIS ; AN EXCURSUS ON THE SCRIPTURE
DOCTRINE OF AN EVIL SUPERHUMAN AGENCY CONCERNED
IN THE DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND.
BEFORE we advance to the examination in detail of the Scripture
testimony on the subjects enumerated at the close of the last
chapter, it is necessary to consider with some care the preliminary
difficulty presented by the introduction of the speaking Serpent in
the Mosaic narrative.
That difficulty ought not to be summarily evaded by the asser-
tion that the whole narrative is mythical, and therefore that the
introduction of one personage, less or more, need occasion no
disturbance to faith. It is impossible to treat the first section of
the book of Genesis apart from the other books of the Bible.
The organic unity of the Sacred Scriptures is by far their most
wonderful characteristic. Although produced at intervals during
at least 1,500 years, and varied in every degree as to style, object,
and occasion, there runs through this extraordinary compilation a
unity of thought and purpose, as apparent as that which pervades
the organic fabric of the earth.* There have been numerous
builders on this intellectual edifice, but there has manifestly been
One Supreme Architect. However ready, therefore, we might be
at first sight to dismiss the Serpent in Genesis as an old-world
fancy, it is impossible so to do when we find that Christ and His
apostles unanimously refer to this ' ancient serpent ' as being no
other than Satanas, the avfyxoTroK-rovos, or man-killer, in disguise
the man-slayer ' from the beginning.' We have already re-
marked that the Bible history of man, and of man's redemption,
is inextricably interwoven in the Scripture with another history of
superhuman enemies of God ; whose temporary victory and final
* See Garbett's Divine Plan of Revelation.
124 BIBLICAL DOCTRINE ON EVIL SPIRITS.
destruction are treated as essential elements of the right theory of
the kosmos, of the right understanding of the death incurred by
sin, and of the immortality bestowed in redemption. c For this
purpose was the Son of God manifested, that He might destroy the
works of the Devir (i John iii. 8).
We shall, therefore, in this place, interpose a discussion on the
Biblical doctrine of evil spirits, and attempt to sum up the declara-
tions of prophets and apostles on this theme. In so doing, some
difficulties may be removed, and faith increased in divine revela-
tion as a whole.
The theology of the Bible, when taken in its integrity as a
living unity, commends itself to a rational belief, but single por-
tions taken alone, and apart from collateral truths, often and not
unreasonably appear incredible. Any considerable addition to,
or subtraction from, this unity will prove an occasion of scepticism.
Faith in Revelation, as has been said, is never opposed to reason,
but always to sight ; yet the reasonableness of Christianity can be
made to appear only to those who receive the revelation as a
whole. It holds together like a vast arch composed of many
stones hung in air, in which the removal of one endangers the
stability of all the rest.
There can be no doubt that although Moses is silent on the
source of the Serpent's murderous inspiration, his silence is vocal,
and that he designed to set his readers thinking on the subject.
The Serpent occupies too prominent a place in the story to allow
of the idea that the writer introduced it as an unimportant orna-
ment to the narrative. The object of this adversary is nothing
less than to kill humanity in its origin, to stamp out the eternal
life -of man. The motive also is, manifestly, a desperate hostility
to the Creator ; and the method is an unscrupulous use of false-
hood to accomplish the end designed. Can any reader of modern
times seriously think, with Josephus, that Moses believed this
serpent to be a common snake of Paradise ? His pen was per-
haps stayed by a superior will, as Mr. Tennyson imagines with
regard to an * Evangelist ; ' but there is everything in this narrative
to suggest, if it be but true, all that follows in succeeding revela-
tions as to the abnormal cause of man's mortality.
The speaking of the serpent is one of those difficulties which
MODERN REJECTION OF THE DOCTRINE. 125
appear insuperable on a superficial view ; like the speaking of
Balaam's ass, and the entrance of the demons into the swine ;
but which vanish under a more correct appreciation of the powers
that underlie the phenomena, and of the moral ends subserved
by permitted deviations from law. In this instance comparative
inexperience of the capacities of animals, or it might be positive
experience of the speech of parrots imitating her own, may
account for the small recorded wonderment of Eve at the voice
of the serpent. At this point it suffices to affirm that there is no
scientific reason for declaring a priori that, in case of man's ex-
istence originally under the circumstances supposed, it is impossible
that God should permit the possession of a serpent by some
hostile Intelligence, or the employment of unfit organs to pro-
duce the effect of speech. The true question is whether the
narrative in Genesis is so connected with other facts in the
world's history, which carry with them decisive evidence of
Revelation, as to compel belief in the literal reality of this
narrative. Standing alone it would be of course incredible.
Nevertheless we speak the simple truth when we say that if a
man in the biological section of the British Association were to
declare his opinion that some of the most lamentable conditions
of human life were traceable to the action of evil spirits, he
would be regarded, by nearly the whole company of learned
persons assembled, as an enthusiast past redemption by argu-
ment. Yet strangely enough it is the very persons who hold the
highest opinion respecting the moral excellence of man who
would be foremost in the expression of displeasure at the utter-
ance of so fanatical a doctrine ; preferring, as Mr. Foster long
ago suggested, to account for the whole vast sum of wickedness
and misery which fills the globe, by the single action of one
nature which, as they allege, is marked by no radical defect,
rather than by the easier hypothesis of the combined action of
two corrupted natures working in concert.
What explanation can be given of the process by which such
a result has been reached? Do the chemists, geologists, astro-
nomers, and mathematicians, know for certain that the atmosphere
of the earth is untenanted by spirits ? Has the subject ever been
investigated by biologists ? A respectful hearing would be given
126 UNREASONABLE SCEPTICISM.
to any one who had even the smallest contribution to ofter
respecting the formation, the habits, the aliment, of any living
creature, wild or tame, now inhabiting earth, or water, or air,
from the least to the greatest. On the evidence of a single bone,
or even of a mould of a single bone in clay or sand, made by
pressure in old times, they would believe firmly in creatures which
they never saw. The most minute animalcule, invisible to the
naked eye, would win the attention of the wisest. The fierce
destructive character of the beast or bird or insect would form no
objection to the audience. A single tooth of any * dragon of the
prime' would be considered to furnish a basis for solid and
respectable knowledge. But if one were to assert the existence
of aerial ' dragons ' far more terrible, and of a system of prey of
which mankind were morally the victims, he could not even
obtain a hearing for the evidence in any of the departments of
the Association.
Do the scientific men, then, know that there are no such beings?
By no means. All they know is that they have not obtained evi-
dence of their existence through the organs of sense, the aid of
chemical analysis, or optical instruments. But as in the last
century electricity was unseen and unknown, and the actinic ray
in the sunbeam unsuspected, so now there may be agencies at
work not the less real because unobserved, Moreover, there
may be methods of obtaining knowledge on such subjects quite
different from those with which ordinary physicists are familiar,
yet equally to be depended on. A large part of every scientific
man's knowledge rests on testimony. It is but a fraction of his
knowledge which he can personally verify, and there may be solid
knowledge which may be obtained in the first place through the
testimony, not of man, but of God, though capable of being veri-
fied by subsequent observation of physical and moral phenomena.
Men of physical studies are in danger of one-sidedness in their
training as truly as other men. Some are prone to neglect visible
phenomena, others are prone to neglect historical and moral evi-
dence. Professor Huxley has declared with true insight, that
' those who adhere most closely to facts will be the masters of
the future ; ' but then it must be all the facts.
There is indeed nothing intrinsically absurd in the belief that
OBJECTIONS AGAINST EVIL SPIRITS. 127
there are spirits in the air, and that some of them are malevolent.
Why should it be a clearer sign of perverted judgment to believe
in wild spirits than in wild beasts, if there be but sufficient
evidence ? What a priori argument can be set up against the
existence of any kind of beings, in a creation so full of unexpected
and unimagined forms of life and activity ?
There seems to be no fair answer possible to these questions,
in bar of a hasty denial of the existence of malignant spirits of a
rank above the human. Nevertheless the persuasion of their real
being is in our time dying out from the minds of the majority.
In educated society few can be found who believe in the Devil.
The Unitarians reject the belief with abhorrence, and they are
reckoned by some, as Socrates was reckoned by the oracle of
Delphi, among the wisest of men. The humbler Christadelphian
materialists follow in their track, and teach, from Birmingham
to the Irish and German Seas, that the devil is nothing but evil
in man, and that man is nothing but organised matter. The
Spiritualists declare with one voice that there is no Satanas, no
fallen Angel of light, no great Destroyer of Souls. The philo-
sophers, with Mr. Lecky, demand of us, do you not know that
the belief in evil spirits has been one of the commonest, one of
the most vulgar and malignant, types of the superstition which
has darkened earth and sky, and degraded human life in every
climate where it takes possession of the soul ? Do you not know
that heathenism has always dwelt largely on this gloomy dogma ;
that it forms half the so-called religions of India, Japan, and
China ; and has lain at the root of all the worst corruptions of
Christianity during the last eighteen centuries ? Do you not
know that it has been the custom of every ignorant age to attri-
bute to malign spiritual agency, to evil genii, half the phenomena
of nature, and half the events in Providence ; and that the pro-
gress of science has been a hard-fought battle with this old enemy
of knowledge and truth, which has been dislodged from its
position only after ages of inquiry, of observation, and careful
study of nature and man ? Do you not know that the unreformed
tendency of humanity is always to believe in evil more than in
good, even in a God who is no better than a devil, and to attri-
bute to the Supreme Eternal Power thoughts and passions which
are absolutely contrary to the laws of justice and truth ?
128 THE BIBLICAL DEMONOlOGY.
Yes, we know these things ; and if we are, nevertheless, com-
pelled to believe that evil spirits exist, and exert a fearful influence
upon human destiny, it is against many prepossessions, and under
a full view of the possible perversions of the doctrine.
The question may be brought for examination within a narrow
compass. By no fair and straightforward method of interpretation
can this doctrine be extruded from the Bible. The one point to
determine is What measure of authority belongs to the Bible on
such a subject ? The reference to evil spirits, operating on man-
kind from the air, weirdly extends like a flaming arch across the
whole firmament of Scripture. The Bible asserts, and most
clearly in its final revelations, that the earth, as it flies along its
orbit, is haunted by wicked beings of mighty ambition and sleep-
less energy, whose aim it is, by exciting passion and misleading
thought, to deceive and destroy mankind. ' We wrestle not/ says
S. Paul, ' against blood and flesh, but against the spiritual hosts
of wickedness in the heavenly places ' (Eph. vi. 12).
We proceed now to point out several characteristics of the
teaching of the Bible on Infernal Agency, to which sufficient
attention has not been paid, though Jhey go far to establish its
truth.
i. This doctrine, plainly as it is taught in the Hebrew and
Greek Scriptures, is at once distinguished from the debasing
superstitions respecting evil spirits found in heathen systems of
mythology and religion, as in China, Ceylon, and India, by this
that it is taught along with the equally clear doctrine of the
counteracting agency of good spirits called the angels of God.
* Michael and his angels fight against the devil and his angels.'
If the Bible declares that we wrestle against the ' power of the
air,' it also declares that tHere are good spirits ' sent forth to
minister to the heirs of salvation.' If a black cloud. of asserted
diabolic agency covers the world, in the representation of the
Bible that black cloud is riven in many places, and through the
rifts we see the guardian angels extending as a galaxy of stars
across the midnight sky, covering the world with a benignant
agency sweeter than the influence of the Pleiades. This is a fact
most noteworthy, for it has had this effect, that in no place where
the Bible in its integrity has been popularly read has the doctrine
METHOD OF BIBLICAL DEMONOLOGY. 129
of evil spirits usurped a disproportionate share of attention, or
debased the public mind through the pressure of an overwhelming
burden of gloom. Good and good beings, God over all, have
always been represented by the Bible as supreme. Evil, however
powerful, is but a temporary hindrance to the welfare of the uni-
verse. ' Satan is to be trodden under foot shortly.' Thus it has
happened that the Christian believer in infernal agency is easily
distinguishable from the devil-worshippers of Ceylon, or the
paper-burning devotees of China and Japan, much more from
the adherents of the Oriental theology, in which two equal powers
of good and evil struggle through eternity for supremacy.
2. It is to be observed next, that the demonology of the Bible
is developed in a method exactly the reverse of that which occurs
in every other literature, ancient or modern. Alike in the East
and in the West the general order of thought has been from more
belief to less ; from superstition and credulity to scepticism and
rejection of mythologic folk-lore concerning genii and demons;
from the old faith in devils to the more recent unbelief of * science.'
The further we go back in the history of nations the larger is the
belief in bad agencies and evil spirits, the gloomier the super-
stition arising from terror at their power; and the nearer we
approach to modern times the more has this belief yielded to the
influence of doubt and questioning. Thus it was in Greek history.
Thus it was in the case of the Romans. Thus it has been in
Chinese and Indian literature. And thus it has been in the
thought of modern Europe. In the earlier ages men readily
believed in ghosts and demons ; in our day a man who professes
such a faith has to fight a battle, and to render a severe account
of his intellectual state to his contemporaries.
Now observe the Bible. There we find, in a remarkable
manner, the reverse of the phenomenon to which attention has
been called. The farther back you go in Hebrew history, the
earlier the epochs to which the Hebrew books belong, the fainter
and dimmer is the character of the references to the agency of evil
spirits. The nearer you advance towards the maturity of Jewish
thought, when it was strongly influenced by Hellenic culture the
nearer you draw to the period of final revelation the more
distinct, the more emphatic, the more positive, the more detailed
9
130 DOCTRINE OF GOOD ANGELS.
and absolute, the more pronounced and dreadful becomes the
doctrine of evil spiritual agency. In the books of Moses you
find it occurring only as a faint shadow on a background of
terrestrial legislation. In the Gospels and Epistles, in the
teaching of Christ and His apostles, you find it flaming out like
lightning on every side, whose ' flash hangs durable in heaven ; '
you find a terrible clearness of outline and force of colouring
given to the doctrine, which astonish and overawe you. When
according to all other experience this doctrine of evil agency
ought to have begun to fade away, it comes into the front, the
veil seems to be removed, and we are called to battle with
enemies that almost visibly fill the air, and carry on a ceaseless
war against God and man. And if a slight exception occurs in
the scepticism of the Sadducees, that exception serves only to
prove the rule with greater emphasis, of a general fixed resolve
on the part of apostolic teachers to affirm the reality of the
powers which the Sadducees denied. Surely this looks like a
special overruling influence ; for it contravenes the natural method
of human thought.
3. There is another characteristic of the Scripture doctrine on
Satanic action, which distinguishes it from pagan mythologies.
In the heathen mythologies the so-called good spirits were scarcely
distinguishable morally from bad, except in this one particular,
that they were reputed arbitrarily to confer physical benefits upon
their adorers, while the evil demons are hostile and mischievous.
In the Bible the evil spirits are represented as evil, mainly because
they are morally opposed to a God who is righteous, and who can
be acceptably worshipped only by righteous adorers. There is
nothing conventional, local, or peculiar in the quality of the evil
ascribed in Scripture to the devil and his angels. The evil of
their nature consists in opposition to a God who answers to the
highest possible conception of Purity and Truth. The evil spirits
of the Bible are the enemies of man because they are the enemies
of 'Righteousness.' They are to be abhorred and resisted
because they have lost the image of God. Their ill-will is
boundless, but their power is limited, and strictiy subordinate
to the Sovereign Perfection.
Thus the belief in the evil spirits of the New Testament never
CHRIST'S SANCTION TO DEMONOLOGY. 131
operates as a degrading influence on any one who also believes
in the revelation of the Divine glory. It operates for evil only
when taken out of relation with what is revealed of Divine wis-
dom, mercy, and truth. There have indeed been many perverted
Christians who have believed in the devil a great deal more than
in God and in Christ, but these must not be taken as examples
of the character which the Bible rightly used will produce in its
disciples.
4. The last peculiarity in the Biblical doctrine on Satanic
agency is, that it is an essential element in the system of Redemp-
tion which the Scripture professes in part to reveal. It is not an
accidental excrescence, but belongs to the substance of the whole
whether that whole be true or false. There is no special reason
for rejecting this portion of the system more than any other. It
is interwoven with every other element of Christianity. If the
supernatural character of the doctrine be an objection, the same
objection will lie against the belief in the holy angels of God, or
in any Divine revelation whatsoever. If the circumstance of
invisibility be an objection to faith, the same objection lies against
belief in God, in Christ, and even in the human soul.
Not only are we taught that the reduction of man to the rank
of creatures doomed to die was the work of such an agency, but
we are urgently warned that that malign agency continues to
dominate over mankind, to poison the world by its influence, to
deceive the nations, and industriously to tempt individual souls
to their eternal destruction. The reader of the Bible may not
approve of this instruction may find it opposed to his inner
consciousness may secretly doubt or openly deny its truth, but
at all events it is in the Bible, it is everywhere in the Christian
Revelation, most clearly of all in the teaching of the Son of God
Himself. It is in His discourses that we discover the fullest,
firmest assertion of the existence, action, and punishment of ' the
devil and his angels.' To say, as some do, that Christ herein
showed His limitation and ignorance, is not for a man to show
his own scientific accuracy. It is to beg the very question in
dispute. How do you know that there are no evil spirits ? Two
hundred years ago men did not know that there were such things
as oxygen or electricity ; both invisible, and yet both most real.
I 3 2 CHRIS TS TEACHING.
How do you know that Christ was ignorant, when He asserted, in
God's name, that there were such beings ?
To say again, as others do, that Christ was not ignorant, but,
knowing well that there were no Satanic spirits, He nevertheless
dissembled, and accommodated Himself to superstitious usages
of speech, to Jewish or Grecian folk-lore, is to strike at the root
of His claim to be a heaven-sent messenger at all, much less the
Son of God. If the doctrine of evil spirits be not true, there is
no falsehood in religion more pernicious, more destructive in its
operation, or which more deserves to be assailed and exploded
by the prophets of God. The adversaries of the doctrine are
witnesses to its pernicious quality, unless divinely true. To
represent Christ as teaching wilfully in this matter a lie, is to take
away His claim to be listened to on any religious subject whatso-
ever. If there be no Devil and Satan, no ' murderer from the
beginning/ no real ' demons ' to be cast out and conquered, then
Jesus Christ proceeded on a false path, and has in this respect
done more than any other teacher to debase mankind, and, as
Mr. Clifford affirms, to ' destroy two civilisations.' But who can
seriously believe that when He was professing to ' cast out the
spirits by His word/ and to address as personal beings the demons
whom He expelled, He was all the while talking to ' Oriental
figures/ to * metaphors for disease and lunacy/ and that He
voluntarily deceived both His disciples and the multitude ? It is,
at all events, clear that Christ believed in the devil and his angels,
and believed Himself sent by God to overthrow * the kingdom
of darkness ; ' and this goes a great way towards establishing the
truth of the doctrine.
My object, however, in this chapter, in summarising the state-
ments of Scripture on the action of evil spirits in human affairs,
is not to prove the truth of those statements to general sceptics.
Their truth can be rendered apparent only to those who believe
much besides. Into a belief of their reality, no man can be
argued in our time by an independent process. Such a faith must
spring, if at all, from a general acceptance of the Christian Reve-
lation, and from some spiritual experience and insight. If a man
do not possess these qualifications, it is hopeless to offer him this
evidence of an evil agency operating on the earth, since to such
CHANGING IDEAS ON DEMONOLOGY. 133
a mind any special argument, however serious, in support of the
doctrine is certain to excite ridicule rather than respect.
In this, however, as in other instances, the believers have had
a share in producing unbelief. Additions to the Scripture doctrine
have resulted in its indiscriminate rejection. The rabbinical,
patristic, and mediaeval writers have each in turn promoted that
state of thought which is now ending in a general disbelief in
diabolic power. The very idea of the devil has varied with the
spirit of the age. The Devil of the earlier centuries of Christianity
was a ' roaring lion/ a ' raging wild beast ; ' so he is often called
by the martyrologists. The Satan of the middle-ages was a
grotesque but mischievous imp of darkness. The Devil of
modern romance is the Mephistopheles of Faust and Festiis, a
mocking philosopher and grimly profane misanthrope. Milton's
genius has filled the atmosphere with a brilliant phantasmagoria of
contending angels, at once too human and too divine a vision
of chivalry which has resulted in creating either a sympathetic
interest, as in Robert Burns's verses, on behalf of the hero of the
song or an unconquerable scepticism with regard to the whole
subject.
Dismissing now from our thoughts, as far as possible, all ideas
except those which we find plainly set forth in the Biblical writings,
what remains ?
First of all, the Bible offers no genesis of the kingdom of dark-
ness, no clear account of ante-mundane angelic rebellion. It
takes up the history of the spiritual world at the point where it
touches the history of man, that is, in the middle of affairs, not
at the beginning. Just as it takes up the physical history of the
globe at the introduction of man, so it is with the spiritual history
of the creation. The book of Genesis for the whole system of
things has not been written for us. By geology we have learned
that there was a long preadamic history of the globe, and we
may infer, perhaps, that there was a preadamic spiritual history,
perhaps of this very earth, and a history in which the evil power
was concerned ; but of this we are taught nothing in the Bible.
The record of revelation to man commences with man's creation,
and as it unfolds it brings cut in vivid colours his relations with
some man-destroying agency above him in the air. But there is
134 RETICENCE OF OLD TESTAMENT.
no memoir of Satan pour scrvir. The Bible expends one chapter
on the final setting of the earth in order as man's abode, the last
of the animal ascending series, the first of the sub-angelic, and
two chapters on his loss of eternal life by sin ; and then adheres
closely to man's work and business under the sun, his history, his
destiny, throughout its remaining pages.
Towards the latter part of the record, in the biographies of
Christ, the fact of the existence of evil spirits, referred to dimly
by preceding prophets, comes out into prominence ; but there is
still no genesis, no history of celestial insurrection, no biography
of the Rrince of Darkness. Tempting as the subject would have
been to the ' will of man,' no prophet's hand was stretched forth
to portray on the screen of revelation the awful shadow-picture of
the*revolt in heaven. There are those to whom these persistent
silences of Scripture are as expressive of divinity, in * reason's
ear,' as its positive utterances.
The next noticeable characteristic of the Biblical record on
this matter is the reticence of the Old Testament writers in com-
parison with those of the New. The account of the speaking
serpent in Genesis is given so as to suggest to after-thought, rather
than to plainly unfold or enforce, the idea of a mighty spiritual
agency hostile to man. It was open to a materialistic reader of
that narrative to take the story as a mythical representation of the
evil which everywhere attends misapplied free agency, or, even
in its lowest literality, as a description of the war between man-
kind and the serpent races. The idea of a superhuman evil
spirit, however, appears more than once in the following pages
of the Old Testament. The Pentateuch is completely silent ; for
the reference to Azazel, in the Hebrew of Lev. xvi. 8, 10, 26, as
the supposed demon of the desert, to whom the sin-laden goat of
the Atonement-day is sent, is too dubious to furnish a basis for
criticism. But if we assume the moderate antiquity of the book
of Job we find a clearly-developed idea of an 'Adversary,' who
operates from the air, and even exerts enormous power over the
elements in persecuting the saint of the Lord.
Excepting the 'lying spirit' in Micaiah's vision (i Kings xvii.
23), there is no similar reference till thfr Captivity ; for the allusion
to the temptation of David by Satan in the matter of numbering
DOCTRINE OF THE GOSPELS. 135
the people does not occur in the earlier book of Kings, but in the
compend of the Chronicles, which belongs to a much later age.
In this age there are several distinct references in the prophets
to evil spirits. In Daniel x. 13-20, we find the angel Michael
resisting a power whom he calls ' the Prince of the kingdom of
Persia ' during the twenty-one days that the answer to Daniel's
prayer was delayed through the absence of the hierophant ; the
reference being indubitably to some demonic force believed to
influence for evil the destinies of that court. In Zechariah iii.
1-3, we find Satan appearing in a vision of the Prophet as a foe
to the high priest Joshua, who represents the Jewish people, and
he is there rebuked by name as a personal being. There ends
the Old Testament demonology. It could not well occupy a
narrower space in the record of a revelation extending through
several millenniums. *
Very striking is the change of tone at the appearing of Jesus
Christ. The historians of His life are men of the Roman age,
that age so supremely realistic and business-like in its tastes, so
proud and pitiless in its scepticisms. Yet these Evangelists, after
detailing in the most prosaic style the birth and early history of
Jesus, with dates, places, and other particulars thereto pertaining,
bring into their narration of the commencement of Christ's ministry,
in the most deliberate manner, an account of His direct ' tempta-
tion by the Devil ' in the wilderness, a devil so real and personal
that he quotes Scripture deceitfully, and is corrected by Christ,
asserts his control over the political system of all nations on
earth, yet offers to abandon his sovereignty if Jesus will do him
homage. This account of the existence and activity of the Devil
is delivered by Matthew, Mark, and Luke to mankind ; and is
distributed in every province of the Roman Empire, as a true
history, in the full blaze of the Roman day, as a thing which the
Evangelists themselves believed, and expected other men, even
of the highest intelligence, to believe also.
* If it be said that Jews learned this lesson from the Persians and the
Chaldees, it may be replied that the Persians and the Chaldees learned it per-
haps from a primitive antiquity. Truth was not revealed only to the Jews.
And all Oriental traditions aftid doctrines are not false because they are
Oriental.'
136 NEW TESTAMENT DOCTRINE.
The residue of the evangelical biographies is answerable to this
beginning. So far from retreating from these introductory state-
ments into the light of common life, Christ seems in their pages
to be surrounded by evil spirits. Notwithstanding the singularly
realistic style of these writings, their freedom from ordinary signs
of exaltation, their strange quietness of tone in narrating events
which have furnished pabulum to the arts of nearly two thousand
years, they adhere throughout to this representation of the life
and speech of Jesus. His days are spent not only in healing
diseases and in raising the dead, but specially in ' casting out
unclean spirits' (or Seu^oW). These are constantly distin-
guished from ' the devil ' (6 Sia/?oAos), but are represented to us
(whatever their origin, whether departed evil souls of men or
fallen angels, of which nothing is affirmed) as forming a part of
the Power of Darkness. More than this, the ability of casting
out daimonia was imparted, say they, to Christ's disciples.
Various are the effects attributed to the demonic action in the
New Testament. In the Gospels they appear as causing deaf-
ness, dumbness, madness, epilepsy, and exhibitions of violence
equal to the rending of bands of iron. In some cases they acted
alone, in others by ' sevens,' in others they ' swarmed,' (Luke vi.
1 8, ot 6x\ovfjLvoL VTTO TTvcv/x-dtTcov aKa6dpT(Dv) as in the instance of
the Gadarene who filled the midnight darkness with his awful
shrieks and wailings ; out of whom went a ' legion ' of evil spirits
(a legion in that day contained 6,500 men) ; beseeching Jesus
that they might not be sent out into the ' abyss ' (afivo-o-ov or
1 bottomless pit' of Rev. xx. i), the under-world of Hades. They
are further represented as seeking liberty to transmigrate into the
bodies of two thousand swine, and as accomplishing the destruc-
tion of the whole herd as by the passage of some malignant whirl-
wind ; * at another time as possessing a slave-girl at Philippi, and
enabling her owners to make ' much gain ' by her supernatural
spiritualism ; a ' divination ' so effectual that when the spirit was
cast out there was no legerdemain remaining, or natural clair-
* Those who believe in the reality of this occurrence will learn to look upon
the old-world Asiatic doctrine of metempsychosis with fresh interest. It is
scarcely possible to regard the action of the demons in this instance as an
isolated fact. If the demons of the Gospels were departed spirits of men, as
many suppose, the subject acquires still further interest. See Dr. J. H.
Newman's Historical Sketches, Hi., 208.
CHRIST S TEACHING. 137
voyance, so that the ' hope of their gains war, gone ; ' loudly
crying up the apostleship of Paul and Silas as * the servants of
the Most High God,' so as to fasten the brand of their abomin-
able advocacy upon the ministers of the Gospel and then
leaving the wrathful proprietors of the dispossessed medium to
wreak their vengeance on the evangelists before the magistrates
of Philippi, who beat them cruelly with rods and cast them into
the prison. But all these spirits, whatever their number, force,
origin, or malignity, are represented as subject to the Son of God.
Him they 'knew' when men knew Him not. His power they
feared as that of their destined judge and ' destroyer.' ' He cast
out the spirits by His word, and suffered them not to speak,'
when they offered their infernal testimony to Him as the ' Holy
One of God.'
From such descriptions of the subordinate powers of evil the
Gospel writers never shrink : they insist upon this testimony to
the end. But their chief effort is directed to bring out their
Master's tremendous doctrine respecting the Devil himself. In
the four Gospels the personality of this mighty Destroyer is nearly
as pronounced as that of the Scribes and Pharisees ; Jesus Christ
speaks of him with an edge and a fervour, and of his doom in
* the everlasting fire ' with a fearful reality of tone, which leaves
no doubt at all as to His own belief in infernal agency. With
Him it is ' the Devil ' who plucks away the good seed sown in
man's heart ; the ' enemy who sows tares ' among the wheat to
ruin the crop is the Devil ; falsehood is traced by him up to no
abstract origin of evil, but to its fountain in the Devil ; * for he
is a liar and the father of it/ The Mosaic narrative of the fall
and death of Adam and Eve is plainly assumed by Christ to be
literally true, and the serpent is described as this same ' Devil '
who was a ' man-killer from the beginning ' (di/flpwTro/cToVo?, John
viii. 44). Hear His piercing words, ' Ye are of your father the
devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do ! He was a murderer
from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is
no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his
own, for he is a liar and the father of it ! '
Can we wonder if, after such language from the Master, who
said that by His death ' the Prince of this world should be cast
out,' and that He would thereby ' draw all men to Himself,' we
138 SUMMARY OF NEW TESTAMENT
read S. John's deliberate statement that ' after the sop Satan
entered into' Judas (rore elcrrjXOw ets eKetvoi/ 6 Saravas, xiii.
27), words in which he affirms a personal possession and in-
carnation of the chief Evil Spirit for a season in the body of the
traitor, even as the Logos was incarnate in the person of Jesus
Himself? Can we wonder that S. John afterwards sums up the
end of the incarnation as being the destruction of the works of the
devil, by the abolition of death, and of sin its cause ? or that
at the close of his long apostleship S. Paul, after conversing for
thirty years with the sceptics of the Roman world, in the most
deliberate language asserts that the conflict of godliness is to be
carried on not simply against earthly forces, but against that
mighty realm of evil spirits unveiled by the Son of God ? He
says (Eph. vi. 12), 'For us the wrestling-match is not against
blood and flesh, but against the governments, against the powers,
against the world-rulers of this darkness, against spirits of wicked-
ness in the heavenlies,' or aerial regions. Such words accord well
with his statement to Agrippa (Acts xxvi. 18), that when he re-
ceived his commission from Christ, then risen into a realm where
no human illusions could obscure His vision, our Lord sent him
* to open the "blind eyes, and to turn men from the power of Satan
unto God.' They accord with his frequent allusions to the same
Satan as an active enemy of man, who was ever on the watch to
deceive the Churches by * transformation as an angel of light '
(2 Cor. xi. 14), to * overreach' them by the temptation to exces-
sive severity with an offender (2 Cor. xi. n); who was capable
of 'hindering ' an apostolic journey (i Thess. ii. 18); of inciting
the younger women to turn aside after himself, to their own
perdition. He attributes the spiritual condition of mankind as
' alienated from the life of God ' to the direct inspiration of a
spirit that 'energises in the children of rebellion ' (Eph. ii. 2) ; he
speaks of excessive anger as ' opening the door to the devil '
(Eph. iv. 27), of pride in a neophyte bishop as leading him to
the ' doom of the devil ; ' of the necessity there is for a bishop to
avoid the 'trap' set for him by the devil (i Tim. iii. 7). Again
and again he describes this arch-enemy of God, and his sub-
ordinate agents, as resorting to all imaginable arts of deception
to effect the perversion of Christendom. He speaks of the 'wiles
of the devil,' as well as of the sleight and legerdemain of his
DOCTRINE ON EVIL SPIRITS. 139
crafty emissaries ; of the ' all-deceivableness of unrighteousness '
in the ' working of Satan ; ' of his manifold ' devices,' as well as
of his 'fiery darts.' He addresses Elymas the Goes, or spiritual-
istic sorcerer, as one of Satan's sons ' Thou child of the devil ! '
He does not scruple to speak of this mighty spirit in the loftiest
terms when describing his influence over human affairs. He is
the ' Prince or ruler of this world ; ' he is even eos, ' the God of
this world,' the ' Governor of the demons.' Surely such language
in S. Paul well accords with the language of our Lord Himself,
recorded by the Evangelists.
But now, to digest these testimonies into definite forms, what
are the conclusions to which they seem to compel assent ? We
submit to the reader the following :
i. We learn, if the Bible is true, that the moral life of mankind
is closely interwoven with the life of spiritual beings inhabiting
the earth's atmosphere. It may be that all planetary and animal
life is subject to the government of higher intelligences. But the
case of the earth is peculiar. From whatever cause, of which the
history is concealed, the /cooyAOKpa-rope?, or world-rulers of this
globe have revolted from God, and have succeeded in propa-
gating their revolt to its human inhabitants, with the result of
bringing them decisively under the law of death which has reigned
during all past ages. We are taught that there is one sovereign
Archangel of stupendous power, capable of embracing in his
thoughts the government of the world, and of prosecuting through
all ages a fixed purpose in that government ; who, together with
his allies, is carrying forward on earth a war of resistance against
God and of extermination against man. For the conflict in its
essential end respects the immortality of man. Man, at first
hovering in his constitution between death and life eternal, was
brought under definitive sentence of destruction for the sin into
which he was tempted by these envious foes. The letter, or law,
' killeth.' But redeeming mercy came to our relief in that love
which seeks to save our lives with a great deliverance. The
Incarnation of the Divine ' Life ' secures the immortality of all
who are united with Him by regeneration of the Holy Spirit, but
the finally unregenerate will perish; and thus, to achieve the
destruction of the greatest possible number is represented as the
140 GENERAL RESULTS.
object of Satanic action from age to age. ' Your adversary, the
devil, goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.'
His passion for soul-killing is represented as extending this system
of prey over all the earth. He is the controller of the conduct of
natural men. His access to the minds of wicked men is de-
scribed as direct. Satan ' put it into the heart of Judas ' to betray
his Master. He ' filled the heart of Ananias to lie to the Holy
Ghost.' But his power is limited by the soul's compliance.
Christians can 'resist the devil, and he will flee from them.'
The spark is impotent where the powder is absent. The resolved
will leaning upon the power of God ensures absolute safety against
the machinations of evil. The will of man acting through the
medium of the power of God suffices to overcome ' all that is in
the world.' But the invisibility of the force to be resisted supplies
one main element in the trial of the human soul, and brings into
probation all the spiritual energies of our nature. When there is
no resistance to evil attempted by men, they are said to be * led
captive of the devil at his will ; ' the soul is then carried along
by the mighty stream of universal depravity, like a corpse floating
upon the Ganges, and is swallowed up by the destroyer.
2. A review of the above-cited passages shows it to be the
doctrine of Scripture that those Powers of Darkness, in the prose-
cution of their design, or general purpose of ' man-killing,' direct
their special endeavours to raising up and consolidating systems
of government which shall effectually promote the deception and
degradation of mankind. In the temptation of the Son of God,
Satan is represented as asserting his political dominion in plain
words. He showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and said,
' All this power will I give thee, for to me it is delivered, and to
whomsoever I will I give it ' (Luke iv. 6). The same idea is
conveyed in S. Paul's description of the evil spirits as ' princi-
palities and powers ; ' and it is repeated in symbolic language in
the Apocalypse, where S. John, speaking of the sovereignty of
that ' ten-horned wild beast ' which is usually supposed to repre-
sent the Roman Empire, says, ' The dragon gave him his power
and seat and great authority.' And the present general abandon-
ment of the political providence to the Devil is implied in the
contrasted statement that hereafter 'God will take unto Himself
SATAN A MAN-KILLER. 141
His great power and reign.' This fearful description of the origin
of most of the world's sovereignties and priesthoods (to be qualified
of course by much exceptional victory of good), at all events
agrees well with their recorded history. If evil spirits had openly
assumed the government of the nations, they could not have
surpassed the ordinary reigning houses and hierarchies of the
earth in the neglect of the true ends of administration, or in the
active promotion of every influence which can delude or deprave
mankind. The history of government, civil and sacred, is the
history of a wickedness which, if not infernal, at least strongly
resembles it.
Under this view the union of the civil and religious authorities
under one head perhaps the chief agency in the spiritual ruin
of the world is revealed in its true character, as the policy of
' the power of the air/ No lesson of the Apocalypse flashes forth
more clearly than the evil origin of the craft which places the
woman (the Harlot-Church) on the back of the wild beast. She
has made the nations * drunk with the cup of her fornication,'
and has ' shed the blood of saints and martyrs ' till heaven itself
cries, ' Lord, how long ! ' The marvellous stability, through long
ages, of governments devoted to the maintenance of superstition,
receives its most intelligible explanation in this doctrine of the
Prophets that the Rulers of the earth are not men, but the hosts
of darkness, and that Kings and Priests are but their tools.
3. The next fact that comes out in the Biblical testimony is
that the diabolical rule over mankind is maintained less by open
war with the religious sentiment than by its perversion ; less by
inciting men to atheism and vice than by deceiving them into
God-dishonouring and soul-destroying superstition. S. Paul, the
most effective adversary with whom evil ever contended, lays the
utmost stress on the ' wiles,' the ' devices,' the ' stratagems ' of the
powers of darkness. The warfare is carried on everywhere from
an ambush. There is little advocacy of evil as evil ; the effort is
directed to presenting evil as good. There is no coming forth
with an open proclamation, ' We are devils, in revolt against God
and His Christ ; join us in the insurrection ! ' but the mischief is
wrought by deception and personation, and by combinations of
good and evil, which indicate the vast reach of the subtlety which
142 DEVICES OF SATAN.
creates them. The politically useful is united with the theologi-
cally false. The corrupting idea is adorned with the most attrac-
tive beauty. Art in all its magical fascination is set to * face the
garment of rebellion with some fine colour.' The solemnities
and sublimities of devotion are associated with the foulest mis-
representations of the character of God, as when the New Testa-
ment idea of the love which ' reconciled the world unto itself ' is
exchanged for the detestable paganism of the Roman doctrine of
mediation and satisfaction. The humility and self-denial of the
celibate priesthood are set forth to facilitate the enslavement of
the world by their means. All that can attract the senses
incense, music, painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry, magnificent
ceremonial all that can enchant the imagination is lavished to
recommend creeds which contradict in their essential instructions
the revelations of God.
The same end is attained by the most diverse ' devices/ The
object, as we see, is reached at one time by idealism, at another
by materialism ; at one time by laxity and a cry of freedom, at
another by an extravagant and cruel orthodoxy ; at one time by
despotism, at another by revolution ; at one time by excessive
puritanic strictness, at another by all the genialities of an
' enlightened self-indulgence.' The power of darkness becomes
at will Papist and Protestant, Christian and Heathen. Any
religious forms, any philosophical speculations, any policy, any
art, any literature, any civilisation, any barbarism, you please,
if Christ may be but set aside, or His truth caricatured, or
Apostolic Scripture kept out of view, or the Gospel discredited,
or its faithful teachers deprived of their moral power. Nay, in an
age of positive philosophy, when ' Christianity is worn out through
its own contentions/ you shall have a brand-new revelation of
* Christian spiritualism ' from heaven itself, or at least from ' the
air,' with ' miracles, and wonders, and signs,' and ' holy ghosts '
that can solve every mystery, and demonstrate the salvation of
all men, against the express and ever-recurring declarations of the
apostles and prophets that the unrighteous shall ' perish ; ' a ' reve-
lation ' which shall finally put an end to that black old legend of
the 'devil and his angels,' by making known, through table-rapping,
their non-existence ! ' Evil men and yoryre?, sorcerers, wax worse
and worse, deceiving and being deceived.'
PRETENDED REVELATIONS. 143
4. This brings us to the last characteristic of the Scripture doctrine
of Satanic agency. We are warned by the apostles and prophets
of Christ to expect a series of pretended revelations adapted to
successive ages, with a view of obscuring the revelation of God.
' In the last days some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to
seducing spirits and teachings of demons speaking lies in hypocrisy
(8aLfAovi(Dv ev woK^t'tra i^euSoAoyan/), forbidding to marry, and
commanding to abstain from meats.' ' Then shall that lawless
one be revealed, whose coming is after the working of Satanas,
with all power and signs and lying wonders, and all deceivable-
ness of unrighteousness in them that perish. ' ' For this cause God
shall send them strong delusion that they. should believe the false,
that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had
pleasure in unrighteousness ; (i Tim. iv. i, 2 ; 2 Thess. ii. 8-12).
Protestants of all ages have commonly thought that these pre-
dictions have received at least one signal accomplishment in the
history of post-Nicene and mediaeval Christianity. I see no
reason to question the application, especially since the Apocalypse
assigns a local centre to the spiritual apostasy of Christendom on
* seven hills' (Rev. xvii.), on which stood, in S. John's time, the
great City which ' reigned over the kings of the earth.' But be that
as it may, the lesson is obvious : the Devil in Scripture is described
as an eminent inspirer of false revelations, which come with the
force of demonic delusion, of 'new truth/ and 'timely aid,' from
Heaven to men who have grown weary of the ' words of God.'
In such revelations to Christendom he will doubtless maintain his
character for generalship, as well as for piety. Evil is not all
black ; for it is one of the devices of evil to lead men to think
falsely that Satanas is nowhere without the odour of brimstone.
As a matter of fact, evil wears a coat of many colours, and dresses
in the philosopher's cloak, as well as in the richest ecclesiastical
costume. Bad tendencies are not pushed to open excess. Much
shining goodness is tolerated, and even encouraged, so long as it
is used to support what is distinctly anti-Christian. Thus we see
the world covered with the ruins of religions and philosophies,
which have each in their day been an improvement on worn-out
superstitions. Laoutzeism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Brahminism,
Mohammedanism, Romanism, political Protestantism, Positivism,
Germanic Idealism, Mormonism, the modern spiritualistic Sorcery,
144 ' DELIVER VS FROM THE EVIL ON.'
(with its signally inconsistent denial of the Scripture doctrine on
infernal spirits), have not these all alike been works of art adapted
to 'deceive the nations 'into rejecting true Christianity? Evil
could not pass into currency except it were gilded. Falsehood
must glitter ; chastity must be sublimed into asceticism ; music
almost divine must enchant the ear ; 'a fair show in the flesh '
must be made, even if the interior be ' dead men's bones and
all uncleanness.'
' Let Christ, the King of Israel, come down from the cross, and
we will believe in Him ! ' That is the cry of superstition and of
1 free-thought,' now as of old. If you will but abandon the doctrine
of the Cross, ' the power of God unto salvation,' you are welcome
to the crucifix, and even to self-crucifixion. If you will but give up
praying ' in the Spirit,' you may have beads, Paternosters, and
Aves innumerable. If you will but set aside the truth on man's
justification exclusively in Christ, you are welcome to a distorted
doctrine of sanctification by the Sacraments. If you will but
nullify by criticism and free-handling the truth on Atonement,
you may retain all the rest of Christianity, and pass for liberal
Christians, without hindrance from the chief enemy of Christ.
And thus it has come to pass that the * veil is spread,' the dark-
ness thickens, and the unwary are beguiled on every side. So
long as God is kept out of men's hearts, they are welcome to be-
come civilized, devout, liberal, broad, enlightened, what you
please ; only let ' the Prince of this world blind the minds of them
that believe not,' for then, since their ' religion ' (Oprja-Kcia) must
needs be only a form, and not godliness (evcre/?eia), their destruction
is sure.
If these things be so, we can comprehend the urgency of
S. Paul's exhortation that, in resisting this crafty and malignant
Power, we should take the * panoply of God,' and specially wield
' the sword of the Spirit, which is the Divine Word.' It is, as in
Christ's temptation, this which alone avails against all craft and
force, while we pray, ' Deliver us from the Evil One ! "
CHAPTER XIII.
THE PATRIARCHAL DOCTRINE ON A FUTURE STATE.
Section I. Animal Sacrifice
Section II. Indications of Patriarchal Faith in a Future Life by Resurrection.
THE object proposed in this and the three following chapters is
to trace the gradual development of the truth of redemption from
death up till the time of the Incarnation.
The first topic which occurs in this historical order is that of
Animal Sacrifice. It has been argued with probability, from the
divine sanction given to sacrifice in the patriarchal ages, that it
was originally of divine appointment, and was instituted imme-
diately after the expulsion from Paradise, as part of the worship
of the exiled sinners. The skins with which ' the Lord clothed '
the fallen pair after their transgression, in merciful concealment
of their shame, and in symbolic representation of the righteous-
ness reckoned on repentance, are reasonably enough thought to
have belonged to animals which they were instructed to offer up
as emblems of the * propitiation ' to be revealed in future times. *
Whether sacrifice was of early or subsequent appointment, it
was certainly afterwards divinely sanctioned. The question, then,
arises, what were the ideas conveyed to the minds of the sacri-
ficers, in the rite of putting to death an animal, by the sheddirg
of its blood, and then of committing its body to the flames ?
The answer maybe given in the language of Dr. Pye Smith. He
says,
' The modern Jews, though their aversion to Christianity has led them, in
various important points, to abandon the theology of their ancestors, have
recognised statements on this subject, which we may justly deem concessions
One of their most learned writers, Isaac Abravanel, says, "Ths blood of the
See Pye Smith and Hengstenberg, on Sacrifice, and Graves on the Pentateuui.
10
I 4 6 SACRIFICE.
offerer deserved to be shed, and his body to be burned, for his sin : only the
mercy of the Divine Name accepted this offering from him as a substitute, and
propitiation, whose blood should be shed instead of his blood, and its life instead
of his life.* Could it have been difficult to perceive the meaning of this signi-
ficant action ? or was it possible for a serious and thinking mind to avoid
recognising and deeply feeling principles such as these ? that sin is an offence
against the blessed God ; that the essential righteousness of JEHOVAH renders
it necessary that sin should be punished ; that death, in all its tremendous
meaning and extent, is the proper punishment of sin ; that the sinner is
totally unable, by any power or resources of his own, to escape the punishment
due to his offences ; yet that God is full of mercy, and graciously willing to
pardon the guilty offender ; that the way of pardon is through the substitution
and sufferings of a piacular victim ; and that, on the part of the suitor for
pardoning mercy, there must be such a proprietorship in the victim as o create
a beneficiary interest ; and such a moral disposition as cordially acquiesces in
the punitive acts of Divine justice.' (On Sacrifice^
From these representations it will appear that the object of
sacrifice was to set forth the punishment due to sin, the punish-
ment of death. In this statement every reader of the Scripture
will concur.
But then the inquiry is naturally suggested, If death, in the
case of Adam, signified the dissolution of his compound nature,
and after that, the infliction of everlasting suffering upon his soul
in hell (a definition which assuredly fixes our attention upon the
fate of the spirit ; a fate, in comparison of which the mortality
of the body was a circumstance unworthy of regard), how could
the simple death of an animal, the shedding of its blood, which
was the extinction of ' the life thereof/ convey to his mind the
idea of such a destiny ? He was not commanded to inflict on
the unoffending creature a series of prolonged tortures ; much
less was he directed to contemplate the condition of its ' spirit '
when the life was gone ; but he was ordered to slay it, to kill it,
to destroy it, to put it to death. f How, with any semblance of
truth, could it have been said to him, This is death ; ' * the
desert of punishment ; ' if the dissolution of the living animal, the
taking away of its life which surely could typify nothing but a
* This great Rabbi says (Summary of the Faith, ch. 24), The wicked in
their lifetime are called dead, and their soul is to be destroyed with the
ignominy of the body, and will not have immortality.' David Kimchi taught
the same doctrine. See his comment on Psalm i. See also the Supplement
to chap. xvii.,/0j/, on the doctrines of the Talmud.
f See Petavel, Struggle for Eternal Life, pp. 68, 69.
SIGNIFICATION OF SACRIFICE. 147
death which was destruction was but the faint emblem of one
portion of the complicated curse, and that the most insignificant
portion of it ? This consideration seems to support the inference
that the death of the lamb offered in sacrifice was a true repre-
sentation of death, the 'proper punishment of sin,' 'in all its
tremendous meaning and extent ; ' of that death which was
threatened to Adam in the original curse. Thus regarded, the
immolation of an animal, the taking away of its life, would por-
tray for all ages the execution of the sentence under which man-
kind lay death, like that of the ' beasts which perish ; ' a loss
of life, and of the prospect of immortality. Nothing could more
vividly set forth the holiness, and, at the same time, the mercy
of God, than the dramatic representation of such, truths as these ;
that man by refusing to lead a divine life in holy obedience
to the living God, had justly incurred the doom of the animal
creation ; that it was infinite goodness alone which withheld the
stroke from man ; that he could hope for restoration to life
eternal only through the sacrifice of One who, through death,
should abolish death, and bring immortality to light ; and that a
final rejection of the remedy offered left them still liable to the
penalty, but aggravated by the guilt of trampling under foot the
mercy of God displayed in the supervening redemption.
Interpreted by these ideas, the history of typical sacrifices
receives a forcible illustration. We learn to trace in the number-
less effusions of blood, practised under the two ancient dispen-
sations, an easily understood testimony to the desert of sin :
The soul that sinneth it shall die. We see a vivid image of that
' curse of the law ' under which men are born, the dissolution, or
breaking up, of humanity.
These considerations lead us to conclude, that the preceding
representations concerning the result of the Fall of Man are
therefore correct.
SECTION II.
Indications of Faith in a Future Life, among the Patriarchs.
From the beginning of the world mankind has existed under
a dispensation of mercy, having for its object to bestow in a
148 FAITH IN A FUTURE STATE
higher form the ' eternal life ' from which Adam was excluded by
transgression. ' At sundry times and in divers manners ' this
hope of recovering the lost paradise has been made known to
men ; and hence none can rightly understand the earlier portions
of the Old Testament who thinks that such a hope was hidden
from the patriarchs. Nevertheless the opposite opinion has
widely obtained, and it is still common to hear it laid down that
the ancient fathers either knew nothing at all of a future world,
or held ideas respecting it so dim and uncertain that their faith
resembled a flickering candle-flame rather than a steady watch-fire.
The origin of this opinion is easily perceived. It has become
in modern times an established canon, that whenever a nation
believes in a future world, they will found that belief on the im-
mortality of the soul, and will accordingly expect eternal blessed-
ness for the good and eternal suffering for the evil. So deeply
is this habit of thought infixed in modern readers, that when they
do not find both of these last-mentioned expectations clearly
expressed, they at once doubt the reality of the belief in either.
When men do not find the doctrine of eternal suffering in a
historical record of faith they are unable to recognise the doctrine
of eternal life. Thus it has fared with the Old Testament, and
especially with the books of Moses ; not only in our own age,
but in the days of the Sadducees, whose error, as will be suggested
hereafter, was a natural reaction from the opposite psychology of
the Pharisees.
One of the first phenomena which draws attention in the
Pentateuch is the omission, both in the historical and preceptive
portions of it, of any mention of the immortality of the soul. If
this view of man's nature be true in our time, it was true from
the beginning, and true in the time of Moses. And if it be as
important as it is supposed to be now,* it was equally important
then. Yet no single indication of it is discoverable in the writings
of Moses. The prophet who had opened his book on the Genesis
of the world by an explicit reference to a lost prospect of * living
for ever ; (' lest he take of the tree of life and eat and live for ever '),
showing thereby that his mind had revolved the conception of
* See, for an example of the zeal of its modern believers, Mr. Darby's
treatises on Immortality and Punishment, and Canon Garbett's recent, papers in
he Christian Observer.
AMONG THE PATRIARCHS. 149
Immortality, preserves an unbroken silence in every after-page
on that immortality of the soul which carries with it, if true, an
eternity of being, independent of the 'word which endureth.'
There is but one tolerable explanation of this silence. Moses
was withheld by divine control from teaching what was not true ;
a doctrine which was radically opposed to the fundamental facts
of man's sin and mortality, on which Redemption proceeds.
If the immortality of the soul had been a truth, it was not only
in itself a truth of transcendent moment, but one to be pub-
lished and enforced, as in all ages, so especially in the earlier
generations of men, and under the preparatory dispensations. But of
an eternal soul Moses seems to know nothing, and is so persistently
silent on the innate and intrinsic dignity of man as a ' coeval of
God ' that many readers have even imagined that he lived and
died altogether without faith in the soul as a spirit, utterly dis-
believing in a life to come. This they have imagined of a man
who was 'learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,' with whom
the life to come, and the resurrection of the dead, were the grand
interests of the life that now is, with kings, and priests, and
people: as is proved by the sculptures and paintings on their
tombs, and by the mummies still waiting ' the awakening ' in
the soil of Egypt. Strange, if all that such a man, thus trained,
learned by close communion with the Eternal God, was to deny
these immortal hopes for the righteous, which burned even in
the ashes of the worshippers of Amon and of Phtha. Strange, if
Moses believed in a final extinction in death for Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, when under every Pyramid beside the Nile there lay
a royal slumberer, however evil, who was embalmed in sweet odours
with ' a hope full of immortality.' In such a case there would
have been a new reason for the ' great mourning of the Egyptians
in the floor of Atad ' when they bore to his long home in Hebron
the patriarch who had died, as Moses thought, without a soul, and
without a future ! Well may they have sympathised with Joseph
in the loss of a father who, in his belief, had relapsed into eternal
nothingness.
But such fancies receive no sanction from the Mosaic writings.
They teach indeed no doctrine of the immortality of the soul ;
but they teach the reality of a life to come in conformity with all
other parts of the Old Testament.
1 5 o ABEL, ENOCH, ABRAHAM.
1. The fate of Abel suggests a clear inference of the reality of
some future reward for good men, and so may well be thought to
have directed the minds of the earliest men to that conclusion.
' For consider,' says Dean Graves, ' what would have been the effect of this
tragic event upon every human being, if they conceived dea*h to be a final
annihilation. He perished in consequence of his acting in a manner conform-
able to the will and acceptable in the sight of God. To conceive that a just
and merciful God should openly approve the sacrifice of Abel, and yet punish
him, by permitting him, in consequence of that very action, to suffer a cruel
death, which put a final period to his existence, while his murderer, whom
tha same God openly condemned, was yet permitted to live ; all this is so
monstrous, so contradictory to the divine attributes, as to prove beyond the
possibility of doubt, that this event was allowed to take place, partly at least,
in order to show that death was not a. final extinction of being.'
2. The translation of Enoch, the antediluvian prophet, must
be regarded similarly as a designed instruction on the part of
Moses respecting the blessed destiny of the righteous. We read,
' And Enoch walked with God, and he was not (^3^*1), for God
took him ; (Gen. v. 24). The alternatives in interpretation are
that we understand here bodily translation to heaven, or a death
which was followed by a rest in God for the spirit. If the former,
there was a public indication of future blessedness for the integral
humanity involving a 'resurrection' or a 'change' of the physical
manhood. If the latter (as some modern critics suppose, on
insufficient grounds), still the ' taking ' by God was evidence of
an eternal home with Him. But it is better to abide by the
comment of the author to the Epistle to the Hebrews (xi. 5),
that 'Enoch was translated that he should not see death,' a
comment which carries with it the authority of the apostles and
companions of the Son of God, to whom Elijah had ' appeared
in glory ' at the transfiguration (Luke ix. 30) after nearly a
thousand years' residence in the skies.
3. * The next circumstance I shall notice,' proceeds Graves, ' in the history
of the Patriarchs, is the command of God to sacrifice Isaac. As to the purport
and object of this command, I adopt the opinion of Warburton, who with
equal ingenuity and truth has proved, that when God says to Abraham, ' ' Take
now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest," etc. (Gen. xxii. 2), the
command is merely an information by action, instead of words, of the great
sacrifice of Christ for the redemption of mankind, given at the earnest request
RESURRECTION OF ISAAC. 151
of Abraham, who longed impatiently "to see Christ's day;" and is that
passage of sacred history referred to by our Lord, when conversing with the
unbelieving Jews (John viii.). Of the principal reason of this command, the
words of Christ are a convincing proof. Nay, I might say that this is not the
only place where the true reason for it is plainly hinted at. The author of the
Epistle to the Hebrews, speaking of this very command, .says, ' By faith
Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac : accounting that God was able
to raise him up, even from the dead ; from whence also he received him in a
figure,' ev Trapaj3o\rj, in a parable ; a mode of information, either by words
or actions, which consists in putting one thing for another. Now in a writer
who regarded this commanded action as a representative information of the
redemption of mankind, nothing can be more easy than this expression. For
though Abraham did not indeed receive Isaac restored to [life after a real
dissolution, yet the son being in this action to represent Christ suffering death,
for the sins of the world, when the father brought him safe from Mount Moriah,
after three days, during which he was in a state of condemnation to death, the
father plainly received him under the character [of Christ's representative as
restored from the dead. For as his being brought to the mount, there bound,
and laid upon the altar, figured the death and sufferings of Christ, so his being
taken from thence alive, as properly signified and figured Christ's resurrection
from the dead. With the highest propriety, therefore, might Abraham be
said to receive Isaac from the dead in a parable or representation.'
If we may adopt this explanation of the history, the doctrine
of a resurrection to life must have been known to Abraham and
Isaac, as well as to their families. Doubtless, then, as now, the
truth was best apprehended by spiritual minds ; and may have
been called in question by the Sadducees of the period ; but this
circumstance by no means diminishes the reality of the * expecta-
tion ' on the part of holy men of old.
The answer of Jacob to the Egyptian monarch, in which, when
questioned as to his years, he denominates his life a pilgrimage,
indicates, as is argued in the Epistle to the Hebrews, a distant
aim of the weary traveller, beyond th limits of the present state.
' The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and
thirty years : few and evil have the days of the years of my life
been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life
of my forefathers in the days of their pilgrimage? * Now they
that say such things, declare plainly that they seek a country.'
That the hopes of the patriarchs in a life to come were founded
upon an expectation of a resurrection, may be solidly inferred
from the following premisses.
1 52 BELIEF OF MARTHA.
4. The belief in resurrection to eternal life was thoroughly
established among the spiritual part of the Jewish nation, both in
Palestine and throughout the world, at the time of Christ's advent.
We discover several traces of this in the gospel histories ; and the
book of the Acts of the Apostles contains no intimation that they
were then compelled to promulgate the doctrine for the first time
amongst the people of Israel. The language of Martha, in reply
to Christ's assurance of the resurrection of her brother, illustrates
this point ; I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the
Jast day. Now from this it may be soundly inferred that the belief
in the resurrection to eternal life was of primeval antiquity. It
is not infrequently said that this and many other less wholesome
beliefs came in at the time of the Captivity. Doubtless there
was then an importation of some philosophical notions from the
Oriental world. But if we are to listen to certain recent critics,
we might imagine that the whole of the Old Testament dispensa-
tion was invented at the time of the Captivity, by the aid of the
Chaldees and Persians. No epoch, however, can be assigned for
the commencement of belief in resurrection among the Hebrews
with any semblance of probability. In the books of the Mac-
cabees, and of Enoch, there are clear records of faith in a ' better
resurrection,' in view of which the martyrs of Antiochus Epiphanes
sacrificed their lives for their religion.
In the book of Daniel (xii. 2) there is an explicit declaration
of the ' awakening ' of the righteous from the ' sleep in the dust
of the earth/ and an angelic promise to Daniel that he should
'stand up in his lot at the end of the days.' In the book of
Ezekiel the restoration of Israel is described under the pictorial
parable of the resurrection of the dry bones, showing that both
the prophet and his readers were at least familiar with the con-
ception of such an event.
5. We thus reach the times of the prophets. But who will
suppose that Daniel was acquainted with a resurrection of which
Jeremiah was ignorant, of which Isaiah was ignorant, Isaiah who
sings, ' Thy dead shall live, my dead bodies shall arise'? (ch.
xxvi. 19). To imagine that so stupendous an expectation was
raised in the Hebrew mind by contact with the Babylonians or
Persians is entirely to misconceive the genesis of thought in
ancient times. Their old taskmasters the Egyptians could have
FAITH OF THE PROPHETS. 153
taught them the doctrine of the resurrection, ages before the
Captivity, if they had required the instruction. But the sons of
Abraham stood in no need of pagan tutelage on the main hope
of righteous men. Eiisha's bones miraculously caused the resur-
rection of the dead man who was placed in his sepulchre ; indi-
cating that those bones were very full of a ' lively hope ' of rising
again for themselves. Elijah's translation to Heaven was a
presage of immortal glory for all who faithfully served the same
Lord. David himself spoke of his ' flesh resting in hope, because
God would not leave his soul in sheol, nor suffer his holy one
to see corruption.' We thus reach the eleventh century before
Christ.
At every step backwards in time we learn the primitive antiquity
of these ideas ; the truth of the statement of the writer of the
Epistle to the Hebrews, who at least as a learned Jewish
Christian (Apollos ?) was an important witness to the immemorial
antiquity of the natural belief, that the patriarchs ' all died in
faith,' ' looking for a city which hath foundations, whose builder
and maker is God ' (Heb. xi. 10). The whole of that wonderful
chapter is an elaborate assertion of the ' faith ' of the earliest
fathers in a future eternal life for the saints, and in a resurrection
from the dead. In no single instance is this faith described as
reposing on a belief in natural immortality. It was traced to
the purpose of God in redemption, and not once in any Old
Testament writing is reasoned out on the lines of Plato's argu-
ment from pre-existence, or from any Pharisaic presumption of-
natural eternity. It is the whole man who shall live again, and
therefore, it is, as is reasoned by the Highest Authority, that the
declaration of God to Moses that he was ' the God of Abraham/
four hundred years after his death, proves the resurrection, against
the Sadducees ; since the departed spirit was not the veritable
Abraham, but only one element in the constitution of him who
slept in Machpelah. The argument is that God would not declare
Himself the God of a dead man, unless he had predestined his
revival. Though dead, they ' all live to Him/ who are to rise to
the life immortal. And if Abraham's resurrection after his death
was so certain from the relationship of a God borne to him by
His Heavenly Guardian, it is unquestionable that during his
lifetime it must have seemed equally certain to himself; since the
154 THE FAITH TRACED BACKWARDS.
Eternal Being who appeared to him by night, and said, ' 1 am thy
Shield, and exceeding great shall be thy reward,' would not have
mocked him, if an ephemeron, with the pretence of His ' friend-
ship,' but must have taught him to confide in His endless Love.
The expectation of the old fathers of an everlasting inheritance
must be distinguished from an understanding on their part of the
method of redemption. A ray of Divine Mercy shone upon
them. The detailed explication of that mercy, by the opening
and unfolding of the Sunbeam of truth in the spectrum of the
New Testament revelation, was withholden. Christ, in the pur-
pose of God, was the life of the world, from the day of Adam's
sin ; but His coming was only dimly foreseen by the saints of old
times, and the method of His work was wholly unknown. ' The
prophets inquired and searched diligently, searching what things,
or what manner of times, the Spirit of Christ which was in them
did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ,
and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed
that not unto themselves, but unto us, they did minister the things
which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the
gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven '
(i Peter i. 10-12).
155
CHAPTER XIV.
ON THE DEATH-PENALTY OF THE MOSAIC LAW.
THE nature of the death-penalty of the law of Moses becomes a
question of vast moment under the present discussion. The law
of Moses was the law of God, ' which entered that the offence
might abound;' that sin, by the commandment, might become
exceeding sinful ' (Rom. v. 20 ; vii. 13). St. Paul and the other
apostles treat this as a root-principle of the gospel theology. The
Mosaic Law was not an institute of human origin, seeking only
temporal ends for the Jewish race. It was a Divine Economy :
the Ruler and Moral Governor of the Universe condescended to
come down and reign over Israel, and in attestation of His righ-
teousness He gave them a law ' holy, just, and good ' (Rom. vii.
12) a ' spiritual law' (Rom. vii. 14), requiring not only outward
obedience, but inward purity of motive, an obedience springing
from loyalty to God. This law was designed to exhibit the sin-
fulness of man, and thus to be a ' schoolmaster to bring hirn to
Christ.' Sin was to be shown forth in its unfilial disloyalty, in its
anti-social and criminal mischievousness towards other men, and
in its danger as bringing penalty upon the sinner. The law was
the Praparatio EvangeliL
It follows from this that the penalty denounced in the Mosaic
Law represents the punishment of sin under the moral law of
God. If that penalty be eternal suffering of either body or soul,
or both, here is the place where that penalty ought to appear
on every page. Sinners might then have learned from Moses of
the doom from which they are redeemed by Christ.
But there is not in the law of Moses a sentence, a line, a single
syllable, not even a letter, which by any ingenuity of perverse
criticism can fairly be made to convey the idea of a threatened
eternity of suffering. This is generally acknowledged.
156 CAPITAL OFFENCES OF THE LAW.
The Jews themselves have never pretended to derive from the
Mosaic law a defence of the doctrine that eternal suffering is the
legal punishment of sin. The greatest of the modern Rabbins,-
Maimonides, Abravanel, Kimchi, Bechai, with one voice teach
that the punishment of impenitent sinners is literal and absolute
extermination at the last judgment, and they represent this as
the tradition of the Jewish Church in interpreting the law. The
absence of the doctrine of eternal suffering from the law is
decisive proof that modern men have misinterpreted the Revela-
tion, by foisting into it the philosophic doctrine of natural
immortality, thus compelling Scripture to utter a language not
its own.
The penalty of the Law is DEATH death inflicted in various
modes, sometimes with 'greater plagues, and of long continuance,'
preceding it, sometimes with less, but the characteristic curse of
the law is always capital punishment, loss of life, excision or
cutting off, utter destruction, perishing, being blotted out from under
heaven. ' He that despised Moses' law died without mercy, under
two or three witnesses ' (Heb. x. 28).
Eleven offences are mentioned in the law as liable to the
punishment of death (HJb) '> Striking a parent, Blasphemy,
Sabbath-breaking, Witchcraft, Adultery, Un chastity previous to
marriage, or in a betrothed woman, Rape, Incest, Man-stealing,
Idolatry, False witness.*
In other passages of the law, karat (J"YTp > ^oXo^pevw, LXX.)
or cutting off is allotted to thirty-six offences. An attempt has
been made to affix the lighter meaning of excommunication to this
penalty in some instances ; but it is unlikely, as Ewalda urges,
that a clearly annexed penalty would signify some light punish-
ment in one case, and capital punishment in others. In the
majority of the thirty-six laws the punishment is unquestionably
capital. Nearly all commentators, Jewish and Gentile, have
agreed that the death-penalty is designed by karat. It was
attached to uncircumcision, to fifteen cases of incest, neglect of
the passover, sabbath-breaking, neglect of atonement-day, work
done on that day, offering children to Moloch, witchcraft, anoint-
* See on this special point, and on the subject of the death-penalty, the
careful article on Punishments in Smith's Biblical Dictionary, by Rev. H. W.
Philpot, M.A.
CAPITAL OFFENCES OF THE LAW. 157
ing a foreigner with holy oil, eating leavened bread during the
passover, eating fat of sacrifices, eating blood, eating sacrifices
while unclean, offering too late, making holy ointment for private
use, making holy perfume for private use, neglect of purification
in general, not bringing an offering after slaying a beast for food,
not slaying an animal at the door of the tabernacle, touching holy
things illegally.
The penalty of death for sin was thus brought home to every
man's door, and brought near to all the concerns of common life.
Any sin partaking of the nature of wilful contempt or profanity r ,
however seemingly trivial in form, was treated as a treasonable
offence against the Majesty on High, 'and was punishable by
karat, i.e., death, by Stoning (Exod. xvii. 4), or Hanging (Numb.
xxv. 4), or Burning (Lev. xxi. 9), or by the Sword or Spear (Exod.
xix. 13), or by Strangling.
The person or thing devoted to utter destruction, 'accursed'
under the law, is called in the Mosaic writings D*3)l> cnerem i
translated by the Greek dva0e//,a, anathema. The Hebrew word
is derived from a verb signifying (i) primarily to shut up, or
devote, and (2) to exterminate or root out of life or being.*
Idolatrous nations marked out for destruction by the decree
of Jehovah were made Anathema. The extermination, being the
result of a positive command, was applied to the destruction of
men alone (I)eut. xx. 13), of men, women, and children (Deut.
ii. 34), of all living creatures (Deut. xx. 16), and to whatever
objects could be burned with fire (Joshua vi. 26). The word
used in the Greek version of the LXX. to denote 0*111, charam,
is eoA.o$peu'a>. The use of this term by S. Peter (Acts iii. 23),
'It shall come to pass that every soul which shall not hear this
prophet shall be destroyed from among the people' (e(foXo0pev$iJo-rcu),
shows that the punishment of rejecting Christ is karat or the
anathema, extermination, under ' sorer infliction.'
It is further to be observed that all the terms used in the law
of Moses in illustration of the meaning of the death-penalty,
which was the generic ' curse of the law,' signify the same idea ;
and in no case look forward to the infliction of suffering on a
being living for ever ; and this notwithstanding there is a wide
difference in the intensity and duration of the positive inflictions
* Gesenius and Fuerst in voc.
1 58 ANA THEMAEXTERMINA TION.
of suffering, by which the ultimate destruction, or extermination,
was to be wrought.
The Law denounces this capital punishment- not only on
individual offenders, but on the mass of the Hebrew nation, in
case of their disobedience. In chapter xxvi. of the book of
Leviticus, and in chapters xxviii. and xxix. of Deuteronomy,
there is a perfect thunderburst of anathemas pronounced against
all who in future ages should disobey the divine law. An exami-
nation of these theatenings will bring out even more clearly into
view the penalty of Sin under that dispensation, which was given
to make known its * exceeding sinfulness,' and its ' wages.' .
In Leviticus xxvi. occur such threatenings as these :
' If ye will not hearken unto me ... I will also do this unto you ; if ye
shall despise my statutes or if your soul abhor my judgments, I will even
appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall
consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart . . . and I will set my face
against you and ye shall be slain before your enemies. And if ye walk
contrary to me I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to
your sins ; I will also send wild beasts among you which shall rob you of
your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number, and your
highways shall be desolate. And I will send the pestilence among you to
avenge the quarrel of my covenant, and I, even I, will chastise you seven times
for your sins. . And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images,
and cast your carcases tipon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor
you. And ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies, and ye shall
fierish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. '
In Deuteronomy xxvii., xxviii., and xxix. there is a still more
direful catalogue of curses denounced upon apostates and rebels.
The Curses were to be denounced from Mount Ebal as soon as
they entered Palestine, to hang like thunderclouds of death over
the nation in every succeeding generation.
' But if thou wilt not hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, all these
curses shall come upon thee. The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, vexation,
and rebuke, in all that thou settest thine hand unto for to do. until thou be
destroyed, and until thou perish quickly (?pnttftrw spnjfro). The Lord shall
make the pestilence cleave to thee until he have consumed thee from off the land
(rrcnwn btfn ^n'w inVp TO). The Lord shall smite thee with blasting, and mildew,
and fever, and inflammation, and extreme burning, and they shall pursue thee
lint il thou perish. And the Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and
dust, it shall come down upon thee until thou be destroyed. The Lord will
make thy plagues wonderful, even great plagues and of long continuance, and
TEMPORAL PUNISHMENT.
159
sore sicknesses and of long continuance. And every sickness and every plague
which is not written in this book of the law them will the Lord bring upon
thee until tJiou be destroyed. And it shall come to pass that as the Lord
rejoiced over you to do you good and to multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice
over you to destroy you and to bring you to nought (opriN Tpujnb), to exterminate
you.'
Such are the awful variations on the original theme in the
revelation of judgment according to the law. The sinners were
to be consumed out of the earth, to be exterminated after plagues
of long continuance, to die, to perish utterly, to be slain, to be
cut off, to be destroyed, to be brought to nought.
There is not a word of the indestructible life of a sinner, or
of the endless suffering due for sin; it is always, and everywhere,
The soul that sinneth it shall die.
If it be replied, These were temporal punishments, and related
only to men's state in time, the answer is obvious : the Law was
given to manifest sin, and its danger, both for time and eternity ;
and the time when actions are done is of no account in relation
to the moral government of God. Sin was ' exceeding sinful '
then as now. It was here, if anywhere, that the * wages of sin '
should have been plainly declared, and they are declared in
language which uniformly signifies the infliction of suffering ending
in death. It is to us inconceivable that if God were dealing with
immortal beings and exhibiting to them the ' due reward of their
deeds,' that reward being, in part, impending everlasting misery,
He would have commissioned Moses His servant to speak of no
punishment except one, which signifies extermination of the
offender. It seems to be the extreme of perverseness to assert
either that the language of the law means in genere anything else
than destruction, or that, meaning this, there was yet hidden
behind it, in the purpose of God, an eternity of misery of which
not a syllable is spoken to warn men to escape it.
Besides, if.it be alleged that these threatenings relate to time
only, the main argument is abandoned. For the words used by
Moses to denote, as is conceded, ' temporal ' destruction of life,
are the very words used by the Apostles of Christ to denote the
penalties of Gehenna ; they employ the same terms death, destruc-
tion, perishing, utterly perishing, consumption, in their Greek
equivalents, which Moses employs in the Hebrew of the law;
160 DEATH EXPLAINED BY KILLING.
and it is surely to make a large demand upon men to ask them to
believe that such terms under one dispensation signify all that can
be even imagined of utter and complete extermination ; and,
under the other, all that can be imagined of indestructible bring,
and endless misery.
We possess, however, a comment on the threatening of death,
the characteristic Curse of the Law of Moses, from the pen of the
greatest Apostle of the Gospel, and that comment seems to be
so explicit as to leave not an inch of ground on which to found
the prevailing interpretation.
In the Epistle to the Roman Church S. Paul has occasion to
speak largely of the Law and its Curse. This curse he says is
death : and he traces it up to the first sin of humanity in paradise.
By one man sin entered into the ivorld, and death by sin, and so
death passed upon all men, in him in whom all sinned (or, for that
all sinned). This death he identifies, in the subsequent verses of
this fifth chaper, with the curse of the law, which * entered that
the offence might abound ; ' but ' where sin abounded grace did
much more abound, that as sin hath reigned unto death, so might
grace reign.'
This death he traces in its action through the following (sixth)
chapter, ending with the sentence, 'The wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God is eternal life ' (ver. 23).
Then in chapter vii. he carries on the argument on the function
of the Law to convince of sin, not to save, showing that it brings
men under condemnation to death, and cannot give life eternal.
But here (as has been shown in a previous page) he uses a
word in explication of the <&#M-dealing action of the law, which
fixes the signification. He says the commandment (law) ' ordained
to life I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by
the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me,' St* ai/n/s
d-TreKTetvev. Now this verb iroKTewcw, to kill, is used as the
explanation of death, an explanation inconsistent with the Augus-
tinian idea of death, as endless misery. To kill is to take away
life, and nothing else. And not here alone S. Paul employs it
in exposition of the death which is the curse of the law. In
2 Cor. iii. 6, he repeats it TO yap ypa/A/m cbroKTeWet, TO Se TTVfVfJia
a>o7roiel, ' The letter (or law of Moses) killeth, but the Spirit (the
gospel) giveth life.' As has been remarked already, if the sup-
THE LETTER KILLETH. 161
posed moral and figurative sense of death be the apostolic
sense if men were intended to understand by Odvaros, death,
eternal suffering in hell, then the synonymous word aTroKTewciv, to
kill, ought to be capable of similar treatment ; and it ought to
make sense to say that a sinner is killed and slain in the eternal
miseries of hell. But not even Augustine, or Calvin, or Edwards
have ventured to apply OLTTOKTCLVW in this signification; the
violence of the perversion would have too plainly appeared.
We conclude, therefore, that the death-penalty of the Law of
Moses signified the destruction of life, and that this is the curse,
however varied in the details of infliction, from which the Divine
Incarnate Life descends on earth to redeem mankind.
ii
162
CHAPTER XV.
THE DOCTRINE OF FUTURE REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS IN THE
POETIC AND PROPHETIC BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.
I. The hope of eternal life in the Old Testament.
WHEN the law promises life to perfect obedience, we have the
authority of Christ for believing that that life is eternal. ' What
good thing shall I do to inherit eternal life ? Thou knowest the
commandments. This do and thou shalt live? But no law
* could be given to man by which he should gain ' eternal life,
because his nature was degenerate, and the rule of justification
by law demands that perfect obedience which man cannot render.
By the law comes only the ' knowledge of sin ' and its penalty.
But from the beginning of time sinful beings have been placed
by divine mercy under a dispensation of reconciliation. Man,
legally condemned to death, is 'brought nigh.' Before the
world Redemption was prepared in Christ, and through Him
there has been a ministration of the Spirit in all ages, by which
sinful men, 'born again/ may be led to the hope of life eternal.
The ' gospel was preached to Abraham/ and to all the fathers
who died in faith ; not in full doctrinal form, but in power, so
that every one who repented and turned to God in ' every nation '
was, for Christ's sake, ' accepted ' of God ; even though knowing
little, or perhaps nothing at all, of the Saviour. Christ Himself
represents nothing greater than God. If, then, men believed in
God, and by yielding to God's Holy Spirit turned to Him, they
were saved, from the beginning of the world. Thus millions
innumerable were ' prepared unto glory ' in the ages before the
advent qf Christ. The Saviour's influence was felt long before
His person was revealed. There was a long dawn before the
ETERNAL LIFE IN OLD TESTAMENT. 163
sunrise. Accordingly we find in the Old Testament writings
abundant evidence of a ' hope full of immortality.'
The writings of Moses comprise two revelations different as
light and darkness. They comprise the elementary revelation of
' grace,' and they comprise that ' law ' which entered in order to
enforce and condemn the sin of man. In the same manner the
remainder of the Old Testament scriptures of the prophets
comprises a history of the working of the law, in stimulating
and bringing to the surface the ' sinfulness of sin,' in the chronic
rebellion of the Hebrew nation and they also comprise mani-
fold indications of the working of grace in the hearts of men of
good will.
It is also to be considered that the entrance of Redemption,
with promises of pardon and eternal life, had indefinitely
aggravated the sin of impenitence, as against God. Of those
' to whom much is given more will be justly demanded.' Hence
there is not only that death which is the hereditary curse on
the descendants of the first sinner, and the due reward of law-
breaking in his descendants, but also the 'judgment' demanded
by the rejection of mercy, on ' a hard and impenitent heart.'
In the Old Testament writings we discover indications both
of the hope of the righteous, and fear of the ungodly. These
we now proceed briefly to collect and interpret.
The institution of Sacrifice by divine authority carries with
it a promise of life to penitent men. What meaneth sacrifice,
if not that God, the Judge who condemns man to death for
sin, has found some ransom by which He can restore His
' banished ones ' ? The hope of restoration to Paradise and
the Tree of Life dawned upon men from the hour of the exile.
Our first parents were ' driven out ' with a whisper of prorm'se
in their hearts, that ' the seed of the woman should bruise^ the
serpent's head.' Adam called his wife's name ./T&zrcfcz^, ' Life,
because she was the Mother of all living ; for l being high priest
that same year he prophesied,' without knowing it, that the
woman's Son should 'abolish death, and bring life and incor-
ruption to light by the gospel.'
At the gates of Eden were 'made to dwell the Cherubim,
and a revolving flame to keep the way of the Tree of Life/
164 THE LOST PARADISE.
words which receive some explication when we perceive in
these cherubs emblems of man's dominion as lord of the living
creation. They are found in the tabernacle, -upon the throne of
grace, within the veil, even in that Holy of Holies which
represented the lost Paradise ; where were the ' propitiatory,'
and 'the pot of manna' which symbolised the bread of life
eternal, and 'Aaron's rod' that blossomed with life out of
death; mysteries setting forth the work and victory of that
' Man Christ Jesus ' who should sit * down on the throne of
God ;' because all things 'should be made subject unto Him ; '
who should * give His flesh ' as the bread of God, the celestial
manna, 'for the life of the world;' discharging the priesthood
of the everlasting covenant under which man, though dead,
lives again, and for ever.
When, then, the servants of God ' went into His sanctuary/
as Asaph confesses in Psalm Ixxiii., ' then understood they '
the ' end,' or future destinies of men (achatith). They under-
stood the eternal life of the saints ; they meditated upon the
sacrifices of blood, the holy candlestick, the golden altar ot
acceptable prayer, the hidden oracle of the Holiest, the type
of the lost Paradise, into which ' once a year ' Man already
entered ; and they broke forth in songs of praise to the Living
God.
' Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel
And afterwards receive me to glory.
Whom have I in heaven but Thee ?
And there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee.
My flesh and my heart faileth,
But God is the .strength of my
Heart, and my portion for ever ! '
If the heart of one devout man under the old dispensation
can be distinctly proved to have burned with these immortal
hopes, we may be assured that it was the common hope of them
all. Such expectations cannot be the idiosyncrasies of a select
few among the saints. The soul's love to the Eternal carried
with it the prevision of Immortality : and everything around
assured their hearts that if God would ' dwell with men upon
earth,' it could not be that He might simply watch His servants
dying like insects, around Him from age to age. No : their.
ETERNAL LIFE IN THE PSALMS. 165
faith in every generation led them to cry aloud to God, ' Thou
wilt make me full of joy with Thy countenance/
Of the Psalms, which express the familiar spiritual thoughts of
saints and prophets during a thousand years, a large number give
explicit utterance either to the hope of salvation from death, or to
the expectation of the Coming of that Mighty King * in whom all
nations should be blessed, and whose glory was connected with
power over death.' *
But in no single instance do we discover in the book of Psalms,
or in the poetical books, or in the book of collected Proverbs, or
weighty sayings of the wise, or in the Prophets, the expression of
the Socratic hope of eternal life, founded on man's essential nature
as eternal. The hope of life is restricted to righteous men, to the
true servants of God. There is not one ray of hope of an eternal
future which shines on the head of a rebel in the Old Testament.
The immortality of the nephesh was a speculation unknown to the
* The following Psalms seem to be full of thoughts which would never have
entered into the minds of men to whom death was a sleep that ended all.
Psalms i., ii., iv., v., viii., xv., xvi., xviii., xxiii., xxv., xxvii., xxxii., xxxiv. ,
xxxvii., xxxix., xli., xlix., 1., li., Ixii., lxxii.,lxxiii., Ixxxiv., xc., xci., xcii., xcv.,
c., ex., cxvi., cxix., cxxxix., cxlv. Having quoted Mr. Spurgeon adversely in
a previous page, I have the greater pleasure in recommending his elaborate
work, The Treasury of David, as an extraordinary collection of valuable
comments on the book of Psalms.
The reader who will study in this order these sublime odes of many writers
ranging from the age of Moses (as Psalm xc.) down to the Captivity, will find
the conviction deepening upon him that of all groundless delusions of modern
times one of the most groundless is that these ' old fathers looked only for
temporal promises.' They looked indeed, as we also should look, first of all
to 'inherit the earth? they looked for the coming of God's King, and with him
of God's kingdom on the earth, that here ' His will might be done as in heaven ;'
but their hopes extended infinftely beyond. They were not so far behind the
materialistic Egyptians. Their ' own God ' was the Ever-living Creator, and
while His gracious relation to them implied the gift of immortal life, their rela-
tion to Him implied the faith of it. ' They looked for that city which hath
foundations.' Even the learned authors of The Unseen Universe have been
seduced by Dean Stanley into the opinion that 'although there are a few
scattered passages which favour immortality, yet these are so few that we can-
not err if we maintain that this doctrine was no u . brought to the mind of the
Hebrews in the same way as was the Unity o" God. Not from want of
religion but from excess of religion was this void le r t in the Jewish mind. The
future life was overlooked, overshadowed by the consciousness of the presence
of God Himself.' Page 9.
166 ETERNAL LIFE IN THE PROPHECIES.
saints and prophets. 'All the wicked will He destroy.' 'When
the wicked spring as the grass, and all the workers of iniquity
flourish, it is that they shall be destroyed for ever.' That with
them is the end of the ungodly. No man lives for ever but in
God. ' Evil shall slay the wicked.'
It cannot be insisted on too urgently that the hope of the Old
Testament saints was a hope of Resurrection. They believed
indeed more or less vividly in a survival of souls in Shcol or
Hades, as we shall attempt to show in a future chapter; but
that state was thought of as one of comparative torpor and in-
capacity. The main hope was that ' in the flesh ' they should
see God. We have already adverted to a part of the evidence
of this fact. A few points of interest now remain to be noted.
The sixteenth Psalm expresses, a thousand years before Christ,
this hope of God's servants. ' Thou wilt not leave my soul in
Sheol, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine holy one to see corruption.
Thou wilt show me the path of life, and make me full of joy with
Thy countenance.' It is true that this promise made in a climate
where corruption occurs before the 'fourth day' (John xi.) applies
primarily to the resurrection of One who must therefore rise soon
after death. But His resurrection carries with it the hope of all
God's servants.
The prophet Isaiah (we shall assume with Dr. E. Hawkins the
homogeneous authorship of the whole book bearing that name)
has two remarkable passages expressing in the most distinct
manner the faith of the Resurrection.
In the celebrated 53rd chapter, which describes the sufferings
of the 'Servant of God,' 'by whose stripes we are healed,' the
following words occur :
'When thou shalt make his soul (or nephesh) a sin-offering
(D^'tf) he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the
pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hands/
Here it is declared that after his life is poured out as a sin-
offering, he shall nevertheless ' prolong it.' This can be only by
a resurrection. Can it be that men who thus prophesy are
destitute of faith in the resurrection ? Do we not trace in these
words the same hope that dwelt in David when he says of the
same Saviour, ' My flesh shall rest in hope, because Thou wilt
not leave my soul in Sheol, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy
ETERNAL LIFE IN THE PROPHECIES. 167
One to see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path of Life, and
make me full of joy with Thy countenance.' Either the Messiah
is here, or the Hebrew believer is here. In either case there is a
solid confidence in the resurrection of glory.
The other passage of the Prophet Isaiah is in chapter xxvi.
19:
* Thy dead shall live ;
My dead bodies shall arise :
Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust,
For thy dew is as the dew of herbs.'
Here the lot of the righteous is contrasted with that of their
tyrants and oppressors, who are described as D^SH* Rephaim,
wicked ghosts :
' They are dead men ! They shall not live ! They are Rephaim ! They
shall not arise ! Thou shalt visit and destroy them, and make all their memory
to perish.'
Here again is language which expressly indicates the awakening
of the just ; and in the former passage, the forgiveness and glori-
fication of the saints is ascribed to the Resurrection of the Servant
of God. Daniel but re-echoed the faith of his predecessors when
he said, ' At that time many of them that sleep in the dust of the
earth shall awake, to life everlasting' (xii. 2).
II. Old Testament doctrine on the Future Punishment of the
Wicked.
It has been shown at the commencement of this chapter that
Man, placed from the very epoch of the fall under two distinct
systems of moral government, the law and the gospel, is subject
to two distinct systems of penalty ; the one, normal, congenital,
and hereditary, as well as due for our own sins ; the other incurred
by persistent rebellion against the mercy of God. The death or
destruction of earthly life is the curse of the Law, the Second
Death in ' Gehenna' is the curse of rejected redemption. These
conclusions we gather in their clearest form from the Christian
revelation ; but the question arises whether the second order of
penalty in * judgment to come ' was known to the ancients, and if
it were, in what measure of clearness.
1 68 FUTURE PUNISHMENT ISAIAH XXXIII.
Those who are of opinion that all men are immortal, reading
the Hebrew Scriptures with a predisposition to find the corre-
sponding doctrine of eternal misery in every part, have found,
or thought they found, this threatening in several passages of
the prophets. Compelled to discover it only in language which
requires severe pressure to make it speak the sense of a ' death
which never dies, such critics have fastened with warmer zeal
upon the few sentences which, especially in the English version,
seemed to be capable of the desired interpretation. Of these the
chief must be noticed, even although criticism has long abandoned
them as defences of the article of eternal suffering. Dr. Horberry,
one of the most strenuous and able asserters of this doctrine in
the last century, admits (and it is a remarkable admission on the
part of those who allow that men in ancient times stood in no
less need of solemn warnings than to-day) that ' the Old Testa-
ment has nothing so clear and express upon this subject as the
New ; ' intending doubtless nothing so clear as he thought he
found in the New ; but the following passage is cited in proof,
even by many careful writers, and is used in popular discourse to
this day without apparent suspicion of irrelevance.
(i) The words of the Prophet Isaiah (chap, xxxiii. 14) are
adduced by Dr. Jonathan Edwards in his Reply to Chauncy,
chap, v., as Old Testament evidence of endless misery : ' The
sinners in Zion are afraid ; fearfulness hath surprised the hypo-
crites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire ? Who
among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings ? '
A correct translation is the first step to a true interpretation.
Sir Edward Strachey * gives the passage thus : ' The sinners in
Zion are afraid : fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who
among us can abide the devouring fire ? who among us can abide
perpetual burnings ? ' A slight attention to the context shows (as
may be seen in the accessible commentaries, of very different
pretensions, of Barnes, Delitzsch, and Gesenius) that the chapter
whence these words are quoted refers to the desolating invasion
of Palestine by the Assyrians. On this these commentators are
all agreed. The cited words have not the most remote reference to
future punishment ; but refer to present punishment on earth.
They represent the outcries of terrified sinners in Jerusalem, who
* Jewish History and Politics, p. 435.
FUTURE PUNISHMENT ISAIAH LXV1. 169
rightly feared that the perpetual conflagrations of war, the de-
vastations of fire and sword caused by the invader, would end in
their destruction ; for who, said they, can dwell in these perpetual
burnings ? In ver. 10 the Lord thus addresses them : ' Now will
I arise; now will I be exalted. Ye conceive chaff and bring
forth stubble, and my Spirit like fire shall consume you. And the
people shall be burned as lime (crumble to dust), as thorns cut up
shall they be consumed in the fire' Then follows this text, quoted
with an indifference to the sense of Scripture which deserves
severe reprobation, since such proceedings in hermeneutics are
fatal to the honest study of theology . ' Who among us can abide
the devouring fire, who among us can abide perpetual burnings ? '
It is manifest that the fires of ver. 14 are the same with those of
ver. 12, but they were the flames of war kindled in Palestine by
the Assyrians, the effect of which could be withstood by the
righteous, and by them alone ; for they can dwell in these per-
petual conflagrations. It is the wicked who cannot dwell in them.
(2) The second passage from the Old Testament cited in
support of the doctrine of endless suffering is in chap. Ixvi. of
Isaiah's prophecy, ver. 24 :
* And they shall go forth and look upon the carcases of the men
who have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die,
neither shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring to
allflesh:
It is argued that, in Mark ix. 50, our Lord Jesus Christ quotes
the last two clauses in proof of the eternal sufferings of the
wicked in hell, thus giving decisive evidence that such is the
signification of the words in the original text. We deny both the
premiss and conclusion. Christ does not cite the words in proof
of the 'doctrine of eternal suffering.' He utters not a syllable to
that effect. He warns His disciple to enter into ' life ' halt or
maimed, rather than, ' having two hands or feet,' to be cast into
the * eternal fire ; ' for He says 'it is better that one of thy members
should perish, rather than that thy whole body should be cast into
Gehenna.' But what remains true is this, that our Lord's citation
of' the passage from Isaiah in reference to future punishment
sanctions the belief that the passage, as it stands in Isaiah, bears
the same reference ; to judgment, in fact, inflicted on God's
enemies during the kingdom of Christ. The nature of the
1 70 ' THEIR WORM SHALL NOT DIE:
punishment is a 'miserable destruction,' as appears from the
following considerations :
1. The condition of the victims of divine vengeance is ex-
pressed by the word carcases. 'They shall go forth and look
upon the (0^3$), pegarini) dead corpses (so the same word is
rendered in the account of the slaughter of the 175,000 Assyrians
2 Kings xix. 35) of the men who have transgressed against
me.' ' In the morning they were all dead corpses,' pegarim. The
persons referred to are dead. Their life is destroyed.
2. The attempted figurative sense given to the ' undying
worm,' as an ever-gnawing Conscience, can be imposed on the
clause only by taking the word die in the sense of literal death.
' Their worm shall not die? signifies their worm shall not cease to
be. The addition of a negative does not alter the signification of
a verb. Thus the prevailing argument that death stands for
eternal suffering can be made out from this passage only by taking
the word die in the natural sense of ceasing to live, that is to
say, the sense which we suppose to be the general sense is taken
here for the true meaning, because when so taken, with a negative,
the passage can be made to speak of eternal suffering.
3. Our Saviour has fixed the signification of living %&& perishing
in the context of Mark ix., by drawing the contrast, ' It were good
that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole
body should be cast into Gehenna,' the effect of which is that it
also would 'perish.' Now the 'perishing of one member,' by
cutting it off, is for it to be deprived of life ; not to expose it to
endless misery. Therefore the perishing of the whole body
results in similar destruction. And therefore, also, the persons
whose ' worm shall not die ' are those who have been reduced to
pegarim, dead corpses, as we read in the prophecy whence the
citation is taken.
When, therefore, the fanciful post-Christian writer of the Book of
Judith declares that ' the vengeance of the ungodly is fire and
worms, and they shall feel them and weep for ever,' he goes beyond
the prophecy, and yields to the influence of a philosophical
doctrine on immortality learned from Greece and Egypt, and not.
found in his national scriptures.
(3) The third and last passage in the Old Testament which
is sometimes cited in support of the idea of eternal misery is in
'EVERLASTING CONTEMPT* DANIEL XII. 171
Daniel xii. 2 : l And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth
shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlast-
ing contempt?
' So it reads,' says the learned Mr. Maude, ' in our English
version ; Dr. Tregelles, however, who will not be suspected of
any heretical bias, with many other Hebrew scholars, translates :
" And many from among the sleepers of the dust shall awake ;
these shall be unto everlasting life; but those (the rest of the
sleepers, those who do not awake at this time) shall be unto
shame and everlasting contempt." And he adds, "The word
which in our Authorised Version is twice rendered 'some,' is
never repeated in any other passage in the Hebrew Bible, in
the sense of taking up distributively any general class which had
been previously mentioned ; this is enough, I think, to warrant
our applying its first occurrence here to the whole of the many
who awake, and the second to the mass of the sleepers, those who
do not awake at this time."* And the correctness of this transla-
tion is confirmed, not only by the fact that it is the interpretation
given by the most eminent Jewish commentators, t but also by the
internal evidence of the passage taken in its context. For the
"time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation,"
spoken of in the preceding first verse of the chapter, must certainly
be identified with the " great tribulation " spoken of in Matt.
xxiv. 21-30, which will be endured during the reign and
blasphemy of the last Antichrist " the Man of Sin " even him
" whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and
shall destroy with the brightness of His coming" (2 Thess. ii. 8).
Hence the resurrection here spoken of by Daniel synchronises
with the period of the Second Advent, and is plainly a prophecy
of the First Resurrection, all the partakers in which are " blessed
and holy." '
It is added, however, that even if the wicked do not then rise,
* Remarks on the Prophetic Visions of Daniel, p: 174.
f * Thus the famous Aben Ezra, in his commentary on the chapter, quotes
Rabbi Saadias as declaring that "those who awake shall be (appointed) to
everlasting life, and those who awake not shall be (doomed) to shame and
everlasting contempt." The words of Saadias himself are that "this is the
resurrection of the dead of Israel, whose lot is to eternal life, and those who
shall not awake are the forsakers of Jehovah," etc.'
1?2 THE DOCTRINE OF ENDLESS MISERY
they are reserved ' for shame and everlasting contempt' and this
indicates their conscious existence for ever to endure the con-
tempt. That this is not so is proved by the Hebrew word here
employed. It is pXT-J demon, the very word employed in
Isaiah Ixvi. 24 to represent the ' abhorring of all flesh,' which is
the fate of the wicked men just before described as dead corpses
or pegarim. It follows that the everlasting contempt or abhorring
may fall, for anything that is taught in Daniel xii. 2, upon the
dead.
We do not learn that any passages excepting these three are
cited from the Old Testament writings in support of the modern
doctrines. Let us consider what is involved in this admission.
During certainly five, and possibly six or eight, thousand years
preceding the advent of Christ, there was an innumerable race
of sinful creatures on earth abandoned for the most part to
hereditary superstitions, for the most part also unable to read or
think clearly, and nearly at the mercy of their kings and priests.
Now these seemingly mortal creatures were all according to this
theory immortal, destined to endure as long as the Eternal God ;
they were all born in sin, they were all sinners, they were all liable
to everlasting misery in hell. And yet the only recorded refer-
ences made by their merciful God to this frightful doom in the
way of warning are discovered in three disputed texts of two
Jewish prophets, living in a late age in comparison with the length
of the world's past history ; and these three texts are declared by
the most competent critics to have not the least relevancy to the
supposed impending destiny. Is this the method of the Divine
government? Is there not here rather the method of theologising
handed down to its by men of the fourth century, who knew little
of Scripture, little of history, and still less of God, the Righteous
and the Merciful ?
What, then, we must now inquire, were the beliefs of Old
Testament times respecting future judgment ? Are there no
decisive indications that men were taught to look for future
retribution, and if there be any, what were the evils they
feared ?
The safest method of investigating the beliefs of antiquity is to
begin at this end of the history, and in this case to seize the clue
NOT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 173
offered to us by the statements of Christ and His apostles. They
lived only 1,800 years ago, and were far more likely to know what
their predecessors believed, and what the prophets taught, than
modern men who look at the remote past through the medium of
modern theories.
Let it be observed, then, that our Lord never even makes a
question of it, but decisively takes it for granted that * Sodom and
Gomorrha,' which were destroyed once by fire for their sins, have
yet to undergo a second and more awful infliction in * the day of
judgment.' ' Tyre and Sidon ' are spoken of as reserved for a
similar retribution.
The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, expressing himself as
if giving utterance to an acknowledged belief, says, ' As it is
appointed unto men once to die, but after this judgment' (ix. 27).
The apostle Jude, citing perhaps the apocryphal book of Enoch,
nevertheless only signifies what was the consenting voice of ages,
that from the earliest times God has announced by His prophets
retribution for the sins of time in a state still future. ' Behold the
Lord cometh with ten thousand of His saints to execute judgment
upon air (ver. 14).
In the centuries immediately preceding the gospel this belief
was unhesitatingly held. In the book of Ecclesiastes a work
written during or after the captivity, more probably than by
Solomon, if we trust the latest criticism the closing verses reveal
the faith of the writer. ' Let us hear the conclusion of the whole
matter. Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the
whole duty of man. For God will bring every work into judgment,
with evety secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil/
That such expectations of judgment should prevail among the
Israelites, as the punishment of rejecting God's offered mercy in
time, is in accordance with the almost universal instinct of both
ancient and modern times which leads men to ' the fear ' of, what
Shakespeare calls, * something after death? Whether the retribution
would come upon the spiritual element of the dissolved nature in
Sheol, or on the whole awakened man in a future judgment, might
be doubtful but of the fear itself there was general recognition
as a divinely implanted instinct. The punishment of Sodom and
Gomorrha was regarded not only as the due reward of their deeds,
but as an example to them that should after live ungodly ; which
174 OLD TESTAMENT THREATENINGS
could not be unless they understood that judgment by fire from
heaven was prepared for sinners. ' Upon the wicked He shall rain
destruction, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest ; this shall
be the portion of their cup ' (Psalm xi.). ' His hand shall find
out all His enemies. He shall make them as a fiery oven in the
day of His wrath, and His anger shall devour them' (Psalm xxi.).
' Behold the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and the proud
and all that do wickedly shall be as stubble, and the day that
cometh shall burn them up, that it shall leave them neither root nor
branch' (Malachi iv.).
Such expressions as these are frequently, but most unwar-
rantably, taken to refer only to temporal punishments. The plain
indications of faith in a survival of souls in death, many of them
in a state not blessed, nor leading to blessedness, adds force to
the impression given by the fore-cited passages announcing
Judgment. These we shall examine, together with the New
Testament doctrine of Hades, in a separate chapter (xxi.). That
the Jews themselves had gathered from their own Scriptures and
had received by tradition from their fathers the fixed anticipation
of a 'resurrection both of just and unjust* is certified to us by
S. Paul and S. Luke, who declare that they themselves ' allow this '
(Acts xxvi.). The 'Second Death' of the New Testament
revelation is but the repetition of an old Testament doctrine.
The souls of the wicked remain in Sheol, the under-world, and
are termed D^T]> Rephaim, but they, like the souls of the righ-
teous, await a judgment before the Lord, who comes to 'judge the
world in righteousness.' Then, says the Prophet Isaiah, 'the
earth shall cast out the Rephaim. The earth also shall disclose her
blood, and shall no more cover her slain ' (Isaiah xxvi. 19).* All
* The entire chapter (Isaiah xxvi.) deserves attentive study. Sir Edward
Strachey's comment on the prophecy xxv.-xxvi. is highly valuable. The
prophet describes the final victory of God over the foes of His Church. ' He
shall swallow up death for ever.' The church however complains of delay, the
delay of resurrection and recompense. * We have as it were brought forth wind ;
we have not wrought any deliverance, neither hath the earth brought forth the
inhabitants of the -world (for judgment). Thy dead shall live, my dead bodies
shall arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust and the earth shall cast
forth the Rephaim ' (the wicked dead), ^sn G^En p-
And just above the prophet had said ver. 18, ' O Lord, other lords besides
Thee have had dominion over us. But by Thee only will we make mention of
OF DESTRUCTION TO THE WICKED. 175
human life is to reappear for judgment. And whatever may be
the spiritual sufferings of some souls in Hades, judgment requires
the whole humanity to appear. The departed spirit is not the
Man, but only one element of his being. If the man is to be
judged, he must rise from the dead to appear before God.
The bodily resurrection of the wicked who had lived before the
advent is doubted by some writers, on the ground that it is not
distinctly taught in the ancient canonical books. I submit that
it is taught in as many places as the resurrection of the righteous
is there taught; neither of them are numerous, yet the whole
moral structure of the Old Testament dispensation implies the
reality of the judgment to come, as the readers of Christ's time
justly judged. But the main noticeable fact is that the final destiny
of the wicked is spoken of in the general terms of the curse of
the law itself. There was no prospect of eternal suffering set
before the sinners. Their end would be death, extermination.
' When the wicked spring as the grass, and all the workers of
iniquity flourish, it is that they shall be destroyed for ever' (Psalm
xcii. 7). Hence the faint distinction made in the perspective of
prophecy between the death which was the legal curse, and the
death eternal. The one dark cloud is seen against the back-
ground of a blacker darkness but the general impression left is
that the wicked will ultimately perish, and miserably die.
The prophets, who could speak so eloquently of the woes of
mortals in time, as we see by the Lamentations of Jeremiah, do
not vary the form of their speech when speaking of a wicked
man's final destiny. They only deepen their colours, and intro-
duce terms which declare that his ruin shall be irreparable and his
destruction complete and eternal.
There is much doubt as to the date of the BOOK OF JOB.
Recent criticism inclines to the opinion of a more recent original.
Thy name (of God). They are dead, they shall not live ; they are Rephaim
(wicked and lost men), they shall stand up. Thou wilt visit and destroy them,
and make all their memory to perish.' 'For behold' (ver. 21) 'the Lord
cometh out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity,
and the earth shall disclose her blood, and no more cover her slain.' Here is the
contrast between the righteous and the wicked. The wicked (Rephaim) shall
be brought forth, cast out by the earth as an abortion but they shall not stand
^ip, TOJ7^a. But the righteous shall ' stand up ' and ' live. ' See Psalm i. 5,
with Kimchi's comment, in Perowne on the Psalms.
176 THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WICKED.
Of whatever epoch, this sublime poem contains numerous exam-
ples of the contemporary beliefs respecting judgment to come.
A steadfast silence as to the endless duration of the lives of the
ungodly characterises this book. It contains frequent and animated
references to the punishment of the wicked ; and being composed
in the ' lofty style of the Asiatics,' we might anticipate amplifica-
tion in the detail, and a copious vocabulary of curses to pervade
those portions which describe their doom. For it is not the
genius of oriental speech to compress infinite ideas into tame and
inadequate expressions, with Spartan sententiousness, but rather
to magnify them. And, surely, if such a conception as that of
everlasting existence in misery were intended to be conveyed in the
style of Eastern poetry, it would find its natural and appropriate
vehicle in the terrific language of the Koran, rather than in the
brief declarations of this composition. The following are ex-
amples of the threatenings held out, in the book of Job, to the
enemies of God :
Chap, xviii. 'The light of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark of
his fire shall not shine. His strength shall be hunger-bitten, and destruction
shall be ready at his side. It shall devour the strength of his skin : even the
first-born of death shall devour his strength. His confidence shall be rooted
out of his tabernacle, and it shall bring him to the king of terrors. It shall
dwell in his tabernacle, because it is none of his : brimstone shall be scattered
upon his habitation. His roots shall be dried up beneath, and above shall his
branch be cut off. His remembrance shall perish from the earth, and he shall
have no name in the street. He shall be driven from light into darkness, and
chased out of the world.'
Chap. xx. ' Knowest thou not this of old, since man was placed upon the
earth, that the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite
but for a moment ? Though his excellency mount up to the heavens, and his
head reach unto the clouds ; yet shall he perish for ever like his own dung :
they which have seen him shall say, Where is he ? He shall fly away as a
dream, and shall not be found : yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the
night. The eye also which saw him shall see him no more ; neither shall his
place any more behold him.'
Chap. xxi. 'How oft is the candle of the wicked put out? and how oft
cometh their destruction upon them ? His eyes shall see his destruction, and
he shall drink of the wrath of the Almighty.'
The BOOK OF PSALMS may be supposed to represent the
popular belief during the best instructed ages of the Jewish com-
monwealth. The menaces of vengeance to the ungodly found in
OP THREATENING Iti TtiE PSALMS. 177
this collection of sacred songs, in addition to those already cited,
are as follows :
Psalm i. 'The ungodly are not so : they are like the chaff, which the wind
driveth away. The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous : but the way of
the ungodly shall perish.''
Psalm ii. ' Thou shall break them with a rod of iron ; thou shalt dash them
in pieces like a potter's vessel. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish
by the way.'*
Psalm ix. ' Thou hast rebuked the heathen, thou hast destroyed the
wicked ; thou hast put out their name for ever and ever. The wicked shall be
turned into Sheol (the state of death), and all the nations that forget God.'
Psalm xxxiv. ' The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off
the remembrance of them from the earth. Evil shall slay the wicked: and they
that hate the righteous shall be desolate. '
Psalm xxxvii. 'Fret not thyself because of evil-doers, neither be thou
envious at the workers of iniquity. For they shall soon be cut dawn like the
grass, and wither like the green herb. For evil-doers shall be cut off : but
those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth. (See Matt. v. 5.)
For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be : yea, thou shalt diligently
consider his place, and it shall not be. The wicked shall perish, and the enemies
of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs : they shall consume ; into smoke shall
they consume away. For such as be blessed of God shall inherit the earth ; but
they that be cursed of him shall be cut off. I have seen the wicked in great
power, and spreading himself like the green bay tree. Yet he passed away,
and, lo, he was not ; yea, I sought him, but he could not be found. Mark
the perfect man, and behold the upright; for the end of that man is peace.
Bnt the transgressors shall be destroyed together: the end of the wicked shall be
ctit off.'
Psalm xlix. ' Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the
beasts that perish?
Psalm xcii. 'O Lord, how great are thy works ! and thy thoughts are veiy
deep. A brutish man+ knoweth not ; neither doth a fool understand this.
When the wicked spring as the grass, and all the workers of iniquity do
flourish ; it is that they may be destroyed for ever. (Lehishshamedam, the word
used in Gen. xxxiv. 30; Levit. xxvi. 30; Numb, xxxiii. 52; Deut. i. 27.)
For, lo, thy enemies, O Lord, for, lo, thy enemies shall perish ; all the workers
of iniquity shall be scattered. '
Psalm ciii. 9. ' He will not contend for ever, neither -mill he retain his
wrath to eternity (legnolam*),' 1 words which never could have been written by a
believer in the doctrine of endless torments.
Psalm civ. ' My meditation of Him shall be sweet; I will be glad in the
* From this passage Rabbi David Kimchi takes occasion to teach in his
Commentary the literal destruction of the wicked.
\ Hebrew, "Wl-urN, ish-baar, literally the man beast, or animal-man.
12
1 78 THREATENING^ IN THE PROVERBS.
Lord. Let the sinners be destroyed out of the earth, and let the wicked
be no more.' Could the Psalmist have really found a ' sweet ' subject of medi-
tation in the God of Augustine and Edwards, who would never cease through-
out eternity to inflict suffering on the wicked ?
Psalm cxii. ' The horn of the righteous shall be exalted with honour. The
wicked shall see it and be grieved ; he shall gnash with his teeth, and melt
away.' (See Matt. xiii. 50, 'There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.')
The wisdom of SOLOMON dictated to him expressions on this
subject in conformity with the declarations of David :
Prov. x. 24. ' The fear of the wicked, it shall come upon him : but the
desire of the righteous shall be granted. As the whirlwind passeth, so is the
wicked no more: but the righteous hath an everlasting foundation. The
fear of the Lord prolongeth days : but the years of the wicked shall be shortened.
The hope of the righteous shall be gladness : but the expectation of the wicked
shall perish. The way of the Lord is strength to the upright : but destruction
shall be to the workers of iniquity. The righteous shall never be removed ;
but the wicked shall not inherit the earth.'
Prov. xiii. 13. ' Whoso despiseth the word shall be destroyed: but he that
feareth the commandment shall be rewarded. The law of the wise is a foun-
tain of life, to depart from the snares of death. '
Prov. xiv. 12. 'There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the
end thereof are the ways of death.'
Prov. xv. * The way of the life is above (an upward road) to the wise to
depart from Sheol (the state of death) beneath.'
Prov. xxi. 16. 'The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding
shall remain in the congregation of the dead' {Rephaim Heb.).
After the preceding citations, it is not necessary to enlarge
on the general style in which the PROPHETS denounce God's
judgments to the ungodly. Their words are uniformly to the
effect, that the sinner shall be destroyed, shall be consumed, shall
die, perish, or be slain.*
* An objection has been raised by the Rev. C. Clemance to the quotation 1
of Old Testament writers ' without considering, Who said it ? and, When was
it said ? Chapters written in an early age for infant minds, are dealt with as
if they were written in precise formula.' ' We cannot consistently in the same
breath maintain that the Word of God, especially in its earliest stages, is written
in a style not scientific but popular, and then appeal to its rudimentary chapters
as if they were not popular but scientific ' (pp. 33, 34, Future Punishment}.
Mr. Clemance plainly forgets the most remarkable element of the case for con-
sideration, viz., that the Bible -writers of all ages use. the same terms throughout
to denote the final curse of God on sin ; and hence the ' popular and scientific '
are not only not at variance, but coincide.
' THE SPIRIT SHOULD FAIL BEFORE ME: 179
The 1 8th chapter of Ezekiel's prophecies contains a fair
example of the prophetical mode of address :
* Behold, all souls are mine ; as the soul of the father, so the soul of the son
is mine. The soul that sinneth it shall die. Have I any pleasure that the
wicked should die ? saith the Lord God, and not that he should return from
his ways and live ? ' ' For when the wicked turneth away from his wickedness
which he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall
save his soul alive ; because he considereth, he shall surely live, he shall not
die. For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord
God : wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye ! '
The following passage occurs in a critique in the British
Quarterly Review, February, 1 846 : * We know that the soul
is immortal by intuition, the savage and the sage alike ; aye,
the savage often more surely than the sage ; and God Himself
assures us in revelation, as through intuition, that the souls
which He has made shall never fail from before Him.' With
respect to the former part of the learned writer's assertion, it
suffices to allege that the Bechuanas and Australians, and
several tribes of Central Africa, have been found destitute of
the notion of immortality. The Scripture referred to is Isaiah
Ivii. 1 6 : ' For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always
wroth : for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls that I
have made' From these words it is evident, in the first place,
that there is no such doctrine as ' everlasting wrath ' in the Old
Testament : and, secondly, that the holy prophet , declares such
an intention on God's part as an eternal infliction would neces-
sarily be followed by the ' failure ' or cessation of the souls which
He has made. He declares that human souls are not made by
God strong enough to endure an endless torment. The reference
was, therefore, altogether misleading.
i8o
CHAPTER XVI.
ON THE OPPOSED DOCTRINES OF THE PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES
IN RELATION TO A FUTURE LIFE j AND ON CHRIST'S REJECTION
OF BOTH.
WE are indebted in recent times for an excellent summary of
all that is known respecting these two sects of the Jews to four
articles by Mr. Twisleton and Dr. Ginsburg in the great Biblical
Dictionaries of Dr. Smith and Dr. Kitto.* They offer to the in-
quirer a remarkable phenomenon in the history of thought, doubly
remarkable as appearing at the very end of the Mosaic Dispen-
sation, while standing also in close contemporary relation with
the teaching of the ' Word made Flesh.'
The date of their origin as distinct parties is somewhat obscure,
but under their present names their existence is not traceable
beyond the second or third centuries before Christ. Their
opinions and general line of thought belong to an earlier epoch.
Modern critics are agreed that the Sadducees, properly speaking,
were a priestly and aristocratic party, professing to ' stand upon
the old ways,' to adhere closely to the Mosaic law, taken in its
most literal and limited sense, to reject tradition, and that 'oral
law ' of unwritten explications and additions, which their oppo-
nents the Pharisees made the rule of all their thought and action.
The most prominent result of this general position was that they
rejected altogether the doctrine of a life to come. The account
given of their standpoint on this question by S. Luke in his two
historical books tallies in every respect with what is learned of
them from other sources. It is a misfortune that no work written
by a Sadducee remains, but so far as the main dispute between
them and their opponents is concerned there is no reason to
* Both Mr. Twisleton and Dr. Ginsburg rightly acknowledge their great
obligations to Geiger, Urschrift und Uebei'setznngen der Bibel.
DOCTRINE OF THE SADDUCEES. 181
imagine that less than justice has been done to them by the New
Testament writer. 'They deny/ says S. Luke, 'that there is
" any resurrection " ' (ot di/rtAeyorres dmo-rao-iv //// eu/cu XX. 27).
He adds (Acts xxiii. 8), ' For the Sadducees say that there is no
resurrection, neither angel nor spirit, but the Pharisees confess
both.'
Josephus says, ' They take away the survival of the soul
(SLafjiovrjv) and the punishments and rewards of Hades ' (De
Bell. Jud. ii. 8. 14). Again (in Antiq. xviii. r. 4) he says, 'Their
doctrine is that souls perish with the bodies ; ' literally ' their
doctrine makes souls to vanish together with the bodies,'
The later Rabbins give the same account of the Sadducean
opinion ; which is indeed a logical result from their general mode
of regarding the Law, and a natural reaction by antipathy against
the indefensible tenets of the Pharisees.
The basis, then, of the doctrine of the Sadducees was the
silence of Moses, the complete silence, as they thought, respecting
a future state. The less astonishment ought to be felt at this
conclusion when we remember that some of the foremost Jewish
and Christian scholars in modern Europe are equally convinced
that in the Pentateuch Moses preserves an unbroken silence re-
specting a future life or a resurrection. The opinion of Warburton
in the Divine Legation is earnestly maintained by the learned
French Jew, Grand-Rabbi Stein, in his work on Judaism in 1859.
Dr. Stein says :
* What causes most surprise in perusing the Pentateuch is the silence which
it seems to keep respecting the most fundamental and consoling truths. The
doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and of retribution beyond the tomb,
are able powerfully to fortify man against the violence of passions, the seductive
attraction of vice, and to strengthen his steps in the rugged path of virtue : of
themselves they smooth all the difficulties which are raised, all the objections
which are made, against the government of a Divine Providence ; and account
for the good fortune of the wicked, and the bad fortune of the just. But man
searches in vain for these truths which he desires so ardently ; he in vain devours
with avidity each page of Holy Writ ; he docs not find cither them, or the simple
doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, explicitly announced.'*
Dr. Stein then goes on to maintain that these truths of man's
natural immortality and future retribution were supplied by .the
* Smith's Dictionary, iii., p. 1088.
1 82 RABBI STEIN ON IMMORTALITY.
Oral Law. A citation of his argument will serve as an exposition
of the position of the Pharisees in Palestine, for his opinion and
theirs, if we may rely on Josephus, are identical. The Grand
Rabbi of Colmar proceeds :
'Nevertheless truths so consoling and of such an elevated order cannot
have been passed over in silence, and certainly God has not relied on the mere
sagacity of the human mind in order to announce them only implicitly. He
has transmitted them verbally, with the means of finding them in the text. A
supplementary tradition was necessary, indispensable : this tradition exists.
Moses received the law from Sinai, transmitted it to Joshua, Joshua to the
elders, the elders transmitted it to the prophets, and the prophets to the men
of the great Synagogue.' (Z<? Judaisme, ou la Vcrite sur le Talmud ', p. 15.)
This was, it is supposed, the position of the Pharisees. They
were compelled to acknowledge, with the Sadducees, that the
doctrines of the immortality of the soul, and a future eternal
existence in penal retribution, were not to be found in the Penta-
teuch, nor anywhere else in the Old Testament scriptures. Look-
ing, like Dr. Stein, with dismay upon their Law, that spoke no
single word of comfort on the natural dignity of man as an
immortal being, they took the course which was morally inevitable,
and invented or borrowed the doctrine on which that law observed
so fatal a silence. It was among the Pharisees who represented
and sympathised with the body of the nation, Dr. Ginsburg tells
us, ' that the glorious ideas were developed about the Messiah, the
kingdom of heaven, the immortality of the sou/, the world to come,
etc. ; ' and since Scripture was silent on man's natural Immortality
as the basis of the expectation of a future state for righteous and
wicked, they set up the ' Oral Law,' or immemorial tradition, as
the authority which supplemented the deficiencies of the Scriptures.*
Our direct knowledge of the psychology of the Pharisees de-
pends on the testimony of Josephus alone, and his testimony is
generally discredited on such subjects by the most learned men
* A valuable analysis of the book of Enoch will be found in Dr. Pusey's
work on the Prophet Daniel, p. 391. Dr. Pusey assigns the date of the chief
portion to the time of the Maccabees, but maintains that it consists of con-
tributions from several authors. It can be quoted, therefore, on either side of
the present discussion, because it expresses both the belief of the Pharisees in
endless suffering, and also that of the elder Jewish Church, that the righteous
shall live for ever, and the wicked be ' annihilated everywhere.' See Arch-
bishop Lawrence's Translation of Book of Enoch.
JOSEPHUS ON THE PHARISEES. 183
of both the Jewish and Gentile communions. Dr. Pocock's
sentence upon him is as follows :
' If we have not cited Josephus it is no wonder, since in giving the views of
the sects he names, respecting the other world, he seems to have used words
better suited to the fashions and the ears of Greeks and Romans, than such as
a scholar of the Jewish Law would understand, or deem expressive of his
meaning.' Not<z misc. inportam Mosis, c. 6.
To the same effect Professor Hudson says: 'The account
given by Josephus of the doctrine of the Pharisees is in a nomen-
clature to which the Jews were strangers, which is unknown to the
Talmud, but with which the Greeks, Romans, and Orientals
were quite familiar' (Debt and Grace, p. 224). Professor Marks
pronounces a similar unfavourable judgment. Nevertheless, this
witness of Josephus, such as it is, is decisive. He says, ' The
doctrine of the Pharisees was, that every soul is imperishable '
( Wars, II., viii., 14). In his own speech to his soldiers he expresses
himself thus ( Wars, III., viii., 5) : * The bodies of all men are cor-
ruptible, but the soul is ever immortal, and is a portion of the
divinity that inhabits our bodies?
[The fragment on Hades, formerly bound up with the works of
Josephus, and still cited by the Rev. Bodfield Hooper, in support
of similar opinions, is excluded from the best modern editions
of Josephus as spurious. It is rejected from the last Leipzig
edition of the Greek original, by Tauchnitz, as well as from all
the latest English and French translations.]
On the whole, though Josephus's temper and character create
much suspicion, there seems reason to believe that the Palestinian
Pharisees held the borrowed opinion of the soul's immortality,
founding their faith on the same arguments which satisfy their
successors, the modern Rabbins. In the Antiquities, his latest
work, Josephus re-affirms the statements in the Wars (XVIII.,
i., 1-4) :
* They believe that souls have an immortal vigour in them, and that under
the earth there will be rewards and punishments according as they have lived
virtuously or viciously in this life, and the latter are to be detained in an
everlasting prison, but the former shall have power to revive and live again, on
account of which doctrine they are able greatly to persuade the body of the
people. 5 *
* See Supplement to chapter xvii., for further treatment of Jewish opinion.
184 ARGUMENT OF THE SADDUCEES.
It is easy to understand that two parties, one sacerdotal,
aristocratic, sceptical, the other popular and devout, would react
upon the mass of each other's opinions, and render compromise
or modification impossible. The Sadducees would naturally object
to the Pharisaic party, ' that their notion of an oral law, accom-
panying and supplementing the defects of the Mosaic code, was
a fiction, equally worthless as history, and pernicious as religion.
If an oral law, containing a revelation of eternal life, was delivered
by Moses, it was by far the most important part of his institu-
tions j as much more important than the written law as eternity
is more important than time ; since to the oral law was due the
doctrine of man's immortality, not found in the Pentateuch. At
least, therefore, some plain intimation would have been given by
Moses in the written Law, that this all-important commentary
was ' committed to Joshua/ to be by him transmitted to posterity.
There is no such sentence; because the oral law is a dream, or
development, of the Pharisees. * It has been excogitated/ the
Sadducees would say, * in recent ages by successive teachers, bent
on moulding the Mosaic system to their own heathenish philo-
sophy ; and proving the thoroughly human character of its con-
tents by its gross irrationality, its conspicuous injustice, and its
frequent puerilities of interpretation. 5
The argument of the Sadducees would in fact be parallel to
that of the Protestant sects, against Roman Catholic tradition.
Christendom likewise has its ' oral law/ its unwritten tradition, on
which rests the fabric of modern ecclesiastical religion. But
Protestants reply to its lofty claims, and unhistoric assertions, by
simply pointing to the New Testament Scriptures. There is to
be found no Roman primacy of Peter, no provision for a Papal
Succession, no assertion of the authority of an Infallible Church
or Papal Oracle ; and the silence of Scripture is thought a
sufficient answer to the presumptuous speech of all succeeding
centuries.
But further, the Sadducees urged with victorious force, ' Why
is it, if this oral law (with its doctrine that "every soul is
imperishable," and destined to eternal joy or woe) has been in
existence since the days of Joshua, and through all the centuries
of Judaism till the times of Ezra and Malachi, why is it that
none of the prophets who have assisted in writing the canonical
POSITION OF THE PHARISEES. 185
books, and who must have been acquainted with the oral law,
have introduced into their histories or predictions, or sacred
psalms, one single sentence from it, conveying the " truths " which
Moses omitted ? ' By what signal fatality, we add, did their inspira-
tion lead them to avoid every reference to doctrines, so 'consoling'
and so 'necessary,' that Dr. Stein declares ' they cannot have been
passed over in silence, although they are ' nowhere to be found in
Holy Writ ' ? How can it be that ' truths ' concerning which
David, Solomon, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel are wholly silent, could,
as Dr. Ginsburg says, be * developed among the Pharisees ' of the
centuries just preceding Christ's advent, if they were indeed
handed down from the days of Moses ? Certainly the case of
the Sadducees as against the oral law was formidably strong : and
they occupied an unassailable position in declaring that the
imperishableness of the soul was not to be found in the Law of
Moses, or the Psalms, or the Prophets.
The position of the Pharisees, however, had its elements of
strength, and though they could not completely answer the Sad-
ducees, either as to the general basis of their belief in the rule of
faith, or as to the particular question of a future life, they felt that
in some way they were right ; and that their materialistic opponents
were distinctly in conflict with the moral instincts of mankind,
and not less with many plain declarations of the Old Testament
Scriptures. It was this fidelity of theirs which, notwithstanding
their mistakes, gave them a mighty and a desirable influence upon
the mass of the Jewish nation.
There is something in the human soul, except when it has been
brutalised by savage life, or seared as with a hot iron by sensuality
or by perverse reasoning, which instinctively looks forward to
retribution. The Pharisees took their stand upon this fact, and
so far they were right. Men, too, who live with God here are
inspired with a profound moral conviction, as was Socrates, that
in some way, whether it can be scientifically argued out or not,
they shall live with God hereafter. The Old Testament Scriptures,
in their own method, support both of these expectations. It is
impossible to admit, with the Sadducees, that Moses designed no
lesson of hope for good men, when he began his history with an
account of the paradise lost, and followed that account with so
1 86 TRUTH DIVIDED BETWEEN THE TWO PARTIES.
many indications of the persistent grace of the reconciled God,
in the histories of the Patriarchs. The ascension of Enoch, the
promise of an everlasting inheritance, and of the eternal God
Himself as a ' Reward ' to Abraham, even if they stood alone,
sufficed to shatter the wretched system of the Sadducees, and to
establish the hope of Eternal Life for the just. The hypothesis
of an oral law would have been a pardonable invention, if no
more solid ground of hope had been furnished of a world to
come. It was impossible for spiritual and thoughtful men to
assent to the frightful positivist dogma which wrapped in thick
darkness at once the destinies of the human race and the character
of God.
Yet no escape from that dark conclusion was known to the
Pharisees of that age except by the assertion of the un-biblical
doctrine of the soul's Immortality. The idea of an immortality
which was a gift of God under redemption alone, and not a
natural attribute of humanity, had probably died out of the
general Jewish mind in the last ages, just as the same idea has
died out, and from the same causes, from the later popular mind
of Christendom. The notion of a God-given and conditional
immortality, of which the righteous alone shall partake, had
ceased to exist in the mind of most of the readers of the Old
Testament Scriptures, as it has now ceased to suggest itself to
most of the readers of the New. We shall show further on that
this was the faith of the primitive Christian Church, but was
gradually lost sight of, through the growing influence of Oriental,
Greek, and Roman modes of thought in the following centuries.
In the same manner, we doubt not, it had gradually been lost in
the growing humanisation of Judaism after the days of the Great
Synagogue. The modern Rabbins are quite right in speaking of
the doctrine of natural immortality as an ' oral ' tradition. It is
the voice of man supplementing the revelations of a God whom
he has ceased to understand.
There are, however, dynamics of opinion. The absence of a
single idea from a system of thought sometimes leads to and com-
pels ages of controversy. The existence of two such parties as
the Sadducees and Pharisees was a necessity of the times, under
existing one-sided conditions of belief. The Sadducees occupied
CHRIST'S REJECTION OF BOTH DOCTRINES. 187
an unassailable post when they declared that Moses and the
Prophets knew nothing of the Immortality of the Soul as a basis
of hope in futurity. The Pharisees were equally in strength when
they declared that the Scripture proclaimed the promise of eternal
life. But both alike erred, from failing to grasp the truth which
would have reconciled them that man has lost the hope of life
eternal under the law, and regains it by the grace of God in
redemption.
The conduct of the Incarnate Life towards each of these parties
throws a flood of light upon the cause of their honest differences,
and the true mode of reconciliation. The existence of the two
sects seems to have been permitted by Divine Providence as the
most effectual method of leading men to the Christ who alone can
open the gates of Life Eternal to the dead.
Towards the Sadducees our Lord, as was inevitable, presented
a front of stern rebuke. Their professed zeal for the letter of the
law of Moses won them no favour with 'the Prince of Life.'
They prided themselves on a theology built exclusively on reve-
lation. Yet they 'erred, not knowing the Scriptures.' 'That
the dead are raised, said he, ' even Moses showed at the bush,
when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham. For he is not
a God of the dead (veKpwi/), but of the living, for all live unto
him' (Luke xx. 37-8). It must be noted that this argument was
used to prove the resurrection, not primarily the survival of the
soul. That it is S. Luke's design to represent our Lord as
proving the resurrection, and not simply survival, is certain from
his use of the verb eyeipw both in his gospel and in the Acts
of the Apostles, which is strictly confined to denote resurrection.
But how does the word of God to Moses prove the resurrection
of Abraham ? It is not that the phrase, ' I am the . God of
Abraham,' proves that his spirit exists somewhere, although that
also was true. It is that the spirit alone of Abraham was not
Abraham ; and that if God was still the * God of Abraham,' it
was because Abraham, sleeping in Machpelah, was to rise from
the dead to enjoy God for ever. The relationship of a ' God '
looked forward as well as backward and He who IS ' calls those
things which are not as though they were.' In this sense, then,
all 'live unto Him.' Those who are to rise from the dead and
to live for ever, are, in the view of God, alive now ; and therefore
1 88 CHRIST AND THE PHARISEES.
He calls Himself their God, ' because He has prepared for them
a city' (Heb. xi.).
Certain of the Scribes, of the Pharisaic party, exclaimed,
' Master, Thou hast well spoken.' And the Sadducees were
effectually * put to silence ' (e^t/x-wcre, Matt. xxii. 34). The
priestly party of materialists were summarily put to flight by
Him who came to speak ' the words of life eternal.'
Did, then, Christ turn a more sympathetic aspect towards
their opponents the Pharisees ? Every reader of the New
Testament knows that His earthly ministry was spent almost
in one continuous battle with the supporters of the Oral Law.
Christ was short and sharp with the Sadducees ; but in dealing
with the Pharisees his speech became as terrible as a thunder-
storm. ' He denounced them/ says Mr. Twisleton, ' in the
bitterest language, and in the sweeping charges of hypocrisy
which He made against them, He might even, at first sight,
seem to have departed from that spirit of meekness and gentle-
ness in judgment which is one of His own most characteristic
precepts.' Christ must have satisfied the Sadducees themselves
in the thoroughness with which He exposed and denounced the
Pharisaic fiction of the ' oral law ' as a rule of faith and practice.
* Full well,' cried He, ' ye reject the commandment of God, that
ye may keep your own tradition? l Woe unto you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites ! Ye have taken away the key of know-
ledge : ye enter not in yourselves, and them that were entering
in ye hindered.' Neither did Christ enter into any distinction
between the part of the Pharisaic system which was better and
that which was worse. He linked them in His fearful anathemas
along with the Sadducees, and denounced in one breath the
' doctrine ' of both. Then they understood that He bade them
beware of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees' (Matt,
xvi. 12, StSaxfc).
Our Lord on no occasion took part with the Pharisees on their
own ground, as against the Sadducees. If the Pharisaic doctrine
of the oral law (the doctrine also of modern Rabbinical Judaism)
were the truth that the ' soul of man is imperishable,' and that
the expectation of a future eternal state is built upon man's im-
mortal nature, there was not only no reason why the Incarnate
Wisdom of God should not confirm the doctrine of the tradi-
CHRIST AND THE SADDUCEES, 189
tionalists, but there was every reason why He should do so, and
in the clearest language. But from this Christ steadfastly abstained.
He was not of the sect of the Pharisees, any more than of the
Sadducees.
What, then, was the position practically taken up by the Lord
of Glory between the two contending factions ?
(i) To us it appears that He did contradict in His own way the
errors of both parties, and asserted the truths which they main-
tained. The Sadducees were in the right in affirming that Moses
wrote nothing respecting an eternal state depending on man's
nature, or the natural immortality of his soul. (2) The Pharisees
were right in affirming that the writings of Moses contained clear
indications of eternal life for ' the sons of God/ a hope confirmed
by all subsequent revelation. (3) But this life is not of man, nor
in man's nature. It is the gift of God in Redemption, His un-
speakable gift in His Son. The words of Christ cover precisely
this ground. ' Ye search the Scriptures,' said Christ to the
Pharisees, ' for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they
are they which testify of Me. But ye will not come to ME, that
ye may have life.' %
1 Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and died ; this
is the bread that came down from heaven, that a man may eat
thereof and not die' (John vi. 49, 50).
' Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh and
drink the blood of the Son of Man, ye have no life in yourselves '
(o/ eavrois ver. 53).
This teaching caused a combination of both Sadducees and
Pharisees against Him. They, who could agree in nothing else,
agreed to ' kill the Prince of Life,' and were instant with loud
voices for His death. The Sadducees were ' grieved ' that the
apostles should ' preach, through Jesus, the resurrection of the
dead.' And the party of oral tradition, Jewish and Gentile, the
party which holds the doctrine of natural immortality in man, will
combine in every age, even with materialists and infidels, in ex-
communicating those who teach that Life Eternal is God's gift
to men, through the blood-shedding of the ' Lamb.' For those
who think that salvation is man's work towards God, or that
Immortality is man's native attribute, never come to terms with
igo CHRISTS DOCTRINE ON ETERNAL LIFE.
those who maintain that salvation is God's work towards man, in
all the stages of its development, and that it is Christ the Lord
who is the Life of the World. Those also who have learned
these truths can never enter into a compromise with the ' sect
of the Pharisees' however splendid their virtues because the
assertion of man's natural immortality is the direct cause of the
creation of a God-dishonouring theology, carrying with it generally
the dogma o misery that shall never end, which has done more
than any other notion to hinder men from coming to the Living
God for life immortal.*
* See further on Pharisaic opinion, and its right to determine the sense ot
New Testament language, in the Supplement to chapter xvii. ad fat. In the
same .Supplement will be found a sketch of modern Rabbinical doctrine on
eschatology (3rd Edition).
BOOK THE THIRD.
THE NEW TESTAMENT DOCTRINE ON THE OBJECT
OF THE DIVINE INCARNA TION, AND THE METHOD
OF REDEMPTION.
193
CHAPTER XVII.
THE INCARNATION OF THE LIFE; OR THE LOGOS MADE FLESH
THAT MAN MAY LIVE ETERNALLY.
SECTION I.
THE doctrine of a distinction, of Persons in the Godhead, and of
the union of the Personal Word of God with the human nature of
Jesus of Nazareth, is, and always has been, the great stumbling-
block in the way of the reception of Christianity by the nations
of the world.
The Jews as a nation have, from the beginning of the gospel
through all following centuries until now, maintained a stout op-
position to a doctrine which they believe to be as profane as
baseless.* The Mohammedans have learned from the Koran to
regard as an assault upon the majesty of the One Lord of Heaven
and Earth the notion that He has a Son or an Equal. And
Unitarians, to be numbered within and without the churches by
myriads in Christendom, whether bearing a distinctive name or
not, have in every generation held fast to the belief that original
Christianity was marred by no such blot on its brilliant disc as the
exultation of Jesus into the place and name of Deity.
It is easy to suggest by anticipation arguments on every side
against the dogma of the incarnation of the Logos. The whole
world of human probabilities is opposed to it. That the Godhead
should be itself distinguished into Persons, such as may be denoted
by the relationships of Fatherhood and Sonship, or by such
images as that of Mind and Speech, or Thought and Word, is
* The Logos of Philo was impersonal, and he would have shrunk with horror
at the idea of its personal incarnation. Even Dr. Davidson admits, 'an irr-
portant link is wanting between Philonism and the theory of the fourth
gospel.'
13
194 CHRIST'S DEITY THE CRUX OF THE GOSPEL.
itself a notion altogether foreign to the circle of ideas respecting
Deity gathered by the study of matter and mind. But that there
should be three distinct Persons in the Godhead ; that One of
these should lay aside the * form of God ' and descend to be born
of a Virgin, so as to become part of the integral personality of
the Christ; and that this occurred 1877 years ago in Palestine, in
the Son of Mary, is a proposition of prima facie incredibility
so confounding to sense and reason that the tendency of the
thinking public, learned and unlearned, has ever been largely in
the direction of scepticism or resolute denial. And when to this
has been erroneously added, that the object of the Incarnation
was to constitute a spotless personality, which Eternal Venge-
ance might strike for the salvation of sinners, a personality of worth
so transcendent that His sufferings might outweigh the deserts
of men in everlasting misery, the reason assigned has rendered
the ' fact ' a thousand times more incredible than it was before.
Nevertheless the documents of apostolic Christianity, if dealt
with by the same rules which govern the interpretation of other
books, afford no fair escape from the conclusion that the body of
Jesus of Nazareth was the shrine and temple of Deity, in such a
sense as has never been true of any other man, however God-
inspired. After every deduction from the doctrine on the side of
its Athanasian form ; after stripping the statement of the article
of every special ecclesiastical peculiarity, even those of the second
and third centuries, when, as Dr. Liddon acknowledges, ' the
language of the ante-Nicene Fathers was such as to allow of,
rather than invite, an orthodox interpretation,' there still remains
so complex a mass of evidence that all the apostles and evan-
gelists desired to represent their Master as the Son of God,
in no simply moral or human sense, but in the sense of a living
incarnation of One Person of a tripersonal Godhead, that it is
vain to struggle against the argument. Is it not better to reject
Christianity altogether than to receive it in the gross, and then
explain it away in detail, on the theory of a simply human per-
sonality in the Saviour ?
The three synoptic gospels varied editions, under the different
circumstances of the three great churches of Palestine, Italy, and
Greece of the one primitive history of Jesus, though having
THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS. 195
for their object the presentation of the wonderful Humanity,
present that never-fading portrait to the world crowned with a
divine aureola, which leaves no reasonable doubt that they re-
garded this Person, with more or less distinctness of thought,
as a Present God. Two of them commence their history by
an assertion of His miraculous conception ; certainly the most
effectual hindrance to European faith in their narrative, supposing
their desire was to be believed ; and one which has no meaning
apart from an implied Divine Incarnation. They represent their
Master as assuming a tone of personal authority unknown to all
previous legislators and prophets, an authority extending even to
the raging elements and unclean spirits. They represent His
very piety and virtue in a style which, however consistent with the
filial subjection of the Son to the Eternal Father, is wholly un-
suitable to a mortal, and which compels the reader to choose
between the alternatives of true Deity in the Saviour, or a blas-
phemous impiety in His pretensions as a man.* If Jesus were
not more than man, then He was certainly much less than a good
man of the ordinary description. The rational alternatives to-day,
as of old, are those of ' stoning ' Him or * worshipping ' Him.
To maintain that He was a holy person, as a man, is consistent
only in those who maintain that He was infinitely more than man.
For if merely human, His l piety ' was of a type to encourage by
example the most profane assumptions on the part of every one
who professes to be a teacher of righteousness.
Besides this, the synoptic gospels contain pretensions which
are intelligible only on the theory that their writers believed the
subject of their memoirs was the incarnate Son of God. They
show Him to us as receiving a ' worship ' (Matt. xiv. 33) which
angels themselves are said to have refused when offered by these
same apostles (Rev. xxii. 8). They show Him to us as pronounc-
ing absolution from sins without reference to the delegation of
His authority as a minister of heaven, assuming in fact the attri-
bute and the tone of Deity; as was objected by learned Jews who
heard Him often commit the supposed offence. They depict
Him as claiming the possession of a nature which none but the
Father knows ' or fathoms ; and as declaring absolutely that
* See this argument drawn out with wonderful power and beauty in ch. x.
of Bushnell on Nature and the Super natiiral.
196 AUTHORSHIP OF FOURTH GOSPEL.
1 no being knows the Infinite Nature except Himself, and those to
whom He is pleased to reveal it' (Matt. xi. 27). In teaching us
the final destiny of men and angels, He speaks of Himself as the
arbiter of doom (Matt. xxv.). The sublime scenes of His Bap-
tism, and of His Transfiguration by night on the southern summits
of the Hermon, when the synoptics tell us that God spoke of
Him as His ' Beloved Son,' are difficult to reconcile with any
conception ot Jesus simply as a good man, or as perhaps the
first and best teacher of virtue among millions of others; but
entirely agree with the idea of a Sonship which is Divine.*
S. Matthew ends his gospel by openly associating the Son with
the Father and the Holy Spirit, in the form of baptism.
If we pass on to the Fourth Gospel, it is necessary to assign a
reason for setting aside recent doubts as to its authorship by the
Apostle John. Suspicion has been thrown on its apostolic author-
ship of late years, (i) in consequence of the noticeable superiority
of its Greek to that of the Apocalypse, which was undoubtedly
John's, and belongs to an earlier date ; (2) in consequence of the
apparent lateness of its general acceptance and quotation, no
decisive examples of citation occurring before the first third of
he second century ; (3) in consequence of its internal character.f
(i) The primary argument for the Johannine authorship is what
may be fairly called the unbroken external tradition of the earliest
ages, the like authority on which we depend for our knowledge of
the authorship of the other anonymous books of Scripture, or of
the Odes of Horace, or of the ^Eneid of Virgil. (2) Secondly,
there is the internal evidence of John's striking individuality as
depicted in the three synoptic gospels, the Acts of the Apostles,
and his undoubted Epistles and Apocalypse ; and which appears
in every line of this gospel also, at least to those who possess the
critical dramatic faculty that qualifies them to form a judgment.
(3) There is the exceeding holiness of the book, which it is not
* This argument (on the synoptics) is drawn out exhaustively in Dr. Dorner's
first volume on the Person of Christ.
t The history of the attack on the Fourth Gospel will be found in Kaur,
Strauss, Keim, Davidson, and Taylor ; that of the defence, in Bleek, Dorner,
Ebrarcl, Mayer, Schneider, Godet, Liddon, Farrar, and Beyschlag. Dr. Matt.
Arnold (Contemp. J?ev., May, 1875) ma y be fairly reckoned on the same side,,
though his suggestions are not original.
AUTHORSHIP OF FOURTH GOSPEL. 197
conceivable could proceed from a writer consciously forging the
narrative, under the pseudonym of the holy apostle an argument
which will produce the deepest impression on those who are
' spiritual' (i Cor. ii. 14).
How, then, are we to account for the late diffusion of this
gospel, and its remarkably late quotation by writers of the east
and west ; and how shall we account for the improvement in the
Greek as compared with the Apocalypse ?
The following replies seem to offer a strong appearance of
truth.
(1) When John was imprisoned in Patmos, almost in solitude,
he carried with him the provincial Greek of his early Palestinian
days. In that Greek he wrote the Apocalypse.* When later in
life, long after the destruction of Jerusalem, he lived at Ephesus,
and wrote his gospel, he had the advantage of daily association
with men who spoke accurately grammatical Greek, from whom
S. John would gradually gather a similar accuracy, or even receive
editorial assistance. This would account for the improvement of
the style of the gospel upon the Apocalypse.
(2) As to the latter diffusion of the gospel, it deserves to be
remembered that the fifty years following on the destruction of
Jerusalem, from A.D. 70 to A.D. 120, were fifty of the most terrible
years the world had ever seen. They were years of war, confusion,
turbulence, and fearful massacre of both Jews and Gentiles. In
such an epoch a new book would perhaps spread itself less rapidly
than in more peaceful and orderly times.
(3) There was, however, a further and far deeper reason for
* For an accessible account of these defects in the Greek of the Apocalypse
see Alford's Prolegomena. The author of Supernatural Religion (ii. 406) thus
describes the two works : ' The language in which the Apocalypse is written
is the most Hellenistic Greek of the N. T. ' ' The barbarous Greek and abrupt,
inelegant diction, are natural to the unlettered fisherman.' Of the Gospel he
says, ' Instead of the Hellenistic Greek, abrupt and barbarous, we find the
purest and least Hebraistic Greek of any of the gospels, and a refinement and
beauty of composition whose charm has captivated the world. ' On the ground
of this difference the author rejects the fourth gospel. Dr. Luthardt agrees
with this criticism, but rejects the conclusion. ' As regards grammar the
Gospel is written in correct, the Apocalypse in incorrect Greek ;' but Dr. L.
strangely accounts for this difference by referring to the sovereignty of the
Spirit, who chose to deliver the prophecy in inferior and the gospel in superior
language.
198 LATE RECEPTION OF JOHN'S GOSPEL.
the later reception of S. John's Gospel; and this is found in
its contents. The fact of its later diffusion, now brought
forward as an argument against its apostolic authorship, was
rather in part the result of its late composition, and the effect
of the peculiar character of its two main lessons. These two
prominent doctrines, of the Personal Deity of the Christ, and
of man's Immortality depending on Him alone, were as much
opposed to all ancient thought as they are to modern
philosophy and modern theology. They could be effectually
taught in the first age of the Church only when the ground
had been somewhat prepared by the circulation of the gospels
of the Divine Humanity. The lesson of the Human Divinity
was for the later rather than for the earlier intelligence of
the first century. Thus the writings of John, both from their
date and their subject, necessarily had a somewhat later circu-
lation than the synoptic gospels, or even than those epistles in
which Paul and Peter, building on the same bases, set forth
rather the effects of Redemption on man's relations to his Judge
and Master. { I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot
bear them now,' are words which were true of the Church of the
first century even after the coming of the Comforter. There
are some things which cannot be explained thoroughly until the
complex whole is explained together. The divine incarnation,
the sacrificial death of Christ, His ascension, the free pardon of
sinners, the world-wide aspect of redemption, the final issue in an
endless life, all these are parts of a system, incredible in fragments;
and you must expound the whole at once to render any single
portion thoroughly intelligible. But however desirable, it was
very difficult to teach these mysteries all at once and fully, to the
first generation of men who had seen the Lord. The humanity
of Christ both revealed and obscured His Deity ; and until His
Personal Deity was thoroughly understood, His life-giving power
could not be fully believed in. Thus these two correlated
doctrines, of the Deity of Christ, and of our Immortal Life in
Him, were so closely connected that they could not be completely
divulged except in combined radiance, as complementary colours
of one heavenly sunbeam of truth and godliness ; and this process
belonged to the later stages of the Church's earlier life. So
much I venture to propose hypothetically in explanation of the
OBJECT OF JOHN TO DEIFY JESUS. 199
later reception and citation of the fourth gospel, and in vindication
of its Johannine origin. The value of these observations will,
I think, appear more clearly when the present argument is
completed.
What is it, then, that we discover in this gospel ? It does
indeed appear to be an intolerable abuse of criticism to pretend
that Christendom has been mistaken in the east and in the west,
in the north and in the south, in the general drift of this book
and to deny that the manifest intention of the writer was first of
all to Deify Jesus. Dr. Vance Smith almost allows that this was
his aim. The phenomenon indeed is singular and unexampled
in history. There has been many an illustrious teacher in every
land ; but the last thought which has occurred to his immediate
friends and followers, immediately after death, has been to give
out that he was the Infinite God incarnate. This can scarcely
be maintained respecting the Buddhist sages who have since
been regarded as avatars of Divinity. Plato and Xenophon
would never have ventured on declaring that Socrates was the
Infinite Mind made flesh. No modern biographer would have
found it possible to assert the Divinity of any artist, theologian,
or man of science ; nor would the imagination have ever entered
a healthy brain. In Roman times, after their deaths, the
emperors were regarded as in a low sense Divine (Divus Julius,
Divus Augustus, Divus Titus\ but no friend or flatterer thought
that by ascribing to them that title they asserted that in Augustus,
or Tiberius, or Titus the Supreme God dwelt as a part of their
personality; or dreamed of teaching, in a historical book, that
during their lives they spoke and acted as if they pretended to be
Jupiter in disguise.
But John goes much farther than this. He, a Jew, a member
of a nation where the first principle of thought was monotheism ;
where the gulf between the finite and the Infinite, the creature
and Creator, was held to be impassable and unfathomable ; where
for a man to claim divine honours was held to be the consummation
of wickedness ; where men would die rather than allow the statue
of Caligula in the temple ; where no such phantasy had ever
crossed the mind of any Hebrew since the formation of the
Commonwealth, John distinctly asserts of this peasant- carpenter
200 JOHN'S DOCTRINE OF THE LOGOS.
of Nazareth, his Master and Friend, that He was the 'Word made
Flesh,' that Word by whom ' everything was made that was made.'
The history of the miraculous conception, with which Matthew
begins his gospel, was a trifle in comparison with this portentous
declaration with which John commences his. Let us note the
precision of his language. He says,
' In the beginning was the Logos ; and the Logos was with the
(great) Theos ' (this is the force of Trpos TOV edV) ; and the
Logos was Theos ' (without the definite article : He was A Divine
Person, not the great original Theos,* or Deity).
The evangelist then further elaborates his idea that the LOGOS
was a Divine Person, the Agent of the Father in creation, and
existing before all worlds. In verse 14 he distinctly asserts
the Incarnation of the personal Logos, who was Theos ; and the
whole gospel is one prolonged commentary on this claim which
he makes for Jesus, to be the Divine Creator of the Universe
(verse 3), the Representative Deity, in human form. Again and
again he carefully details discussions between ' the Jews ' and
Jesus Christ, in which he affirms that,
1. He came down from Heaven, yet was in Heaven, iii. 13, 31 ;
2. That He was God's ' only-begotten ' Son, whom God gave to the world
for its salvation, iii. 16 ;
3. That what things soever the Father doeth, these doeth the Son likewise,
v. 17, 19 ('making Himself equal with God') ;
4. That as the Father raises up the dead, so could He, v. 21 ;
5. That God had committed the judgment of the whole world to Him, v. 22 ;
6. That at His voice all the dead should rise, v. 29 ;
7. That the Father Himself attested these claims, v. 36 ;
8. That lie was the Bread which came down from Heaven to give life unto
the world, vi. passim ;
9. That before Abraham was He was, viii. 38 ;
* Origen (in Johan. 46) points out the force of the definite article in the
second clause, and of its omission in the third clause of this verse. Af/crlov Us
avToiQ K. T. X. 'This scruple of many pious persons may be thus solved. We
must tell them that He who is of Himself God, is o 9fo, but that whatever is
God, besides that underived One (avroBtoQ), being so by communication of His
Divinity, cannot so properly be styled 6 9t> the great God, but fooc, a divine
person (ov% 6 06of dXXa Oibc; Kvpuurfpov Xlyoiro).
See also Dr. J. H. Newman's Tract on the Principatus of the Father in
which he, though with great caution, uses language similar in effect.
DOCTRINE OF THE LOGOS. 201
10. That He came forth from God, and went to God, xiii. 1-3 ;
11. That He should send the Holy Spirit of God, as the Comforter, xvi. 7 ;
12. That He had a glory with the Father before the world was, xvii. 5 ;
13. That He and the Father were ev, one, x. 30.
And these statements, powerful when taken in isolated citation,
are far stronger when looked at in their connection, so that those
who can eliminate from this gospel the doctrine of the personal
Deity of Christ, as the Son of God, can perform any feat of trans-
formation on the words of the New Testament, or of any other
writing.
The English Prayer Book was ' proved ' by Tract No. 90,
under the auspices of the Oxford conspirators, to permit prac-
tically of a Roman interpretation ; and the gospel of John, under
similar treatment, may be regarded as the work of an apostle who
was a Unitarian.
For ourselves while rendering just homage to the many noble
qualities of our Unitarian brethren, and lamenting, in the interests
of truth, the excesses of the falsely so-called Athanasian orthodoxy,
which have occasioned and perhaps excused in part the reaction
towards a purely humanitarian view of Christ's person, we must
nevertheless abjure as scarcely deserving refutation these efforts
of critical artifice. To us Christ is the Lord, the all-creating
' Word made flesh,' God over all, blessed for ever.' ' Being in
the form of (Beov) a Divine Person, He thought it not a thing to
be snatched at to be equal to a Theos, but emptied Himself, and
took on Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness
of men ; wherefore God (6 cos), the supreme Theos, hath highly
exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in
heaven, and things in earth, and of the under-world, and that
every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is LORD, to the
glory of God the Father' (Phil. ii. 6-n). He is 'the First
and the Last the Beginning and the Ending, which is, and
which was, and which is to come, the Ruler of the Universe '
(Apoc. i. 8; 6
We cannot then separate from Apostolic Christianity the
transcendent mystery of the incarnation of the Logos. It is
the foundation of the whole system. If the New Testament
202 INFINITE GREATNESS OF CHRIST.
was written to teach modern Unitarianism, there is no series of
books on earth more elaborately contrived to fail of their pur-
pose. There is none which so much requires an apparatus of
special criticism to bring out that sense ; for they leave on the
minds of all who will permit them to make their natural impres-
sion an ever-deepening conviction that the doctrine of Christ's
Deity is the Shekinah of the temple, and the secret of man's
Redemption. The writers leave also the impression that this
doctrine was as great a natural improbability to themselves as it
is to us ; that it was gradually forced on them by the over-
powering evidence of the facts, by a divine inspiration, and
by the words of Jesus Himself, supported, and proved to be true,
by a blaze of miracles which rendered unbelief impossible.
Eighteen hundred years of further meditation on this sublime
mystery have not, however, lessened the wonderfulness of the
message, that the everlasting Nature has joined itself once and
for ever to humanity in the Christ. On the contrary the thought
of it, as the vastness of the universe is further disclosed, weighs
more and more heavily upon the labouring mind; yet, while
there open through this gateway infinite prospects of glory,
one beyond the other crowding on the vision of the enraptured
spirits who contemplate them in earth and heaven, the evidence
brightens as the future unfolds ; and though the fact of the In-
carnation ' passeth knowledge/ the soul is compelled to recognise
in the loftiest conceptions of man's destiny through redemption
the nearest approaches to the truth of God. The Eternal Love
which created us has given Itself, its All, its ' heights and depths
and lengths and breadths' (TO. Trdvra Rom. viii. 32) in His
Only Begotten Son !
SECTION II.
We have now to direct the current of our special argument
into this broad and mighty stream of truth on the Deity of Christ
which makes glad the city of God, a tributary to its fulness, as
we believe, having its origin also in the heights of divine revela-
tion. In executing this purpose, it will be necessary to direct
continued attention to that gospel of John which is the object of
TRIPLE PERSONALITY OF CHRIST. 203
so natural a hostility to those who misconceive the scope and
method of man's redemption by the Incarnation.
It will be observed by careful readers of this gospel that there
run throughout its course two parallel lines of thought and speech.
The first has been already noted the assertion, chiefly in Christ's
varied and solemnly reported words, of the Incarnation of the
Divine Nature in His person : and an incarnation or ' becoming
flesh' (i. 14) so real and so vital that the Logos became as truly
a part of the complex personality of the Christ, as is the thinking
power a part of man's integral being. This union of the Divine
and Human natures is represented as so close as to constitute the
Logos a Man, and the Manhood Divine : so close, that when
Jesus speaks of ' I,' it may be either, or equally, the body, the
mind, or the Eternal Spirit, which speaks: (i) 'I thirst;' (3) 'I
will, be thou clean ; ' (3) ' I will raise it up at the last day.' He
was, as the Creed declares, ' Perfect God and Perfect Man, of
a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting \ who although He
be God and Man, yet He is not two, but one Christ ; One not
by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the
Manhood into God One altogether not by confusion of sub-
stance, but by unity of Person. For as the reasonable soul and
flesh is one man, so God and Man is one Christ.'
The second line of doctrine which runs throughout the gospel
of John from the first paragraph to the last, is that this Incarnation
of the Divine Logos of God has for its object TO GIVE LIFE
ETERNAL TO MANKIND. This is repeated more than thirty times
in the most emphatic manner. And if the epistles of John are
added to the account, it will be found that nearly fifty times does
this apostle declare the gift of LIFE, or LIFE EVERLASTING, to be
the end of the Incarnation. A few striking examples of the
phraseology may be selected.
(1) In the proem of the gospel the Divine Logos is described
thus : * In Him was Life, and the Life was the light of men.'
(2) In conversing with Nicodemus, Jesus declared that ' God
so loved the world as to give His Only Begotten Son, that who-
soever believeth in Him should not perish, but should have
everlasting life ' (ya\ COT-OA^TOU, dAA' e^ tpty auovioi/j John iii. 16).
(3) He assured the Samaritan woman that the water which He
204 LIFE ETERNAL BY THE INCARNATION.
would give would be within a fountain of water springing up to
everlasting life (iv. 14).
(4) In the fifth chapter Christ declares again and again that
with Him rests the power of raising the dead, and giving them
life (wo7roi). 'He that heareth my word and believeth hath
everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is
passed from death unto life.'
(5) In the sixth chapter there is a prolonged argument with the
Jews to prove that He was the Bread of Life ; that the fathers
ate manna in the desert and died, but this was the bread that
came down from heaven that a man should eat thereof and not
die, Kat /xr/ aTroflavT/, verse 50. The statement is reiterated in
every possible form that His work on earth is to give life, ever-
lasting life, to prevent men from dying, from perishing. He
declares that whoso eateth His flesh and drinketh His blood,
hath eternal life, and He will raise Him up at the last day, ver. 54.
* As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so
he that eateth me, even he shall live by me' ' He that eateth of
this bread shall live for ever,' vers. 57, 58. * Except ye eat the
flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have no life in
yourselves,' tv eavrots, ver. 53. This discourse, delivered in the
synagogue of Capernaum, deserves careful and consecutive study,
for it may be taken as the fairest battle-ground of this whole con-
troversy. What is said elsewhere is but a repetition of what is
here declared with a persistence and fulness which are fitted to
arouse earnest inquiry as to the design of our Saviour's words.
(6) S. Paul and S. Peter have many expressions of the same
character affirming that we owe our ' everlasting life ' to that
Christ, that He is our 'Life' our 'hope of life,' and apart
from Him we shall ' die,' 'perish,' and be ' destroyed; ' but although
at least fifty times such expressions occur, no practical purpose
would be answered by multiplying here parallel quotations from
their writings.
What, then, if we may follow the natural and proper sense of
these declarations of Christ, is the result to which they lead us ?
Is it not THAT THE VERY OBJECT OF THE INCARNATION IS TO
IMMORTALISE MANKIND that man can live for ever only by
spiritual union with the Incarnate Deity ; that apart from such
union man will 'die, perish, and be destroyed'
NATURAL SENSE OF CHRIST'S WORDS. 205
When we wish to express the idea of perpetual existence, or
the loss of being, there is no language in which we can so naturally
and properly convey our meaning as in these words of Christ.
Some will live for ever, others will perish. Were it not for certain
extrinsic considerations, derived from foreign fields of thought,
no one would ever have imagined a different sense. Unless a
reader had been warned beforehand that every man's soul, being
destined by its nature to last for ever, and not to die (being
im-mortal) he must therefore not put upon the terms of Christ's
discourses any meaning which will contradict that doctrine of
natural immortality, he would not have dreamed of imposing
a figurative sense upon them, or of making life eternal stand for
happiness, vc perishing stand for endless misery. It is altogether
due to foreign and unusual considerations, if readers have learned
to take such words in an unnatural sense. For to live for ever
signifies to live for ever, and to perish signifies not to live for ever
but to lose organised and conscious being. That is the first and
the natural meaning of the words.
Moreover, it is the very meaning of them taken in constructing
the favourite phrase, an Immortal Soul. An \m-mortal soul is a
soul that will not die ; and to die there is taken for ceasing to exist
(not for being miserable] ; so that every one who uses the phrase
' an immortal soul,' and maintains that man possesses one, shows
us what is the natural and proper sense of dying, by saying in Latin
that the soul will not die. It is obvious, then, that, unless there
be some reason of overpowering strength, this is the sense in
which the words must be taken in the gospel. This is not to
deny that in God's distribution of life and death to moral beings
there will be, and must be, glorious or dreadful secondary associa-
tions of thought connected with these words in the one case of
holiness and happiness, in the other of sin and misery ; but it is
to deny that in consequence of those secondary associations the
terms lose their primary, radical, and proper signification, or
become mere tropes and figures of speech for a life which is not
literally life at all, or for a death Avhich is not the breaking up
of humanity.
That the persistent resolution, through many ages, to strip
these converse terms Life and Death, in their application to
Christ's work and Man's destiny, of their proper signification, has
206 ECLIPSE OF FAITH BY MYSTICISM.
resulted in eclipsing fully one-half of the light of the Sun of
Righteousness, of the glory of Christ, of the truth of Christianity,
is a conviction deeply fixed in the mind of the present writer ;
and that this fatal result has followed from the stealthy advance
in the early church of error on the soul's natural immortality has
already been partly shown in previous pages. A false psychology
throws a mist over the whole firmament of truth ; but it is surely
very difficult, after the writing of the last twenty years, to main-
tain that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul has any
unquestionable foundation in biology, in metaphysics, or in Scrip-
ture.* Is not its chief source the self-estimate of men destitute
of the knowledge of God, and grasping at a shadow when the
substance has escaped them ?
In order to determine this question, whether we owe the pros-
pect of immortality to the natural constitution of our spiritual
being, or, to the grace of God in Redemption, to the Incarna-
tion of the Life of God in the Christ, to a divine regenerative
process restricted to the sons of God, which contemplates the
whole humanity, body as well as soul, in its transforming and
immortalising action, we fall back on the generally accepted
principle of biblical interpretation. If the writings of the apos-
tles and evangelists are insufficient to decide this controversy,
when handled * not deceitfully,' but according to the canon which
governs the honest interpretation of all public documents, there is
assuredly no reason for expecting satisfaction elsewhere. The
' oral law ' of Christendom is as delusive a guide as that of ancient
Judaism.
What, then, is the canon above all others obligatory in inter-
preting Scripture ? It is delivered to us in the words of Hooker :
' I hold it for a most infallible rule in expositions of Sacred
Scripture that when a literal construction will stand, the farthest
from the letter is commonly the worst. There is nothing more
dangerous than this licentious and deluding art, which changeth
the meaning of words as alchemy doth, or would do, the substance
of metals, making of anything what it listeth, and bringing in the
end all truth to nothing.'
* See especially the remarkable series of papers in the 'Nineteenth Century,'
1877, on the Future Life, called 'The Symposium.'
CANON OF THE LITERAL SENSE. 207
The literal sense of words is prima facie their true sense. The
literal sense is presumptively true, or has the first claim to be
received. The literal sense is the common, fundamental, ordinary,
usual sense in all languages, Hebrew and Greek included, and
that which first strikes the mind of a hearer. Life, death, living
for ever, perishing, the ideas conveyed by these and similar words
are likely to be their true sense, unless overruled by the connec-
tion, or by the general tenor of the book in which they appear.
* They ' (the heavens) ' shall perish, but Thou remainest* (Psalm
cii.). ' Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for the'meat
which endtireth to everlasting life ' (John vi.). * The outward man
perisheth, but the inward man is renewed fay by day' (2 Cor. iv.).
Who could fail to see that in such passages perishing is the
opposite of remaining and enduring? Why is the word to be
taken differently when the object to perish is a sinner? or the
object to perish is not a man who has eaten of bread * that
endureth to everlasting life ' ?
The adage that the literal sense of words is presumptively the
true one has been held by all interpreters. Thus Luther says :
' That which I have so often insisted on elsewhere I here once
more repeat, that the Christian should direct his first efforts
towards understanding the literal sense (as it is called) of Scrip-
ture, which alone is the substance of faith and of theology.'
And Dean Alford says : ' A canon of interpretation which should
be constantly borne in mind is that a figurative sense of words is
never admissible except when required by the context' (Comm. on
Acts x. 42.)
No rule besides this is permitted by a sound interpretation in de-
ducing the doctrine of the New Testament on other topics of the Chris-
tian revelation. The doctrines of the Trinity of the Godhead, of
the Deity of Christ, of the Person and work of the Holy Ghost,
of justification by grace, of the resurrection of the dead, of the
kingdom of Christ, are learned among Protestants by a persistent
application of this canon, against whatever mass of evil example
and precedent to the contrary. For in fact the measure of light
and darkness in the Church in every century has been determined
by the degree in which its interpreters have stood fast on this
common-sense rule of interpretation, or have given way to tradi-
tional perversion, or to the fantastic notion of inner senses and
2o8 CLAIMS OF THE LITERAL SENSE.
universal mystery. There have been no deadlier enemies to
Christianity than its mystical interpreters.
The application of this great rule to the words of the Incar-
nate Word describing the nature of His own work of Redemption
seems especially imperative. Can we seriously suppose that
when Christ pours forth that soul-moving current of expression in
which He solemnly and so often declares on all various occasions,
and in all-varying companies, during His ministry, that He came
to earth to 'give Life,' * everlasting Life to men,' to 'raise them
up ; to everlasting Life, to prevent them from 'dying,' can we
suppose, after deliberation, that this emphatic language was no-
thing more than a mighty volume of figurative speech, rolling
before us, and tantalising our understandings ; when it was of the
last importance for us to know clearly what the doom was of
which we were in danger, and what the blessing is which He came
to confer?
If the main current of the Redeemer's language on the very
object of His mission is to be taken as a stream of metaphors,
how can we know what the realities are of which these figures are
the emblems ? If none of the language of the Bible is plain and
easy to be understood, how can we hope ever to understand the
metaphors ? But, indeed, this has been the delusion alike of Jew
and Gentile, that the Bible scarcely ever means what it says.
Men do ' not like ' some for one so-called reason, some for
another to admit that their natures are as perishable as those of
the races around them, they do ' not like ' to retain in their
knowledge a Saviour who is the ' life of the world,' they do ' not
like ' to admit the awful idea of a judicial extinction of life in
hell, for defying the Almighty, and therefore they leave no
verbal artifice unemployed in perverting the plain meaning of the
terms which clearly announce that doom to the condemned, and
point to the Christ as the sole hope of humanity. Just so those
who go to the Bible resolved not to allow of the ideas of the In-
carnation and of the Atonement find critical means to persuade
themselves that those doctrines are not really in the Scripture.
Nothing is more wonderful in the history of thought than the
degree to which men have persuaded themselves that the Spirit of
Revelation in dealing with mankind has systematically avoided
that ' great plainness of speech ' which is the natural outcome of
CHRISrS PARABOLIC STYLE. 209
a direct and simple purpose when the object is to be understood.
The notion is deeply rooted that when God speaks, as in the
person of Christ, the Incarnate WORD, scarcely any of His words
are to be taken in their obvious sense. Surely the rule of
thought ought to be the opposite, and we ought to think that He
who was the Truth as well as the Life employed human speech in
its most direct signification.
It is said, however, in reply to this assertion of the first claim
of the literal and obvious sense of words in the interpretation of
Scripture doctrine, that we are overlooking the undeniable pre-
valence of metaphor in the Biblical writings, and especially in
the teaching of Jesus Himself. ' Without a parable spake He not
unto them.' ' He multiplied parables? after the fashion of the
ancient prophets. There is not a doctrine of the gospel which
He did not involve in an envelope of metaphorical speech, partly
as a punitive measure towards dishonest souls, partly as an exer-
cise of the pious ingenuity of His disciples. May not, then, the
whole sense of Christ's language respecting Life and Death, as
the destinies of men, be a portion of the metaphorical vocabulary
in which He presented the truth ? The writings of the Apostles
of Christ contain several indications of the strong secondary
associations which belong to these terms, as when S. Paul speaks
of his own happiness, in the words, * Now we live if ye stand fast
in the Lord ' (i Thess. iii. 8) : as much as to say, ' Your depar-
ture from the truth would be my death.'
We acknowledge that the associations of holy blessedness and
sinful misery occasionally, as in the cited passage, come forward
into vivid prominence in the use of the terms life and death;
and not only that, but also that other secondary associations of
these terms and their correlatives, such as the ideas of force and
liveliness, of weakness and torpor, of a spiritual and of a carnal
condition, occasionally are made prominent in the use of the
words, as perhaps in such passages as these : * Quicken thou me
in thy way ' Psalm cxix. (give me force and vigour in thy ser-
vice) and, * Thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead,'
* Be zealous and strengthen the things that remain, that are ready
to die ' (Rev. iii.). But it would be a perversion of all the rules
of speech, and the experience of literature, to allow that because
14
2io GENIUS OF ORIENTAL SPEECH.
terms are sometimes employed in a sense in which their secondary
associations are prominent, therefore we are to interpret them
everywhere so as to exclude their primary and proper signification.
In passing expressions of emotional thought, the secondary asso-
ciation may thus sometimes get even the upper hand; but in
solemn and deliberate teaching the main terms are certain to be
used in their strict signification. When and where on earth is
there better reason to look for the use of words in their proper
sense than when the Saviour of the world is teaching men what
their danger is, and in what Salvation consists ? If it be urged
again that Christ hid much of His truth in a glory-mist of meta-
phors, the answer is, that ' privately He explained all things to
His disciples ; ' yet in private as in public He adhered to His
theme, that men were in danger of death, and destruction, and
that He came to give them everlasting life.
The impression prevails among many readers of the Bible that
inasmuch as it is an Oriental Book, and the genius of Oriental
Speech is metaphorical and symbolical, it is a dangerous fallacy
to handle its language according to the cold canons of European
language. We must expect a metaphor everywhere, until it is
proved that the Asiatic prophet or apostle has spoken in simple
terms !
Except in some conspicuous examples of imaginative poetry,
Indian and Persian, there is reason to deny with emphasis this
popular notion of Asiatic discourse. The realities of life impose
more sobriety upon Orientals than the Westerns usually allow,
and this sobriety percolates through their common literature.
With respect to the Bible, to impute a highflown metaphorical
style to its writers as their ordinary habit is manifestly a delusion.
The most decisive evidence of this is, that the Bible will bear
translating, nearly word for word, into the tongues of Northern
Europe ; and has been listened to in public reading with the
utmost edification for many generations. This would have been
impossible in the colder atmosphere of the North, unless, in the
main, the Bible were a sober book ; sober in its history, in its
teaching, even in its poetry ; using language that can be ' under-
standed of the people ' in all climates of the world. The idea,
then, that Asiatics never speak except in metaphors, and that the
DEFINITENESS OF GREEK LANGUAGE. 211
Biblical writers are but examples of the Asiatic genius, is to mis-
conceive the facts of life and of history.
There is, however, a further argument, which alone might
suffice to correct the imagination that the Bible has taught the
mysteries of Redemption in a cloud of metaphors. I refer to
the providential selection of the Greek language to be the instru-
ment for the revelation of the gospel ; the language of mankind
which beyond all others assists and encourages the expression of
thought in exact terms. Admitting, with strong reservation and
protest against the exaggerated notion of Asiatic tendency to
metaphor, that the Hebrew of the Old Testament partakes in
some degree of the poetic indefiniteness of a primitive tongue, it
cannot be pretended that this is a weakness of the Greek speech.
There at least we have definition, edge, precision, itself an effect
of clear thought, and an incentive to it. Now the * oriental '
Jews had been for three centuries placed under the yoke of
Greek- speaking rulers when Christ appeared. Their Scriptures
were read in Greek throughout the world. There is reason to
think, with Dr. Roberts, that Greek was widely spoken in Pales-
tine by the hearers of our Lord ; and it is this perfect language,
in which reason rules over fancy with undisputed sway, that
was chosen to be the organ by which Christianity and Christ's
discourses should be divulged to the civilised world.
To assert, therefore, that in the Greek gospel of John, written
in the clear sunshine of Ionian Greece itself, the language is
probably metaphorical at every turn, that we shall most likely
err in taking far] to mean fife, and Qdvaros to mean death, and
shall more likely reach the truth by supposing that d^o^o-Kc/
signifies to be banished from God, or to live for ever in misery ,
is to offer a violent contradiction to one of the most obvious
facts in philology, namely, that the use of Greek in the New
Testament is in itself a presumption that its ordinary terms are
taken in their natural signification.
But this being so, we may learn with certainty, if any doubt
exists, through the Greek of the New Testament, the meaning of
the corresponding Hebrew words in the Old; and no extreme
theories as to the range of the Hellenistic dialect must blind us
212 BOOK OF GENESIS THE KEY TO SCRIPTURE.
to the truth that the Greek of the apostles was a tongue which
the Grecians understood.
These considerations necessitate what may be termed the
literal, or, still better, the natural and obvious interpretation of
S. John's gospel in its discourses on the life eternal. But some
special and detailed arguments may be added which confirm the
presumption raised on grounds such as we have discussed.
(i) The work of the Son of God in redemption is in Scripture
interwoven with the history of the sin of Man in paradise. The
doctrine of the First and of the Second Adam constitutes the
4 mystery of the gospel ' (i Cor. xv.). In the teaching of our
Lord Himself there are clear references to the history of the fall
of Man as the basis of God's dealings with the human race. He
speaks of Satan as a ' Murderer (di/0powroKTwos) from the be-
ginning ; ' and of Himself as sent to destroy the works of the
Devil. Now, a murderer is a destroyer of life. The meaning of
Death, and of the gift of Eternal Life, in the discourses of Christ,
is thus fixed by the history of the First Adam in Genesis. Christ
appeared to ' abolish death (2 Tim. i.), and the death which He
abolished was the death that ' came into the world ' by the
original Sin, and through the temptation of the original
Murderer.
What was that death ? We have already seen that it is to offer
violence to known fact, as well as every probability, to suppose
that the death incurred by Adam's sin was, as Athanasius declares
in a passage (cited hereafter in chapter xxvi.), aught else than
Extinction (<0opa), a death like that which animals have died
on this globe since the beginning. No word is said either before
the fall, or on the approach of the Judge, or afterwards, of Adam's
possession of a deathless soul, when his mortal integer was broken
up ; not a word is uttered in the divine comment on that curse,
of an eternity of misery to be endured by the soul after the disso-
lution of the Man. Indeed that notion seems to deserve little
else than the scorn which Locke bestows upon it. It is the
gratuitous invention of theologians who have forfeited the claim
to be listened to in that matter by their perverse departure from
the record.
ARGUMENT OF FOURTH GOSPEL. 213
The signification, then, of the Life which Christ bestows is deter-
mined by the history of the Bible. It is the spiritual renewal
of God's holy image, and with it the concurrent bestowment of
that literal eternal life in body and soul which was annexed to
the right to the Tree of Life in Paradise, and which was forfeited
by sin. ' Now, lest he put forth his hand, and take of the Tree
of Life, and eat, and live for ever, so he drove out the man.'
Christ is the Door into the eternal life. Through Him sinful,
mortal humanity enters in again, and He gives us * to eat of the
Tree of Life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.'
After His ascension to heaven Christ solemnly appropriated
these words to Himself (Rev. ii. 7).
The result of being driven out from the Tree of Life to Adam
was not merely unhappiness or misery ', but death, returning to dust ;
hence it is necessary to understand the work of Christ to be to
confer Immortality.
If mankind already possessed, through the Divine constitution,
the attribute of everlasting life in the most essential part of their
nature, an ever-during soul, it cannot be admitted that in the
proper sense of the terms Christ ' gives eternal life ' to the saved.
His title as the Life of Men must be understood as applicable to
Him only in a vague metaphorical sense, as the giver of grace
and happiness. But this would not correspond to the breadth
and depth of Scripture language respecting redemption. He
Himself is our Life. And the body no less than the soul is said
to be saved by Him, ' Waiting for the sonship, to wit, the
redemption of the body ' (Rom. viii.).
2. Every chapter in the gospel of John gives force to the
preceding argument. In the opening verses, he says of the
Logos, 'In Him was Life,' and adds, * All things were made by
Him, and without Him was not one thing made that was made ; '
designing clearly to indicate that the Logos was not merely the
fountain of happiness only, or of holiness, or of what is termed,
in unscriptural language, ' spiritual life,' but of all existence,
material and immaterial, organic and inorganic, a statement
which fittingly introduces that Saviour from death, who says of
Himself, ' The thief cometh not but for to steal and to kill and
to destroy (6vcrrj K<U a.7ro\<ry). I am come that they might
214 CHRIST'S LANGUAGE INTELLIGIBLE.
have life, and that they might have it more abundantly ' (John
x. 10).*
Now when it is considered that Christ's words were for the
most part uttered in the hearing of the two hostile sects of
Pharisees and Sadducees, whose controversy on immortality gave
a special interest and a peculiar edge to every term employed to
denote a future state, the conclusion appears inevitable, that
Christ could have intended by His language only the sense here
imputed to it. Never once was He prevailed on to set forth
the Pharisaic psychological doctrine of the 'oral law,' that * every
soul has an immortal vigour in it/ and will live for ever ; for then
He would have had the democratic Pharisees always on His side,
as proving by miracles the truth of their doctrine against the
materialistic Sadducees. On the contrary, the hatred of the
Pharisees towards Christ corresponded to His ceaseless denuncia-
tion of them, and of their ' oral law.' The Sadducees, again,
when they heard Him speak of ' eternal life,' and of eternal life
by ' resurrection,' and of that resurrection to life eternal as the
gift of God through the Speaker, at least would not lose His
meaning, by imposing on the word life a figurative sense of
bliss, to be bestowed on a soul already immortal. They would
necessarily understand Him to teach that man had no principle
of immortality in himself, but that God would give immortality,
in body and soul, to those who believed in Him. They would at
once understand His meaning, and scorn His supposed wicked-
ness and folly. The Pharisees would think that He was right in
teaching a future eternal life for the righteous, but that He cut
the ground of such a hope from beneath His own feet by refrain-
ing from teaching, as they did, the inherent immortality of man.
Thus neither party ' received His words ; ' but between the two
they assisted all future ages to comprehend His intention, which
was to teach a doctrine that humbles man in the dust of death,
and restricts the everlasting life to twice-born and believing souls,
a doctrine which represents the first Adam as xofros, a ' man
of earth,' and the Second Man alone as a ' life-giving spirit '
(i Cor. xv.).
* See further on this subject the section of chap, xxiv., headed 'Moral
Ideas associated with the terms Life and Death?
THE INCARNATION, AND ETERNAL LIFE. 215
It remains now to offer a reflection on the relation between
the two great mysteries of the Fourth Gospel ; and this must be
done with a befitting sense of the awe under which it becomes
sinful men to adventure into that Holiest Place, which has been
' opened ' to us by the Eternal Love.
The one line of thought, transcending all natural ideas of man,
which pervades John's Gospel, is THE INCARNATION OF THE
DEITY, of the LOGOS-THEOS, in the person of Jesus our Lord.
The other line of thought is the parallel affirmation from the lips
of this Incarnate Deity, that MAN OWES THE PROSPECT OF EVER-
LASTING LIFE, not to his own nature, but to redemptive UNION
WITH HIM, THE LIFE OF THE WORLD.
It is hard to say which of these lines of thought awakens more
of the natural incredulity and hostility of mankind that Jesus
was an Incarnation of the Godhead, or that Immortal Life for
man is to be found alone in spiritual union with Him.
Yet these truths support each other like the two sides of an
arch of triumph, ' that gate of the Lord into which the righteous
shall enter.'
Is not this the truth that man, who by the laws of the universe
is * dead in sins,' under sentence of extermination (rH^) by ^ e
law, can be saved from the death incurred, can be reached in his
misery, by no force or power of the created universe ? If he is
to be saved from the action of the laws of the universe, moral
and physical, it must be, not through the remedial operation of
some external force, but through the intimate union of his nature
with a Power which is above the universe and its laws, through
the union of the nature of man with the Nature of God? Is it
not that the salvation of a sinner from destruction is an im-
possibility, except through the ' taking of the manhood unto
God ' ? Is it not that salvation in all its parts must be the
direct act of God operating, not through natural laws, but in a
sphere above them, Himself suffering, Himself taking our
nature, Himself raising the destroyed Temple of His Body,
Himself pouring forth the tide of His own Eternal Life, a life
divine and immortal, into the victims of the destroyer ?
If this be so, we derive a new and irresistible argument for
faith in the Divinity of Christ from the related doctrine of His
life.-giving energy ; and from the doctrine of Life in Christ alone
216 CHRIST S DISCOURSE ON LIFE
we derive fresh evidence of His personal Deity. That doctrine,
which beyond all others moves the unbelief and scorn of Asia
and of Europe, the Incarnation of the Word, is seen to be at
once the essential condition of man's immortality, and its only
solid foundation. ' Behold I lay in Zion for a foundation, a
Rock, a solid Rock ; and he that believeth shall not be confounded.'
This Rock is the Incarnation of the Life-giving Word.
SUPPLEMENT TO CHAPTER XVII.
Note on the Sixth Chapter of S. John's Gospel : Christ's Discourse on
Life in the Synagogue of Capernaum.
It will be convenient to bring together in one view the indications
afforded by this chapter of what we term the literal sense of Life and
Death in our Lord's discourses, in opposition to the prevailing notion
that life stands only for everlasting happiness, and death for endless
misery. In examining the sixth chapter of S. John closely the reader
is requested to bear in mind what the prevailing theory is namely,
that man's soul is immortal by nature, so that all that comes to it
from the hand of God, by the additions of judgment or mercy, is the
misery or the happiness of a nature that is already eternal. The
words of Christ on the donation of life, or the infliction of death, on
this theory must therefore strictly signify the gift of spiritual character
and blessedness or the infliction of misery, and nothing beyond.
We propose to show that our Lord's statements indicate that He
meant much more than this ; He intended by life and death also, and
primarily, immortality and destruction.
The discussion recorded took place in the great synagogue of Caper-
naum, of which some interesting ruins yet remain at Tel Hum; for
even the ruins are interesting of an edifice which was the scene of this
notable revelation of Divine truth and grace.* The discourse was
occasioned by the exclamation of Jesus, on seeing the people crowding
around Him at Capernaum, after the miracle of Bethesda (ver. 26) :
' Ye seek Me not because ye saw signs,' (tokens and intimations of a
* Canon Tristram mentions that on one of its remaining blocks of masonry,
forming the keystone of the entrance arch inside, and therefore visible to the
congregation, is sculptured the pot of Manna, the symbol of the God-given
immortality.
IN THE SYNAGOGUE OF CAPERNAUM. 217
higher presence, \vhich led you to conceive great thoughts of Me), ' but
because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled. Work not for the
food which perisheth (rr^v a7ro\Av/itw7i>), but for that food which endureth
(jjievova-av) unto Everlasting Life, which the Son of man shall give
unto you. 1 The people, supposing that He offered to supply food
which would confer perpetual life, ask, * What shall we do that we
may work at the works of God ? ' Jesus answered, ' This is the work
which God requires, that you should believe on Him whom He hath
sent ' a work of the mind which would set all outward works right.
' They said therefore, What sign showest Thou that we may see and
believe Thee ? What dost Thou work ? Our fathers ate manna in
the desert, as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'
(Your gift of bread has been on the level of the earth, and only for a
single meal; can you not do something more like the miracle of
Moses, who gave the whole nation food from heaven daily for forty
years? Unless you at least equal Moses, we cannot forsake him to
believe in you.) 'Then Jesus said to them, Verily, verily, I say to
you, It was not Moses who gave to you even that bread from heaven
(it was God), but my Father now giveth you the true bread from
heaven. For the bread of God is He which cometh down from
heaven and giveth life to the world. Then said they, Lord, always
give to us this bread. And Jesus said, I am the bread of life. He
that cometh to Me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on Me
shall never thirst.'
Now in this succession of sentences our Lord places together the
idea of bread, as the support of life, and of Himself as the giver of
eternal life. Bread is the aliment of life in the literal sense of the
term. Bread is not the symbol of happiness, but of preservation of life,
aliment for continued being.
This idea of bread as the support of life He then pursues to the end
of the chapter ; and just as people who have no food must die, so He
teaches that preservation from death, and enjoyment of endless life,
depend on receiving this heaven-sent aliment of being.
Ver. 41. ' This is the will of Him that sent me, that every one which
seeth the Son and believeth on Him may have endless life . ' and in
order to show that this life is not simply the happiness of a soiil
already immortal, but the literal complex life of a being who consists
of body and soul, He adds * And / will raise him up at the last day.'
The Jews then murmured at His saying that He came down from
heaven. He replied that their murmurings were vain, since none
could come to Him unless attracted by the Father and He then
repeats it, ' / will raise him up at the last day ' (ver. 44).
At verse 47 He returns to His first statement, and emphasises it
again and again. * Verily, verily, I say to you, He that believeth in
2i8 CHRIST'S DISCOURSE ON LIFE
Me hath endless life. I am the bread of life.' But now, in order to
make still more clear His meaning as to the sense of life, He brings
into view the converse, death : 'Your fathers did eat manna in the
desert and died; this is the bread that descended from heaven that
any one might eat of it, and not die' Here, then, Christ sets aside,
once for all, the sense of a ' merely moral ' or ' spiritual ' life and death,
and shows by the contrast of the physical death, died by the manna-
eating fathers, what was the radical signification of the life which
comes with the bread of heaven. It consists io. ' not dying.' There
is no nearer approach to a formal definition of terms in our Saviour's
teaching. It is inconceivable that such language as this would be
used to denote the idea of a life which was only bliss or spiritual
character given to a nature already immortal.
In verse 51 our Lord solemnly reiterates His doctrine. * I am the
living bread (6 apros 6 vv) which came down from heaven. If any
man eat of my bread he shall live for ever, and my flesh is the bread
which I will give for the life of the world ' (wrep Trjs rov Kocrp.ov o>j)r) .
[So Tischendorf, Lachmann, and Tregelles.] Here is a steadfast
adhesion to the idea of supporting the world's life by food which is
heaven-descended.
Verse 52. A natural exclamation follows : ' How can this man give
us His flesh to eat ? Then Jesus said, Except ye eat the flesh of the
Son of man and drink His blood ye have no life (not eV vfuv, but eV
eaurois) in yourselves. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my
blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For
my flesh is truly food, and my blood is truly drink. He that eateth
my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him.' The
demonstration of our Lord's meaning still unfolds. Bread was the
symbol of life ; but how much more was blood. ' The blood is the
life thereof,' not simply the happiness of a living being, but its life ;
and here Christ declares that life eternal depends on drinking His
bloody which was His life. Under this metaphor the main idea is
clearly seen, and the metaphor is brought in to enforce that idea.
Man's literal life in eternity depends on receiving Christ, and being
united to Him. Apart from such union he will 'die.'
At verse 57 a still loftier illustration is given of the intention of the
discourse. Our Lord defines the life spoken of by reference to the
life of God. ' As the Living Father hath sent me ' (not surely the
blessed Father or the holy Father, but the ever-living, self-existing,
eternal Father), 'and I live by the Father'' (I derive my life my eter-
nal being, in the way of dependence on the Original Majesty), ' so he
that eateth me, he also shall live by me : ' shall derive not merely
happiness, but being from me, as I derive mine, as the only-begotten
Son of God, by generation from the Supreme God.
IN THE SYNAGOGUE OF CAPERNAUM. 219
Our Lord then enforces His idea of life by recurring, after this lofty
reference, to His former statement : ' This is the bread that descended
from heaven ; not as your fathers ate manna and died : he that eateth
of this bread shall live to eternity' 1 (els TOV alwva) .
The reader will judge, after thus examining this wonderful chapter,
whether it was possible for words to convey more distinctly to the
mind the statements,
1. That man has no principle of eternally enduring life in himself ;
2. That God has given us eternal life in His Son ;
3. That man's actual enjoyment of eternal life depends on the closest
union with the Incarnate Life of God in Christ ;
4. That the eternal life bestowed on us includes and requires the
immortality of the whole humanity, and therefore carries with it the
resurrection of the dead.
The result of this discourse upon our Lord's hearers was to bring to
a crisis the inward revolt of many. ' From that time many of His
disciples went away backward, and walked no more with Him? The
doctrine of immortality through the Incarnation, and of death eternal
coming upon all men out of Christ, is the chief stumbling-block of the
gospel. It was the last truth for the Church to learn, and the first for
her to lose as it will be the last that she will consent to receive again
by unlearning the notion which represents man's immortality as inde-
pendent of redemption.
The metaphorical part of this discourse, specially the difficulty
occasioned by His assertions of a descent from heaven, of the necessity
of eating His flesh in order to eternal life, Christ at the close, accord-
ing to custom, explained to His faithful disciples. ' Are you scandal-
ised/ said He, ' at my saying I came down from heaven ? What, then,
if ye should see the Son of man ascending where He was before ? '
a spectacle granted to them at Bethany. And as to l eating His flesh,'
that, He added, was a metaphor for receiving the doctrine founded on
the sacrifice of His flesh for the world's life. < The flesh itself profiteth
nothing ; ' I do not intend the literal eating of my body. It is the truth
respecting me which will give you life. ' The words that I speak to
you, they are Spirit, and they are Life.' Whence we learn that by
life our Lord intends precisely what He says, ' For it is the Spirit that
giveth life' (2 Cor. iii.).
220 NOTE ON RABBINICAL DOCTRINE
NOTE on the quest ion t Whether the words of Christ on future life are
to be interpreted according to the sense of the Pharisees : with a
view of subsequent Rabbinical opinion. (3rd edition.)
It is asserted with the utmost confidence in several popular criti-
cisms on the former editions of this work, that since the learned
Jews of Christ's time, as well as the common people, held the doctrine
of the soul's immortality, and of the eternal suffering of the wicked ;
and since Christ did not correct these convictions ; it necessarily
follows that He designed his words to be taken in their sense, and that
He gives by His silence a divine sanction to the doctrine by us
impugned. On these assertions I beg to offer the following remarks.
i. Although it is probable that the sect of the Pharisees held a
philosophical belief in the immortality of souls, it is almost equally
probable that this belief was deeply infected with Persian dualism, and
was accompanied by a concurrent belief in \htpre-cxistence of souls.
( Who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind ? '
(John ix. 2). De Wette distinctly attributes this opinion to them, and
traces it back to an Oriental origin. Did Christ sanction this belief
also ? In a letter with which Professor Marks has favoured me, he
says, 'If all the Pharisees of the age of Jesus had believed in the
eternity of misery, it would be little to the purpose as far as showing
such opinion to have been entertained by the early Hebrews ; since
these opinions would have been influenced by the doctrine brought
back to Palestine by the Babylonian captives.'
The direct evidence for the doctrine of an eternal hell and of the
soul's immortality among the Pharisees, depends on the single witness
of Josephus. It is to take dangerous ground to rest a non-natural
interpretation of the whole teaching of Jesus Christ respecting human
destiny, on the infallible correctness of the testimony of Josephus to
the philosophy of the Pharisees in all its particulars.
2. Still more dangerous is it to assume as an absolute rule to govern
interpretation, that whatever psychological opinion Christ did not
explicitly condemn He sanctioned by His silence. As Professor Hud-
son soundly observes, ( It was not Christ's general custom to oppose
particular errors by explicit mention and condemnation. He taught
by affirmation rather than denial ' (p. 2-24). As well might Christ be
supposed to sanction Josephus's account of the Resurrection as a
ON JUDGMENT TO COME. 221
'passage of righteous souls into other bodies/ by a sort of trans-
migration (a notion which he imputes to the Pharisees). The Gospel
of John shows that it was the inmost secret of Christ, that He was
the Life of the world ; and this could not easily be taught to the
Pharisees.
3. The points in which alone the doctrine of the Pharisees was
defended both by Christ and Paul against the Sadducees, were those
of the existence of spirits, and the ' resurrection of the just and unjust.'
The psychological basis of the Pharisees on the immortality of the soul
received no sanction from Christ in the great argument against the
Sadducees (Luke xx.), when, if ever, it ought to have appeared if
assented to by our Lord.
4. Christ did, however, in sufficiently plain language, in the synagogue
of Capernaum, in the passage above reviewed, overthrow this psycho-
logical basis of Pharisaic anthropology, by declaring that men had
' no life (ev tavTols) in themselves] but could attain the privilege of ' living
for ever' that is, of ( not dying ' only by spiritual union with Him-
self. But neither that, nor any other truth which Christ taught, was
received by men who were ' blind guides of the blind/
5. It is easy to depreciate too much the weight and influence of
Sadducean opinion in fixing the meaning of words in popular use.
It must not be forgotten that the Sadducees also had their learned
men, who delivered a steady testimony against the Pharisaic psycho-
logy and eschatology as a foreign importation, and an anti-scriptural
error ; and although they went doubtless much too far in their antagon-
ism, their vehement opposition must have greatly weakened the hold of
the Pharisaic doctrine on those people who thought at all on futurity.
The fact of Sadducean opposition also entirely overthrows the
position that Christ's words must be taken only in the sense of the
more numerous sect. Of the two possible hypotheses, there is far
more reason for affirming that He used the terms ' life ' and * death ' in
the sense in which they were understood by the Sadducees. It is the
vainest of imaginations that His hearers had heard only of one defini-
tion of these terms, namely that of 'heavenly bliss* and ' endless
misery' They daily heard from the party of the Sadducees that there
was no foundation whatever for such a metaphorical treatment of the
promises and the threatenings of the Old Testament Scriptures. This
antagonism left it open for our Lord's words to produce their natural
effect upon many of his hearers.
6. The doctrine of the Rabbins during the Christian era shows
222 RABBINICAL DOCTRINE
that there is no dominant Jewish tradition from the early Christian
ages in support of the Pharisaic opinion on endless misery. The
popular belief of modern Jews is generally favourable to the eternal
survival of all souls and the eternal blessedness of those souls. But
this doctrine has not been held in the most absolute sense by the
greatest ancient lights and ornaments of the rabbinical succession. ' In
the Mishna,' says Professor Hudson, who has made Jewish opinion a
special study, ' we find no mention whatever of the immortality of the
soul (he means of all souls}, or of eternal pain, though exclusion from
eternal life is often mentioned/ In the Gemara, which represents
very ancient Jewish thoughts, the destiny of the wicked is described
most fully. 'Those who sin and rebel greatly in Israel, as well as
Gentile sinners, shall descend into Gehenna, and there be judged,
during twelve months ; at the end of which the body is consumed, the
soul is burned up, and the spirit is scattered beneath the feet of the
just, as it is said in Mai. iv. 3. But heretics, informers, and infidels,
who deny the law of God, and the resurrection of the dead, and those
who cause others to sin, as Jeroboam the son of Nebat, shall descend
into Gehenna and there be judged ages of ages? The eternity of hell
is expressly denied as follows : ' Rabbi Simon ben Lakish has said,
There will be in the future no Gehenna for the wicked shall be as
stubble, and the coming day shall burn them up, leaving them neither
root nor branch.' Professor Hudson adds, 'There are in the Talmud
traces of Restorationism chiefly in behalf of Israelites. But we find no
indication that the eternity of hell torments was ever an accepted Jewish
doctrine, though by individual Rabbins asserted with infinite puerili-
ties.' The greatest of all the Rabbins, Maimonides, born A.D. 1131,
at Cordova, distinctly teaches the immortality of the righteous alone,
and the absolute extermination of the wicked. His words are : ' The
punishment which awaits the wicked man is that he will have no part
in eternal life, but will die, and be utterly destroyed. He will not live
for ever, but for his sins will be cut off, and perish like a brute. It
is a death from which there is no return.' 'The reward of the righteous
will consist in this, that they will be at bliss and exist in everlasting
beatitude ; while the retribution of the wicked will be to be deprived
of that future life and to be cut off* (Hilchot Teshuba, or De Pani-
tentid,'\\\. 12 ; viii. 2). I have verified these citations from the greatest
of the modern Jewish writers. Rabbi Manasseh Ben Israel says that
Maimonides, learned in all the lore of antiquity, undoubtedly ' under-
stood the cutting off si the soul mentioned in Scripture to be no other
than its annihilation ' (Allen's Modern Judaism, ch. ix.). The words
of Maimonides are these I quote the Latin version of Dr. Clavering,
(Oxford Edition of De Panitentid, 1705): 'Hoc autem supplicium
impios manet, quod ista vita non potientur, sed morientur, et penitus
ON IMMORTALITY. 223
destruentur (IH^I lIVl^ fcwN^ Q u * istzl vita est indignus mortuus
est (HDH fcOn> an illustration of the true meaning of vfKpos, a dead
man, when applied to an ungodly person in the New Testament),
quoniam non in eternum vivet, sed iniquitatum gratia exscindetur, et
tanquam bestia peribit (pl&riM "DKI WfiTQ fTO} *&$>: Et
hasc est excisio de qua in lege scribitur, Exscindendo exscindetur
anima ilia ' (ch. viii.).
Nachmanides, the friend of Maimonides, speaks in the same way of
the future punishment of the worst sinners as the ' third excision,
still more severe, by which the body is cut off in this life, and the soul
in the life to come.' With him agree R. Bechai, and David Kimchi,
who, in his Comment on the Psalms, explicitly teaches (as Canon
Perowne shows in his Commentary) the complete extermination of the
wicked. See Hudson's Debt and Grace, pp. 340-1 ; Pocock's Porta
Mosis, c. 6 ; Allen's Modern Judaism, ch. ix. Mr. Deutsch (p. 53) sums
up the result of his Talmudical studies in these words, ' There is no
everlasting damnation according to the Talmud. There is only a
limited punishment, even for the worst sinners. Generation upon
generation shall last the damnation of idolaters, apostates, and traitors.'
This fixes the limited sense in which aiwj/e? ran/ aitoi/tov is used in the
Apocalypse, when speaking of the torment of the Devil and the
Beast. For, as Lightfoot says, 'The New Testament was written
by Jews, among Jews, for Jews ' (a Judasis, atque inter Judaeos, et ad
Judseos) ; and if it is evident that the phrases ages of ages, or genera-
tions to generations, were used by them in a strictly limited sense in
relation to the subject of future punishment, it will be needless to
pervert the plain meaning of the ordinary Greek words, used in the
New Testament to denote the destruction of the wicked, or words
used to denote limited duration, from deference to supposed Jewish
idioms requiring them to be taken in the sense of endless misery ;
specially when it is proved that no such idiom exists in the Talmud
(which enshrines the traditions of the nation from a period far more
ancient than the age of the Pharisees), where we find the very phrases
even of the Apocalypse used to describe a punishment explicitly
declared to be terminable.
Since writing the preceding paragraphs, I have read the Rev.
Samuel Cox's Salvator Mundi, to which I am indebted for the
following extract from Dr. Alfred Dewes' Plea for a New Trans-
lation of the Scriptures.
'After animadverting on the "rather pitiable way" in which one
commentator after another has defined and repeated Lightfoot's some-
what ambiguous words, taking him to assert, or making him assert,
" that Gehenna was the abode of the damned, a place of eternal fire,
224 RABBINICAL
and that there are endless examples to prove it," Dr. Dewes adds
(p. 21) : "With a view to test the truth of an assertion so continually
made, the present writer has searched all the Jewish writings that can
with any probability be assigned to any date within three centuries
from our Saviour's birth. And whenever he asserts that an idea is not
to be found in any work, he wishes it to be understood that the whole
work has been read through, not that its index only has been searched.
It did not seem worth while to read any of the later Jewish works ; it
was quite out of the question to think of wading through the Talmuds ;
but the earlier of them is assigned to the middle of the fourth century
and the later to the end of the fifth. Every passage, however, has
been carefully examined even from them, which is quoted in the works
of Lightfoot, Schoettgen, Buxtorf, Castell, Schindler, Glass, Barto-
loccius, Ugalino, and Nork : and the result of the whole examination
is this : there are but two passages which even a superficial reader
could consider to be corroborative of the assertion that the Jews under-
stood Gehenna to be a place of 'everlasting -punishment"*
Mr. Cox, himself no mean Rabbinical scholar, adds : ' The Jewish
Fathers of our Lord's time, differed on the ultimate issue of the
state of punishment in Gehenna. Some held that it would issue in
the ultimate salvation of all who were exposed to it ; while others held
that it would issue in their destruction, the very souls of sinners being
burned up and scattered by the wind' (p. 75).
The Rev. Bodfield Hooper, in any future edition of his book on
Endless Sufferings the Doctrine of Scripture, will, therefore, do well to
consider whether his own view of Christ's use of the biblical language
on destruction is not rendered more than doubtful by the sense in which
that language is taken by the illustrious Maimonides and his pre-
decessors. Rabbi Marks says : ' The upshot is that the Jewish doc-
tors laboured rather to adorn the future of the good than to blacken
the destiny of the wicked. Stronger than their fear of justice is their
belief in the Divine Mercy. " He will not contend for ever, neither
will he retain his anger to eternity 1 '' (Psalm ciii. 9), which is a
powerful argument against the modern Christian dogma of everlasting
225
CHAPTER XVIII.
JUSTIFICATION OF LIFE.
SECTION I.
What is Justification ?
THEOLOGY, as every other science, has its technical terms.
Justification is one of these. It will be the aim of this chapter
to fix its meaning, and to attempt to explain its relation to the
Atonement of Christ.
Under the general doctrine of this work Salvation signifies
being literally saved alive, saved from destruction of body and
soul in hell, saved from being ' burned up like chaff in unquench-
able fire.' And this infinite boon comes only on those who are
forgiven, saved from their sins, and created afresh in the divine
image. 'Being justified by Christ's blood, we shall be saved
from wrath through Him ' (Rom. v. 9). This expression
* justified in His blood,' carries us down into the depths of
Christianity. The truth which S. Paul teaches us in these words
he represents as the foundation of our hope of eternal life.
There is, then, nothing in the world which it is more important
to understand.
In order to comprehend it, however, we must devote closer
attention than is common to the apostolic writings, for the air
is full of battle-cries having for their object to cast reproach on
the true Pauline doctrine as our mistake, whereby ' the unlearned
and unstable ' are encouraged in their rejection of that * way of
salvation ' which he taught. Among these the most common is
the outcry against what are termed ' forensic notions ' on Justi-
fication. Multitudes to-day imagine they have made an end of
controversy when they have exclaimed against ' forensic ' justi-
fication. As one of the most eloquent leaders in this warfare
226 FORENSIC JUSTIFICATION.
shapes it : * In the name of all that is vital and holy, let us get rid
of the notion that Justification, be it what it may, is a kind of
legal fatten, an arrangement of God with Himself to regard and
treat a human being as something other than what he is really
and substantially in His sight.' Does this mean, Beware of the
old Reformation doctrine of forensic justification ? What, then,
is intended by this disliked adjective ? That which pertains to
the forum. The forum was the seat of the Roman law-courts.
Acquittal before a court of Law was justification, being pro-
nounced innocent, being reckoned righteous, by the judge. This,
then, is forensic justification in religion, when it is held that
a sinful man through the grace of God shall be * regarded and
treated ' as something other than what he really is in His sight.
In this the notion of which we are to * get rid ; ' that God ' justi-
fieth the ungodly,' that righteousness is reckoned to an ungodly
man, in a legal sense, on his believing in Christ ? And why ?
Is it because justification is not the reckoning a man righteous
by grace, but making him into a really good man 9 This is also
exactly the doctrine of Rome. The Council of Trent says
(Canon xi.) : ' If any one shall say that men are justified
either by the sole imputation of the righteousness of Christ, or by
the sole remission of sins, that grace and charity being excluded
(exclusa gratia et charitate) which are shed abroad in their hearts
by the Holy Spirit, and which adhere in them (qucz in cordibtis
eorum diffundatur atque illis inhczreat), let him be anathema'
Now we maintain, on the contrary, that i forensic justification,'
the acquittal of a sinner before the judgment-seat of God by
reckoning to him righteousness, is the chief doctrine of Chris-
tianity as taught by the Apostles, and notably by S. Paul. It is
the backbone of the Christian Revelation.
Let us reproduce the often-cited examples of the verb to
justify as it is used in the Bible, when not employed to denote
the justification of a sinner in redemption. What does it signify
in such cases? Does it mean to make a man good, or, to
declare him innocent, reckon him righteous, impute righteousness
to him, treat him as righteous ?
There is no room whatever for doubt as to the answer to this
question, whether it be asked of the verb to justify in Hebrew,
Greek, or English.
DEFINITION OF JUSTIFICATION. 227
(1) Prov. xvii. 15. 'He that justifieth the wicked, and he
that condemneth the just, they both are an abomination to the
Lord.' To infuse righteousness into an ungodly man cannot be
an abomination to the Lord. The abomination is for a judge to
declare innocent a wicked man persisting in his crimes.
(2) Luke x. 29. Of the lawyer who wished to work for
salvation it is said, ' He, willing to justify himself.' Did he
wish to infuse righteousness into himself? He thought himself
righteous already. He desired to have himself accounted as
righteous, reputed innocent.
(3) In Genesis xliv. 16, Judah exclaims on behalf of his
brethren, 'How shall we clear ourselves?' (Heb., justify our-
selves). Not, how shall we make ourselves into good men ? but,
how shall we obtain acquittal from guilt, and be regarded as
righteous ?
(4) In Luke vii. 35, it is said, ' Wisdom is justified of her
children.' Is righteousness infused into Wisdom ? Is wisdom
made righteous by her children ? No. But wicked men bring
charges against wisdom. Of these charges her children acquit
her. They ail declare wisdom to be righteous.
(5) In i Tim. iii. 16, Christ is said to have been 'justified
by the Spirit.' Was Christ made into a good man by the
Spirit ? No. But He was crucified as a wicked impostor, false
prophet, and sinner; and by His Resurrection He was declared
righteous.
(6) In Luke vii. 29, the Saviour speaking of God says, 'All
the people and the publicans justified God.' Surely publicans
and harlots did not infuse righteousness into Him. By receiving
John, they declared themselves to be sinners, and God to be
righteous.
In these passages all the undisputed ones in which the
verb to justify is mentioned, we see clearly that to justify
does not mean to infuse righteousness, or in any way to make
just, but that it means to pronounce innocent, to declare
righteous, to account or reckon righteous, to treat as righteous.
In short, that, in the Bible, the forensic sense is the true sense*
When S. Paul speaks of sinners being justified by grace by
* See an excellent piece on Justification by Rev. W. Elliott, of Epsom, to
which I owe several expressions on p. 227, (Nisbet, 1861.)
228 FOURFOLD JUSTIFICATION.
the blood of Christ, and by faith, he clearly means, then, that
they are thereby accounted or reckoned righteous not made into
good men for that is quite another idea, and is expressed by a
different selection of phrases such as regeneration and sancti-
fication. But justification means being reckoned innocent, and
declared righteous, treated as righteous, irrespective of deserts,
for God 'justifieth the ungodly.' 'While we were yet sinners
Christ died for us. Much more, then being justified by His
blood we shall be saved from wrath through Him.'
We are said to be (i) 'justified \>y grace* that is the source,
the pardoning mercy of God. (2) We are ' justified by the
blood of Christ,' that is the revealed method of our being
reckoned righteous, through the expiatory sacrifice of Christ.
(3) We are 'justified by faith] that is the personal application
of redemption, the condition of individual salvation. And we
are (4) 'justified by works] that is the external evidence of
personal redemption.
The reader is now requested to consider again the second of
these expressions, 'justified in His blood' (Rom. v. 9). What
does it signify? Looking below, we find the explanation,
' reconciled to God by the death of His Son/ There is, then, the
closest connection between the justification of a sinner, his being
pardoned, declared innocent, treated as just, and the death of
Christ. It is not that he is rendered a good man by the example
of Christ in dying, but reckoned righteous or innocent through
the sacrifice of Christ's blood. Why His blood? Because in
that lay His life. ' For the life, or soul, of the flesh is in the blood,
and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for
your lives i or souls ' (Lev. xvii. n) ; His 'soul ' was in it : ' He
poured out His soul unto death.' That was the price or ransom
demanded by God's righteousness of Himself, that sinners might
live. And Divine Mercy provided a ransom.
There are some who think that God as a Father is equally
tender to all His creatures. He can pardon, and will pardon,
without satisfaction to the law, or to the Divine Nature, or to
the moral government. This supposed substitution of Christ for
sinners is not necessary. Without any intervention of an atoning
Mediator He will find a way by which to fold again every erring
CHRIST'S RIGHTEOUSNESS RECKONED. 229
creature in the universe, even Satan himself, beneath His paternal
wing.
If this be so, what means that thrice-repeated prayer, presented
by Christ in His agony not upon His knees, but lying flat upon
His face, on that last fearful night, when He was delivered into
the hands of men ? Surely the Father never loved His Son more
than He did then, and surely the Father heard and answered that
prayer 'for Him the Father heareth always.' What, then, was
the answer to that prayer, * My Father, if it be possible let this cup
pass from me ' ?
The answer was this : Escape for men from death is impossible
except Thou drink it.' God cannot be ' just, and the justifier of
the ungodly,' if Thou drink it not. So He drank the cup which
His Father gave Him.
Therefore we drink the cup in the Holy Communion which
represents the blood of Christ to show that we are saved from
death by the shedding of His blood, the pouring out of His life ;
that we are justified thereby acquitted, pardoned, reckoned
innocent, declared righteous, treated as righteous, being in our-
selves sinners deserving death. ' There is now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus ' (Rom. viii. i).
But this is not the sum of the teaching of Christ's Apostles.
They declare not only that it is through the death of Christ that
we are * saved from wrath/ but, further, that we are reckoned
righteous on believing, because Christ's righteousness is reckoned, or
imputed to us. That is, we are regarded by God as being ' one '
with His Son in righteousness, and therefore as standing before
Him clad in the dazzling garments of the First-born. ' This is a
great mystery' and an idea exceedingly revolting to modern
philosophy 'falsely so called.' But it pervades the whole of the
New Testament. And it is a necessary conclusion from the
doctrine of the two Adams which we find in the epistles to the
Romans and Corinthians. Paul distinctly teaches that we were
' constituted sinners ' by the sinful act, the disobedience of Adam
* the man of dust.' Here is the first imputation, that of Adam's
sin to the whole race who sinned in him and died in him. And
then follows the parallel in Christ. The sin of the world was
reckoned to Him ; ' He bore our sins, in His own body, to the
230 PAULINE IMPUTATION.
tree ; ' 'He hath made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us.'
That is the second act of imputation. Then comes the third impu-
tation, that of Christ's merits or righteousness to us that ' we
might be made the righteousness of God IN HIM ' (i Peter ii.
24; 2 Cor. v. 21).
This idea of the reckoning of Christ's righteousness, as the
ground of our justification, before God, is repulsive to many on
this ground. They say, ' How can He, who sees all things as
they are, pretend to see the righteousness of His spotless Son in
sinners? There can be no fictions in the infinite Mind no
forensic unrealities : God may pardon a sinner, but to see the
righteousness of Christ in a sinner is absolutely impossible.' The
answer to this difficulty is derived from our general argument.
1. The expressions in Scripture are distinct and emphatic.
' That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him'
1 Found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is of
the law, but the righteousness which is of God by faith.' ' They
made their robes white in the blood of the Lamb ' (Rev. vii. 14).
' Christ, who of God is made unto us righteousness' (i Cor. i. 30).
2. The reckoning of Christ's righteousness to sinful men is no
more a fictitious act than reckoning their sins to Him. Both
must stand and fall together. The Unitarians who deny that
Christ ' suffered for our sins,' or that they were imputed to Him,
so that He was treated as if He had been a sinner are consistent.
Those who believe that Christ 'bore our sins' may also con-
sistently believe that we shall bear His righteousness.
3. The difficulty arises from the loss of the truth respecting the
death which we inherit from the first Adam, and the justification
of life we obtain from the second. The Church never loses one
truth alone. The mischief ever extends. The introduction of
the anti- Christian figment of man's Immortality has given a
wrench to the whole of Christianity, and rendered it difficult
for logical minds to hold some of the plainest gospel doctrines.
The recovery of the truth respecting Christ, as the only source of
immortal life to mankind, will bring out into fresh beauty the
whole faade of the Evangelical theology.
For this truth places in a new light all that the New Testament
teaches on the Church's Union with Christ. As descendants of
Adam, we possess no inherent principle of eternal life. We must
ERRORS ON JUSTIFICATION. 231
be ' born again,' i.e., united by regeneration to Christ, the Incar-
nate life of God, the second head of the human race. And this
union by the Holy Spirit personally dwelling in us is no legal
fiction, no dream, or mere imagination, or figure of speech. It
is the deepest reality in human existence. We are * one Spirit
with the Lord ' ' members of His body ; ' branches of the Vine '
' the Bride of the Lamb 'the ' Wife ' who is ' one flesh ' with
the Immortal King. ' I in them, and thou in me, that they may
be perfect in one.'
What follows ? Surely that this union with Christ is so real, so
vital, that no earthly union is half so operative. Christ takes His
' bride,' with her dowry of sin and death, and bears it. She takes
His place, as ' one body and spirit ' with Him. Hence we are
one with Him before God in righteousness. This is a mystery
not written in nature, or in science, or in the literature of the
world, ' which knows not God ; ' but it is written in the Word
which ' endureth for ever.'
SECTION II.
The three chief errors on J- 'testification.
We shall now signalise the three principal errors on Justification
noted in the New Testament, and afterwards show how the restor-
ation of the truth on the source of Immortality is fitted to explode
them, while offering some security against their recurrence.
The Christian religion is founded on facts ; it approaches us in
the form of a history. It does not consist of a series of abstract
ideas or propositions which came to the earth from the Eternal
Mind ; but it has been embodied in a course of providential
actions, extending onward from the beginning of the world to the
fulness of times. The facts of this history are set forth as the
foundation of the doctrines; and we may estimate their com-
parative importance by the magnitude and prominence of the
facts on which they depend. Viewed in this light, there can be
no hesitation in fixing upon the death of the Son of God as the
most prominent event in the divine order, and therefore upon the
doctrine of justification, which is founded upon it, as the corner-
stone of the Christian system.*
* See Erskine's Internal Evidence of Christianity.
232 THE PHARISAIC ERROR.
Justification in Christ is not only the most important doctrine
of Christianity ; it is Christianity, properly so called. For it is
the distinction between this and all other religions, that while
these represent salvation as man's work towards God, that repre-
sents it as God's work towards man. The ignorant habitually
consider religion solely under the character of a law of morality
with rewards and punishments thus rendering the Cross a mere
nullity. But the rules of morality do not form the chief part of
Christianity ; for since these depend upon the right knowledge
of our relation to God, the Scripture lays that foundation in the
doctrine of ' grace ; ' and this doctrine of grace forms the rules
of morality for Christian life, and therefore is superior to them.
Hence we infer the necessity for a true understanding of that
central fact of revelation, the death of Christ, and of the doctrine
which shines as a glory around it, justification through the
reckoning of righteousness to sinners.
In the apostolic age three principal forms of error on this
subject infected the Church: the New Testament contains an
epistle directed against each of them. We may in few words
discriminate these errors.
i. The Pharisaic error; in refutation of which chiefly the
Epistle to the Romans was written by the Apostle Paul. This
error consisted in the notion that the law was given as the means
of salvation; because a man may deserve and win everlasting
happiness as the wages of merit.* Its language was, ' God, I
thank Thee that I am not as other men are.' // went about to
establish its own righteousness ; and, in its grosser forms, admitted
the extravagant absurdity of works of supererogation ; so that in
rabbinical phraseology a man might be better than ' righteous ; ' he
might be 'good', ' a distinction several times referred to in the
New Testament, and sternly denounced by the Saviour when
addressed by the latter appellation. It was a mode of thinking
flattering to the vanity of human nature ; but it directly tended
to produce alienation from God, through the ever lowering
standard of righteousness which it tolerated, and through the
* See Dr. Wotton, Tracts on the Mishna ; and John Smith's noble Select
Discourses on the Jewish Notion of a Legal Righteousness: Cambridge, 1640.
THE GALATIAN AND ANTING MI AN ERRORS. 233
stimulus which the terror and desperation of dreaded punishment
occasioned in the ' revival of sin.'
ii. TJie Galatian error ; which consisted in laying the founda-
tion of a religious life in trust in the merits of Christ for justifica-
tion, and in a subsequent attempt to complete the superstructure
through a ceremonial, sacramental, and moral obedience of their
own. It was a mingling of the law and the gospel ; which, like
all unnatural unions, produced a monstrous birth. They sought
to begin in the spirit, and to be made perfect in the flesh ; to
confide in Christ up to the time of repentance, and afterwards
' to trust in themselves.' It was the character of the Pharisee
grafted upon that of the publican, saying first, God be merciful to
me a sinner, and then, Stand by, I am holier than thou. S. Paul
regards this departure from the faith as a departure from Chris-
tianity, and hurls upon the heads of its teachers the greater
Anathema : If any man preach any other gospel than that which I
have preached unto you, let him be anathema (Gal. i. 8, 9).
iii. The Antinomian error ; against which James directed his
epistle. This error was seemingly based upon a recognition of
the mercy of God as the ground of salvation ; but made the fatal
mistake of imagining that that mercy was available for other than
regenerate men. It held the truth on the gratuitous reckoning
of righteousness ; but supposed that an intellectual belief in this
truth had a saving efficacy. The Apostle refuted this error by
the admonition, the devils also believe, and tremble ; reminding its
victims that the true faith was an active principle which works
by love. S. James does not represent sanctification as the ground
of justification, but as its necessary concomitant.
In opposition to these three errors, the Apostles taught, first,
the true notion of justification by the law. They set forth the
law as the image of the all-perfect and unchangeable Nature,
as eternal in its duration, inflexible in its demands, universal in
its reign. They showed that its primary concern is with the
secret motives of action; that it embraces the history of every
human being in one summary judgment ; that since it, therefore,
pronounces against the slightest infraction, as infringing the
claims of Divine authority, it thunders forth final condemnation
against every man in whom the love of God, the root of obedience,
234 UNION WITH CHRIST IN RIGHTEOUSNESS.
is absent or unknown. The law requires a spotless righteousness;
and in the absence of that righteousness the curse of death
descends.
Thus had mankind become ' dead' in the sight of God. But
the Most High had brought salvation. He could now be l just,
and thejustifier of him that believeth in Jesus? Christ, as the
second representative of Mankind, was * made under the law ; '
was tempted in the wilderness as Adam in Paradise ; fulfilled all
righteousness, as Adam did not ; and delivered up Himself with-
out sin, as the Lamb of God without blemish and without spot. He
was confessed even by demons to be the Holy One; by His
followers, to be harmless and undefiled; by His judge, to have no
fault in Him ; by Judas, to be innocent blood ; by His fellow-
sufferer, the thief, to have done nothing amiss. He was a living
impersonation of the law. His life magnified it, and made it
honourable. His perfection was such that He might justly have
been transfigured upon the cross, and shone forth in the excellent
glory when darkness veiled the sky.
It is this righteousness of Christ, in which, through the new
law of union by the Spirit of life, redeemed man partakes. We
are not placed by His death in a position to deserve salvation
by our own works, nor is our faith legally justifying ; but there
is a reckoning of Christ's righteousness to every one, the meanest
of the members of His body. And this gift of righteousness is the
first, the middle, and the last cause of our justification and
salvation. This is the wedding garment, which the best man
needs equally with the worst, without which the best will be con-
demned, but which the worst may obtain, and wear through
eternity. It is the reckoning of this righteousness (in analogy
with the imputation af Adam's guilt) which removes the con-
demnation under which we lay for the sin of our first parents, and
for our own, the curse of death. ' Christ is of God made
unto us righteousness ' (i Cor. i.). Therefore does this trans-
cendent blessing receive the name of JUSTIFICATION OF LIFE
(Rom. v. 1 8).
The 'blood* of Jesus was His 'life;' and that life He poured
out for the world ; so that being * justified 'by His blood J we become
' heirs according to the hope of that eternal life ' in which as
Divine Mediator He arose. Through faith in His name we
JUSTIFICATION AND IMMORTAL LIFE. 235
become ' members of His body ; ' we are baptised into His
death. We are identified with Him by the personal indwelling
of His Spirit. In Him the old man endures the curse of the law :
he dies. Therefore the life which we now possess is ' not our
own,' but is a divine donation. Christ rises as the Life-giver :
and hence the Apostle declares, / ' through the law (through its
curse taking effect on my representative, the Saviour), am dead to
the law, that I might live imto God. I am crucified with Christ,
nevertheless I live; yet not 1, but Christ liveth in me. And the life
which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of
God, who loved me and gave Himself for me ' (Gal. ii. 19, 20).
' There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them which are in
Christ Jesus : for the taw of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath
made me free from the law of sin and death? * Therefore, as by
the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemna-
tion ; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came iipon all
men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience
many were constituted sinners, so by the obedience of one shall
many be constituted righteous. Moreover, the law entered, that
the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound : that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so
might grace reign through righteousness imto eternal life by Jesus
Christ our Lord' (Rom. v. 18). Thus our life-union with the Son
of God explains and enforces the mysterious but hated doctrine
of the reckoning of His righteousness for justification.
SECTION III.
On the harmony existing between the Apostolic doctrine on Justifica-
tion and the doctrine of Immortality here maintained to be true.
The Lutheran Reformation, which restored the apostolic doc-
trine on justification by grace, through faith, in the blood of
Christ, found its chief difficulty in the vast antiquity and catho-
licity of the authorised dogma which it opposed. On rare
occasions the apostolic truth lifted its head above the tide of
general error during fifteen centuries; but the Ante-Nicene
Fathers here, as on many other leading topics of Revelation,
'allowed rather than invited' a very orthodox interpretation.
236 INFLUENCE OF PSYCHOLOGY
Their main theme was certainly not the main theme of the
Apostles, the gratuitous justification of sinners through the
1 offering up of Christ once for all. They write nobly on the
evidence of the Gospel, on the folly of heathenism, on the per-
verseness of the Jews, on the splendour of a holy life, on the
certainty of the resurrection, on the authority of Scripture ; but
the churches which they represented had nearly forgotten the
one striking speciality of the teaching of the Incarnate Word, on
the source and condition of immortal life for man ; and the
eclipse of that light darkened half the theological firmament.
The Jewish and the Heathen influences to which the primitive
churches were exposed agreed in one thing only a common
detestation, both on philosophic and religious grounds, of Christ's
Revelation that man can possess eternal life solely in Him.
Every disciple of the Pharisees who became a convert to Chris-
tianity brought with him into the Church the Pharisaic doctrine
of the immortality of the soul. Every Greek or Roman disciple
of the better schools of Athenian thought brought with him the
Oriental or Platonic doctrine of man's natural pre- existence and
eternity. It was not long, therefore, before the naturalistic basis
of hope supplanted the properly Christian. We find clear traces
of the truth in the epistles of Ignatius, in the Trypho of Justin
Martyr, in the books of Irenseus concerning Heresies, in the
treatise of Arnobius against Heathenism, as will be seen in a later
page ; but the set of the current of thought all over Christendom
was very early towards the psychology which in after-times became
universal.
The admission of this erroneous psychology ensured the
corruption of the doctrine of justification. He who believed
in the immortality of the soul believed in its legal exposure
to everlasting misery; and the action of overwhelming terror
is steadily in the direction of self-righteousness and superstition.
The moral value of human action was infinitely exaggerated
through the influence of the prevailing opinion respecting the
human agent. So great a Being as an Immortal can surely
do something to avert the dread sentence of endless torment,
and something to deserve an everlasting crown. The mere
fact of being born between such tremendous alternatives as a
necessary immortality of torment or of joy stimulated the de-
ON DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION. 23?
fensive sentiments which blew up the bubble of a legal righteous-
ness. Thus every influence was in readiness to accomplish the
corruption of the gospel in its doctrine on justification.
But had the fundamental truth been sedulously guarded by the
teachers of the earliest centuries, had they ' taught the things of
the Holy Spirit ' in the ' words of the Spirit,' had they preserved
silence when the Apostles preserved silence, and, while refraining
from uttering a word as to the immortality of the soul, had insisted
on Christ's own teaching, that to give eternal life is the very
object of Redemption, a corruption of the article on justification
would have been almost impossible. For under this view of man's
condition, justification, or pardon and acceptance with God, is what
takes place before the bar of God when a sinner ' passes from
death unto life,' and that change is exclusively the gracious act
of God, not the work of mortal man.
Since the gift of righteousness is equivalent to the gift of life
eternal, and that gift, both in its moral causes and personal appli-
cation, is an act of supernatural grace, there is no room left for
the notion that a man can in any way 'justify himself.' A man
can work himself up into an immortal condition of ' equality with
the angels,' or make himself a ' partaker of the Divine nature,' no
more than an ox or an ass can work himself up into humanity.
Salvation, in the sense of being ' saved alive ' from death eternal,
must be purely ' the gift of God.' Man can have no share in the
moral or physical causes which procure it ; not in the inception,
not in the completion. To live for ever is a free gift bestowed
freely on the vilest ; needed equally as a free gift by the worthiest
of men. This is Justification of life. And if the main doctrine
had been preserved, it would have upheld, like the central column
of a temple, the entire fabric of evangelical theology. Every
other gospel doctrine is derived from it, or rests upon it, or is
connected with it in indissoluble unity. If the Reformation had
reformed the psychology as well as the theology of Christendom, it
would have gone much deeper into the seat of the Church's disorder,
and applied a far more powerful remedy. For when men see that
Christ is our Life, and that our eternal life is a transfusion of His
life into our veins, they can more readily understand that He, and
He alone, is of God * made unto us Righteousness, and Sanctifica-
tion, and Redemption' (i Cor. i. 30).
2 3 8
CHAPTER XIX.
THE NEW COVENANT OF LIFE IN THE BLOOD OF CHRIST, OR THE
NATURE OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST, AND ITS PLACE IN THE
DIVINE GOVERNMENT AS AN ATONEMENT FOR SIN.
* Behold, then, the wonderful conjunction of both natures in the one Im-
manuel, who was by His very constitution an actual Temple, " God with us,"
the habitation of the Deity returned and resettling itself with men ; and fitted
to be what it must also be, a most acceptable sacrifice. For here was met to-
gether man that could die, and God that could overcome death ; sufficient to
atone the offended Majesty, and procure that life might be diffused and spread
itself to all that should unite with Him, whereby they might become "living
stones," a spiritual temple, again capable of that Divine Presence which they had
forfeited, and whereof they were forsaken.' HOWE'S Living Temple, Part II.
IN the last chapter but one we have considered the doctrine of
the Incarnation of the Logos-Theos, the divine life-giving Word.
We now are brought face to face with the characteristic doctrine
of the Bible, that this divine Life-giver God and Man in one
Person died and by dying abolished death ; His death being
a ' sin-offering ' . through which the Heavenly Father ' reconciled
the world unto Himself.'
This will lead us to consider,
1. The nature of the death that Christ died.
2. The apostolic statements respecting the efficacy of Christ's
death as an atonement for sin.
3. The reason of this efficacy, so far as it has been revealed.
SECTION I.
The Nature of the Death of Christ,
It has seldom been questioned in modern times that Christ
died upon the cross. Some Gnostic sects of the first century,
NATURE OF CHRIST S DEATH. 239
believing in the deity more than in the humanity of Christ, sup-
posed that it was a phantasm only which appeared to suffer. There
is nothing in modern thought precisely answering to this particular
phase of unbelief. The idea of the Incarnation of Deity leaves
the popular faith untouched as to the humanity and death of Jesus.
There is indeed no event which stands out in history with so
much of reality as the soul-moving death of our Blessed Saviour.
Its immediate causes are presented to us with ever-touching
tenderness and truth in the gospels. He died not of bodily pain
only, nor only loss of blood, but also of spiritual sorrow of a
' broken heart. ' He was ' in an agony ' in Gethsemane. His
' soul was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death,' before He
suffered on the cross. There was ' an hour and power of dark-
ness ' during which the Father's face was hidden from Him. He
also suffered the dreadful torment of crucifixion ; and then, when
the woe was at its utmost, He cried with an exceeding bitter cry
and 'yielded up His spirit.' *
There is no indication of doubt in our age as to the reality
of the crucifixion of Christ, or as to the physical similarity of
His death to that which * it is appointed unto men once to die. '
Many questions, however, of equal moment have been discussed
in relation to our Lord's death by divines of later ages. Did
Christ die only in the sense in which other men die ? Was His
death the curse of the Law ? Or was it some modification of
that curse ? Did Christ suffer a pain and miser}' of the same sort
and of equal weight, with that threatened to Adam in the day
of his creation, or did He bear some commuted penalty, which,
in consideration of His Divine Nature, was accounted a sufficient
expiation ?
S. Paul says, ' Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law,
being made a curse for us ; as it is written, Cursed is every one
that hangeth on a t tree ' (vn-ep fjfjLuv Karapa, Gal. Hi. 13). The
construction of this sentence, and the quotation of one of the
curses of that law (the law of Moses, viewed as a repetition of
* A valuable chapter on the death of Christ will be found in Mr. Denniston's
book on The Sacrifice for Sin (Longmans, 1872), pp. 195-211. And the reader
may consult with advantage, Dr. Petavel, Struggle for Eternal Life, p. 119, on
the question, Did Christ endure the Second Death ?
240 NATURE OF CHRIST S DEATH.
God's eternal law), render it indubitable, that Christ bore the
curse of the law in the sense of dissolution. For if the curse of
the law in virtue of which we are, by nature, * children of wrath,'
were everlasting misery, there would be an incongruity between
the two parts of the Apostle's statement. ' Christ hath redeemed
us from the curse of the law (everlasting misery), being made a
curse for us ; ' not, however, that distinctive curse of the law, but
a very different one, that of death by ' hanging on a tree.' Thus
it would seem, that here there are two distinct curses of the law,
everlasting suffering due to the immortal soul, and death by
hanging on a tree, or otherwise ; and that, although the curse
under which we lay was, according to this theory, the former, the
curse which Christ bore, was the latter, which, notwithstanding,
availed to deliver us from the former.
But this is a case in which facts decide the doctrine. Christ
died for our sins, according to the Scriptures. He laid down His
life (i/^xV) f r His sheep (John x. 15). He did not endure
everlasting misery either of body or soul ; but He was, as a man,
destroyed: 'The rulers sought to destroy Jesus' (Matt, xxvii. 20).
'They &'/// the Prince of life' (Acts iii. 15). He suffered a
dissolution of His compound nature. He defines His own death
by comparing it to the death of a grain of wheat (John xii. 24),
conveying the idea of the disintegration of the parts of His nature.
'He poured out His soul, or life, unto death.'
It is not necessary to suppose, with the elder divines, that the
Saviour endured an amount of suffering equal to that collectively
deserved by the elect, or by the whole race of mankind ; for He
was a propitiation for that race, regarded as one individual the
first Adam, whose sin comprised the germ of all subsequent
transgressions ; yet, inasmuch as the blood of Jesus Christ is
effectual to the pardon of ' all sin,' it must be understood that all
sin was reckoned as being contained in that one offence which
brought death upon Adam, and which was the occasion of the
necessity for God's sacrifice.
1 The free gift,' says S. Paul, ' is of many offences unto justifi-
cation.' Hence it is that Jesus is said to have ' delivered us from
the wrath to come;' inasmuch as the sins of the descendants of
Adam, spared for a second probation, have incurred for them a
second and more terrible punishment at the resurrection of judg-
THE CURSE BORNE BY CHRIST. 241
ment ; and Christ delivers us both from the death which the sin
of Adam brought in, and from that future wrath which we have
ourselves deserved. HE could not, as the sinless representative
of the race, undergo any other than the original sentence.
The curse of the law which Christ bore, then, was, as to its
essence, and apart from the accidents of suffering which led to it,
literal death ; a dissolution of His being as a man, a curse which
took no account of the subsequent destiny of the component
elements of His nature. It was the shedding of His blood which
the law required, since * without shedding of blood there is no
remission.' But the blood of the sacrifice, according to the
Mosaic law, was the * Life thereof,' and it was His 'blood' which
Jesus 'gave for the life of the world.'
That it was the union of an Eternal Spirit ' with the humanity
which imparted its sacrificial efficacy to the ' blood of the Lamb,
the New Testament plainly declares : ' For if the blood of bulls
and of goats, and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean,
sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the
blood of Christ, who through the (an) Eternal Spirit offered
Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead
works to serve the living God? ' (Heb. ix. 13). The Divine Word
stood forth upon the earth as High Priest of the creation, pre
senting ' His flesh ' as a sin-offering.
It does not, however, appear to be anywhere stated that the
indwelling of the Divinity changed the character of the curse of
the law, in the case of our Lord, from everlasting misery, into
literal death. It will, therefore, be sufficient to receive the
simpler representation, that the ' Man Christ Jesus ' endured that
curse. For aught that the Scripture reveals, Jesus, as a man,
might as justly have been required to endure everlasting suffering
supposing this to have been the legal curse as that shameful
painful death which He actually underwent. If it be asserted
that it was the presence of the Godhead within which dispensed
with the infliction of endless pains, through the substitution of an
Infinite Majesty for the infinitely extended misery of a finite being,
we reply, that this is an afterthought of theology ' which finds no
place in the authoritative record.
We thus derive support for our former argument that the death
16
242 MEANING OF SALVATION BY BLOOD.
threatened to Adam was literal dissolution, without reference to a
state of eternal misery for the soul. The fact that Christ bore
this death, laid down His life as a man, shed His blood for our
redemption without suffering in hell beyond, is proof that death in
the Bible signifies the dissolution of humanity, and that life
signifies literal life ; since it was not merely His ' happiness/
much less His ' holiness,' which the Saviour 'laid down for His
sheep/ but His life as a man. There is no evidence whatever
that He endured a commutation of the penalty denounced ; there
is no evidence for aught else than that His Deity gave a ' purging
efficacy to the endurance of ' the curse of the law ; ' and therefore
we are compelled to conclude that the death which Jesus under-
went when He * frustrated him that had the power of death, and
gave to them who all their lifetime were in bondage through fear of
death ' the hope of a resurrection, was death in the general sense
of dissolution.
This view of the death of our Lord throws a clearer light on the
doctrine of salvation by His blood. The ' sprinkling of His blood'
is the pardon of sin ; the bestowment of freedom from * condem-
nation ' by that law whose sentence is death. ' The blood is the
life thereof ; ' therefore the ' drinking of His blood ' is drinking in
the element of eternal life. We are by nature under sentence of
destruction ; but in Him, through the ' blood of the cross,' we
have reconciliation and resurrection. Since * sin and death ' are
inseparably united, forgiveness is as inseparably united with im-
mortality. The death of the Lord Jesus being placed in opposition
to the impending death of man, it cannot be supposed that the
same term has diverse significations in the two cases : and since
the loss of ' a right to the tree of life ' in Adam was followed by
' a return to the dust whence he was taken,' it seems inevitable to
conclude that He at whose death the veil of the Holiest (the type
of Paradise) was rent asunder, has procured for us a literal, and
not a metaphorical, participation of immortality. Thus (if the
parallel be not too fanciful), as the first Adam by a tree brought
death into the world and loss of Eden, so did the Divine
Redeemer by * bearing our sins in His own body to the tree '
obtain the right to promise dying men, ' This day shalt thou be
with me in Paradise* And as the sin of the first man brought
CHRIST'S DEITY AND RESURRECTION. 243
forth the thorns of the curse, so did the Lord from Heaven die
crowned with those thorns, and the curse removed.*
A difficulty, however, here suggests itself, in bar of the con-
clusion that Jesus Christ bore the curse of the law. It is
objected that the curse denounced to our first parents was,
according to us, death for ever dissolution without hope of a
resurrection ; and that, therefore, the threatening did not take
eifect upon the Redeemer. The answer to this objection will
serve at once to establish the preceding representations on a
firmer basis, and to confirm the article of our Saviour's Godhead.
It is therefore admitted, that the objection would be valid if
the Saviour had been simply human. If Jesus had been the Son
of David only, He could not legally have risen from the dead.
Death must have had dominion over Him for ever. He must
have suffered everlasting destruction. His human spirit must
have passed away for ever. The humanity which had been 'made
under the law ' must abide under that law j the representative of
a guilty race could have trodden the path of life no more.
But the Saviour was Divine. As man, identified with human
nature, He died, and His death became a sin-offering ; as God
He could not die. As man He was ' made under the law ; ' as
God He was above the law laid on creatures. And therefore,
when the curse had taken effect upon the manhood, it was still
open to the Divine Inhabitant, absorbing the Spirit into His own
essence, to restore the ' destroyed Temple ' from its ruins ; and,
taking possession of it, in virtue of His Divinity (not, legally, as
a man), ' to raise it up on the third day/ He arose, therefore, as
the Divine Conqueror of death, ' God over all, blessed for ever-
more,' and was thus * declared to be the Son of God with power,
according to the Spirit of holiness, by His resurrection from the
dead ' (Rom. i. 4). He rose, not ' in the likeness of sinful flesh;'
not ' under the law,' but in the character of the 'Lord from
* The application of these statements to the interpretation of the Holy
Communion will be obvious to the reader. The view here maintained will lead
us to regard the cup in that Holy Sacrament as a standing testimony against
the doctrine of natural immortality, and in support of the doctrine which attri-
butes the eternal life of the saved to the 'blood' of the Lamb that was slain.
And when we take bread as Christ's Body, we receive His pledge of our ever-
lasting existence in glory. ' The bread which* I will give is my flesh, which I
will give for the life of the world.'
244 MR. CHASE ON CHRIST'S- RESURRECTION.
Heaven,' ' our Lord and our God : ' not in the image of the
1 son of Adam,' but as the ' Son of the Highest ; ' having delivered
us from wrath by the death of His humanity, to endow us with
immortality through the life of His divinity. He was no longer
1 the man of sorrows,' but The First and The Last, and the Living
One ; no longer crowned with thorns, and clothed in a peasant's
robe, but wearing the diadem of the Lord of the Universe, and
shining with the supereminent splendours of the Godhead.
The following quotation from an estimable writer, who asserts
the same truth on a different occasion, will make this somewhat
clearer :
* The Son of God,' says Mr. Chase,* 'has, as we have seen, yielded up the
ghost. He is cut 0^out of the land of the living. His soul is made an offer-
ing for sin ! But He has risen again. Has the Divine Justice then relented ?
Having received the price of pardon, has it so quickly returned it back to the
great Ransomer ? No ; the mighty Redeemer rises not again to the possession
of the same life He gave a ransom for many. The life He yielded up on the
cross was frail, feeble, and mortal. The life to which He was quickened by
His own almighty energy, is spiritual and divine. It was the life of man, a
life common to Him with those He died to redeem, that expired on the tree :
but the life He mow enjoys is the life of God. Of justice He takes back no
part of the penalty He had paid. It is to the power of His eternal Godhead
alone that He owes His resurrection from the dead. For He is " the Prince of
Life." "In Him is the fountain of life." By dying, the Godhead, ineffably
united to the manhood, did not expire. And it was by the energy of that
Godhead that He arose, and that He now lives. Nor is it possible to imagine
a greater contrast than that which the humanity of Christ presents, when com-
paring its former state of humiliation with its present state of exaltation and
glory. The body of Jesus, once wearied with toil, oppressed with hunger and.
thirst, subject to every sinless infirmity common to our frail nature, requiring
sustenance, and shelter, and repose, and, above all, liable to the stroke of
death, now hungers no more, neither thirsts any more ; and, being transformed
and glorified, is removed beyond the reach of evil, or of death. " He was
crucified through weakness: He liveth by the pmver of God. " He can there-
fore die no more. " Death hath no more dominion over Him ; for in that He
died, He died unto sin once ; but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God.
Instead of perishing for ever, as any created being must have done, had He
paid with his own life the penalty of disobedience, the great Redeemer is
Himself " the first fruits from the dead." For when He paid the life of man
as the penalty demanded by inexorable justice He ceased not to retain, as the
essential word of God, the fountain of life in Himself. To lose this was no
* Antinomianism Unmasked, ch. v., a work prefaced by a warm commenda.
tion from the pen of the Rev. Robert Hall,
THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. 245
part of the penalty incurred. Having therefore laid down His life, He had
performed the full satisfaction which the law required, and had a right to exert
His divine energy in quickening to life His lifeless humanity, and making it
the visible abode of His invisible Godhead.'
SECTION II.
The Apostolic statements respecting the efficacy of Christ 's death as
an Atonement for sin.
' In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent His
only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.
' Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son
to be the propitiation for otir sins.' 1 I JOHN iv. 9, 10.
Such are the statements of S. John on the Atonement of
Christ, with which agree S. Peter and S. Paul in all their epistles.
Nearly every reader understands that this English word, Atone-
ment, signifies at-one-ment, or reconciliation ; and is used to denote
the reconciliation of the world to Himself by God, through the
death of His Son.
As commonly employed it signifies reconciliation effected by
the sacrifice of Christ, whose death is regarded not so much as
an ordinary martyrdom brought about by human wickedness, but
as an act of God determined beforehand, who through wicked
hands * gave his Son ' to die, to save us from death eternal.
To expiate signifies to make satisfaction or reparation for guilt
by some suffering or loss. In this case it means to put away sin
and its punishment, by the piety or self-sacrifice of Christ. The
idea is, that under the government of God it was impossible to
forgive men by an arbitrary act of remission founded simply on
their repentance, or on God's compassion. It was necessary that
some demonstration, or ' declaration ' (e^Sa^is) should be made
(Romans iii. 26) of a nature to uphold the government of God
in pardoning sin, while at the same time maintaining the gracious
character of that pardon ; and that necessity, we are taught, led
the Eternal God to deliver up His Son to die, ' the just for the.
unjust' (i Peter iii. 18). His death is therefore termed a 'pro-
pitiation,' a ' sin-offering/ a ' sacrifice/ through which God can be
* just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus/ This is the
246 CHRIST'S DEATH AN EXPIATION.
ancient and the prevailing notion of the Atonement.* Is this
revealed as a fact in the Scriptures ?
Many a reader will reply, Undoubtedly it is ! There is
nothing plainer in all written language than that the Apostles
teach that the death of Christ was an expiatory sacrifice, was
not simply the representation to God of an obedient human life,
nor had to do only with making men holy in the future, but
had relation to the ' forgiveness of sins which are past. 1 Many
would say, We can never hope to understand the meaning of
any writing if we err in thinking that the Bible and the whole
Bible some part by type and symbol, some part by prophecy,
some part by explicit doctrinal statement, teaches that there is
the closest connection of means and end between our Saviour's
death and the forgiveness of sins. This teaching lies upon the
surface, and penetrates the depths of Scripture. It is indeed the
leading doctrine of revelation that Christ hath ' washed us from
our sins hi His own blood, and made us kings and priests unto
God.' If we are mistaken in this reading of the Bible, many
would say, we cannot hope to understand rightly any part of
divine revelation.
We agree with those who would from 'popular instinct thus
determine ; and fully believe that those who speak othenvise are
not dealing with Scripture language by the same rule which they
would apply to any other book. Yet it is known to all that it is
earnestly denied by not a few able writers that such things are
taught in the Bible. There are influential schools of thought,
professedly Christian, and even Protestant, which zealously
denounce the notion of an expiation of past sin by Christ's
sacrifice ; affirming that there is no direct connection between
His death and the forgiveness of sinners. They teach that
Christ's death was simply a measure in God's providence em-
ployed to bring out the sinfulness of man ; and so, by affording
* An attempt has been made to prove that this view of the Atonement is
modem ; but in ecclesiastical literature it is as old as the epistle to Diognetus,
to say nothing of its obvious presence in the apostolic epistles. Why should
it be so easy to understand what the Fathers teach, and so difficult to under-
stand the Evangelists and Apostles ? Generally the ' difficulty ' in the latter
case is subjective in the reader. Mr. Dale has given in his Congl. Lectures on
the Atonement a careful account of the history of the doctrine. (Ilodder and
Stoughton.)
CHRIST'S DEATH AN EXPIATION. 247
the noblest example of divine self-sacrifice, to influence men by
example to abandon an. evil life. As for pardon, God being a
Father, it is said, forgives sin freely, and without further con-
sideration, as soon as the sinner, who is His son, repents. He
requires no price, ransom, or satisfaction, whereby impunity may
be purchased. Christ is our Saviour in this sense alone, that He
leads us to repentance and a new life, and therefore delivers us
by such change of character from the punishment due for past
offences. The blood-sacrifice of Christ was His life-sacrifice ; and
He gave Himself for our sins both by life and death, in this
sense, that He might 'deliver us from this present evil world,' by
teaching us to do the will of God our Father. The man who
repents becomes thereby righteous, and God gives him eternal
life accordingly ; reckoning righteousness to the man who becomes
righteous in the root-principle of his being.
With this one-sided teaching accommodation is, I believe,
impossible, so long as the apostolic writings are held as authority.
The answer to be given to these statements rests altogether
on interpretation. There is for us no hope of comprehending
Christ's religion except as explained by the New Testament
writers. If Christ and His apostles did not understand, or could
not clearly express, the divine message, no one else can hope to
understand it. We hold, then, that such an idea of atonement as
has been just described, not only fails to fill up the meaning of
the apostles' language, but offers to it the utmost violence. The
apostles teach, as plainly as words can teach anything, that the
death of Christ was an Atonement by expiation, or sin-offering,
for 'SINS THAT ARE PAST' (TrpoyeyovoTooi/, Romans iii. 25), not
simply a provision for preventing future transgression. They
teach that God's ' Fatherhood ' was not of the nature of the
demoralised fatherhood of the modern world ; where the leading
notion, on the part of bad children, seems to be that it is the
part of a good parent to bear patiently any excess of rebellion or
extravagance, to forgive it universally, and even to find means for
these excesses, such a line of action being considered specially
* paternal.' But the Scriptures teach that the Fatherhood of God
rather resembles the primitive idea of fatherhood set forth in the
law of Moses, and throughout antiquity, which included the
judicial character ; so that the father of a family, however loving
248 THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD.
to good children, was empowered and expected to act as a
magistrate; and even to bring forth a 'rebellious son' to the
gates of the city, and there, if he were ' a glutton and a drunkard ;
(Deut. xxi. 1 8), deliver him up to the executioner of vengeance
or even to decree the death by fire of a daughter-in-law who had
committed fornication, as occurred in the history of Judah the
son of Israel (Gen. xxxviii. 24).
The Scriptures, in accord with Nature and Providence, alike
teach in every page the eternal authority of righteousness, of
righteous ' severity ' as well as righteous 'goodness ' (Romans ix.).
Revelation knows nothing of a God forgiving sin without sacrifice
or suffering, nothing of arbitrary pardon, or of the abrogation of
law, because the execution of penalty will be painful to the
offender, or to the governor. In the physical world we see on all
sides inexorable execution of law without regard to the feelings
of the violator. In Revelation we find, notwithstanding the
presence of mercy for all who comply with certain conditions,
the same steadfast assertion of universal order and Divine
Righteousness. 'Thine eye shall not spare,' is the key-note of
the law.
It is necessary, therefore, to explode resolutely the sentimental
and wholly romantic notion of the Divine Character, derived
from bad human models, on which those proceed who now offer
violence to the scripture teaching on the Atonement of Christ.
Nature knows nothing of a God who makes little of broken law,
directly the breaker of it discovers that he is in trouble, or even
professes to be sorry for his offence. It is, as all may see, an
awful thing to oppose the physical forces of nature; yet the
results of transgression abide, and often operate for generations.
Similarly the scripture knows nothing of this false God of modern
times all-benignant, all-forgiving who takes no account of past
sin, immediately that the transgressor desires to escape the penalty.
' Our God is a consuming fire.' The most prominent lesson both
in Nature and in Scripture is the immense difficulty of doing away
with the consequences of law-breaking ; for even when sin is for-
given, and does not end in death, its secondary consequences
remain.*
* I beg to refer to my Sermon on the ' Secondary and Permanent Conse-
quences of Sin ' as affecting the future destiny of the Saved, which, I will
CHRIST'S WORDS ON HIS OWN DEATH. 249
Thus it is that the law of Moses, the praparatio evangelii,
teaches that pardon can be obtained only through sacrifice, and
this not eucharistic, but expiatory. The High Priest, in the
complex sacrifice of the Atonement day, ' lays his hand ' upon
one of the victims, ' confesses over him all the iniquities of Israel,'
' putting them upon the head ' of the scape-goat, and then the
blood of the other victim is carried into the holy of holies to
be sprinkled before the Divine Judge, ' to make an atonement
thereby.' This idea is impressed on the Israelites by every
complication of the ritual, the ' exceeding sinfulness of sin,
and pardon through a sin-offering. This, however, it is said, is
but symbol. Yes, but a divinely appointed symbol points to a
reality, and its signification is made certain by the words of our
Lord Himself when about to die.
What explanation does the Son of God give to His disciples
of the object of His own death ? It must be admitted that no
words of His ought to receive more reverent attention than those
spoken when He was about to ' offer up Himself/ If His death
were nought else than a representative burnt-offering of obedience
to God on man's behalf, an example of self-sacrifice, for the pur-
pose of stimulating us to live and die self-sacrificingly, He will
surely tell us now. If His death were a sin-offering, an expiation
of ' sins that are past,' He will surely tell us that also. Hear,
then, His dying words. He * took the cup, and gave thanks, and
gave it to them, saying, ' Drink ye all of it ; for this is my blood
of the New Covenant, which is shed on behalf of many, for the re-
mission of sins' (Matt. xxvi. 28).
We will not multiply comments over this utterance of the Son
of God ; much less offer perverse criticism with a view of explain-
ing away its force. The ' remission ' (a<eo-is) of sins, is the
word used, in its verbal form, by the same Divine Speaker in the
prayer which He taught His disciples. 'Forgive us our trespasses,
as \veforgive those who trespass against us ; ' and there as here, it
manifestly signifies not reformation of character, but the blotting
out or remission or forgiveness of offences that are past. Here,
venture to add, received the approbation of the late Mr. Binney, as a much
needed statement of complementary truth among Protestants. See Mystery of
Growth; Dickenson, 1877.
250 THE PROPITIATORY SACRIFICE.
then, at the Last Supper, our Lord declares that He died in order
that sin might be forgiven unto men. His death was an atonement,
an expiation, a propitiation, a sin-offering. ' When he shall make
his life (or soul) an offering for sin (asham], he shall see his seed,
he shall prolong his days ' (Isaiah liii. 10).
Thus also taught the apostles after Christ's resurrection. S. Paul,
in offering an exposition of salvation to the church of Rome the
church of the chief city on earth, after describing the guilt
of both Jews and Gentiles, and setting forth the impossibility
of obtaining justification by law, declares that righteousness is
the free gift of God to sinners through Christ, whom God hath
set forth, tXacmjptov, a propitiatory sacrifice, through faith in His
blood. The sense of this word may be learned in the Greek
version of Numbers v. 8 : ' Let the trespass be recompensed (an
indemnity be paid) to the Lord, even to the priest, beside the
ram of the atonement or propitiation, whereby an atonement or
expiation shall be made for him ' (1X0,07x00, IXao-Kerat).
S. Paul further declares that this ' propitiation,' or sacrificial
expiation, so set forth, is for the purpose of * manifesting His
righteousness on account of the remission of sins that are past,
through the forbearance of God : to declare, I say, at this time
His righteousness (/.*., His righteousness in remitting past sins),
that He might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in
Jesus. ;
We need not add to these two declarations one of the Lord
Himself, the other of His chief apostle writing his chief expla-
natory sentence^ in his chief epistle, addressed to the chief church of
Christendom. Neither of these statements admits of being justly
set aside on critical grounds. And they are supported by the
whole body of apostolic teaching; as in the statements of the
epistle to the Hebrews, that ' He hath put away sin by the sacri-
fice of Himself ; ' that ' by His own blood He hath obtained
eternal redemption for us ; ' that ' the blood of Christ, who
through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God,
shall purge our conscience from dead works to serve the Living
God ; ' that ' Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many ; '
that 'this man has offered one sacrifice for sins for ever,'
having ' by one offering perfected for ever them that are sancti-
fied,' having (Col. ii. 14) 'by Himself purged our sins,'
THE REASON OF THE FACT. 251
' blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us,'
and now * living to make intercession for us.'
The fact of atonement for sins made by the death of the Son
of God is then plainly and repeatedly asserted in the New Testa-
ment Scriptures.
SECTION III.
We now approach the third part of this inquiry, into the
revealed Reason of the Fact. What do these Scriptures teach
respecting the cause of the death of Christ? Why was such
an atonement necessary in pardoning sin? And how does it
operate in reconciling sinners to God ?
Here let us say at the outset, that as we could not know the
fact that Christ's death was an expiatory sacrifice except by reve-
lation of God, so neither can we know anything respecting its
reasons or mode of operation except by a similar revelation. And
when men have departed from the Scripture teaching on this
subject, and framed theories of the Atonement on extra-scriptural
grounds, they have usually succeeded only in leading multitudes
to doubt the fact of an atonement altogether.
(i) For example, it has been often said, as by Dr. Watts,
that Christ died to appease the wrath of God, and by Bp. Heber,
1 to meet His Fathers anger;" 1 that the Second Person of the
Godhead intervened, in compassion for sinners, to prevent the
First Person, our Father, from executing His vengeance upon
them. As Cowper expressed it, in a passage quoted by M.
Sainte-Beuve, ' God is always formidable to me, except when I
see Him disarmed of His sting, by having sheathed it in the body
of Jesus Christ.* Now this representation of mediation is not
only directly contrary to Scripture but is essentially heathenish,
and destructive of confiding love to God. For this was precisely
the idea of the sacrifices to the gods of heathenism, they were
offered to propitiate or render placable wrathful divinities. But
* Even Canon Mozley, in his weighty volume of University Sermons, per-
mits himself to employ on one occasion language of the same type. ' The
effect of Christ's love for mankind, and suffering on their behalf, is described
in Scripture as being the reconciliation of the Father to man, and the adoption
of new regards to him.' .' The act of a suffering Mediator reconciles God to
the guilty.' Atonement, p. 173.
252 GOD THE REDEEMER.
whatever the reason of the death of Christ may have been,
assuredly it was not an act of the Son of God separate from an
act of the Father: nor was it designed to produce states of feeling
in God not existent before. It was GOD who l so loved the world
as to give His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believed in
Him should not perish.' It was God who 'reconciled the world
to Himself, or atoned it by Jesus Christ, not imputing our tres-
passes unto us.' It is to offer violence of the most unwarrantable
description to the character of the God of Love, to represent Him
as excited with wrath against sinners, while the Son of God was
lenient and merciful, or to represent God as seeking to strike
some one on earth, and striking an innocent person rather than
strike none at all.
All such statements, however commonly made aforetime, or
unfairly imputed in our time by Unitarian writers, are perversions
of Scripture, and have led to much reactionary feeling against
any doctrine of Christ's atonement for the sins of the world. It
has been thought justly that such views represent the Eternal Being
as naturally adverse to His creatures, or as an Omnipotent Foe
bought over to forbearance by the price of innocent blood.
Words strong enough to express the loathing with which such
teaching ought to be regarded are difficult to find. It is our God
who has given Christ. It is God, whom we have offended, who
has nevertheless 'provided the Lamb for the burnt-offering.'
Whatever there is of mercy to sinners in Christ springs from the
overflowing love of God. ' We love Him because He first loved us?
(2) Again, there are those who, casting about for some explana-
tion of the Atonement, have looked upon Christ in His sufferings
chiefly in His character as a Man, a sinless representative man,
but as a person outside the Godhead ; and then His death has
been made to appear as the execution of the judgment due to
sinners, by substitution of an innocent sufferer, a man who had
' done nothing amiss.' Under this view at once arises the ques-
tion, ' How can God's Righteousness in pardoning sin be aided
or set forth by doing what seems the most unrighteous thing that
can be done in the universe, punishing a guiltless person for the
transgressions of sinners ? ' * Shall not the Judge of all the
earth do right? That the righteous should be as the wicked, that
CAUSES OF UNITARIAN DOCTRINE. 253
be far from thee ! ' If there is one moral principle which is plain
and authoritative beyond all others, it surely is that the innocent
ought not to suffer instead of the guilty. How, then, it is asked,
can the death of Christ, thus conceived of chiefly as a Man,
illustrate the righteousness of God, or establish His moral govern-
ment, while He pardons sinners ?
The more closely we think of this question, the greater the
difficulty will appear. The willingness of the victim to endure
suffering by no means removes this difficulty. If it be wished to
confirm the reign of righteous law in the world at the same time
that you pardon sinners and remit the penalties due to their sins,
the very last thing to do, assuredly, is to break through all con-
ceivable rules of right, by inflicting suffering on an innocent
creature. Such a procedure as this will shake anything that
deserves the name of moral government to its foundations.
Accordingly, you find that wherever such views of Christ's
person have prevailed, where He has been conceived of either
as simply human, or where His superiority of nature has been
regarded as less than Divine, or has been permitted to pass out
of view through a one-sided dwelling on His humanity, or through
a Sabellian denial of the real distinction in the persons of the
Godhead, no faith in His death as an atonement for sin has
long survived. The Scriptures which speak of it have been
explained away. It has been felt to be almost a moral duty to
explain them away, and not to permit the people to hear of a
propitiatory sacrifice which consisted in the suffering and death of
a man, a creature who was perfectly holy. It has been felt that
such a doctrine must end in breaking down the very idea of a
just God, and present His mercy to sinners in the guise of a com-
passion purchased by the undeserved agonies of an immaculate
victim.
(3) The Scripture doctrine on the reason of the Atonement is
far removed from either of these representations.
So long as Christ Himself is thought of only as a creature,
however dignified, no explanation of the Atonement can be
given, as an expiation, which does not shock the moral sense,
and necessitate sooner or later the abandonment of the expiatory
idea. So long as any explanation of the atonement is sought for
254 ATTEMPTED STATEMENT OF THE TRUTH.
outside the Godhead, it will be sought in vain. So long as it is
sought for under the hypothesis of Christ's simple humanity, it
must elude discovery, or compel disbelief. We trace the presence
of such disbelief on all sides around us. The Unitarians, who
reject Christ's personal Deity, reject as a matter of course the
atonement in the sense of expiation. They are entirely right in
refusing to entertain the conception of a propitiation for sin
founded on the infliction of suffering on an innocent creature.
Apostolic Christianity is credible only when it is taken in its
integrity, and taken alone. And the doctrine of the Apostles is,
that the Divine Nature is revealed as bi-polar, or of double
aspect. They teach that there is in that Eternal Nature a love
of righteousness, and righteous law, necessary and ever-during;
leading to an eternal resolve to uphold with the Infinite Might the
authority of Right as right, and of God as God, both in His own
mind and in His outward government. They teach that there is
also in God, through the riches of a gracious Nature, an over-
flowing love and compassion, not for all sinners of all worlds,
and of all ranks, but for creatures whose sinfulness is the result
of an original malign interference ; which has prompted the desire
to ' save ' man although a law-breaker. Hence a moral schism in
the Divine Nature. The Rock of Ages was rent asunder to its
depths. However startling the statement, the finite will, erring
and rebelling, is represented as setting in eternal opposition to
each other the attributes of God the righteousness which prompts
to swift judgment as an eternal necessity of the Divine Nature,
and the grace which remembers mercy and pities the victims of
Satanic envy.
Can God 'forgive sin* without some outward demonstration,
of a nature to show that forgiveness of law-breaking is not a
1 law ' of the Divine government, or an ordinary act of the Divine
government, that the law is and will be, that remediless suffer-
ing shall follow sin ? Can God extend His mercy without any
manifestation of His righteousness? Can the Divine Wisdom
devise any compensation which Divine Righteousness may sanc-
tion under a moral government, so as to reconcile the sinful world
to God, and make salvation possible? There is but one way
open, say these God-taught men, that sinners, death-doomed,
may obtain life eternal, No innocent creature must suffer, how-
EXCURSUS ON SENSIBILITY OF GOD. 255
ever willing. God Himself must suffer, in one exceptional sacri-
fice, if sinners are to be saved, and the stability of the Divine
government within itself, and over other minds, is to be preserved.
Here alone, we find the revealed reason of the Atonement by
the death of Christ, considered as an expiation, or ground for
pardoning sinners. // is not a blow falling on an innocent creature,
outside the Godhead. It is a blow falling from the sinful creature
on the Godhead itself, on that sensitive Divine Nature, which is
extended through infinity, and is the source of all feeling, physical
and moral, in all worlds. Man's greatest crime, a direct assault
upon the Godhead, becomes the ground on which God can remit
all other sins. It is a sacrifice made by the Holy and Merciful
One, in order 'that He might show forth all long-suffering,' by
identifying Himself with us.
All the language of Scripture respecting this Sacrifice is based
upon this idea, of God's sacrificing and suffering for us as Man.
' He that spared not His own Son ; ' ' God so loved the world as
to give His only begotten Son/ Every word here speaks of
severest suffering and sacrifice of a self-exacting righteous benevo-
lence, which will indulge its grace only at a mighty cost to Itself,
of all that is most dear.
Excursus on the Sensibility of God.
But here it is necessary to turn aside for a moment to question
and protest against that system of metaphysics which in its re-
actionary zeal against extreme anthropomorphism teaches modern
men to think of God as a Being impassive and insensible to real
delight or pain the Buddhism of the West.
For is not the prevailing opinion among all ranks of the people,
especially when they desire to appear signally enlightened, that
the scriptural language respecting God as a Living Person near at
hand, full of thoughtful interest regarding ourselves, is but an
accommodation to the weakness of the lower order of minds ; so
that when prophets and apostles speak of Deity as resenting
ingratitude or insult ; as indignant at atrocious wrong ; as loving,
grieving, sympathising, seeking to associate with us in close com-
munion ; as delighting in good, provoked with bad men ; these
are only so many fictions, ' anthropomorphic parables,' the abso-
256 THE SENSIBILITY OF GOD.
lute truth being that the Divine Nature is infinitely removed above
all possibility of concrete thought or moral emotion, of pleasure
or pain that in fact the Godhead dwells in an unbroken calm of
perfect rest; so that there is no objective reality in expressions
which practically describe Him with a moral nature analogous to
the human. *
If this be true, it is obvious to remark a child might make
the observation how uninteresting a process the worship of such
a God must be ; of One to whom you bring thought, anxiety,
emotion, passion, praise, affection, gratitude, prayer, heart-sacrifice,
and Who in return looks upon you in the eternal gaze of
impassive omniscience, with not even the faintest approach to
responsive fatherly love.
And is not this persuasion the reason why so few of mankind
inwardly worship the God in whom they profess to believe, with
half the enthusiasm which the adorers of the Blessed Mary devote
to her service ? Their inmost beliefs respecting their Maker are
such as to quench soul communion at its source. They conceive
of the all-pervading Presence as if there were no real sympathetic
feeling in it not more than there is in the force of attraction, or
in the diffused electricity of the globe. No human heart can
sincerely yearn after such a God as this. There are multitudes
who repeat the customary phrases respecting the Lord of Heaven,
that He is righteous, good, merciful; that He 'loves' them,
1 pities ' them, ' delights in His people ; ' but they have no belief
whatever in a God who compasseth their path and their lying down
with a Life more vital than that of all other spirits combined into
one.
Unhappily, too, there is nothing in which men change so little,
and improve so slowly, as in their original false notions of God
and His ways ; for indeed the popular ideas on this subject have
a moral source, in a disposition which leads men to expel the
Deity from the realms of thought. Men's philosophies grow up
from their spiritual states. The popular metaphysics both of Asia
and Europe spring from the depths of a moral nature which does
' not like to retain God in its knowledge/ and which therefore
* For the chief assistance to recent Buddhism in England the world has
perhaps to thank the late Dean Mansel's Limits of Religious Thought.
SENSIBILITY Of COD. 257
readily shrouds itself in a philosophy of agnosticism, Or banishes
Him to the skies, or out of the universe.
Now that Divine Revelation which reaches its fullest bright-
ness in Christ is directed to the establishment of a better know-
ledge of the Heavenly Father, who is not far from any one of
us,' and who is ' acquainted with all our ways,' of Him whose
Spirit can be 'grieved,' and ' vexed ' with our sinful behaviour,
but who also deeply is ' delighted ' with noble character.
Consider how strange it would be if God were not such a Being
as this ; if the Creator of all sensitive souls were the one Spirit
devoid of sense and feeling ! We are surrounded by a vast world
of living things, there are nearly a million species of them on
earth, under each species a multitude that no man can number,
each of these individual organisms possessing a sentient life,
even the lowest some darkling sensation of pleasure or pain, the
higher ranks so exquisitely organised for enjoyment and suffering
that no words can sufficiently express the reality. What a world
of quivering flesh, of nerves thickly interwoven and sensible to
light, to sound, to heat and cold, to tastes and smells, to blows
and gashes, to stripes, disease, and pain ! Then you ascend to
Man, who is all life from head to foot, body and mind all
exquisite sense, the surface one delicate network of nerves, the
depths full of all possibilities of fearful agony or healthy delight.
The spirits of men, again, are keenly sensible in every fibre.
You cannot speak or act without ' hurting ' some one, unless you
consider them. What wounds of vanity, what torments of injured
self-love, what aches and woes of agonised affection, what inward
sorrows of conscience ! In the sense of praise or blame, how
deep a well-spring of intensest joy or grief, and a well that never
dries up !
Now is this world, so full of vital sensibility, the work of a
Being who possesses none of an all-pervading impassive Intelli-
gence, insensate, incapable of moral anger, sympathy, or love ; in
whom there is no possibility of feeling a wrong done either to
Himself or others ; who is incapable of righteous indignation, of
tenderness, self-sacrifice, companionship, or gladness? Is this
world, so full of passion, the work of a Power who is a kind of
Infinite Snow-King, having no real delight in His children, in
258 SENSIBILITY OF GOD
their work, in their play, in their troubles , in their agonies, or
in their joys ? Is God's goodness only a word for theologians to
set forth in articles of faith, in mockery of a quality which is real
in man ? Surely this great world of sense and feeling was born
out of a Nature all sentient and vital, and rose like some Form
of beauty from a wondrous Ocean of Deity, full of the life whence
she sprang.
Consider, too, what an effort seems to be made in the physical
world to convey to our minds on all sides the impression that
there is real feeling in the Most High. Nature's teaching does
not end with science. It is full of ' tender strokes of Art/ Does
not every lovely form in plant or flower breathe forth to us the
feeling of some Unseen Artist ? Does not each living type give
the impression of being a beautiful work of art, with its own
distinct design, colour, and atmosphere ? It is as if the Eternal
Motherly Tenderness were for ever coming forth from within the
veil of the spiritual world, and, revealing itself in a golden radi-
ance to the eye that beholds it, saying to us in ' still small voice '
as it draws near in the night of time, It is I, My Children, be
not afraid !
But the senses afford no sufficing revelation to the soul. She
cries out still for the Living God. We require a richer and fuller
communion ; and we find it in the historic revelation. In Jesus
Christ the Infinite not only is revealed as a Person, but as One
1 full of compassion.' And there has been a connected series of
events, from the beginning, in which God has similarly made
Himself known, ' as He does not unto the world.' Susceptible
souls have been admitted within the veil of material nature, and
have ascended as Moses on Horeb to see the Love which is In-
visible. How precious the records of this progressive revelation !
See how God once made Himself known to Abraham. How
friendly, how conversible a Being was there ! How unlike the
Brahminical Deity who hides himself beyond the stars, caring
nought for poor mortals. This ' household God ' visits Abraham
at every stage of his history. He imparts the first impulse of
emigration from Chaldea, as He starts the swallows on their
tourney to the southern skies. He welcomes him into Palestine
with new and grander visions between the hills of Shechem. He
communes with him by night on the uplands of Hebron, and
' MAN HATH SINNED, GOD HATH SUFFERED.' 259
expounds to him the prophetic meaning of the spangled firma-
ment, 'So shall thy seed be.' He even comes to him in the
guise of a Traveller under the terebinth of Mamre, and reveals to
him His secrets as to a 'friend,' before He hurls the flaming bolt on
Sodom and Gomorrha. And He, this Heavenly Friend, never
leaves him, in all his journeyings, till he lies down in Machpelah,
where he is buried in peace, embalmed in the sweet spices of
a promised resurrection. How different a God is this from the
Hindoo Brahma, from the Siamese Gaudama, from the English
One Incomprehensible, in whom, if men believe not, they must
' perish everlastingly ' !
CONCLUSION.
The bearing of such views as these on the Sacrifice of the God-
Man is obvious and important. No statement of the case, except
that of Hooker, approaches the truth ; that ' Man hath sinned,
and God hath suffered' The Eternal Word is represented to us
as taking flesh into vital union, that the Godhead might present
a vulnerable side to the powers of evil, for suffering in life, and
'for the suffering of death.' Here we truly begin to apprehend
the 'reason of the atonement,' which escaped us so long as we
conceived of Christ as a suffering creature, and excluded the
Divine Nature from all share in the sacrifice. The Christ, who
is God and Man, dies, suffers for sin, and from sin. But how ?
By undergoing the curse of the law. No injustice is now done
to an innocent creature y for it is the Creator, the Law-giver, who
suffers; and by suffering shows that He who 'delighteth in
mercy ' yet so much also delighteth in righteous law, that He will
compel the Divine Nature Itself, made Man, as substitute to
pay a ' price ' for our ransom from death, while He thus opens a
channel to the tide of His Fatherly compassion.
Under this view of the atonement every common objection is
quelled. No innocent creature is punished instead of the guilty.
No 'Second Person of the Godhead' interposes to arrest the
anger of the ' First.' But the whole Godhead, which is Right-
eousness and Love, sacrifices Itself in the agonies of a human death,
that man, though a sinner, may live for ever. Well is it said, ' I,
if I be lifted up from the earth, shall draw all men unto me.'
2<5o 1 MAN HATH SINNED, GOD HATH SUFFERED.
The death of Christ, thus regarded, is the visible reconciliation
of the sinful world to God, because it is the visible reconciliation
of the interior Divine Attributes in the abnormal act of saving
sinners. The reason for it is found not in nature, nor in law, nor
in aught on the level of humanity, or of the creation. The per-
sonal Deity of the Christ, in the Incarnation of the Word which is
One with the Father, is the solution of the mystery, and its essen-
tial condition. The reason is not found in a calculation of conse-
quences in the external world, nor in any supposed counterweight
of pain or terror in a finite being, that must be placed vicariously
in the lightened scale of forgiveness ; but in the heights and
depths of the Godhead alone ; in the holiness which abhors
evil ; in the rectitude which intensely loves the law ; in the wisdom
which must demonstrate that the Salvation of Sinners is no easy
process ; and in the boundless grace which resolves to endure all
that sin and sinners can inflict, as a demonstration of the impos-
sibility there is, even for Omnipotence, to save by an arbitrary
act, without a ' ransom ' and a sacrifice.
This God of mercy fixes in His wisdom the * price ' that shall
be paid. He chooses to suffer in the person of His Son by the
'wicked hands' of the men who 'crucified their King.' And
thus too all the secondary ends of punishment are answered,
to show forth the effects of wrong-doing by suffering, to prevent
further transgression, and to reform the offender. For by this
mystery of love and sorrow God draws us irresistibly to Himself ;
' we look on Him whom we have pierced ; ' and the greatest of
all miracles is wrought, that dying sinners are at once * purged
from the conscience of sins,' and gather ' boldness to enter ' as
immortals into the Holiest of All.
26l
CHAPTER XX.
ON REGENERATION UNTO LIFE, THROUGH UNION WITH THE IN-
CARNATE WORD, BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, THE LORD AND GIVER
OF LIFE.
IN that ' fourth Gospel,' in which, as in an ark of the Covenant,
are enshrined 'behind the veil' so many of the mysteries of
redemption, the doctrine of a Second Birth, as necessary to
salvation in the kingdom of heaven, holds a foremost place.
The discourse of our Lord with Nicodemus must be regarded as
the formal declaration of this law, from the lips of Him ' who has
the keys of hell and of death.
' Verily, verily I say unto thee, Except a man be born again* he
cannot see the kingdom of God? In reply to the Rabbi's objection
on the impossibility of a second physical birth, Jesus repeats His
statement. ' Verily, verily I say unto thee, Except a man be born
of (or begotten from) Water and Spirit, he cannot enter into the
kingdom of God. That which is born (or begotten) of the flesh is
flesh ; and that which is born (or begotten) of the Spirit is spirit.
Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The
wind bloweth whither it willeth, and its sound thou hearest, but
thou knowest not whence it cometh and whither it goeth away ! so
(ovrws, thus mysterious) is every one (the nature of every one)
who is born (or begotten) of the Spirit' (John iii. 3-8).
The same doctrine is taught by S. John in the phrases of the
proem, chap. i. 12, 13. 'But as many as received Him to them
gave He power to become the sons of God ; who were begotten
(ZyevvriOrjvav) not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the
will of a man, but of God?
* "AvuQtv may be taken, as Nicodemus takes it (ver. 4), for Stvrepov, but
the etymology is nearer to its full sense, of ovpavoOtv, from God, which
involves the d
262 APOSTOLIC DOCTRINE ON NEW BIRTH.
The same language and ideas occur in S. John's Epistles.
* Ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born (or be-
gotten) of Him ' (i John ii. 29). * Beloved, now are we the sons
of God' (i John iii. 2). * Whosoever is begotten of God doth not
work sin, for His seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin,
because he is begotten of God* (i John iii. 9). Every one that
loveth is begotten of God and knoweth God' (ch. iv. 7). * Who-
soever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is begotten of God, and
every one that loveth Him that begat loveth him also that is
begotten of Him ' (ch. v. i). * Whatsoever is begotten of God con-
quers the world. Who is he that conquereth the world but he
that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God' (verse 5). 'We
know that whosoever is begotten of God sinneth not ; ' but he that
is begotten of God guardeth himself, and the wicked one toucheth
him not ' (ver. 18).
S. Paul teaches the same truth in varying expressions. The
idea of a new birth from out of water, in baptism, we find in
Rom. vi. 4. ' Know ye not that so many as were baptised unto
Jesus Christ were baptised unto His death ? Therefore we are
buried with Him by baptism unto death, that like as Christ was
raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, we also should
walk in newness of life ' (ev Kaii/orr? (017?). The remainder of
this chapter is a description of the character of the twice-born
Christian.
In Rom. viii. 1-14, S. Paul describes the position and qualities
of the regenerate man, whom he designates as one who is not in
the flesh, but in the spirit. ' If any man have not the Spirit of
Christ, he is none of His. If Christ be in you the body is dead
because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness?
The same S. Paul twice declares that the Christian is a new
creature* (or creation), KCIIVT) fcrcVis (2 Cor. v. 17; Gal. vi. 15).
And in i Cor. ii. he speaks of the true Christian as a * spiritual
man,' in contrast with the 'natural' (or soulicat] man (TJTCV-
/ACITIKOS, J/TU^IKOS). And throughout his epistles he builds every-
where on the foundation-thought that a Christian is a man who
has undergone some supernatural change which enables him to
* walk in the spirit? ' Not by works of righteousness which we
have done, but according to His mercy He saved us by the laver
Xovrpov (see Eph. v. 26, ' having purified it by the washing Xovrpw
APOSTOLIC DOCTRINE ON NEW BIRTH. 263
of water by the word ') of regeneration, and of the renewal of the
Holy Spirit ' (Titus iii. 5).
Lastly, S. Peter, in full accord with the other apostles, sets
forth the divine origin of the new nature of a Christian. ' Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ which according
to His abundant pity hath begotten us again to a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an
inheritance incorruptible and undented.' This change is evi-
denced in the life. ' As obedient sons, not fashioning yourselves
according to your former sinful passions in your ignorance.' * See
that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently, being begotten
again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible, by the word of God,
which liveth andabideth (for everis omitted in all the oldest MSS.).
For that all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is as the
flower of grass. The grass withered, and the flower thereof fell
away. But the word of the Lord abideth for ever. And this is
the word (prjpa) which by the gospel is preached unto you.
Wherefore as newborn babes (apnyiw^a) desire the guileless
milk of the word that ye may grow thereby' (i Peter i. 3, 14, 23 ;
ii. i, 2).
These are the leading passages in the apostolic scriptures de-
scribing that supernatural action of the Spirit of God by which men
become ' new creatures,' in order that they may * see the kingdom
of God.' Apart from such a change, Christ Himself again and
again declares that no man can see it (ou Swarai, John iii. 3).
* Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.' A life
which, notwithstanding the possession of a spiritual faculty,
persists in being animal, or psychical only, is by divine decree
transitory and perishable. True spiritual life alone is eternal
life.
. * He that soweth to his flesh ' (leads an animal godless life),
* shall of the flesh reap 7 <j>0opdv, death, extinction; (see the sense
of this word in 2 Peter ii. 1 2, ' Brute beasts born for capture and
extinction,' <j>6opdv), ' byj: he that soweth to the Spirit ' (lives for
the spiritual and eternal world), ' shall of the Spirit reap life ever-
lasting' (Gal. vi. 8).
It is necassary, therefore, to consider more attentively (i) the
Immediate Author of this new nature ; (2) the method and instru-
264 WORK OF THE SPIRIT OF LIFE.
ments of His action (3) the inward and outward change in man
which results from it.
SECTION I,
The Immediate Author of the new nature in Regeneration is
said to be the Holy Spirit, * the Lord and Giver of Life,' 'who
with the "Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified '
as in the Nicene Creed is declared.
The distinction of Persons in the Godhead, like the distinction
of energies in the Sunbeam which is its purest symbol, was a dis-
covery reserved for the later ages of the world. Under the
ancient economies The Supreme God, in His character of Father
and Governor, was offered in the Unity of His glory as the object
of faith to the Church's infancy. As the centuries rolled on,
obscure intimations were given to the prophets, in language more
comprehensible to us than to themselves, of the existence of a
' Lord,' distinct from the Father, who nevertheless * sits at His
Right Hand ' on the Throne of the Universe (the Aden of Psalm
ex. T ; Isaiah vi. i ; Malachi iii. i). But not until the Word was
made flesh, was the eternal glory of 'the only-begotten Son'
clearly revealed. In the same manner the ' Spirit of Jehovah/
' His Holy Spirit/ was spoken of by the prophets : but the
personality of the Holy Spirit was not projected separately and
distinctly before the general blaze of Deity.
When Christ appeared, the Incarnation of the Logos required
the more distinct revelation of the Three Persons of the Godhead,
and it is from the lips of the ' Logos made flesh ' that we learn
the personality and subordination of the Holy Ghost. Our Lord
is represented by S. John as applying the masculine personal
pronoun e/ccu/o? to the Holy Spirit (although the word Spirit,
7rvcv/xa, is neuter) in a manner which can be satisfactorily ex-
plained only in the sense of the Catholic Church of all ages, that
a Personal distinction is designed (see also Acts x. 20 ; eyw).
To this Holy Spirit is attributed the direct Divine agency in
the worlds of both matter and mind throughout the universe.*
* In Ezekiel's vision (chs. i.-x.) the vast sea-green Wheels of the Chariot
of Jehovah, representing the forces of inorganic nature, and the fiery Cherubim,
representing the organic and intelligent creatiop, are alike Described as fuH of
WORK OF THE SPIRIT OF LIFE. 265
And to Him in the sphere of spiritual action is attributed the
work of begetting the new ' divine nature' (i Peter i.) in
redeemed men even as when it was said to Mary by the Angel
Gabriel (Luke i. 35), of the conception of Christ, 'The Holy
Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall
overshadow thee : therefore also that holy thing which shall be
born of thee shall be called the Son of God.' 'So is he that is
born of the Spirit.'
The sum of the New Testament doctrine is that forth from God
have come to the earth Two Almighty Powers, for the salvation
of sinful mortals : the Divine Word or Logos, who took flesh of
the Virgin Mary ; and the Holy Spirit the Comforter, the Lord
and Giver of Life, 'proceeding from the Father and the Son,' who
in viewless action, like the wind, descends wheresoever He wills,
to dwell in and renew the nature of man, making the Church ' the
temple of God ; ' ' one Spirit with ' the Lord of Glory (i Cor. vi.
17) ;' members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones ; '
the redeemed humanity being thenceforth as true an Incarnation
of this Holy Spirit as the Saviour is a true Incarnation of the
Logos, and creating, through the double bond, an eternal union
of Man with the Nature which is Divine and Eternal.
In the execution of His purpose of saving us it has seemed
good to the Almighty Lord to adhere to the original lines of the
life-system which He designs to immortalise in His own image.
Christ has been constituted a second Head of humanity ; and Re-
generation unto Life unites us to Him by vital ties of Justification,
Sanctification, and Redemption of body and soul to eternal life, as
close as those which connected us with the first Adam, from whom
we derived Condemnation, Degeneracy, and Death. This is the
' great mystery of godliness,' and when this chief truth of living
union to the Redeemer by the indwelling Spirit is obscured, the
New Testament revelation is shorn of its beams, and casts over
the creation but the baleful twilight of a solar eclipse.
eyes,' i.e., pervaded by the Divine Spirit. Nature is not blindly feeling her
way into fortunate selections, but her course through the ages is governed by
a Mind that sees the end from the beginning ; represented by that fiery Form
Who sat enthroned on the sapphire floor of the Cherubic Car at whose voice
of command each wheel moves in its predestined pathway, towards the four
quarters of the horizon, according to the all-wise Will
266 UNITY OF CHRIST AND THE CHURCH.
The unity existing between Christ and His Church, (i) is
sometimes compared to the union between the Father and the
Son : ' That they may be one as We are one : ' ' that they all may be
one, as Thou, Father, art in me and I in Thee, that they also may
be one in Us' ' That they may be one even as We are one: I in
them, and Thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one * (John
xvii. 11-23). ( 2 ) ft i s sometimes compared to the union of a
Vine and its Branches. Thus : * 2 am the VINE, ye are the
BRANCHES. He that abidelh in me, and I in him, the same bringeth
forth much fruit; for without me ye can do nothing* (John xv. 4).
(3) It is compared to the union of our meat and drink with our
bodies. Thus : ' He that edt'eth me, even he shall live by me. He
that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me and I in
him ' (John iv. 56). (4) It is compared to the union of the body
with the head. Thus : ' But speaking the truth in love, grow up
in all things unto Him who is the Head, even Christ 1 (Eph. iv. 15).
(5) It is compared to the union of Husband and Wife. Thus :
1 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head
of the Church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and
of His bones ' (Eph. v. 23). (6) It is likewise compared to the
union of a building, whereof Christ is considered as the foundation
or chief corner-stone. Thus : * To whom coming as unto a living
stone, ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house ' (i Peter
ii. 4-6). (7) It is sometimes described in Scripture as an
identity of spirit. Thus: 'He that is joined to the Lord is one
spirit 1 (i Cor. vi. 17). (8) It is sometimes represented as an
identity of body. Thus : ' For as the body is one, and hath many
members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one
body ; so also is Christ. Now ye are the body of Christ, and
members in particular' (i Cor. xii. 27). Such is the apostolic
language upon the close unity of CHRIST and His members.
SECTION II.
On the method and instruments of the Holy Spirit's action in
Regeneration.
The words of Christ to Nicodemus are strong enough to support
the idea of an immediate action of the Spirit of God on the souls
of men in imparting to them the new life. But the analogy of all
SPIRITUAL REGENERATION IN BAPTISM. 267
other divine working known to us favours the concept of the
action of Deity in combination with mediate influences. Two
opinions have long prevailed in the Church as to the instrumen-
tality by which divine grace reaches the soul. One is that the
Holy Spirit connects the exercise of His regenerating power with
the sacrament of Baptism; the other that He connects it with
the Truth respecting the Saviour of the world.
The former doctrine is expressed with the utmost clearness and
confidence in the baptismal formulary of the Church of Rome,
and with scarcely less strength in the liturgies and catechisms
of the Anglican, Lutheran, Helvetian, and Scottish Churches.
It is founded upon the close association, in our Lord's words,
between Water and the Spirit, held to signify that when and
wherever baptism is rightly administered, there the Holy Spirit
accompanies the rite, confers the grace of ' spiritual life,' and
washes away the guilt of original sin. The guilt, according to
the Roman theology, carrying with it the penalty of eternal
misery for the immortal soul, is in baptism cleansed away, and a
new creature implanted j so that infants thus baptised are * un-
doubtedly saved,' while a cloud hangs over the eternal prospects
of the unbaptised. Under this view baptism is not regarded
simply as a dramatic expression of man's faith or of God's mercy,
but as the veritable channel in which runs the stream of eternal
life. A similar tendency to materialistic and magical views has
been' manifested in the doctrine of Christendom on the Lord's
Supper. The language used by Christ respecting ' His body '
allows of the Roman tenet, if men are so perverse as to adopt it.
The doctrine of spiritual regeneration in baptism not merely
of an outward ceremonial cleansing, but of a real inner salvation
therein bestowed may be traced back to the third century of
Christianity, perhaps to the second. It has been adopted as the
popular faith of Christendom ; and the application of the grace
has been extended to baptised infants, for whose 'spiritual
regeneration ' the English prayer-book requires the minister to
'give thanks.' The English Nonconformists, who use infant
baptism, not as a seal of the ' remission of sins ' (Acts ii. 38),
not even as a sign of introduction into the Church, not as a
means of grace to the child baptised, but simply as a didactic
symbol of the grace of God, which has 'come unto all men,' that
2 68 NONCONFORMIST IDEAS ON BAPTISM.
is, simply as the mark of the catechumen, can find little justifi-
cation of their opinion in its practical results ; for in no part of
Christendom are ' baptised ' children such ecclesiastical outcasts
as theirs, being generally regarded as unfit for church fellowship
till ' decided ' or ' converted ' afterwards. Nor can they find any
justification for it in antiquity a fact on which the great church-
men of England, from Dr. Waterland to Bishop Bethel, have
securely depended in assailing their Nonconformist opponents.*
All known infant baptism in the Ante-Nicene age was given
for the purpose of spiritually regenerating the subjects. Cyprian
urges baptism as soon after birth as possible, on the ground that
spiritual circumcision should not be delayed, but that every
human being should be admitted as speedily as possible to the
grace of Christ, the remission of original sin, and the gift of the
Holy Ghost (Epist. 58). In the same age heretical baptism
was accounted a nullity in a Council at Carthage, ' because it
could not be accompanied by the heavenly gift.' Heretics there-
fore were to be rebaptised.f
The other opinion connects the regenerating action of the
* We must not here be supposed to yield unqualified assent to the doctrine
of the ' Baptists' on this subject. The Baptists have built up a sect, with a
special name, on the basis of a sacrament ; which is, I humbly think (notwith-
standing their signal merits) an uncatholic procedure ; and as indefensible as
would be the institution of a second Sect, based on a reform of the Mass, to
be called the Lord's Supperist Denomination, with missions, newspapers,
unions, and relief-funds, all for Lord 's Supperists. They are, however, we
conceive, with Dr. A. Neander, right in discouraging infant baptism, as not
apostolic ; and in maintaining the highly significant rite, Jewish, Christian, and
Catholic, of immersion, representing the death and burial 'of the old man,'
and also resurrection to life eternal. But would it not be better to dwell more
than they do on baptism as the sign of the 'remission of sins' (Acts ii. 38),
to allow, in many cases, of baptism by plenteous affusion, like the ' shed
forth' baptism of the Holy Spirit, and also of the baptism of young children
who are old enough to understand discipleship to Christ ? Infants are already
in the good hands of God, and will neither gain by the ' baptism of repentance.'
nor lose by its absence. Their alleged ' spiritual regeneration ' therein seems
to be the quintessence of a system of theological error, upheld through the
combined superstition of priests, women, and families.
f Improving on this idea, Henry Dodwell, who believed that the Immortality
of the Soul was a grace conferred in baptism, held that ' none have the power
qf bestowing the immortalising spirit except the bishops.'
PATRISTIC IDEAS ON BAPTISM. 269
Holy Spirit, not with the Sacrament of Baptism, but with the
Truth, offered and believed. The sacramental theoiy of regenera-
tion, although pleading strong patristic authority, and subsequent
general acceptance both in the east and in the west, is weak in
even the appearance of apostolic support, and is opposed to the
letter and spirit of scriptural Christianity. In judging of Ante-
Nicene doctrines it is necessary to remember the warning of all
the apostles that even in their own life-time the 'mystery of
iniquity ' already wrought ; that the age was signally ignorant of
the sacred writings, and rife with the spirit of priestcraft, magic,
and apostasy. Men are deceived by the glory of the martyrs as
to the character of the second century in its theological aspect ;
and never will apostolic Scripture regain its due supremacy until
we have learned that Justin, Tatian, Theophilus, Clement, Athena-
goras, Tertullian, and Minutius Felix were unworthy successors of
John, Paul, Peter, Luke, and Matthew.
For, in the first place, although it is said, that ' Except a man
be born of Water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the
kingdom of God/ it is not said that he who is baptised is at
the same time born of the Spirit. Simon Magus was ' baptised '
(Act viii. 13), but immediately afterwards S. Peter said to him, ' I
perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness.' Thou hast
neither part nor lot in this matter.' ' Thy money perish with
thee.' No stronger language could be used to denote that not
even the germ of grace had been communicated by baptism.
He had not been regenerated or renewed by the Holy Ghost.
That which our Lord affirms is that baptism by water is necessary
and that baptism by the Spirit is necessary; but He does not
connect the two together, so as to imply that regeneration by
the Spirit takes place at or in the baptism by water. On the con-
trary, the New Testament represents spiritual baptism, or regene-
ration, as preceding the water baptism. It was after Cornelius
and his company * believed,' and even after they had received the
wonder-working Spirit, that Peter said, ' Can any man forbid
water, that these should not be baptised, which have received the
Holy Ghost as well as we ? ' On Roman or Anglican principles
the reply would have been obvious and pertinent. Let all men
forbid it ! for why should they be made a second time ' regene-
rate in baptism ' who have already received regenerating grace,
270 APOSTOLIC DOCTRINE ON BAPTISM.
as is evident by their faith and piety, and by the testimony borne
of God by the gifts of the Holy Ghost. S. Paul distinctly
repudiates the idea of sacramental efficacy in baptism, when he
says in his first epistle to the Corinthians, chap, i., ' I thank God
I baptised none of you, save Crispus and Gaius, lest any should
say that I baptised in my own name.' For Christ sent me not to
baptise but to preach the gospel.' Can one even imagine a
modern clergyman who believed that in Baptism the gift of
Spiritual Regeneration was bestowed, 'thanking God/ for any
reason, that he had not bestowed it. Such language as this,
' Christ sent me not to baptise but to preach the gospel? would be at
once condemned as ' evangelical and puritan/ If the grace of
the regenerating spirit were to be conveyed in ^baptism, surely
S. Paul should rather have lamented that he had conferred the
heavenly gift upon so few of the Corinthians. Little right had
he to say, ' I have begotten you through the gospel/ His
language here is incompatible with the idea of saving grace con-
ferred in the sacrament. Neither is there any ground for the
statement that our Lord in His conversation with Nicodemus
(John iii.) intimated the necessity of baptism for infant salvation,
when He says, ' Except a man be bora of water and the Spirit
he cannot see the kingdom of God ; ' for it might as reasonably
be argued, that because elsewhere repentance and baptism are
conjoined as essential to salvation, S. Peter intimates thereby that
infants cannot be saved unless they repent ; which is impossible.
There is as much mention of, or reference to, infants in the one
case as in the other ; that is, there is no mention or reference at all.
If, however, we are to believe that the Spirit of God effects
spiritual regeneration in infant-baptism, it seems to be reasonable
to ask, Are there any clear signs that so blessed a change has
been wrought upon the natures of the baptised ? If the fruit of
the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, purity, assuredly the
bulk of the populations asserted to have been regenerated in in-
fancy give no evidence in their conduct of having been the sub-
jects of the transforming agency. Is this change transient in its
results, so that the grace of the Spirit evaporates in early childhood,
like the baptismal water from the forehead of the babe ? Or, if
it be a permanent change of nature abiding through following.
INFLUENCE OF THE PATRISTIC DOCTRINE. 271
years, how is it that there are not uniformly some external signs
in the character of that new birth and new creation? Infant
baptism is not followed by the evidences of divine grace ; and
few Christians, blessed in after years with a spirit of piety, think
of attributing its possession to regenerating mercy received at the
font. Unbaptised children are every whit as near to God as the
baptised.
The practical tendency nevertheless of the Roman and Anglican
doctrine is to accustom all the baptised to consider themselves
' Christians,' requiring, indeed, additions of grace, yet not re-
quiring that ' new creation ' which is described in Scripture as
the ' second birth.' If, then, spiritual regeneration was not
effected when supposed, the influence of the doctrine must needs
be disastrous. It closes' the ears of its votaries to all those
warnings which represent a ' new creation ' as indispensable to
salvation ; it fosters in impure men the error that they are, in
some effectual sense, ' the children of God and inheritors of the
kingdom of heaven ; ' and encourages the opinion that there may
be some other valid foundation for hope than manifest faith and
love. It confounds together all the inhabitants of a parish, good
and bad, as equally regenerate persons, leading to a general
acknowledgment of worldly virtues as Christian graces, and
lowering the supernatural system of spiritual religion to a level
which suits the average ungodliness.
Dismissing, then, the church-doctrine of spiritual regeneration
in baptism, founded on the inveterate leaning of mankind towards
magical and material views of the action of grace, and on mis-
conception of the fact that the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost
were in the apostolic age often conferred immediately after bap-
tism, we return to the apostolic teaching that the Holy Spirit
employs the truth as the ordinary instrument of regeneration.
' Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible,
by the word of God living and abiding ' (i Peter i. 19). 'Christ
loved the church and gave Himself for it,' that 'He might
sanctify and cleanse it by the laver of the water in the word'
(Eph. v. 26). The grace of ' sonship ' is attributed to the
' reception ' of Christ (John i. 12); this is an act of the mind
receiving truth. He that ' believeth on the Son hath eternal life '
(John iii. 36). Baptism is placed after repentance and faith by
273 DEGENERATION fHROtJGH THE
S. Peter, in preaching the gospel : c Repent, and be baptised every
one of you ' (Acts ii. 38). S. Luke says that Christ's last words
were, ' that repentance and remission of sins should be preached
among all nations ' (Luke xxiv. 47). The remission of sins
(sealed in baptism) follows on repentance and faith (Acts iii.
19). 'Repent ye, therefore, and be converted, that your sins
may be blotted out' ' Arise, and wash away thy sins, calling on
the name of the Lord,' were the words of Ananias to S. Paul
after he believed.
No such notion as the communication of regenerating grace
(apart from which, already received, man cannot repent and
believe, since ' he that believeth is born of God,' i John ii.)
by the act of baptism, is found in the New Testament. The
regenerating grace comes first, then faith, then the outward seal.
The regenerating gift of the Holy Spirit in baptism is a concep-
tion as foreign to the Scripture as was that of the gift of the Holy
Spirit in Circumcision, or in the Passover. It is, we hold, an
invention of the apostatising church, founded partly on sensuous
and magical ideas, and partly on mistaking the baptismal miracu-
lous ' gifts ' of the Holy Spirit for His renewing action, and for
His 'fruits.'
These statements, however, do not exhaust the New Testament
doctrine on the methods of the Holy Spirit's saving operation.
The question at once arises, Is the production of this new nature
in men, under the action of the Holy Spirit, absolutely dependent
upon the intermediate operation of truth upon the mind and
heart, or may we believe that the action of the Regenerating
Spirit is sometimes independent of the action of the vov?, or
mind ; taking effect directly on the Trveu/xa, or spirit, and renew-
ing it to life-eternal ? Is not the true answer as follows ?
(1) That where truth is revealed, and fully known, the Holy
Spirit employs that truth in the awakening of new life in the souls
of men. 'This (regenerating word) is the word which by the
gospel is preached to you' (i Peter i. 24). But
(2) Where that truth is unrevealed, or from various causes
unknown, lesser measures of truth may prove effectual to re-
generation. Such was the condition of those devout souls who
lived before the Advent of Christ. Assuredly they were ' born
of God,' both those of Hebrew and of Gentile blood ; yet the
REGENERATION BY FRAGMENTARY TRUTH. 273
truth by which they were renewed was of a fragmentary character,
and did not include the knowledge of a suffering Messiah.
Under this view of men's condition, it is reasonable to enter-
tain hopeful views of the final salvation of millions whom we
denominate ' heathens,' but whom God loves, and has visited in
His grace in every land. It has been the custom to suppose that
all lands marked black as pagan in ' missionary maps ' have been
inhabited by men utterly deprived of saving grace. Amidst much
error, we doubt not that in every land and age God has ' reserved
to Himself a people who have 'feared Him,' and 'wrought
righteousness ' under a secret divine inspiration ; but it requires
a better acquaintance with so-called ' heathen ' men and women,
and a somewhat broader standard of judgment, to recognise such
souls under non-Christian forms of thought and speech. ' I per-
ceive' said S. Peter, ' that in every nation he thatfeareth God, and
worketh righteousness, is accepted of Him'
Always through the mediation of the unknown Saviour, always
through the regenerating action of the unknown Spirit, have such
results occurred; but to deny their existence would require us
equally to deny the reality of pre- Messianic grace among the
Jews. If they were saved under imperfect conditions of know-
ledge, there is hope for others though under still less favourable
conditions ?
If it be alleged that such hopeful views would discourage
missions, it may be confidently replied that the missions which
such thoughts will discourage can be but of little value abroad.
If it be essential to the propagation of the gospel for men to
believe that all who have not known ' the whole truth ' or who
have not called the Infinite Creator by the right Names, have
been doomed to damnation, it would be better to discontinue
endeavours founded on so foul a perversion of the Bible. But
surely if Christianity was worth promulgating, even although pious
Israelites could be saved before the Advent, much more must it
be * worth while ' to promulgate Christianity among those whose
knowledge of God has been restricted to the broken lights of a
world darkened by the philosophy and priestcraft of Eastern
paganism, or by African barbarism."
* * We do not deny the possibility of the salvation of the heathen, or of
some of them, by the mercies of God and under the teaching of His good
18
274 SALVATION OF HEATHEN POSSIBLE.
(3) There is still one more step to be taken in the same direc-
tion ; and this is to affirm, on the authority of the same Scrip-
tures, and, may we not add, of experience, that sometimes the
action of the Holy Spirit in His regenerating grace descends
upon infants even from their ' mother's womb.' Thus was John
the Baptist < filled with the Holy Ghost from his birth ' (Luke i.
15). In such cases the spiritual action must at first be directly
on the Trvevpa, and not at all on the vovs, in the way of under-
standing truth ; and if this be true in even one instance, why not
more frequently ? We conclude, then, that although the normal
action of Divine grace be now through the ' truth of the Gospel,'
that action is not restricted to any special measure of truth, and
can take effect, if God so will, even in the total absence of truth
apprehended by the intellect. We are far from doubting the
frequent action of grace upon infants ; what is denied is that that
grace depends upon baptism.
Brief Excursus on the question of the creation, or renewal^ of the
7n/ev/xa (spirit) in regeneration.
Before we advance to the last section of the present chapter
it is necessary to consider in this place the psychological difficulty
Spirit. We are quite sure indeed of this, that whatever salvation there is any-
where in human hearts, or working in human lives, is to be traced up to the
same fountain-head of Divine love, and comes to them or to us, known or
unknown to them or to us, along the same channel of mediation and grace ;
and we are* very sure that any of the heathen who are saved will be as ready
as the rest to cast their crowns at the Saviour's feet, ascribing salvation to Him
that sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb. But how much knowledge, in
its intellectual forms, may be necessary there or here for salvation, it is quite
beyond our power, and it is no part of our duty, to say. It would seem that
there is no invariable standard either there or here. Moral disposition is always
more than intellectual culture. The moral bent of a human life is that which,
far more than the intellectual knowledge that may be held in it, will settle its
character ; and if it can be shown from the lives of the heathen, and from the
actions they perform, and the spirit they manifest, and the aims they have in
view, that there is justifiably any hopefulness about them, why we are the most
hopeful of all people in the world, and we are ready, therefore, to hope. Ay, if
there is any probability that Job, and Elihu, and the Syro-Phcenician woman,
and the Roman centurion, and the Ethiopian eunuch, have successors in heathen
lands, we of all people, whose very object is to promote human salvation, will
and ought to rejoice.' Speech by Dr. Raleigh for London Missions, Exeter
Hall, 1874.
BODY, SOUL, AND SPIRIT. 275
presented by the Pauline doctrine of the tripartite nature, ( The
very God of peace sanctify you (oAoreAeis) wholly ; and may your
whole constitution (oAo/cAr/pov vpJuxv\ the spirit (TO TTVCV^O), the soul
(77 $v\rj), and the body (TO O-W/AO,), be preserved blameless in the com-
ing of our Lord Jesus Christ, i Thess. v. 23), taken in connec-
tion with our Lord's declaration to Nicodemus, ' That which is
begotten of the flesh is flesh; and that which is begotten of the Spirit
is spirit ' (John iii. 3).
Is the Pneuma, or spirit, here spoken of as begotten or born
of the Holy Spirit, a new substantive addition in regeneration
to the nature of the man born of the flesh ? or is it the renewal
in power of an element belonging to man as born into the world ?
Has every man Trvev/xa as well as i/or^r/, spirit as well as soul ? or
is spirit the production of the Holy Spirit in regeneration, and
therefore peculiar to the saved ? This question is one of exceed-
ing difficulty, partly in consequence of the varying terminology
adopted by so large a number of Scripture writers, which renders
it perhaps impossible to extract from them a homogeneous
psychology.*
If it be contended, as by Dr. Delitzsch, that the Bible uniformly
ascribes ^SJ, nephesh, soul, to the animals, but never, PlJp^J,
neshamah, a reference to Genesis vii. 21, 22 (Heb.) will dispel
the illusion. If it be said that H^l, ruach, belongs to man, not
to the animals, in Scripture usage, a reference to Ecclesiastes iii.
21, will show that the Hebrews spoke of the ' spirit of a beast.'
If it be said that H^, ruach, is peculiar to good men, we learn
from Job xxxii. 8 that the ancients thought there is a ruach in
$U{$, mortal man, and that the ' inspiration of the Almighty
give th him understanding.'
The passages of Scripture in which a technical or special mean-
ing seems to be designed by the distinction between soul and
spirit are few j yet it is on this very narrow basis that any psycho-
* The chief writers on the side of man's natural possession of the
are Dr. Delitzsch, in his System of Biblical Psychology, and Mr. Heard in his
Tripartite Nature of Man. The doctrine of the addition of the Pnenma in
Regeneration is ably maintained by Dr. Morris in What is Man ? (Stock),
Mr. Constable in his papers in the Rainbrnv (Elliot Stock), General Goodwyn
in his Holokleria (Kellaway), and Dr. Thorn of Liverpool in Soul and Spirit
(Lewis), to which last I especially refer the reader.
276 ON THE CREATION OF THE < PNEUMA?
logical system must be content to stand. There is one feature of
the Biblical phraseology in which our version fails us. In the
Hebrew, nephesh stands for life, and soul, and also for the dead
body. The animals, moreover, are always spoken of as having
nephesh, or soul. This is concealed in the English translation
under the term * creature,' or ''living creature' King James's
translators had a psychology of their own, which they have some-
what favoured in their version.
The main strength of the argument for the creation of the
Trvev/Ao, in regeneration lies in the important statements of Christ
to Nicodemus. When our Lord says, * That which is born, or
begotten, of the flesh is flesh/ it is held to indicate that what is
born of sinful man is of an animal nature (o-w/xa and ^vy?}), body
and soul ; but not 7rvcv//,a, or spirit. Christ speaks of the spirit
as begotten by the Holy Spirit. ' That which is begotten of the
Spirit is spirit.' It is added that S. Paul speaks of Adam as
created only a living soul ; of Christ as the Life-giving Spirit \
and of the unregenerate man as i/o^i/cds the * soulical ' man, or
man of mere \\ruyT) : while He designates the regenerate man as
7rvev/x,aTiKos, or spiritual. S. Jude also has this strong expression
to denote the condition of ungodly men, i/or^i/col, Tn/eC/xa p/ genres,
animal men, not having Trvev/xa, or 'spirit' (verse 19).
It must be admitted that this language is of very formidable
strength ; and that it finds an almost continuous echo in the
remains of the Ante-Nicene age.* The doctrine of the non-
possession of the TTvev/xa also accords well with the general idea of
the natural mortality of man. But it is attended with great diffi-
culties, if by the 7rvev/xa is intended anything more than the
spiritual character produced by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost.
That in Christ's discourse the TrveS/za, or spirit, which is begotten,
must be distinct from the Power which produces it, is evident.
We cannot therefore say, with Mr. Constable, that the spirit,
which is part of a Christian man's oAofcA^pia, or constitution, is
the Holy Spirit, since Christ describes the spirit as the product of
the new birth. But that spirit may be the eternal life which the
* The proof of this statement may be seen in the carefully drawn catena of
Mr. Dodwell's anonymous defender, A Presbyter of the Church of England^
1 728. The Ante-Nicene Fathers almost without exception held that the irvt vfia
*as an addition bestowed by the Holy Spirit, on which eternal life depends.
1 NOT HAVING SPIRIT: . 277
Holy Spirit confers along with the germ of the Divine Image ;
and under this definition there would be less difficulty in holding
that the regenerate man alone possesses Tn/ev/xa, or spirit, in the
technical sense of the term.
There are many, however, who think that the true solution of the
difficulty is to be found in insisting on the tropical character of the
language which our Lord employed on the occasion of His discourse
with Nicodemus. In popular language in every country the slight
possession of any power or faculty is described as non-possession.
Thus we say of a very unfeeling man that he is 'heart-/m,' or that he
has ' no soul,' of a fool that he has ' no understanding,' of a violent
man that he is a * brute,' of one who has weak life that he is ' as good
as dead,' not intending to deny that such persons possess the
natural endowments of life, reason, and affection, but only to assert
the very low degree of their development, just as Abraham said
that he was ' but dust and ashes.' May we not trace, it is said,
the operation of the same law of speech in the language of Christ
and His apostles ? Our Lord says, ' That which is born of the
flesh is flesh' He certainly did not intend to deny that men
have ' souls ' as well as bodies, yet on the surface He might be
held to declare that there was no i/ojx 1 / or soul in an unregenerate
man. Is it, then, necessary to hold that He teaches that man by
nature has also no Trvev/xa or spirit ? May it not be that the whole
nature, bXoKXrjpia, of every man includes body, soul, and spirit, the
spirit standing for all that part of man's nature which is superior
to the animals his moral and religious being, as made in ' the
image of God ' ?
Regarding the expressions of Christ from this point of view,
His statement, that * that which is born of the flesh is flesh,' may
be taken for a declaration that the orcO/Aa (pneuma) in unregenerate
men is so undeveloped, that the man may be called flesh. A
new spiritual life must be produced in him in order to life eternal ;
and this he terms pneuma> begotten by the Holy Spirit.
In the same manner we may, on this method, deal with the
words of S. Jude, that ungodly men are i/o^oi, Tn/ev/m /u;
CXOVTCS, * soulical, not having spirit' Ths small development
is described by total destitution. The proninently active part
gives designation to the man. He in whom the animal soul or
Psuche is supreme \spsuchicoS) or animal; he in whom the Pneitma
278 THE CARNAL MIND.
reigns is pneumaticos, or spiritual. The work of the Holy Spirit
is to arouse and develop the spirit, or moral Godward part of
man's nature.
An example of this mode of speech is found even in S. Paul's
writings. The Corinthians he regarded as ' sanctified in Christ
Jesus' (i Cor. i. i), and as destined to be * confirmed unto the
end ' (i. 8). Yet these very persons he speaks of thus in chap,
ii. 1-3 : 'I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual,
but as unto carnal ' (o-apKi/cois) ; which he explains thus, ' even
as unto babes in Christ.' Men who are characteristically of low
development take their names from the lower faculty, not from
the higher.
If these criticisms are defensible, we escape the difficulties
involved in the doctrine that unregenerated men possess no
pneuma, or spiritual faculty. For the spirit of God strives with
them. They 'resist the Holy Ghost.' The conscience can hardly
be regarded as an endowment of the animal i/or^, or soul. In
every man there is a witness for a ' law ' against which he offends
by sin. If Adam was originally endowed with a spirit as well as
a soul, we do not understand how by transgression he succeeded
in excising one part of his nature. If, on the other hand, neither
Adam nor his descendants possess \\\z pneuma, as Dr. Thorn main-
tains, they are not accountable for conduct which is not spiritual.
Since men cannot receive the gospel until they become { spiritual,'
how can they be accountable for its non-reception if destitute of
the spiritual faculty? Is it not easier to understand that the
enervated ' spirit ' is supernaturally energised by the Holy Spirit
so that a spiritual life is produced, which is called Tn/ev/Aa
than it is to conceive of the fall as involving the loss of one part
of man's nature, or of redemption as bestowing a wholly new
element of being ?
Without dogmatising on a subject, which certainly has two
sides, perhaps the most considerable alleviation of the difficulty
will be found in the suggestion above made, that by spirit, as pro-
duced in the twice-born man by the Spirit of God, our Lord
intended the spiritual and eternal life secured by the indwelling
of the Holy Spirit, not the addition of a wholly new faculty to
the humanity. What is agreed on both sides is that the personal
indwelling of the Holy Spirit changes the old nature by imparting
COMPLEX ORIGIN OF LIVES. 279
a new germ of grace, and thereby creates a ' new man,' new in
the springs of thought and purpose, new in heavenly relationship,
and new in the prospect of life everlasting. The measure of
development may vary exceedingly, but on this new evolution
depends the life immortal.
SECTION III.
On the Change effected by Regeneration.
This leads us naturally to the last question under this topic,
What is the spiritual change effected in this life by Regeneration f
Relying on the teaching of the Apostles, we answer, (i) trans-
formation into the moral likeness of Christ, (2) passing from
death into life, entering into that life of Christ, the second Man,
which is eternal obtaining ' a hope full of Immortality,' through
union with the Eternal Spirit.
I. The doctrine of the Bible accords with observation, that
the moral degeneracy in mankind is the cause of our mortality.
There is some poison in the blood, running through all genera-
tions, and ' alienating man from the life of God.' Depravity is
manifested in different degrees, according to training, and accord-
ing to personal wickedness but degeneracy is common to all.*
* The fact that every human being is born of two parents accounts for many
of the opposite manifestations in character which are usually set down to
blameworthy inconsistency. The common remarks on the degrees of likeness
to father and mother respectively embody a philosophy which requires to be
carried still further. Persons who are descended from parents whose tempers
and personalities widely differ, will usually display the one or the other on
finding themselves in circumstances fitted to bring out either speciality. Sub-
jection to the influence of but one of the two parents during early life, under
circumstances favourable to the development of that type, will perhaps seem
almost to extinguish the influence of the other hidden nature ; yet it mingles
with the inmost life of the body and soul, and might be easily educated under
a favourable regimen. In addition to the influence of parents, it must be
remembered that they themselves embodied the result of many marriages and
successions. Hence each man is a complex being whose analysis is possible
only to the Omniscient. God alone knows the secret forces of life, and He
alone can judge the respective measures of hereditary tendency and personal
desert. Into this complex life we must desire, above all other influences, that
there should be introduced that redeeming element of God's Spirit which is
destined at last to vanquish all others by stamping upon us the image of the
Eternal.
2 8o SJGNS OF REGENERATE LIFE.
This moral ruin consists in the paralysis of the Trvcv/xa, or spiritual
faculty, which no longer either sees or wills as is necessary for a
life in union with God. This is the cause of the sinful life, and
1 the wages of sin is death.'
The act of the Holy Spirit therefore reaches to the centre of
our being, and awakens the 'spirit' to a new energy. Forming
a union with the spirit of man, He dwells in the body as in a
' temple/ and recreates the character in the image of the God of
Love. ' He that loveth is born of God.' ' Love is the fulfilling
of the spiritual law. He who is purified by faith, becomes a
partaker of a divine nature ' (2 Peter i. 4). True godliness,
practical reformation in body and soul, is the condition of Immor-
tality. ' Many walk as enemies of the cross of Christ ; whose
God is their body, who mind earthly things ; whose end is
destruction' (Phil. iii. 19). 'See then that ye love one another
with pure heart affectionately, being born again' (i Peter i. 19).
Where there is no love, there is no eternal life. Hatred is the
germ of murder; and 'no murderer hath eternal life abiding in
him.' Not less does true intelligence depend upon love, for there
may be religion (fy^cr/ceia) without godliness (eiW/2eia). The
soul is then inspired by hatred and terror, and throws forth an
Image of itself for its Deity. ' Thou thoughtest I was altogether
such an one as thyself.' The soul must be ' rooted and grounded
in love,' in order that it may ' be able to comprehend the love '
of God in Christ (Eph. iii. 20). Love is the eye upon the summit
of the soul, that sees God. Apart from such renewal in the
Divine likeness, life, however intelligent, is perishable, for the
sous has no union with Eternal Love. It is, then, a moral change
in the character of the soul and the discipline of the body, and not
an ontological or physical change in substance, which is the con-
dition of salvation, and the present result of the indwelling of
the Divine Spirit. ' The spirit is life because of righteousness '
(Rom. viii. 10).
II. It seems to be taught with equal clearness in the Scripture,
though less remarked in modern times, that the result of true
regeneration is to bestow the gift of everlasting life on the whole
nature. The final cause of regeneration is to vanquish the
mortality produced by sin. This is a complex process, in-
cluding both soul and body of the integral manhood. The
MEANING OF <>AD BY SINS? 281
spirit enters into Christ's ' eternal life ' now ; the body at th e
resurrection.
The mortal condition of the unregenerate, or ' soulical ' man,
under the sentence of death for sin, leads to the descriptive name
assigned to wicked men both by Christ and the apostles the
dead. ( Let the dead bury their dead ' (vcKpovs, ve/cpov's ; Matt,
viii. 22). 'To you hath He given life (e^woTroiVre), who were
dead in (by) trespasses and sins ' (ve/<pou? -TrapaTTToS/xao-t ; Eph.
ii. i, 5). 'But God, who is rich in mercy even when we were
dead by sins, hath given us life together with Christ, and hath
raised its up together' (Eph. ii. 5). 'She that liveth in pleasure
is dead though alive' (oxra rtOvrjKe ; i Tim. v. 6). 'Thou
hast a name that thou art alive, but art dead' (ve/cpos et; Rev-
iii. i). ' He that loveth not his brother abideth in death' (i John
iii. 14).
An almost universal custom has affixed to these expressions
what is termed a spiritual sense ; namely, that of alienation from
God, who is the highest ' life ' of the soul, ' the strength of our
life, and our portion for ever.' Hence have arisen the phrases,
'spiritual death,' and the* spiritually dead,' both of them without
example in apostolic usage.
For there seems little doubt that the mode in which the
Scripture terms here referred to are handled in the 'apostolic
fathers,' more fully represents their real meaning than the modern
application. That there is a figure in the Scripture use of the
term the dead, cannot be disputed. But the question is, Are we
to trace the figure in the tense, or in the radical signification of the
terms? We submit that the figure is in the tense. The unre-
generate men are described as the dead, and dead in sins, because
they are certain to die, because they are under sentence of de-
struction, as men of mere soul (i/o^oi). Thus the figure of
prolepsis is employed in Gen. xx. 3 : 'God said to Abimelech,
Thou art a dead man, for Sarah Abraham's wife.' 'The Egyp-
tians said, We be all dead men ' (Exod. xii. 33). ' All my father's
house were dead men before the king 1 (2 Sam. xix. 28). The
figure in each of these instances is that of using the present in-
stead of the future tense. The unregenerate are ' as good as
dead.' In the language of Ignatius (Trallians, ch. x.), * they
themselves only seeming to be ' (cTvai). From the first Adam they
282 APOSTOLIC DOCTRINE ON RENEWAL.
have received by traduction of being a nature which is animal
and perishable. From Christ alone comes the spirit-life which is
eternal (i Cor. xv.).
The converse figure is used when a name is given from regard
to a past condition ; as when it is said, ' I saw the dead, small
and great, stand before God,' Here the dead are persons who
were dead, but have been raised for judgment.*
That in the phrases in question there is a strong moral associa-
tion of ideas, suggesting a sinful condition, is not only acknow-
ledged but strongly affirmed ; but as little can it be doubted that
the ultimate reference is to that death by sin which extinguishes
the hope of immortality ; a reference which enables us more fully
to understand the bearing of the language of S. Paul, S. Peter,
and S. John.
S. PAUL, in the eighth chapter (ver. 1-14) of the Epistle to
the Romans, sets forth the condition and prospects of the twice-
born man, in language which requires little more than exact
translation and paraphrase to show its conformity with the doc-
trine that eternal life is the gift of God in Christ.
1. * There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus
(united to Him as the second Man).
2. For the law (dispensation) of the Spirit of the life in Christ Jesus hath set
me free from the law of sin and death.
3. For that which was not in the power of the law (to regenerate in God's
likeness and immortalise) in that it was weak through the flesh (unsaying
through man's corruption), God sending His own Son in the likeness of flesh of
sin, and on account of sin, condemned sin in the flesh (broke its practical power),
in order that the requirement of the law (practical righteousness) might be ful-
filled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
5. For those who are after the flesh mind the things of the flesh (lead an animal
and godless life), but those who are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.
6. For the mind of the flesh is (ends in) death, but the mind of the Spirit is
(ends in) life and peace (unites to God now and for ever).
7. Because the mind 'of the flesh is hostility to God ; for to the law of God it is
not subjected, neither indeed can be.
8. So then they that are in the flesh (in their unregenerate state), cannot please
God.
* A careful discussion of the correct translation and true meaning of the
phrase of S. Paul, 'dead by sin' (Eph. ii. i); will be found in the important
Appendix to the Rev. T. Davis's work on Endless Sufferings. Longmans,
1866. See also note on p. 223, for the Rabbinical usage.
APOSTOLIC DOCTRINE ON RENEWAL. 283
9. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God dwell in
you. Now if any man possess not the Spirit of Christ, this man is not His,
(There is no salvation apart from the personal and real inhabitation of the
Holy Spirit.)
10. And if Christ be in you (by His Spirit) the body is dead (vfjcpov) because
of sin the body remains mortal, and as good^as dead, because of the evil law in
its members), but the spirit (the human spirit) is life (w)) (is sealed to eternal
life), because of righteousness (because of the new principle of holiness which it
has received. See verse 4).
11. But if 'the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead (SK vtKcxZv)
dwell in you, He that raised up the Christ from the dead, shall also give life to
(ojo*-ot7}o-t) your mortal bodies on account of His Spirit dwelling in you. (He
who already dwells in your souls, as the principle of Christ-like eternal life,
will complete the process by immortalising your mortal bodies also at the
resurrection, on the pattern of Christ's body, because they have been His
dwelling-place on earth.)
12. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh to live after the flesh.
13. For if ye live after the flesh (if ye lead an animal and godless life contrary
to the Spirit of God), ye are on the point of death (ye shall soon and certainly
die fjikXXfTe d-n-oBvTjffKftv ; see John iv. 47 %if\\ diroOvriffKeiv, he was at the
point of death), but if ye through the Spirit put to death (put an end to) the deeds
of the body, ye shall live (shall possess eternal life). See Gal. vi. 8. * He that
soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap 00opav, extinction' (2 Peter ii. 12).
14. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God
(destined immortals, and ' children of the resurrection '). ' Neither can they
die any more ' (Luke xx. 36).
The teaching of S. PETER corresponds with that of S. Paul.
He regards Regeneration as a process not only sanctifying, but
immortalising (i Peter i. 22-25).
22. Having purified your souls in the obedience of the truth by means of the
Spirit unto unfeigned brotherly love, out of a pure heart love one another affec~
tionately.
23. Being begotten again (dvaytytvvqfievdi) not of perishable seed, but of
imperishable (OVK kit (TTropac 00aprjfe aXXa d<j>9apTov), by the Word of God,
living (life-giving, see John vi. 51) and remaining.
24. For that (diort, the reason of the need of imperishable seed) all flesh is
as grass, and all the glory of man is as the flower of the grass. The grass
withered, and the flower fell away (the reason of the necessity of regeneration is
not only the sinfulness but the perishable nature of man).
25. But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which
by the gospel is preached unto you. (The seed of God is the life-giving word.
John vi., ' The words which I speak unto you, they are (irvtvua) spirit and
life.')
2 Peter i. 3, 4. Seeing that His divine power hath given unto us all things
284 PX&S&NT CHARACTER, AND
that pertain unto life and godliness (jrpoQ w}v icai ivaifltiav) through the know-
ledge of Him that hath called us by His own glory and goodness ; whereby He hath
given unto us the exceeding great and precious promises, that through these ye
might become PARTAKERS OF THE DIVINE NATURE (Ofiac; KOlVUVoi 0W(rWf),
having escaped the DEATH, which is in the world through lust (ciiro-pvyov-tc rij
tv T<p KufffUf) iv i-jnOv/jiig.
S. JOHN sets his seal upon the same doctrine, in the whole of
the language of his gospel, in which he represents union with
Christ as essential to save men from 'dying' (John vi.).
And finally in his first epistle, where among his last words to
the world, he says (chap, ii.) :
1 6. All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and
the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
17. And the world (o jeoo-juof, the sinful world of mankind) passeth away
(irapaytTai) and its passion; but He that doeth the will of God rcmaineth
eternally (utvti tic; TOV a/wi/ct) ; where the definition of terms by contrast is
distinct and decisive. In this remarkable verse perpetuity of being is in the
foreground. The sinful world departs and vanishes, but he that doeth the will
of God, abideth for ever. The Eternal Will dwells in him, energising in his
life, the moral likeness of Deity is stamped upon him, and he shares in the
ETERNITY OF GOD.
APPENDIX TO CHAP. xx. (3rd edition); ON THE DENIAL OF
SPIRITUAL DIFFERENCES IN MEN SUFFICIENT TO JUSTIFY
ETERNAL DIFFERENCES IN DESTINY.
It is said, that in affirming this doctrine of Regeneration unto
Life we are asserting nothing less than an infinite and generic
distinction between two classes of mankind, the mortal and the
immortal, for which no sufficient justification is discoverable in
their nature or spiritual character while on earth.
It may be asked of us, Do you indeed believe that regenerate
man passes into endless being ; or that true faith carries with it a
destiny so different from that of common men, as you would assign
to it ? For who that reflects on the community of the human
race in all its conditions of temporal existence, on its common
origin, on its physical, intellectual, and moral unity, on the
historical, ancestral, and social causes which determine so much
that we call character, on the many excellences of the bad, and
on the manifold imperfections of the good can fail to stumble
ETERNAL DIFFERENCES IN DESTINY. 285
at a doctrine which places the seal of indestructibility on the
foreheads of some, and relegates the unsaved remnant of man-
kind, with all their virtues, struggles, and woes, to the realms of
the perishable, and the doom of irremediable destruction ?
I know of no authority but One sufficiently commanding to
compel me to this conclusion, and even that one leaves me still
staggering under the weight which it lays upon me ; leaves me
still applying myself to maintain its revelations against contradic-
tion with a mind 'astonied/ like Daniel's, when he looked upon
the glories and terrors of the realms beyond. Who, indeed, is
sufficient for these things ? ' For we are unto God a sweet savour
of Christ in them that are saved, and in them that perish ; to the
one we are the savour of death unto death ; and to the other the
savour of life unto life.' These, however, I say to myself, were
the words of one who * wept ' and ' trembled ' as he taught, and
staggered sometimes as we do ; yet believed in the teaching of
the Spirit, and persisted in his faith that nothing less than death
and life everlasting depended on the issues of man's probation
here. But they were also the words of one who had not thrown
off the burden of faith by a desperate rush into theories, which,
if they help a man to imagine himself * sufficient ' to grapple
with the facts of life and of destiny, relieve only for a moment,
by an artificial light not kindled at ' the fountain itself of heavenly
radiance,' and that soon dies out, leaving the darkness deeper
than before.
(i) After a renewed and patient study of this objection proposed
in all its strength by Mr. Baldwin Brown, I am compelled to con-
clude that the authoritative record does distinctly affirm, in every
form, the infinitely differing characters and destinies of good and
evil men, and that the lecturer is shrinking from a burden of
thought which is laid upon him by Almighty God Himself. For,
in the first place, the spiritual classification of mankind found
in the Bible, without one exception, is simply and invariably
dualistic. The prophets and apostles speak of the RIGHTEOUS
and the WICKED, as of creatures differing in the root-principle of
their being. We find not even a trace of the modern mode of
regarding humanity, in which men discern only moral shades,
and deny the existence of distinct colours in character. This
I ! W i \
286 DUALISTIC CLASSIFICATION
lenient estimate of the evil, and lowering estimate of the good,
which makes them all of one blood, united by a moral consan-
guinity, and in itself so demoralising, is resolutely rejected in the
teaching of Christ, appointed to 'judge the world in righteous-
ness/ In the Old Testament we find everywhere the ' righteous
and the wicked ' only, as a classification exhausting the population
of the world. In the New Testament this distinction is re-affirmed
and accounted for. Christ Himself asserts a supernatural cause
for the distinction, which He treats as generic, and as unaffected
by the better qualities of sinners ' or the worse qualities of the
good. He declares to Nicodemus that some are ' begotten of
the flesh ' only, others are * begotten of the Spirit.' He declares
that the latter alone are the ' sons of God,' and the sole inheritors
of the heavenly kingdom. ' Except a man be born again he
cannot see the kingdom of God.' * That which is born of the
flesh is flesh/ ' Verily I say unto you, ye must be born again '
(John iii.). His apostles persist in this classification. With
S. Peter, some 'are born again,' others not some are 'the people
of God,' others not ; some are the ' righteous,' others the 'ungodly
and sinners ' (i Peter i. 23 ; ii. 10 ; iv. 18). With S. John there
is the man who is ' born of God/ and the man who is not ; the
man who ' abides in death,' and the man who has ' passed from
death unto life ' ; the man who ' walks in the light,' and the man
who 'walks in darkness ' ; the man in whom ' eternal life abides/
and the man in whom it does not. There is the l world that
knows not God,' and there are the ' sons of God who know Him '
(i John ii. 5). With S. Paul there is the ' soulical,' or animal
man (psuchicos) and the 'spiritual man' (i Cor. ii.) ; the 'old'
man and the ' new ' j the old creature and the 'new ' ; the 'earthy
man 'and the 'heavenly' (i Cor. xv.) ; the man who 'sows to
the flesh,' and the man who ' sows to the Spirit ' (Gal. vi.) ; the
man who ' has the spirit of Christ,' and the man who ' has not/
and therefore is 'none of His' (Rom. viii.). The favourite
Pharisaic threefold partition of mankind into the good, the
moderately righteous, and sinners is unsanctioned by the apostles
of Christ, much more the quite modern classification, which
regards humanity as a unit, with principles of good and evil acting
in every man. The Bible maintains throughout the ancient and
awful generic distinction between the good and the evil ; and the
OF MANKIND IN SCRIPTURE. 287
Old Testament ends by declaring that whatever difficulty there
may be at present in distinguishing the two, in the end the
essential difference will appear. l Then shall ye come back, and
discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him who
serves the Eternal, and him who serves Him not. And the
wicked shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that
I do this, saith the Lord ; (Mai. iii. 18 ; iv. 3).
The objection thus set forth with so much confidence against
the idea of an eternal distinction in destiny, depending on present
differences in temper and character, is, as has now been shown in
detail, really an objection against the plainest declarations of re-
velation. The believers in eternal life in Christ are under no
special obligation to meet this objection. It may be made equally
against the catholic theology of Europe. The objection depends on
denying the immutable distinctions of good and evil, in the con-
crete form of character, and savours not a little of the demoralised
morale of the atheistic thinking of our time. Righteousness and
wickedness are distinctions of infinite import in the choice of
wills. He who unites himself to God belongs to a wholly different
genus of beings from him who refuses God. He becomes 'a
partaker of the Divine nature/ and will ' escape the mortality
which is in the world through lust ' (2 Peter i. 4).
There is, further, a noteworthy peculiarity in the doctrine of
Christ and His apostles respecting the ' sonship ' of ungodly men.
An argument insisted on by Universalists is, that the fatherhood
of God renders it positively incredible that He will either destroy
or eternally banish any of the human race who are His sons.
An earthly father, it is said, who is wise and good, cannot even
be imagined as putting to death one of his own children. Much
more, therefore, ought such an act to be disbelieved in relation
to the 'Father of Spirits.' I desire to point it out as an appalling
peculiarity of Christ's teaching, that He represents, in the strongest
manner, the refusal of God to acknowledge the ' sonship ' of
' sinners,' or to allow of the claim that He is their * Father ' until
they repent. The relation of Father, in the bare sense of Creator,
cannot, as a matter of fact, be abolished ' we are all His off-
spring ' but in every other and higher sense, involving moral
relationship and eternal love, it is declared to be non-existent in
288 DENIAL OF SONSHIP TO THE WICKED.
reference to impenitent men. 'If God were your Father, ye
would love Me. Ye are of your father, the devil,' said Christ to the
Pharisees. Through sin men have been disinherited; they are
' slaves' of sin and death, not ' sons of God/ The 'adoption of
sons ' comes only with the ' new birth ' unto righteousness. God
does not acknowledge spiritual fatherhood to those who work
evil. ' He that made them will have no mercy on them.' ' They
shall have judgment without mercy.' We are ' no more worthy
to be called His sons.' The Divine Word denominates us * sons
of God ' only when we have ' passed from death unto life.' The
popular argument, therefore, against the destruction of unregene-
rate men, derived from the fatherhood of God, is drawn from a
relationship which, in the case of the rebellious, Christ distinctly
disowns. 'The chaff He will burn up with unquenchable fire,'
Surely there is no ' hardness ' in bringing these alarming truths
to public remembrance. The real hardness and cruelty lie with
those who ' strengthen the hands of evil doers ' to their own ruin,
by promising them 'life and peace,' and that in the awful name
of a Being who has ' sworn ' that if they do not repent ' TO-DAY '
they shall ' not enter into His rest.' ' Except ye repent, ye shall
all likewise perish.' ' Now is the day of salvation/
ON THE NATURE OF GERMS.
2. It remains to discuss the second part of this objection, and
to ask whether our incapacity to distinguish or ' discern ' in all
cases ' between the righteous and the wicked ' is valid reason for
denying the sufficiency of the distinction as a basis for eternal
differences in destiny. Here we are thrown back upon some
considerations on the phenomena of germ-life in general, whence
it will appear that the admitted impossibility of pronouncing upon
the generic distinctions in spiritual states, in many of their earlier
forms, forms no argument against the reality of such distinctions
or their infinite consequences. Mr. Baldwin Brown has himself
supplied the warning against precipitate judgment on germs,
which is applicable in the case before us. When arguing against
a supposed error of ours, in which by mistake he attributed to us
the belief that mankind is not simply allied on one side to the
animal races, but is distinguishable from them only by shades of
PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL GERM-LIFE. 289
development, he very justly points out that this undistinguishable-
ness of the germs cannot be pleaded in support of the identi-
fication of the two, since the obscure germ soon demonstrates its
hidden forces, and asserts in humanity its generic superiority to
that of the brute. ' The germs, we are assured, of Newton and
of his dog Diamond, are, in their incipient stages, absolutely
identical. Yes, to Science. But there is something there which
it needs a yet diviner art, in which the philosopher is the priest,
to discern, which makes the one germ inevitably into Newton and
the other into a dog.'
It needs only to transfer this admirably-stated principle to the
realms of spiritual life to meet the objection on which Mr. Brown
relies in combating the idea of spiritual distinctions wide enough
to warrant eternal differences in their doom. The beginnings of
all life are mysterious and invisible ; the earlier stages of the
development are imperfect and obscure. This is true of the
body. It is equally true of the * new creature in Christ.' There
is nothing which can be said against the undistinguishableness of
generic difference in character which might not be said in relation
to the early stages of physical development. The Newton and
the Diamond are soon revealed ; but it might puzzle any power
less than Omniscience to discriminate the two until development
has occurred. The great lesson of biology is the enlargement of
our faith as to the hidden life of elementary organisms. Hear
how Dr. Maudsley speaks in his latest work on the l Physiology
of Mind.' ' Those who may be disposed to think it impossible
that such important constitutional differences should exist in so
small a compass might reflect with advantage on the various
undetectable conditions which may confessedly exist in the
minutest organic matter as, for example, in the delicate micro-
scopic spermatozoon, or in the intangible virus of a fever. And
yet it is from the conjunction of one minute spermatozoon with
another that are produced the muscles, vessels, nerves, and brain
of a Socrates or a Caesar. . . . The single cell united with the
single germ, each integrating the qualities of ancestors, gives birth
to a new organic product, which, minute as it is, contains in latent
forms all the potentialities, and displays actually in evolution
many of the qualities of generations of ancestors, male and
female, and furthermore evinces new qualities as a result of the
19
290 PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL GERM-LIFE.
organic combination. There is nothing extravagant in the sup-
position that a single nerve cell has many potentialities. The
exquisite minuteness and consummate delicacy of the operations
going on around us in the most intimate recesses of nature are
even more striking and wonderful than the vastness and grandeur
with which the astronomer is concerned' (p. 120).
When, therefore, it is alleged that differences in spiritual cha-
racter sufficient to account for opposite everlasting destinies are
not discernible, we submit, first, that sometimes such failure to
discern the radical difference in character between good and evil
men arises not from the obscurity of the phenomena, but from
the wide extent of a superficial and deceptive profession of
religion, or from the spiritual blindness of the observer ; and,
secondly, that the physical analogy of germs supports the declara-
tion that in two chai Deters, seemingly alike, there may, neverthe-
less, be such an essential difference that, as in the cases of Christ's
two associates, Judas Iscariot and Peter, both much alike to a
careless eye, ' one of them is a devil, 7 for whom it would be
* better if he had never been born ' ; one of them is a ' natural
man,' an 'earthy man,' ' abiding in death,' who has developed
only evil qualities, or qualities good simply on the human level ;
while the other, though as yet much undeveloped, contains a
germ of Divine Life, which before long will develop into a form
of character 'equal to the angels,' and 'worthy of an endless
life.' ' We know not what we shall be, but we know that when
He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as
He is. 1
291
CHAPTER XXI.
HADES, OR THE STATE OF MAN BETWEEN DEATH AND THE
RESURRECTION, UNDER THE ECONOMY OF REDEMPTION.
THOSE theologians who are agreed in the main on the line of
argument pursued hitherto, are divided in opinion on the ques-
tion of the survival and condition of souls in an intermediate
state preceding the resurrection ; in this respect not differing from
such as maintain the traditional belief on the future state. They,
too, who believe in the resurrection of all mankind to everlasting
joy or pain, are divided in opinion on the condition of the spirit
after death. Many, who hold the prevailing doctrine on judgment
to come, believe, with Mr. Robert Hall at one portion of his life,
that thought is a secretion of the brain, and perishes utterly until
'the resurrection. Others believe in the survival, and blessedness
or misery of the soul. Others believe in its survival and sleep.
The diversity of belief, therefore, on this subject, among the
adherents of the doctrine here denned, is not peculiar to them,
and is occasioned by apparent decrepancies of statement in the
Biblical writings, especially in the English version, which perplex
the students of both systems.
It must nevertheless be admitted, that the controversy on
survival in death of a portion of the dissolved nature of Man has
a peculiar interest for us who attribute eternal life to redemption
alone. If it can be established as a fact in nature, and as a clear
instruction of the Divine Revelation, that when man dies, not
only is the complex humanity destroyed (as when water is
destroyed on the separation of its component elements), but also
that the soul breaks up, and the thinking willing power is entirely
dissipated, then it is thought that the most solid basis is laid for
the doctrine that man's hope of a future life is in resurrection alone,
292 ADVANTAGES OF MR. CONSTABLES POSITION.
or the reconstitution of the dissolved humanity. Men would be
1 shut up into the faith ' of eternal life in Christ only. The argu-
ment for Immortality in Christ is thought to be greatly * simplified,'
and thus to be commended to simple minds. The threatening of
Death also under this view receives a clear and easy definition.
Death in all cases is then death, total and thorough extinction of
life, not only of the compound man, but of all parts of his being,
so that not a spark of life is left in the ashes.
Nor is this the only advantage of such a position. If you
maintain the total dissipation of the * soul ' as well as the body,
you escape the * absurdity of supposing that death has converted
one person into two, so that whereas in life there was one David,
in death there are two Davids ' (Constable's Hades, p. 7). More-
over, if you prove that, in the death which men die here, the
whole man is abolished, so that no soul or spirit survives, you
strike the foundation from underneath the whole fabric of false
doctrine in the popular European theology. You not only dispel
illusion as to the source of immortality, but as to (i) the 'glory'
to which souls are supposed by Protestants to go on departure
(so dispensing with, or undervaluing, the hope of resurrection at
Christ's return from heaven) ; and (2) as to the condition of souls
in Purgatory, where Romanists believe them to be chastised for
the venial sins of a lifetime. He who proves the first death to be
a ' sleep,' in which not even a dreamer remains, disproves Purga-
tory, and thereby strikes a fatal blow at the superstition on which
rests the power of the Greek and Roman priesthoods. This, it
is justly thought, would be in some respects a considerable gain ;
and writers who, like Mr. Constable of Cork, have lived long in
a Roman Catholic country, are certain to be deeply impressed by
such a theoretical advantage.
Lastly, it is held that a clear demonstration of the non-existence
of any part of conscious humanity after death would abolish that
* spiritualism,' or desire for necromantic intrusion into the unseen
world, which has of late spread like a pernicious fever over
Europe and America. If it can be shown that there are no
souls with which to communicate, it is manifest that no one,
who is convinced of that position, will desire to communicate with
O.V THE SIMPLIFICATION OF ARGUMENT. 293
them. Or, if perforce persuaded of the reality of spiritual com-
munications, they will be compelled to conclude that these are
the work of ' Satanic demons personating the dead.' *
I am not insensible to the force of these considerations, and they
have been pressed upon the public with equal ingenuity and per-
severance by Mr. Constable, one of the very best writers on the
general question of Immortality. But in the study of truth it will
be conceded that there is no danger more imminent than that
which comes with temptation to advantage in controversy. Men
are easily disposed to listen to arguments which seem likely to
gain popular support for their opinions, and easily disposed to
withstand or neglect evidence which might tell against doctrines
to which they are" honestly attached. Mr. Froude observes that
even in relation to historical facts the attraction of theological
opinion is such as to hinder men of the utmost capacity from
seeing or admitting what is obvious to all less partial examiners. t
Perhaps we never ought to be more suspicious of our argu-
ments than when they are derived from the presumed advantages
of the projected conclusion. There can be no doubt that the
desire for a neat and simple argument in support of a truth may
dispose even able men to offer some little violence to evidence
which points in the direction of complexity. What we consider
neatness and simplicity is not always a characteristic of Divine
working, or Divine teaching. A passion for simplicity of state-
ment has often blinded men to facts which indicated more com-
plexity than might at first have been supposed. The study of
physiology, for example, offers continual warnings against the
assumption of short simple formulas. Organisms in nature are
often more complex than is agreeable to the lovers of neat and
effective popular demonstrations. Assuredly the last object
which seems to have been designed in the Bible was to assist
controversialists to ' simple ' modes of stifling opposition. These
ancient records offer as complex a subject of study as the
geology of the globe, and only the most patient submissive study
* Such is the doctrine of Mr. Miles Grant. Spiritualism Unveiled. Kellaway,
London.
f He makes this fruitful remark in commenting on the denial by Irish
Romanists of the undoubted facts of the Irish Massacre of 1641.
294 INFLUENCE OF WISHES ON CRITICISM.
of the facts is likely to be rewarded by discovery of the true
principles of either.
The prospective advantages of any opinion, moreover, must be
postponed to the general interests of truth. Doubtless a widely
spread conviction of the total abolition of man's nature in the
first death would destroy the Protestant faith in ' glory ' as follow-
ing decease ; it would destroy the Romish faith in purgatory ; and
it would destroy spiritualism so far as it is based on necromancy.
And in the same manner a general disbelief in Christianity would
abolish all the dreadful evils which attend its corruptions. A dis-
belief in all future punishment would abolish the doctrine of eternal
torment. A disbelief in anything divine would put an end to all
superstition around the world. And even a disbelief in the
doctrine of justification by faith would effectually put a stop to
Protestant Antinomianism. But all careful thinkers will allow
that such aims in thought are unscientific. Our business is
exclusively with the evidence; and theory, whether in nature,
or in theology, must adapt itself to the facts, whether they admit
of a simple definition or explanation, or require one of greater
complexity.
It may be that the process of human Redemption, and the
institution of a new probation and judgment springing out of
it, has introduced more intricacy into God's dealings, and there-
fore into the history and teaching of Scripture as to the death of
mankind, than might have been looked for under a legal adminis-
tration. We have thought it right to draw attention to these
considerations in order to insist upon a fairer examination of the
Scripture evidence on the subject of this chapter than is possible
under the prepossessions which have been now referred to.
It cannot be maintained that the .importance of this sub-con-
troversy, however interesting, is equal to that on the general
question of man's immortality in Christ. Those who hold the
intermediate unconsciousness of the soul, even those who hold
the dissipation of the soul in the first death, maintain truth
which more than compensates for all their (possible) errors on
this subject. They maintain the fundamental doctrine of Scrip-
ture that Man is an Integer, having his ' form ' in the fabric
of ' dust/ and that God deals both in judgment and mercy with
MR. CONSTABLE ON HADES. 295
this visible humanity. They rightly reject the idea that the
supposed ' spirit ' is formally the man. They insist on the in-
dwelling of Christ's Spirit as the sole hope of human immortality.
They are also in accord with the Bible in refusing to regard the
condition of the soul in a separate state as 'the hope of the
Church ; ' rightly declaring that that hope is in Resurrection at
the second coming of the Christ. They maintain also with
reasonable zeal that if man is wholly destroyed in the first death,
there can be no painful sense of delay between death and the
advent of Christ, since those who have fallen asleep may be
expected to awake in the coming glory without any sense of inter-
vening time.
Believing, nevertheless, that a certain degree of importance
attaches to this subject, I shall now describe the arguments of the
various existing schools of opinion on Hades, and venture with
due deference to declare my own judgment on the difference.
I.
The first school is led by Mr. Constable. In his work on
Hades he maintains the position that the tripartite nature of
man has been misunderstood by Dr. Delitzsch and Mr. Heard.
According to him the ' body ' stands for the material fabric ; the
' sour (or nephesh H~eb.) for that life in all his faculties and
members, which man possesses in common with, or in addition
to, that of the lower animals ; and the 'spirit ' (ruach or neschamaJi)
for that portion of the Divine Spirit within him which is the cause
of the life of that nephesh, or soul, animating the body. In death
God withdraws His Spirit, aad the man, with his body and soul,
or nephesh, then altogether breaks up and dissolves away. The
Man is non-existent. The essential substance of the body re-
mains, scattered into atoms. The life, or soul, which was in the
blood, was a production of the Spirit of God, and ceases to be
when that Spirit withdraws. Thus man in death wholly dies.
He has no soul, in the popular sense of the word, no spiritual
individuality, or ' inner man,' which can survive. He wholly
'dies and returns to his dust,' as do the animals." Thought
* I do not think it fair to press undesigned consequences on Mr. Constable ;
nevertheless is it not true that materialism finds its logical result in atheism ?
296 UNCRITICAL QUOTATION OF SCRIPTURE.
was a product of the Divine Power acting through the brain.
When the Spirit of God withdraws, the life ceases, and thought
with it. All these are restored in the resurrection; and in a
better form. To live for ever as a man is the privilege of the
regenerate. All others will die a second time in the pains of the
second death.
It is obvious that the phraseology of Scripture, that vast and
various quarry, supplies much material, if not regarded with too
critical an eye, which can readily be built up into this hypothesis.
And the advocates of the theory quote from the books of the Old
Testament many passages, which, if they are to be taken for
divine revelations on psychology, undoubtedly serve the theory
well, as popular defences. Thus Mr. Constable, on other occa-
sions a careful critic, frequently cites the noted words of the book
Ecclesiastes on the nature and destiny of man and of animals, and
on the absence of all thought in Sheol or Hades (' The dead know
not anything'}. Some of his coadjutors even cite the speeches of
the excellent but mistaken persons introduced in the drama of
Job's sufferings, as if they were authoritative declarations on the
dissipation of the soul, requiring our assent ; whereas it must first
be proved, against Hengstenberg and Ewald, that these books are
something beyond the devout speculations of poets and philoso-
phers perhaps of the time of the Captivity, incorporated with the
sacred writings as valuable records of tentative holy thought in
the ages of preparation for the gospel ; and next, that in these
passages the writers are speaking in a more than popular tone.
In the same manner the words of the late Psalm cxlvi. 5 are often
cited : ' In that very day his thoughts perish} as proving that the
mind of man goes to nothing at death. It is difficult to reason on
Scripture doctrine with those who maintain so rigid an opinion
on the universal force of inspiration in the books of the Old
If man has no reason to believe that he possesses a ' spirit ' in himself, he has
no reason for concluding that the mind revealed in Nature inheres in an
Eternal ' Spirit.' We know God's attributes only through our own constitu-
tion ; and if thought with us is a function of matter, it is right to conclude
either, pantheistically, that there is some governing thought which is a function
of the matter of the universe, or, atheistical ly, that there is no mind in nature,
notwithstanding appearances. Mr. Constab'e will resist the conclusion. But
Professor Clifford, a more consistent niateriaMst, stoutly affirms it (Fortnightly
Review, No. 139, 1875).
6: PAUL ON i COR. XV. 1 8. 297
Testament, as to think that a strong assertion, occurring any-
where, of the sudden end in death of all man's active purposes
and judgments in life,* is to be taken for a divine psychological
deliverance on the abolition of the thinking spirit in death. t
Such modes of quoting the poetic and philosophic books of the
Old Testament are nearly on a par with those by which it
is unaccountably sought by some to withstand the Newtonian
astronomy, and to establish the notion that God has revealed to
men in the Old Testament the truth of the Ptolemaic system.
Perhaps the strongest popular support of this doctrine is derived
from i Cor. xv. 18: < If Christ le not raised, ye are yet in your sins.
Then they also who are fallen asleep in Christ, a.\ovro, are gone
to nothing ; ' in which it is said to be asserted by S. Paul, that all
future life depends on resurrection, there being no soul to sur-
vive in death. But S. Paul makes no such statement. He
teaches what would have happened if Christ had not been raised ;
if there had been no redemption, and no justification by His
death. In that case doubtless death would be the end of man,
since the ' soul ' of any being, made as Adam was, a ' living
animal/ does not naturally survive in death. But S. Paul does
not teach this of the destiny of human souls in death, now that
redemption has occurred, and Christ has risen : especially not of
the dead in Christ. He states elsewhere that the believer's soul
absent from the body is present with the Lord.
It follows as a natural corollary from their general idea that
this school of. psychologers insists on attaching to the Hebrew
word Sheol (SlNS?) and to the Greek word Hades (AiS-^s) in-
variably the meaning of the Grave, a tolerably stout assertion
standing here in the place of evidence.
iT? purposes, opinions, counsels. Gesenitts.
t In common conversation, or in writing, either by heathen or Christians,
we say, ' So-and-so did such and such things while he lived, but now he is
dead ; ' without giving any opinion against the survival of the soul. Then
why should the Bible, which is written in man's language, be so interpreted in
some of its plain statements as to be made to contradict itself in various other
portions, often quoted ? When it was intended that we shall understand by
death the extinction of the soul also, this is expressed in words, when Christ
held out the threat of ' the destruction of body and soul in Gehenna. ' Matt.
x. 28.
298 MR. MAUDE ON SHEOL.
II.
It is not a subject of wonder that a second school of criticism,
in which no one has written more ably than Mr. Maude, is based
upon rejection of much argument that passes current with the
former.* Mr. Constable's proposal to abolish the soul of man
as a separable entity is resisted (i) on the ground of almost
universal instinctive expectation of survival ; (2) on the testimony
of those Old Testament Scriptures which he regards as a psycho-
logical authority entirely devoted to his own side of the argument ;
and (3) still more .reliance is placed on the more luminous teach-
ing of the apostles of Christianity.
It is held that, whether rightly or wrongly, the Scriptures speak
of a soul or spirit which, although not forming the whole of the
Man, is a part of his being, and is capable, under God's will, of
surviving in death. Conceding that such a survival is contrary
to the analogy of death in all other animated beings around us ;
that it is contrary to the original intention of God in the curse
of death threatened at first to Adam in paradise ; nay, even
maintaining with Delitzsch that the survival of the soul or spirit
in death is of the nature of a miraculous or abnormal provision,
arising out of the economy of redemption, with a view to. future
resurrection ; they nevertheless hold that it is impossible by fair
means to eliminate the idea of a surviving soul from the Bible.
Such a notion was believed in, both in antiquity and in more
recent times. The question of the measure of truth in such a
* I have not thought it necessary to describe the intermediate eclectic opinion
of Mr. Warleigh, Rector of Ashchurch, an able and resolute thinker, as the
mark of a distinct * school,' because it seems to be almost restricted to himself.
He agrees with Mr. Constable that man has body, soul, and spirit, the soul
being the life, and the Spirit the cause of that life, the Spirit of God. He
believes that when wicked men die, God withdraws His Spirit, and the man
wholly perishes till the resurrection. But Mr. Warleigh differs from Mr.
Constable in this that in the case of Christian believers, the Spirit which he
describes as the Spirit of God, becomes, according to him, a distinct individual
Spirit of the man, separable from the soul ; and he thinks that this ' Spirit,'
with all the attributes of an individual Mind, survives in Paradise till the
resurrection, when it rejoins soul and body at the Lord's coming.
SHEOL AND HADES. 299
belief may be postponed. The present object is to show the
evidence relied on to prove its reality and antiquity.
(i) Although in twenty-eight places in the Old Testament
King James's version translates Sheol by the grave, no point in
criticism admits of fuller proof than that Sheol was the name given
to the under-world of souls departed. Sheol fills a much larger
space in the Hebrew Bible that it does in the English. It can
properly be rendered the ' grave ' only where that word is taken,
as in Gray's Elegy, to include the state of departed souls. Its
true signification is rightly and uniformly represented in the Greek
version of the Septuagint by Hades, a word which in Greek
literature of all ages stood for the world of the departed. Sheol
was not the sepulchre, but a place conceived of as being as far
below the earth's surface as the visible Heaven was high above
it (Deut. xxxii. 22 ; Psalm cxxxix. 8; Job ix. 8 ; Amos ix. 2, 3) :
* It is high as heaven : what canst thou do ? deeper than Sheol :
what canst thou know? ' It was a place of darkness and silence
in ' the lower parts of the earth/ This, as is known, is exactly
what was signified by the Greek Hades, as in Homer's eleventh
Book of the Odyssey, where Ulysses descends to ' Hades ' to con-
sult the souls of the dead. The Septuagint translators, therefore,
who well knew the native meaning of both words, have, by sub-
stituting uniformly the one for the other, shown beyond question
what the word Sheol meant in the opinion of the Hebrews.
Their judgment sets aside that of Mr. Constable. Sheol was the
subterranean abode of departed spirits, not the sepulchre.*
When, then, the saints of the Old Testament speak of ' descend-
ing to Sheol] they, it is said, intended to express their faith in
a soul surviving in a silent abode below.the earth's surface. ' I
shall go down to Sheol to my son mourning' (Gen. xxxvii. 35).
In Jacob's idea Joseph had no grave. The belief in the abode
involved the belief in its inhabitants.
(2) The law of Moses against ' necromancy,' or the attempt
to hold illicit communion with the dead, proves unquestionably
the popular belief that the souls of the dead survived. The law
* For the complete discussion of the signification of Hades see Dr. George
Campbell's Dissertations perfixed tojiis Translation of the Gospels ; Greswell's
Notes on the Parables, vol. i. ; Lange on the Revelation, Excursus on Hades,
Delitzsch, Psychology, bk. vi. ; S. Cox, Salvator Mundi.
3oo SEEKING TO THE DEAD DEUT. XVIII.
is distinct (Deut. xviii. n). ' There shall not be found among
you (D'W?/K trn) a seeker to the dead: This is probable
evidence that Moses allowed such consultation to be possible ;
but it is certain evidence that the people for whom he legislated
believed that the souls of the dead had a separate existence, and
that some of them further believed they might be brought up from
Sheol for purposes of divination. This offence constituted a
prominent part of the sin of ' witchcraft,' or ' dealing with familiar
spirits ; ' punishable with death. There cannot be a more decisive
proof that the Hebrew people did not think that in death the
whole man was utterly annihilated. They thought that a part
survived in Sheol*
(3) In the times of the Judges the same belief prevailed.
King Saul thought that by consulting the witch of Endor it was
possible to enter into consultation with the spirit of Samuel now
departed ; and, if we may trust the history, he succeeded perhaps
beyond his expectations. If, on the other hand, the witch was
an impostor, and only feigned that she beheld an apparition, still
she practised on the popular belief. The Hebrews of that day
must have believed in souls surviving, or so many witches would
not have pretended to raise them.
(4) In the days of David and Solomon we find that good men
spoke of their nephesh or soul as being in the hand or power of
Sheol; Samuel speaks of his spirit as * disquieted when brought
* The sense of this whole passage in Deut. xviii. is obscured in our Bibles by
the insertion of the paragraph mark at verse 15. There is a close connection
between that verse and those which precede. Divination and necromancy are
forbidden as * abominations,' but they are also prohibited as unnecessary
intrusions into the spiritual realms, since God promises to raise up prophets
'from the midst of them, of their brethren? men in the flesh, so that there is no
need for attempting to gain information from the world of spirits by unlawful
methods. If this was true under the Mosaic Law, how much more emphati-
cally must spiritualistic ' seeking to the dead ' be an abomination now that the
greatest of all the Prophets, like unto Moses, has arisen. To ' seek to familiar
spirits, or to wizards that peep and that mutter ' now, is the consummation of
wickedness. But it is quite in character for those who cast the words of our
Redeemer on all other subjects behind their backs. All such 'sorcerers'
(yorjrf c), we are told, ' shall have their part in the lake of fire that burneth
with brimstone ' (Rev. xxii. 15). On the character of the Goes, or ' sorcerer ' of
the New Testament, see Smith's Bibl. Diet, on Divination, and John Sheppard
on the Divine Origin of Christianity.
THE REPHAIM. 301
up' (i Sara, xxviii. 15). In the Proverbs, Solomon speaks of
certain Rephaim D^KS""] as being * in the depths, or valleys, of
Sheol j but who are lost to view in the English Bible, under the
name of the 'dead.' Thus in ii. 18 we learn that there is a
'descent' from the harlot's house down to 'Death,' where are
* the Rephaim: ' He knoweth not that the Rephaim are there,
and her guests in the abysses of Sheol' (ix. 18). ' The man who
wandereth out of the way of understanding, shall abide in the
congregation of the Rephaim: We meet with these Rephaim
elsewhere. In Isaiah xxvi. 14, the prophet, speaking of pagan
tyrants, who had oppressed the nation, says, 'They are dead men,
they shall not live, they are Rephaim, they shall not stand up ; '
and in verse 19, after describing the happy resurrection of the
righteous, he adds, 'the earth shall cast out (like an abortion) the
Rephaim: Again in chapter xiv. he describes Sheol, the King
of the world of Shades, as ' stirring up the Rephaim ' to meet the
King of Babylon on the day when he goes down into the abyss.
And once more, in Job xxvi. 5, we read another indication ot
popular opinion, when he says, speaking of God's all-piercing
sight," ' The Rephaim are pierced through beneath the waters, and
their habitations. Sheol is naked before Him, and Abaddon hath
no covering.'
Who are the Rephaim ? Gesenius says that the word stands
for the departed souls of the dead in Sheol, and the reference is
more commonly to the wicked dead (see Prov. ii. 18; ix. 18;
xxi. 1 6 ffeb.}
(5) In the days of Isaiah the prophet the practice of ' seeking
to the dead,' forbidden by the Mosaic law, was rife in the
degraded state of the nation (Isaiah viii. 19). The practice at
least bespeaks the perpetuation of ancient belief in the survival
of the souls of the dead. It proves, if nothing else, yet that
Mr. Constable's opinion that man has no surviving spirit was not
embraced by Israel.
Such, then, is the evidence of this faith presented in the Old
Testament. No one can pretend that the Sheol of the Hebrews
offers to us, an attractive shadow-picture. Jacob thinks of
descending to it ' mourning.' David has no cheerful thoughts of
its darkness or silence. Hezekiah 'turns his face to the wall'
302 < NOT ABLE TO KILL THE SOUL:
and prays to be delivered from ' going down to the bor, or abyss.'
Even Samuel says only that he has been * disturbed ' by being
' brought up.'
Perhaps the chief value of these dismal Old Testament repre-
sentations is as preparing us for the testimonies of the New.
The advocates of the school now under description affirm that
by fair criticism it is not possible to evade the evidence of the
New Testament in favour of the survival of souls.
1. It is said that the common use of the term Hades in the
Greek Testament to describe the state following death is decisive
as to the belief of its writers." To no Greek readers would the
word signify aught else than a place where departed spirits
reside.
2. Our Lord's words, if correctly rendered in the Greek version,
if a version, of Matthew's Gospel, compel the admission that
Christ regarded man as consisting ' of body and soul, of which
unity one portion survived in the first death (Matt. x. 28). ' Fear
not them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul ;
but fear him which is able to destroy both body and soul in
Gehenna.' Here, it is argued, Christ asserts the survival of the
\j/vx>j in death ; and His words afford no congruous sense, if the
if/vyr} be not here a separable soul. For if the soul (or nephesh
of Mr. Constable) perishes at death, then he who ' kills the body '
does * kill the soul/ as Calvin long since pointed out, and there
is no distinction between the two cases supposed. No even
colourable escape from this criticism seems possible except by
refinements unintelligible to the common people.
3. The description which Christ gave to the Pharisees of the
respective fates of the souls of the Rich Man and Lazarus in
Hades (Luke xvi.), is an apparent indication of the conscious
repose at least of some departed souls, and the sufferings at least
of certain others. The only mode of resisting this argument
that of Mr. Constable, who supposes that Christ here holds out
a description of future torment in Gehenna, under the image of
separate souls suffering in Hades, as the Pharisees erroneously
conceived it is not one which can. be tolerated until his general
* See a scholarlike letter to this effect by Dr, Weymouth, Head Master ot
Mill Hill School, in Rainbow of Nov. 1871.
CHRIST 'S WORDS TO THE DYING ROBBER. 303
argument has been made good on other grounds. It is an inge-
nious but gratuitous invention in criticism.
4. The words of Christ to the crucified robber at the hour of
His death are naturally adduced as strong evidence of the un-
soundness of Mr. Constable's theory. He himself, with charac-
teristic candour, confesses that they long caused delay in his
acceptance of his later views. The robber, looking upon the
Saviour, gasped out the prayer, ' Lord, remember me when Thou
comest into Thy kingdom ! ' He had probably learned enough
of the history of Jesus and of the evidence of His Messiahship
to embrace the faith of His resurrection at some future time.
Christ's answer was, ' Verily, I say unto thee, This day shalt thou
be with me in the Paradise ' (^fMepov per e//,ov on; TW TrapaSeio-w).
' The Paradise ' was the poetic name given by the Jews of that
day, says Professor Plumptre (rightly citing in proof Josephus,
Wetstein, Grotius, and Schoettgen*), to the upper region of
Hades, in which holy souls were believed to rest. Christ's words,
it is affirmed, were understood by the robber in the sense which
they popularly bore at that epoch. There is no doubt that he
would receive the promise in the sense of going to ' Abraham's
Bosom ' in Sheol. One argument for the survival of souls, there-
fore, is derived from the historical signification of Paradise.
Another is drawn from the use and place of 3?j//,epov (semeron\
To-day, in the same sentence. It has been attempted to join
this word to the previous clause, ' Verily I say unto thee to-day,
thou shalt be with me in Paradise,' i.e., after the resurrection.
But, (i) the word a-^cpov is here obviously emphatic, and Greek
usage fixes the place of the emphatic semeron at or near the
beginning of the clause to which it belongs. Hence we learn
that it belongs to the second clause : * To-day shalt thou be with
me in Paradise.' Thus we find it in Matt. xxi. 28 (Gr.), 'Son,
go to-day work.' Mark xiv. 30, 'Verily I say unto thee, To-day,
in this very night, thou shalt deny me thrice.' Luke iv. 21, ' To-
day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears.' Luke xix. 5, ' To-day
I must abide at thine house.' Acts xiii. 38, ' To-day have I
begotten thee.' These three examples are from the pen of the
same S. Luke. Heb. iv. 7, ' To-day if ye will hear His voice,
harden not your hearts.'
* Article on Paradise,\in. Smith's Biblical Dictionary.
304 CHRIST'S WORDS TO THE DYING ROBBER.
That to-day is here emphatic is proved from two considerations
(i) The robber had prayed to Jesus to remember him when
He came into His kingdom. The answer is a gracious surprise,
indicated by the ' Verity ! ' that he should ' be with Him to-day
in Paradise.' Being emphatic, therefore, the to-day belongs to
the beginning of the latter clause. (2) The word, which yields
so pregnant a sense when taken emphatically, uses congruity
when taken without emphasis as the ending of the first clause,
* Verily I say unto thee to-day ! ' If all that Christ intended
were that He was speaking 'to-day/ that was already clear
without observation, and there was no more reason for inserting
the word to-day than when speaking on any other occasion."'
There is, however, another attempt to reconcile this expression
of our Lord with the idea of the dissipation of the soul. It is
said, If the soul totally vanish between death and the resurrec-
tion, there will be no sense of the lapse of time, and the awaken-
ing of the dead robber would be in the future Paradise, at a*
moment which would seem to be the evening of the very day on
which he died. The answer to this criticism is briefly as follows :
(1) It supposes, but does not prove, the dissipation of the soul.
(2) It would not be true, whatever might seem to be the case,
that that day the thief would be in Paradise. He would have
to wait till Christ's return from heaven. (3) It is inconceivable
that Christ would, under such solemn circumstances, have used
words of comfort to the dying sinner, which can be prevented
from conveying the idea of immediate entrance into some blessed
state only by an argument on the dissipation of the soul, which
was quite beyond the capacity of the thief, or of any except
cultivated men an argument partaking more of the nature of
an intellectual riddle than of the serious significance fitted for
the lips of a dying Saviour, whose own Spirit was certainly not
about to sink into nothingness. On the contrary, we are taught
by S. Peter that ' being put to death in the flesh He was made
alive in spirit, and went and preached to the spirits in prison,
who once were disobedient in the days of Noah' (i Peter iii. 18).
5. Christ's own commendatory prayer in the act of dying is
* The Improved Version of the Unitarians characteristically marks the pas-
sage as doubtful. But it is in the text of the Sinaitic, Vatican, and Alexandrian,
MSS.
QUA LORD'S WORDS IN DYING. 303
thought to be fatal to the theory of soul-dissipation. Mr. Con -
stable is oppressed by the notion, that if anything survives in
death the man is not dead, and hence, that the foundation of
truth which he values will be removed. There is, however, one
great example to the contrary which, although only an argument
adhominem, obviates his objection. The Lord Christ undoubtedly
died. Now His nature consisted, according to Mr. Constable, of
a union between humanity and Deity. The Godhead of the
Word was as truly a part of the nature of THE CHRIST as His
humanity. In the passion Christ died. To Mr. Constable we
can say nothing of the survival of His soul, for he thinks that He
had none, in the popular sense of the term. His soul was His
life in the blood. But he admits that a Divine Spirit formed an
integral part of His nature, and that that Divine Logos survived
the death of the Christ. Did that survival invalidate Christ's
death ? Yes or No ? If it did, then, according to Mr. Con-
stable, Christ did not die ; but this Mr. Constable would doubt-
less deny, affirming that Christ died. Yet, if the survival of a
Divine Spirit did not invalidate the death of Christ, then neither
does the survival of a human spirit invalidate the death of a man
in that incomplete death which prevails under the economy of
redemption until the second death takes place.
6. The language of the New Testament writers, while
freely speaking of death as a sleep, indicates that the sleeper
was not wholly abolished. Stephen 'fell asleep,' but he first
commended his spirit (' my spirit ') into the hands of Jesus in
heaven as if the spirit in him were really a part of his own being,
and not more a * loan ' than his body.
There is also a remarkable difference between the expressions
of dying saints before and after the ascension of Christ to heaven,
which was early noticed in the primitive Church.* In old times
the saints ever spoke of descending into Sheol. Now they ' com-
mit their spirits to the hands of Jesus.' S. Paul again declares
that he was ' caught up into Paradise ' (2 Cor. xii.), whereas the
Paradise of departed souls was shortly before thought of as in
Hades, in the ' lower parts of the earth.'
* See Pearson on the Creed, in Article 'He descended into Hell' Dr. Winter
Hamilton assents to this doctrine. Congregational Lecture on Rewards and
Punishments \
20
306 ' TO DIE IS GAIN.'
7. S. Paul in often-cited passages employs terms unintelligible
unless he believed in the survival of his spirit in death, and its
residence in some restful abode with Christ, not in the sub-
terranean Hades, until the resurrection. 'Therefore we are
always confident, knowing that whilst we are at home in the
body we are absent from the Lord ; we are confident, I say, and
willing, rather to be absent from the body and to be present
with the Lord" (2 Cor. v. 6-8).
In the other noted text (Phil. i. 20-22) he puts his meaning
beyond doubt. * Christ shall be magnified in His body, whether
by life, or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
But if to live in the flesh, this is to me reward of labour, so that
what I shall choose I know not. For I am in a strait between
two, having a desire for departing, and being with Christ ; for it is
very far better: yet to abide in my flesh is more needful for your
sake.' It is thought to offer violence to these two passages to
take them in any other sense than this : that Paul expected
notwithstanding his language elsewhere respecting death as a
' sleep ' (i Thess. iv. 13), and the day of resurrection as the day
of adoption, and public manifestation of the sons of God (Rom.
viii.) that his spirit would ascend when he ' fell asleep,' to rest
in the keeping of Jesus Christ till the second advent. He says
not indeed one word of active service in the upper sanctuary; not
a word indicating that the soul, so resting in that Paradise (to
which whether in the body, or out of the body, he was once 'caught
up,' 2 Cor. xii.), would be qualified for either work or converse
with others ; on the contrary, he speaks of the disembodied
condition as not in itself desirable, * not that we would be un-
clothed ; ' he looked forward to the resurrection as the time of
coronation and public acknowledgment; but he does seem to
speak quite distinctly of survival, and of ascension into the
presence and society of Christ.
Now what are the two things between which Paul was held in
a strait, not knowing which to choose ? Surely they were life and
death; 'abiding in the flesh,' and the 'departing ' (of the soul)
to be * with Christ ; ' ' continuing ' with the Church on earth,
and being * absent from the body,' to be * present with the Lord.'
This makes excellent sense. But try Mr. Constable's theory in a
paraphrase, and what sense appears ? ' Christ shall be magnified
1 ABSENT FROM THE BODY: 307
in my body, whether by means of life, or by means of going to
nothing. For to me to live is Christ, and to go to nothing is
gain. For if I live in the flesh this is the fruit of my labour ; yet
what I shall choose I know not ; for I am in a strait betwixt the
two, having a desire for the returning at some future time, after
a period of nothingness, and so being with Christ, which is far
better. Nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for
you ; and having this confidence I know that I shall abide and
continue with you all.'
According to this scheme of interpretation, what are the two
things between which Paul was in a strait? Will it be said,
living here and living again at Christ's second advent? But
what was there in those two things to put him * in a strait '
which he ' should choose ' ? He could not by any * choice ' of
his hasten the resurrection by a single moment, and his dying,
or going to nothing, is clearly by this hypothesis not one of the
alternatives. These are ' abiding in the flesh,' and enjoying
Christ's presence at the resurrection. Now since Paul could
not expect to enjoy that sooner than the Philippians, what
* strait ' could there be rendering it difficult to choose ; especially
as he says expressly there would be * fruit of his labour ' so long
as he lived ? Besides, if the reference were to the resurrection,
the Philippians would be with him there, and both parties would
be ' in the body,' so that there would be no contrast remaining
between a state in which he ' in the flesh ' should be with them,
and one in which he would not.
With this unmeaning tangle compare the sense which comes
out when we remember that the leading idea of the passage is,
that death is gain. Why is it gain to die ? Because to ' depart,'
or no longer to be ' in the flesh,' or continue on earth, is to be
'with Christ.' And this agrees with the difficulty of choosing
between the two attractions, to labour to serve Christ on earth
and to enjoy His immediate presence in heaven. It agrees also
with the words of the apostles in 2 Cor. v., that while we are ' at
home in the body, we are absent from the Lord ; ' while to be
absent from the body, eK^/^crai e* TOV o-w/xaros, is to be * at
home with the Lord'
8. Lastly, the same idea comes out, it is thought, in Hebrews
xi. 40, taken in comparison with xii, 23. The sacred writer says
308 ' SPIRITS OF JUST MEN PERFECTED.'
the fathers all died in faith, not having received the promise ;
God having provided some better thing (KP^LTTOV , compare
Phil. i. 23) for us, that they without us should not be made per-
fect.' Then in the following chapter, describing the privileges of
Christians under this dispensation, he says, 'But ye are come
unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the
heavenly -Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,
to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are
written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits
of just men made perfect, Trvcv/xaort Si/auW TcreA-etw/xei/cov/ Does
it not appear that in these verses the difference is described
between the condition of just men in death before the coming of
Christ, and their condition after it ? Before that event they were
not * perfected,' a word taken from the mysteries, and signifying
' admitted to the inner sanctuary ; ' the ' way into the holies not
having been made manifest ; ' but now ' the spirits of just men '
are ' perfected ; ' that is, they are ascended to the ' heavenly
Jerusalem,' and to ' Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant ; '
whither, in consequence, the departing souls of Christians ascend
when they die. And does not this accord with Christ's own
prayer, when shortly about to take his seat as Governor of the
universe in heaven ? ' Father, I will that they whom thou hast
given me be Ivith me where I am, that they may behold (a/a
tfewpuxn) my glory, which thou hast given me ' (John xvii.). He
needed not to pray that they might be with Him after their
resurrection, for that was a matter of course ; but He prays that
their spirits may escape the old law of consignment to Hades,
and may be * with Him to contemplate the glory ' of His Media-
torial Omnipotence.
III.
In summing up the result of this inquiry, it must be allowed,
first of all, that nearly every presumptive physical argument is on
the side of those who think that death ends consciousness, and
terminates the spiritual individuality ; and that the survival of the
thinking power in the dissolution of the humanity is contrary
to the analogy of the living creation to which man belongs.
Death, too, as the original penalty of sin, was doubtless death
SURVIVAL DUE TO REDEMPTION. 309
in the most absolute sense of the term. If, then, any element sur-
vive in the first death, it must be attributed to the supernatural
action of redemption alone, which operates to the abnormal
preservation of the spiritual essence in the dissolution of the
man, both for judgment and reward. So much even Delitzsch
concedes.
But, secondly, I venture to think that the large preponderance
of argument is on the side of those who do not rely on this pre-
sumptive analogy against survival, but rather on the New Testa-
ment Revelation ; which compels us to believe that in the death
which men now die, the curse is executed in such a manner
(in the survival of the soul) as to allow of its reversal by the
resurrection of the same man to life, or of its second infliction,
under the irremediable condition of extinction of ' both soul and
body in hell ' (Matt. x. 28). That such a survival of the spiritual
element is possible is suggested even to reason by the fact that
there is something within us which preserves its identity, its unity
of consciousness and memory, through all the bodily atomic
changes of eighty years. The authors of the Unseen Universe
have supported this opinion with all the authority of physical
science i-tself. (Fourth edition, p. 200.)
The general doctrine of the Bible that a spirit survives in man's
death seems to outlast all the attacks of its opponents. The
question remains whether the New Testament is mistaken. If
our Lord and Saviour had not given so distinct a sanction to the
belief by His own words on the Cross, and afterwards allowed
His Apostle to use language confirmatory of the belief, we might
perhaps have doubted the sufficient authority of Old Testament
writers on such a question. But the evidence is not fragmentary.
It is systematic, and extends through both Testaments. Without
dogmatising on the measure or kind of consciousness in souls
departed, whether of the righteous, or the wicked, I am compelled
by the Scriptures to retain the persuasion of the survival of 'souls'
in death. The phenomena of apparitions, and of spiritualism,
may be regarded as inferior and secondary evidence indicating
some activity in the souls of the ' dead ; ' though the mixture of
credulity and deception in much of the supposed ' necromancy '
is such as to render a cautious judgment unwilling to rest a
primary argument upon such disputable testimony, notwith-
3 io SPIRITUALISTIC SORCERY..
standing a personal conviction of the occasional reality of the
phenomena.*
Perhaps the discrepancy in men's judgments on this question
has arisen from the supposition that it behoves us to make out a
uniform scheme as to the disposal of souls since the beginning of
the world ; as if the condition of souls departed at any one time
or place must be taken as a rule for understanding all that is said
of souls at other times and in other places. It is possible (the
truth to be ascertained only by induction of evidence) that God,
who deals so variously with mankind on this side the veil, as to the
degrees of their consciousness, knowledge, and enjoyment, may deal
with them in the intermediate state, if, as we believe, there is such
a state, on a principle of similar diversity. Some may sleep, some
may be wholly unconscious, some may be thinking, learning, im-
proving ; some may be in sorrow, some may be even in torment
(Luke xvi.), some may be wandering on earth as daimonia y some
may be shut up in the abyss, some may have been confined in
Hades until the first Advent, some may have been evangelised in
Hades by the Spirit of Christ, and some may have been translated
to heaven since Christ ascended there. We need not imagine
* What adds to the difficulty of adducing the facts of spiritualism as evidence
of survival is the suspicion that loftier demonic agency may have some part in
ancient and modern necromancy. Tertullian has a curious passage on similar
* manifestations ' in his own time. ; This imposture of the evil spirit, lying con-
cealed in the persons of the dead, we are able to prove by actual facts when,
in cases of exorcism, the evil spirit affirms himself to be one of the relatives of
the person possessed, sometimes a gladiator, and sometimes even a god.' De
Anima, 57. See also Mr. Crooke's papers in the Quarterly Journal of Science,
1874; Mr. Howitt's History of the Supernatural (2 vols., Longman, 1863);
and Miss Hardinge's Record of American Spiritualism. The conduct of many
scientific men in refusing even personal acquaintance with phenomena travestied
by the jugglers of the Egyptian Hall, but attested by such capable and cour-
ageous observers as Dr. de Morgan, Dr. Huggins, F.R.S., Lord Lindsay,
Mr. Crookes, F.R.S., Professor W. F. Barrett, F.R.S.E., and Mr. Wallace,
F.R.S., deserves some reprobation. The generally trivial quality of the com-
munications thus reported forms one portion of the case for judgment, in the
decision of which society rightly looks to its foremost philosophers for guidance.
But the truth is that the theory of some of these on the unseen universe would not
allow of any tolerable solution of the remarkable phenomenon of folly, deception,
and wickedness, thinly disguised by a varnish of religious language, and
operating from 'the air.' The apostolic demonology alone explains that
paradox.
SURVIVAL OF SOULS IN CHRIST. 311
ourselves under an obligation to force plain testimonies of Scrip-
ture out of their meaning, under the idea that it can teach only
one and the same thing with respect to men of all ages, of all
characters, of all conditions as to light and darkness. It is
possible that truth may require us to believe in a various economy.
And no man is justified in rejecting the belief in an intermediate
state, because he is unable to reduce the whole doctrine to a neat
and handy theory for use in controversy with opponents of the
truth on immortality, some of whom are more apt at a speculative
logomachy than at a broad and careful interpretation of Scripture.
Finally, there seems to be a special reason for holding fast to
the survival and consciousness of souls in Christ, derived from the
consideration of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in believers, of
which S. Paul speaks in his eighth chapter to the Romans. It
the indwelling of the Spirit will operate as S. Paul affirms, as a
reason for the resurrection of the body, surely the same indwelling,
operates to the blessedness of the surviving spirit. The vital
principle conjoined for ever to the Divine Nature cannot pass
away, but awaits in closest neighbourhood to Christ the hour of
resurrection. The eternal life begun knows no break. There is
no black line in that spectrum. The light is continuous, and the
spiritual inhabitant of the ' tabernacle ' (2 Peter i.), though he
may ' put it off/ can never die.
The survival of the spirits of sinful men in death seems also to
hold an important place in the Scripture system ; (i) In order
that a continuity may be established between the personality of
the man who sinned in time and that of the man who is to be
raised for judgment at the last day. If no spirit survived, it
might be truly said that a wholly new being was then created to
suffer for the offences of another long passed away. Indeed ten
new men might just as reasonably be created out of the old
materials.
(2) In order that in some cases the spirit may suffer in Hades
for the sins of a lifetime.
(3) That in other cases the ignorant rejection of God in life.
may be remedied by the evangelisation of ' spirits in prison.'
(4) That a special terror and awfulness may be assigned to the
second death, in distinction from the first, in this, that under
3 i2 ENDS CONTEMPLATED IN SURVIVAL.
the first death there was no ' killing of the soul,' that tremendous
and final stroke being reserved as the last penalty of transgression
under the gospel, in the ' damnation of Gehenna.'
It is deserving of consideration whether the almost universal
instinctive expectation of survival among wicked men ought not
to be taken as something much more than the effect of traditional
teaching, and as a divine witness to the fact that the ' Lord
knoweth how' to reserve the unjust to the day of judgment,
under punishment, /coAao/x,eVovs (2 Peter ii.). See Luke xvi. 24,
eV ySao-aVois, spoken of a spirit in Hades,)
CHAPTER XXII.
ON THE QUESTION, WHETHER THE HOLY SCRIPTURES TEACH
THAT ANY SINFUL PERSONS, DYING IN IGNORANCE OF CHRIST,
ARE EVANGELISED IN HADES.
Sleep'st Thou indeed ? or is Thy spirit fled,
At large among the dead ?
Whether in Eden's bowers Thy welcome voice
Wake Abraham to rejoice,
Or in some drearier scene Thine eye controls
The thronging band of souls ;
That, as Thy blood won earth, Thine agony
Might set the shadowy realm from sin and sorrow free ?
Christi-.in Year Easter Eve.
THE grave question in the title of this chapter is often discussed
as if it were identical with that of the final salvation of all men ;
but the two lines of inquiry altogether differ, and nothing but
confusion of thought can ensue from complicating them in one
examination.* It may be that the apostolic doctrine is clearly
pronounced, as we believe it is, against the salvation of all man-
kind ; yet may afford more or less distinct information as to God's
merciful dealings with some departed souls in the intermediate
state. It may be that the Scripture closes the door of hope
irrevocably, as we are assured that it does, against those who
have distinctly heard, and deliberately refused or neglected, the
gospel message during their lifetime, and who die in such
hardened impenitence. And yet it may be true that the divine
truth and grace are offered in Hades to millions of souls departed,
who died in a state of involuntary ignorance, through the delusions
of education, or in a state of sin consequent on imperfect know-
* The question of Univcrsaljsm will be discussed in Chapter xxvii.
3 i4 ARE ALL THE HEATHEN LOST?
ledge j so that if they turn hereafter to the light of God, they
may participate in everlasting life, through the Incarnation.
I venture to add a few pages on this subject in a spirit of
reverent inquiry, rather than of dogmatic assertion ; premising
that with us this is not a question of speculation, but simply of
interpretation, and that it is not desired to vindicate for such
interpretations a larger space in thought than the subject to be
examined occupies in the sacred writings ; much less to en-
courage delusive hopes of purgatorial salvation in those who
neglect the gospel if offered on earth, whose 'damnation slumbereth
not.'
The reader of the fifth chapter of this volume, ' On the numbers
of mankind,' will naturally ask, Do you, then, set forth, as the
doctrine of Revelation, that the whole stupendous mass of human
beings, in that chapter dimly imagined rather than described,
with the fragmentary exception of the small minority of persons
affording manifest evidence of regenerate life, under the three
successive dispensations, patriarchal, Mosaic, and Christian,
have all departed to await in Hades the doom of the second
death; so that perhaps ninety-nine hundredths of the human
race are irrevocably doomed to extinction ? To which we make
answer in an emphatic negative, for the reasons following :
(i) There is ground for disputing, at the outset of this argu-
ment, the truth of the popular signification attached to the
phrase ' manifest evidence of regenerate life.' Such has been the
depraving effect of many forms of Protestant opinion, that there
are not a few who hold it as one of the plainest truths, that salva-
tion has been attached by God in all ages to the intellectual
knowledge of Christ. Understanding that under the present
dispensation, salvation is made to depend upon a reception of
Christ, when clearly offered to men, there are many who have
inferred from this premiss that a similar condition of salvation
has prevailed under all previous dispensations of God. It has
been attempted to make .out that the pious persons, who died
before Christ's advent, understood and believed in the coming
sacrifice of Christ, and were saved by their faith in it. Such an
opinion is supposed to carry with it the conclusion that those
who have not known of Christ in some degree, must needs perish
ANCIENTS SAVED BY FAITH.
315
everlastingly. Perhaps there is no religious opinion, once widely
received, which better deserves to be regarded as a bubble,
sustained and floating only by its inherent emptiness, than this ;
as there is certainly none which may be more easily exploded.
S. Peter himself furnishes us, as has already been shown, both
in his history and in his written doctrine, with an effectual antidote
to this delusion. He was himself unquestionably a forgiven man
when Christ pronounced him ' blessed ' as the confessor of his
Messiahship, and declared that the light which led him to that
discovery was light from heaven. Yet this saved and forgiven
man, when, in the next moment, he heard from Christ of His ap-
proaching death, * took Him and began to rebuke Him, saying,
That be far from thee, Lord.' Now such a reply was impossible
according to the opinion thus held of Jewish faith in the coming
Saviour. If it had been the habit of Jewish believers to look for
a suffering Messiah, Peter, of all men, immediately he had
acknowledged the Christ, would have acknowledged also with
sorrow the necessity of His sacrifice. Instead of this, he rejected
with abhorrence the idea of Christ's death ; and was reduced to
submission only by being ordered to the rear, with the appellation
of Satanas. Neither Peter nor any other Jew of his time had
understood the mode of man's salvation.
In his Epistle S. Peter informs us explicitly that a similar
ignorance characterised the holy prophets themselves, who
1 testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that
should follow.' He assures us that they ' inquired and searched
diligently ' into the meaning of their own oracles ; * unto whom
it was revealed that not unto themselves, but unto us, they did
minister the things which are now reported unto you by them
that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Spirit sent
from heaven.' Here, then, is an explicit apostolic assertion that
even the prophets themselves were not saved through understand-
ing the mysteries of redemption by Christ ; whence it follows
that before the first advent no inferior believers were saved by
such understanding.
By what, then, were pre-messianic believers of Israel saved ?
We reply with confidence, by trust in the mercy of God, the
ultimate object of faith which lies behind the Cross of Christ
itself. They were saved by repentance and faith repentance
316 GOSPEL NOT KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS.
according to the then known standard of right, faith in the divine
mercy according to the measure of its revelation. They were
' born of the Spirit/ and the Holy Spirit can regenerate the souls
of men by fragments of truth, and perhaps even by a direct action
on the ' spirit,' or TireO/xa, while the intellect is still under the
domination of many erroneous ideas. Salvation signifies salvation
from sin and death, which depends on the indwelling of God in
the soul, whether as well known or ill known by the intellect
(i/ovs) ; or as known in different degrees. All who are saved
will be saved by divine grace revealed at last to the world in the
Son of God, and by the direct renewing action of the Spirit of
Christ; but this salvation, and this action, are not dependent on
systematic knowledge of theological truth. They may take effect,
as in the Christian economy, through the renewing action of a
fully revealed gospel ; or before it came through the dim com-
munications of an elder and imperfect one. ' To them was a
gospel preached, even as to us,' but it was not the gospel in the
form of the gospel of John or the epistle to the Romans.
But the establishment of this principle in relation to Israel will
carry us a great deal further. What was true of Israel and of the
Patriarchs, before the advent, was true, and is true, of men of all
ages and of all nations. Wherever there have been men whose
souls moved towards the all pervading Light of God, ' feeling
after and finding Him,' under whatever shades of heathenish
darkness, there, we must believe, has been the action of the re-
generating Spirit, and there has been salvation. Men may have
described the Great Reality in erroneous phrases, and may have
called themselves by erroneous names ; but wherever the prin-
ciple of true goodness has existed, it is because ' God has been
in them of a truth ' and good men are wonderfully alike under
all dispensations.
Results in character do not depend always on the measure of
knowledge. There is no fixed proportion in quantity between
the chemical elements required for nutrition, and those which are
found in the complex food allotted to vegetables and animals.
Sometimes the largest part of their structure is built up out of
that of which there is the least proportionate supply. Thus as
all vegetation depends on the one-hundredth portion of carbon
which the atmosphere contains, so the enormous bony fabric of
OF tGNOkANT MEN. 317
the elephant is reared from the infinitesimal supply of phosphates
in the stacks of foliage which he consumes. A similar law
obtains in the spiritual realms. Souls endowed with a certain
power can extract their aliment under most unfavourable condi-
tions ; and those who are bent on wisdom and goodness can find
the new elements of their being amidst very unpromising materials.
It is thus that so many reach God from amidst the unfruitful
wastes of heathenism, of Mohammedanism, and of European
superstition. The one element of truth which was essential to
their development has been present in small quantities even
amidst the profusion of indigestible diet that accompanied it.
This view of God's dealings with men is indeed contrary to the
professed principles on which some of the missionary enterprises
have been conducted in modern times. The supporters of
missions have too often held it for fundamental doctrine, that
the salvation of a man called a Buddhist, a Mohammedan, a Jew,
a Brahminist, or a Fire- worshipper, is simply impossible. The
cry has been, * The heathen are perishing ; shall we let them
perish ? ' a cry formed on a general, but not a universal truth.
Among perhaps nearly all so-called *' heathen ' nations, there are
souls which give evidence of elementary goodness and ' repent-
ance for sin,' and * feeling after God,' and indeed of ' finding
Him,' though not finding His true ' Name/ And when the less
instructed supporters of missions become better acquainted with
the interior life of mankind, they will learn to acknowledge the
reality of such goodness, and its divine original. The denial of
such spiritual life by the propagators of modern Christianity is
perhaps one cause of its world-wide dogmatic rejection. ' After-
wards He appeared unto them in another form ; ' and it may be
expected that Christ will by degrees make Himself known to us
even in these imperfect types, if we will submit to study facts of
character as well as modern theories of evangelisation.
The benefits of the system of nature can be enjoyed in great
measure apart from a right understanding of the theory of nature.
The sun has shone upon the earth and ripened the crops of
former generations, even while men thought, with Ptolemy, that
the earth was the centre and the sun a satellite. In the same
manner the benefits of Redemption may be enjoyed apart from
a right understanding of the relation of the facts on which it is
318 THE DIVINE IMAGE IN GOOD MEN.
founded. An erroneous theology maybe as the Ptolemaic system
in comparison with the Copernican. But the Spiritual Sun does
not altogether restrict His shining to the men who hold a correct
theory concerning Him. This, however, is not to deny that, as
the practical improvements of modern life depend on a scientific
knowledge of nature, so a far higher spiritual life is built upon the
foundation of a true theology ; and no zeal can be excessive
which is devoted to its ascertainment, defence, and diffusion,
provided it be that zeal which is love in action, and which guards
itself from the exaggeration of restricting all the Divine favour to
its adherents. God is the .God of innocently blind men, and
their compassionate Judge, as well as the God of those who ' look
up and see all things clearly.'
When direct sunbeams penetrate through interstices in the
shady covert of trees and hedgerows, they carry to the ground a
representation, not of the figures of the minute spaces between
the leaves through which they streamed, but circular luminous
images of the sun himself; so that the ground appears to be
dappled with bright circles lying on a field of shadow. When the
plane on which they fall is not at right-angles to the ray, the circle
is projected slightly into an ellipse ; but if received on an arti-
ficial screen placed exactly, the perfect circle is at once formed.
In an eclipse these images follow the figure of the uncovered
portion of the sun. The reason of the phenomenon is, that each
point in the sun's disc sends forth a pencil of rays, which depicts
on the ground a tiny image of the aperture, and an infinity of
these little polygons makes up a little round, or image of the whole
surface of the sun. . Thus, too, the Divine Image is formed on
the hearts of men of many persuasions, and of various beliefs,
notwithstanding the figure of their receptive faculty; the Holy
Beams, when they come direct to the soul, having a power of
depicting the likeness of God, even when they enter through the
smallest aperture of intelligence, or through the most jagged
peculiarities of opinion. There is nothing which will more sur-
prise good men, separated on earth by sect or tradition, when
they reach the realms of heaven, than to contemplate in each
other's countenances the identity of the image of the Most
High. ' His name shall be in their foreheads, and there shall be
no night there.'
s. PETERS 'i PERCEIVE: 319
On these grounds we believe, with Zwingli, in the salvation,
even on earth, while in the body, of a ' multitude which no man
can number, of every nation and kindred and people and tongue ;"*
even of those who were not so happy as to have heard, while
they lived, of Protestant Christianity or of any Christianity ; so
that we are not reduced to the necessity of declaring an unbiblical
doctrine on the impossibility of the salvation of any man except
through a knowledge of that Christianity. All that we are now
learning of the inner and spiritual life of millions of men beyond
the pale of the visible Church in ancient and modern Asia,
assures us of the reality of the divine operation contended for, in
numbers who on earth have never known the revealed Word of
God and His Messiah. ' I perceive that in every nation he that
feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of him ' (Acts
x. 35). And this we hold to be entirely consistent with the
Article that ' They are to be held accursed that presume to say,
that every man shall be saved by the law or sect which he pro-
fesseth, so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that
aw, and the light of Nature ; ' the saving influence in regene-
rate souls being connected with the modicum of truth which
they retain, and not with the rubbish of error which accom-
panies it.
(2) But this persuasion, though illuminating many points in
God's providence over mankind, does not remove all the diffi-
culty caused by the general darkness that has ' covered the earth,'
that gross darkness which has overshadowed the people. The
action of infernal spirits has established all- various foul delusions
over the largest portions of the earth, and during the longest
spaces of history ; so that the question recurs, notwithstanding
consolatory reflections of the order above set forth, What will be
the doom of those countless millions who have lived under the
shades of depraving heathenism, lived in]the sin which was the
essential element of such heathenism, popular and philosophical,
and apparently died in the evil condition which it entails j those
countless millions, of whom not the broadest charity can affect to
suppose that they were generally aught else than workers of un-
righteousness ? Are we compelled to believe, by the New Testa-
ment revelation, that all of these, without any further opportunity
320 PREACHING TO SPIRITS HV PRISON.
of knowledge or repentance, will be consigned to irrevocable de-
struction, and ' perish without law '?
Here we enter upon an inquiry in which it is vain to expect an
answer of real value except as it may be supplied by apostolic
men, speaking to us under the authority of inspiration. We
thank God that there is some solid evidence of a nature to assist
our judgment.
The two leading apostles of the gospel, S. Peter and S. Paul,
appear to have given clear, if brief, intimations of a light of divine
mercy ' shining in the prison-house ' of souls, for certain classes
of spirits departed a light for those who have ' sat in darkness
and death shade ' while living on the earth. In commenting on
these declarations, I desire to avoid larger inferences than are
warranted by the definite statements, and to build up a hope
based only on the truth.
The leading authority is the first general Epistle of that great
Apostle to whom ' the keys of the kingdom of heaven ' were
delivered, by ' Him that hath the keys of Hades and of Death ; '
* who openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man
openeth.'
S. PETER in this epistle (iii. 18-22; iv. 1-6), in a passage
singularly free from doubt caused by various readings, and in
language obviously designed to teach with authority a doctrine
good for the whole Church to learn a doctrine which there is
as much reason to receive with faith as any statement similarly
delivered by S. Paul or S. John thus describes the mission of
Christ's Spirit at His death :
' For Christ also once suffered for sins, the just on behalf of the
unjust, that He might bring us to God :
1 Being put to death indeed in the flesh, but made alive in the
spirit (<amroirjOcls Se Tn/ev/xart), in which also He went and
preached to the spirits in prison, though they once had been dis-
obedient, when the longsuffering of God was waiting in the days of
Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which few, that is eight
souls, were saved by water.
iv. (i) ' Christ then having suffered in the flesh, do you also arm
yourselves with the same purpose ; because he who has suffered in the
flesh has ceased from sin, (2) so as no longer to the lusts of the flesh,
but to the will of God, the remaining time in the flesh to live: (3)
THE SPIRITS IN PRISON. 321
for the past is sufficient to have wrought the will of the nations,
etc. : (4) wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them
to the same excess of riot, blaspheming ; (5) who shall give account
to Him that is ready to judge (/cptvai) living AND DEAD ' (ve/cpoi;?),
(those whom He finds alive at His coming, and all the departed.)
This word, venous, according to the character of S. Peter's
mind, brings him back to the thought, with which he had ended
the third chapter, of Christ's Spirit preaching to the spirits in
prison and now he adds, ver. 6, ' For, for this purpose even to
dead men has the gospel been proclaimed (et? rovro yhp KOL veKpois
evrjyyeXto-Or)), in order that they might be judged (Iva KpiOaxnv) after
the manner of men in the flesh (Kara avOpuirovs crap*!), but may be
living (oknv) according to God in the spirit ' (Kara Oeov Trvcv/xart).
Now in these words S. Peter seems explicitly to declare, that
when Christ died in the flesh, He was still ' alive in the spirit,
and went and preached good news to spirits of men in the <f>v\a.Kr]
(or prison of the 'abyss,' see Rev. xx. 7; Luke viii. 31), who
had once been disobedient in the days of Noah.' And in the
sixth verse of the fourth chapter he assigns the reaso.n why the
spirits of the dead were thus evangelised, even of those who at the
flood died in disobedience and moreover in disobedience to a
law made known to them by the spirit of inspiration in Noah's
preaching < in order that they might be judged after the manner
of men in the flesh, but meanwhile may be living oxn (the present
subjunctive) according to God in the spirit ; indicating a process
going on now.
Here, then, is an inspired statement at least to those who be-
lieve in S. Peter's authority in this epistle, that some of the spirits
of the dead, who had died in disobedience, were evangelised, had
the gospel preached to them by the Spirit of the Saviour in the
prison of Hades. And mor,e than that, the reason given for this
is one which carries us farther. They had the gospel preached to
them in Hades, in order that they might be judged by Jesus Christ,
and judged like men in the flesh, by the same rule as others who
have had the gospel on earth, that is, by the gospel message itself ;
so that they should not necessarily perish under the law, but ' may
live^ ' (enter into life) ' according to God in the spirit.' But this
seems to involve, for the same reason, the presentation of the
gospel to the spirits of other dead men who are to be judged by
21
32 CHRIST PREACHING TO SPIRITS.
Jesus Christ at the last day ; and especially of those who had not
enjoyed even such advantages as those antediluvians who had
heard the law-preaching of Enoch and of Noah.
By S. Peter's declaration, then, a flood of light is thrown upon
the divine dealings with the heathen millions. Every human
soul survives. Perhaps to every human soul which has not heard
it on earth, the 'gospel' will be offered in Hades. They may
not accept it there ; but then they will be ' without excuse,' and
will be condemned to death eternal as if they were ' men in the
flesh ' who rejected the reconciliation.*
It may be asked, Why this special reference by S. Peter to
those who died in disobedience at the deluge? A conjectural
solution only can be offered. It may be that, as S. Peter inti-
mates, their case was a hard one. Only ' eight,' a * few,' out of a
world perhaps of millions, were saved in the ark. The Antedi-
luvians, too, had been longest in the <vA.o,K^, or prison-house,
of all those armies of souls departed, whom Ezekiel grandly de-
scribes as having descended into Sheol (ch. xxxiii.). To them
Christ Himself preached the gospel, that being perhaps the suffi-
cient work for the brief period intervening between His death
and resurrection ; the further work of evangelising all the rest of
the dead, who had died without the gospel, being possibly com-
mitted to Christ after His resurrection and before His ascension,
or to the Holy Spirit, the ' Comforter,' afterwards. There we
touch pure conjecture again, and therefore shall not pursue the
theme, with Clement and other ante-Nicene writers, who never-
theless positively declare the apostolic tradition to be as we have
hinted. Solid ground, however, is reached in the general prin-
ciple. [,S. Peter unequivocally implies that since Christ is the Judge
of all men 'the living and the dead' all souls will hear of Him
* Under the category of ' ignorant ' persons perhaps the Divine Goodness
will reckon not only the untaught victims of European priestcraft, but the
numerous persons who in all ages, since Christianity was radically corrupted
Ly its professional teachers, have been driven into scepticism by the darker
perversions of its doctrine and morality. Where, on the other hand, scepti-
cism springs from enmity to God, and is a ' work of the flesh,' it is one of the
most malignant forms of impiety. And many such examples may be found in
the fearful pages of our modern literature. Those who have had 'pleasure in
unrighteousness ' both under supei'stition and scepticism, belong to a different
o:der from those who have been unwillingly ignorant.
TIMES OF IGNORANCE WINKED AT. 3-23
before the judgment, if they have not heard efficiently while living
in the flesh. The argument is that the dead the majority of
mankind could not be justly judged by Him, if they had not
heard of Him. They will therefore hear of Him in Hades.
'No thoughtful Christian,' says Canon Spence, 'can resist the
persuasion that the blessed preaching was not limited to those
who perished in the deluge, but that those unhappy ones were
selected merely as a sample of the like gracious work in others.
This extended view of our Lord's preaching is no mere outcoming
of modern thought, but was held in the early Church, with differ-
ent modifications, by writers like Hermas, Clement of Alexandria,
Irenaeus, and Justin Martyr' (Bible Educator, i., 118). See also,
in support of this doctrine, that no human spirit reaches the
crucial point of its probation till it has come into contact with
the claims of the Lord Jesus Christ for acceptance or rejection,
Professor Godet, of Neufchatel, on Luke xvi. 25.
We are now in a better position for understanding S. Paul's
weighty but neglected statement, before the Areopagus at Athens
when, standing in the very capital of paganism, the centre of
the traditions of the heathen world, he surveys the past, and con-
trasts it with the present. 'In times past, God' '(as he had de-
clared to the Lycaonians, xiv. 16) ' suffered all nations to walk in
their own ways ; ' and not only that, but He withheld direct
revelation from the majority, abandoning them to 'feel after
Him ' in the thick darkness, ' if so be they might find Him,' a
result not attained by the generality. Then he adds the remark-
able words ' But the times of this ignorance God WINKED AT '
vrre/DiSon/ 6 0eos overlooked clearly in the sense of not bringing
the ancient world into final judgment solely on the basis of their igno-
rant paganism. Thus is this word used in the Septuagint transla-
tion of Lev. xx. 4 : ' If the people of the land hide their eyes from
the man (wepi'Soxm/) when he giveth his seed to Molech and kill
him not; ' i.e., overlook his offence, and fail to punish him. If
the countless millions who had died in heathenism were all to be
condemned to the death eternal, it could not be said that God
had (/ overlooked ' or passed by their ignorance. This word
therefore carries us to the belief of some operation of divine
mercy on behalf of the departed nations, which S. Paul had no
324 S. PAUL ON TIMES OF IGNORANCE.
commission then to announce, or at least which S. Luke has not
thought fit to report. But this missing explanation is given at
least in principles by S. Peter, to whose charge was con-
signed the first opening with the ' key of knowledge ' of all the
greater mysteries of redemption. And S. Peter teaches us in
simple words that this method of the divine mercy consists in
evangelising the spirits in the prison, or, as he describes them, the
dead.
We conclude, therefore, that when S. Paul wrote later to the
Romans that those who have sinned without law shall also perish
without law (ii. 12), he did not design to contradict his own
recent words, spoken on Mars Hill, but only to declare, without
reference to redemptive processes in Hades, that at the last day,
Christ's judgment on each lost man's sinful life on earth would be
according to his knowledge here, a principle which will remain
true, notwithstanding the possible further opportunities of repent-
ance and faith granted to certain spirits beyond.
But S. Paul's words to the Athenians make it clear that there
is no such merciful future opportunity of repentance and faith
granted to those who now hear God's word on earth, and de-
liberately reject it. ' But now commandeth all men everywhere
to repent.' And in all his epistles he declares that present im-
penitence and unbelief shall be followed by ' everlasting destruc-
tion.' Such, in Christ's awful and emphatic words, ' shall die in
their sins/ ' If one went imto them from the dead they would '
not repent, ' if they hear not Moses and the prophets ' now ; and
afterwards, in the world of spirits, if one from the earth went to
them to preach repentance there, neither would they be persuaded
by him. ' O that thou hadst heard, even thou at least in this thy
day, the things which belong to thy peace, but now they are
hidden from thine eyes ! '
In this chapter I have restricted myself to the consideration of
the two leading passages of the New Testament bearing on the
question of a future probation for some souls. Much more to the
same effect will be found in the works of Mr. Henry Dunn, but I
do not feel sufficient confidence in the critical basis on which this
suggestive author builds his hope of the ' Destiny of the Race *
DIVINE KNOWLEDGE OF CONDITIONAL RESULTS. 325
to justify me in following his wider speculations. His writings,
however, are always edifying and awakening.
Our Lord's double statement should not be forgotten. * If I
had not come and spoken to them they had not had sin] and
' If the mighty works which have been done in thee had been
done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in
sackcloth and ashes' God not only does not judge ignorance as
if it were knowledge; but He also knows the positive circum-
stances of each man's earthly probation, and its issue, and what
would have been the happier result of probation under more
favourable conditions. The germs of faith and penitence, which
Christ affirms would have flourished under a more luminous dis-
pensation on earth, may in many cases receive such illumination
in a state beyond. But * Capernaum/ ' Chorazin,' and c Bethsaida,'
which rejected the Light of the World, when shining full upon
them, would reject it also in every world ; for such there remaineth
only ' fiery indignation to devour the adversary.'* The citation
of these words of our Lord, therefore, by the author of Salvator
Mundi, in order to support the speculation of the salvation of all
men, even the most obstinate, seems to the last degree perverse.
Those who ' would not be persuaded if one rose from the dead,'
are men who ' would not be persuaded ' even if evangelized in
Hades themselves.
NOTE ON THE SALVATION OF INFANTS.
The question of the condition and prospects of infants receives
some light from the preceding considerations.
The elder theology regards them as born under the hereditary
curse of death, which since they possess immortal souls, must
signify, it said, endless separation from God in hell for those
souls so departing in infancy ; unless that doom be prevented
* I think it right to acknowledge that while I am supported in these views
by some of the foremost advocates of the general doctrine of this book, there
are others of equal ability who do not agree with the preceding argument for
a preaching of Christ to some persons in Hades. All who, with Mr. Constable,
deny the survival, or assert the sleep of the soul, in Hades, of course deny this
second visitation. I suggest therefore to the general reader that the leading
argument be not prejudiced by this chapter, if he disagree with it.
326 ON THE SALVATION OF INFANTS,
(i) by an eternal election of grace ; or (2) by a speedy administra-
tion of the regenerating Spirit in baptism ; or (3) by a universal
degree of redemption in favour of all infants dying before years
of responsibility. The Augustinian theology, as we have seen,
steadfastly maintained the selection of some infants for salvation,
leaving the remainder to suffer in hell for ever. It is only during
the last forty years, as we learn from Mr. Logan's Words of
Comfort for Bereaved Parents, that the Scottish churches have
ventured to repudiate the old blasphemy against God's justice
and goodness, involved in the doctrine of the everlasting woe of
non- elect infants. Formerly Scottish parents seem to have be-
lieved that their dead babes had probably fallen into the burning
hands of some Invisible Moloch. The English Prayer Book also
contains this equivocal consolation in the baptismal rubric, that
'baptised infants are undoubtedly saved.' This was not strong
consolation for the bereaved parents of the non-baptised when
the only known alternative was endless misery for the infant souls
departed. A more fiendish dogma than this is inconceivable,
the consummation of .theological hardness of heart, and a fitting
revenge on the people of Europe for ever permitting the sin of
enforced clerical celibacy.
Of late years it has been customary among Protestants to
maintain with some confidence a hopeful doctrine respecting the
millions who died in early childhood. Either they are thought
to be regenerate in baptism, or to be regenerated by the Spirit in
the article of death ; so that scarcely any reformed church upholds
the ancient horror of a limbus infantium.
The modifications of opinion on the condition and prospects
of infants, which may be held under the general views of this
work, are of several varieties.
(1) Those who believe that the sons of Adam are born with a
nature not necessarily immortal, and under the curse of death,
may hold with Dr. Watts, that in death either some, or all, of
their number perish utterly, and are extinguished when they die
in this world.
(2) Or any of the above-mentioned opinions may be held
according to the convictions of the thinker. Those who believe
in baptismal regeneration can hold that the baptised are immor-
talised, while the remainder pass away and perish. Or it may be
ON THE SALVATION OF INFANTS. 327
believed by Calvinists that some are elected to eternal life, others
not ; the issue being immortality or death according to God's
good pleasure.
(3) Or lastly, it may be held that children are born under the
legal curse of total mortality as sons of Adam ; but, as the objects
of the redeeming mercy which contemplates the whole race of
mankind (as is asserted in numerous passages of apostolic teach-
ing), their spirits pass if they die before reaching years of serious
responsibility, of which God alone is the Judge into a state,
' with the Lord,' where they partake of the grace vouchsafed to
the dead who have not known Christ ; and that they are there
tenderly developed and educated under the care of * their angels '
into the knowledge and service of Christ, receiving the gift of
the Regenerating Spirit, and awaiting the resurrection of glory.
Whether the result of such education in the unseen world will be
universally efficacious, so as to render it certainly a good thing to
die in infancy, may be either affirmed or questioned.
I do not think myself obliged to discuss these alternatives here,
but simply to show how the general argument of this work will
affect the question respecting children. And it is clear that the
determination of each reader will chiefly depend on his modes of
thought on other doctrines of revelation. It is sufficient for the
writer to say that his own views confidently tend to the most
hopeful solution of this mystery. To him Christ's Infancy carries
with it the brightest hopes for the whole world of the young.
Two supplementary observations only are here required.
(1) Infants who do not die, but live on earth in Christian lands,
are under the same gracious influences which would await them
in death beyond. If they live to reject on earth in maturity their
God and Saviour, they incur the death eternal.
(2) Under the old theologies, to beget a child was to bring into
being a possible, and even probable, fiend, destined to endless
torment. No such frightful idea needs haunt the minds of
parents. Every child is a candidate for immortal life, since for
it Christ has died. Even under the darkest of the theological
views possible under these general conclusions, every evil nature
will have an end. This truth does not indeed render it a less
solemn thing to bring children into the world ; but it represents
the birth of children as opening an infinite possibility of life and
328 THE SALVATION OF INFANTS.
salvation ; it dispels the black cloud which overshadows marriage
as if it were the means of peopling an eternal hell, and shows how
Christ's loving word thus turns the bitter water of despairing
thought, at every wedding festival, into the wine of hope and
gladness.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE RESURRECTION TO LIFE ETERNAL AT THE COMING AND
KINGDOM OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.
The Christian doctrine of a Future Life regards the whole of man's com-
pound nature. It does not honour one part of our being to the neglect or
degradation of the other. The life of which it speaks is a life of the body as
well as of the spirit, a life the form and pledge of which are given in the
Resurrection of Christ, a life which is actually communicated to us by a true
and vital union with Him. ' Because I live ye shall live also.' Dr. J. J. S.
PEROWNE on Immortality, p. no.
ACCORDING to the argument of the preceding chapters, both
the Law and the Gospel deal with man as an Integer, consisting
of body and soul. The death incurred by sin was the destruc-
tion of this complex humanity. Redemption in like manner
contemplates the whole nature, and carries with it, not only the
immortality of the soul, by the indwelling of the Spirit, but the
reconstitution of the body, in the resurrection of the dead, when
' this corruptible shall put on incormption.'
In the history of doctrines several variations have occurred on
the question of the Resurrection. There were Sadducees at
Corinth who denied the future life altogether, and with it the
resurrection of the dead. There were others who ' said that the
resurrection had passed already ; ' apparently denying the re-
constitution of the body, and applying the language of Christ
respecting resurrection to spiritual renovation alone.
There is a third class of opponents of the doctrine of a physical
resurrection, who maintain that the term dvao-racris is improperly
translated resurrection, and should be rendered survival; holding
that the reference is only to the survival of the spirit in a vehicle,
the result of Redemption, and the boon bestowed by God
through the mediation of Christ. Of this opinion the leading
330 CHRIST'S ANASTASIS THE PATTERN.
supporters in the present generation have been Dr. Bush and
the Rev. A. Jukes, following the Swedenborgians.
The chief difficulty attending the belief in the reconstitution of
the body is occasioned by supposing that the New Testament
requires us to think that it will be composed of the same atoms
in number and weight which have entered into its structure during
the present life. S. Paul, however, in i Cor. xv. distinctly de-
clares that we l sow not that body that shall be? but 'God giveth
it a body as it hath pleased Him.' He asserts only as close a
relation between the substance of the present and the future body
as there is between the seed you sow and the body that shall be.
This is not very much in point of atomic identity.
The attempt of Dr. Bush to set aside a bodily resurrection
breaks down, I think, at the first step. The definition of the
resurrection of Christians is fixed by the definition of Christ's
resurrection. The word cannot signify one thing in our Lord's
history, something quite different in the case of His followers.
The manner in which both Christ and His Apostles closely bind
together the fact of His Resurrection, and the hope of their own,
seems to render it an act of violence to attempt to dislocate the two.
Now, if the words Anastasis and Egersis stand only for the sur-
vival of the spirit, Christ's Anastasis occurred on the day that He
died ; when He went * and preached to the spirits in prison.'
But Christ's Anastasis occurred on the third day. And hence
we conclude that the so-called resurrection of Christians is not
the survival of their souls, but their rising up to life, in bodies
which shall be ( given ' them. S. Paul bases his hope of the
anastasis of Christians wholly on the anastasis of Christ ' on the
third day ' (i Cor. xv.), and hence we may be as certain as we
can be of anything that depends on criticism, that Professor
Bush, and his associates, are on this question engaged in a con-
flict with the apostles.*
* In the Rainbow for 1877 will be found a most able series of papers on
the four, theories of the Resurrection by Mr. Maude. Mr. Maude is of
opinion that the Spirit of God forms around the Christian soul during life a
' spiritual body, ' which becomes the vehicle of that soul in the intermediate state.
He further thinks that this spiritual body will possess the power of clothing
itself at the coming of Christ with material elements^ through which it will be
again placed en rapport with the Kosmos.
REALITY OF THE RESURRECTION. 331
' The hope of a physical resurrection of Christians to incorrup-
tible life does not rest on the single testimony of the fifteenth
chapter in the Epistle to the Corinthians.
S. Paul affirms in the Epistle to the Church of Rome also
(ch. viii. n), that ' If He that raised up Christ from the dead
dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also
give life to your mortal bodies, on account of His Spirit that
dwelleth in you.'
In the Epistle to the Ephesians (i. 18-20), he prays that the
Church may ' know what is the hope of His calling, and what
the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints ; and
what the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe,
according to (after the pattern of) the working of the mighty power,
which He wrought in the Christ, when He raised Him from the
dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places/
Here he declares that the same omnipotence which raised up the
dead Christ to life immortal will raise up also 'His body the Church.'
Another argument is derived from the metamorphosis, or
change, that is to take place in the bodies of the latest genera-
tion of Christians. When Christ appears the living saints will
be ' changed' (dAAay^o-o/x-e^a, i Cor. xv. 51). Their bodies will
be inwardly and outwardly altered, putting on incorruption.
They will not drop off, and leave the soul naked and unclothed.
Now if the last generation of Christians are to enter into the
kingdom of God with spiritual bodies, ' changed ' from their
former bodies, not ' flesh and blood,' but incorruptible and
immortal/ is it not reasonably evident that the same prospect
awaits all the dead in Christ ?
Enough of these ' oppositions of science,' not always genuine.
Christ's resurrection is both the pledge and pattern of our own.
* He shall change the form (/xerao-^/xaTto-et) of this body of our
humiliation, that IT (OUTO) may become like to the body of His
glory, according to the energy whereby He is able to subdue to Him
even all things' (Phil. iii. 21). The risen body of Christ is a
miracle of splendour. Its eternal form ' was presented to view
at night in the Transfiguration, the miniature semblance of the
heavenly kingdom (2 Peter i. 12-17). l His face was like the sun
shining in its strength, His raiment was white as the light, His
feet like fine brass burning in a furnace?
332 RESURRECTION A T CHRIST'S ADVENT.
Sueh an eternal * house from heaven ' awaits every Christian.
' Then shall the children of God shine forth as the Sun, in their
Heavenly Father's realm.' ' They shall be equal to the Angels?
* They shall die no more. ' Their ' mortality shall be swallowed up
of life' In this final glorification will be revealed the physical
effect of redemption. Christ the Second Man bestows far more
than was lost by the First. He imparts life eternal to the whole
humanity, but it is divine life in ' glory, honour, and incorrup-
tion.' Well may S. Paul exclaim ' Who is sufficient for these
things ? To some we are the savour of life unto life ! ' It is
Christ's own life that becomes ours ; the life of the ' Lord of all '
and the ' King of eternity.'
But when shall these things be ? The answer of the New
Testament is, I venture, with many contemporaries, to think,
different from that which is commonly assigned in the modern
church. * In our age the popular belief leads men to declare
with confidence that the resurrection of glory will take place at
the second coming of Christ from heaven, at His return to judge
the world; but also to declare with equal certainty that that
epoch will not be reached for at least one thousand years , and per-
haps for three thousand six hundred centuries^ if that prophetic
millenary stands, by a figure of days, for years.
The belief is that the New Testament teaches us to look for
Christ's return from heaven only after a ' millennium ' of righ-
teousness on earth, during which the whole earth will be out-
wardly subject to Christ ; and since that time has manifestly not yet
even commenced, the persuasion is that the Parousia, or Coming
of Christ at the end of it, to raise the dead, is still far away in a
remote future.
If this indeed be so, the conditions of Christian life are
changed since the apostolic age, when men were bidden to
'watch because they knew not what hour their Lord would
* Theological ideas seem to have local and defined habitats, like the floras
and faunas of the different climates of the globe. They have also their times
and seasons. Hence presumably, the careful study of the question of Christ's
return from Heaven, the key to the whole future of the Earth and Man, is
almost systematically excluded from English schools of Biblical science.
TIME OF CHRIST 'S SECOND ADVENT. 333
come.' It appears that we now know for certain that it will
not be at least for a thousand years.
Such an opinion there is much reason to regard as a serious
misconception. For there is a broad and deep stream of evi-
dence to prove that the apostles unanimously taught that after
their departure there would be an 'apostasy' (2 Thess. ii.) from
the faith, springing from a ' mystery,' or secret doctrine of
iniquity already working, and ending in the reign of the ' lawless
one ' (cu/o/xos) in the church of God, who should undertake to
* change times (divine constitutions) and laws ' (Dan. vii. 25) ;
who should ' exalt himself above all that is called God, or that
is worshipped, so that he should sit in the temple of God, show-
ing himself that he is God ' perhaps himself the * Anti-Christ '
' whom the Lord shall consume with the breath of His mouth, and
destroy by the appearing of His bodily presence* (2 Thess. ii. 8,
TV) 7ri<avia 7-^9 Trapowias).
In the second chapter of Daniel, the * stone which is cut out
without hands ' (representing Christ, Matt. xxi. 44) falls from
heaven upon the feet of the great image of worldly power (those
feet supposed by the majority of Protestant writers to symbolise
modern Roman Europe), and breaks it in pieces j the Stone
* becomes a great mountain and fills the whole earth.' In the
same manner Daniel (ch. vii.) sees in a vision * one like the
Son of Man come in the clouds of heaven ' at the time of the
destruction of the fourth world-wide empire ; the ' seven-headed,
ten-horned beast/ who, says S. John, has his * throne ' on the
Seven Hills (Rev. xvii.).
Christ describes the state of the earth at His second Advent,
not'as if it should be the end of an age of righteousness, but at the
end of an age of apostasy, like ' the days of Noah,' when but few
expected Him ; thus indicating a general prevalence of erroneous
prophetic opinion in the church, and a corresponding departure
from God.
In the passage referred to, in S. Paul's Second Epistle to the
Thessalonians, this argument admits of no easy disproof. The
Thessalonians, who had been excited by the apostle's first letter,
in which he five times refers to Christ's glorious Advent, were in
a state of commotion from expectation of its immediate occur-
rence. The Second Epistle was written to correct this mistake.
334 TIME OF CHRISTS SECOND ADVENT,
S. Paul commences the second chapter with a statement of his
theme ' Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ
, and our gathering together to Him (KO! ^/xu>i/ eTrto-wa-
a term which fixes the reference to the personal return
of Christ from heaven, when Christians are to be ever 'with
Him '), I beseech you that ye be not soon troubled, neither by a
spirit, nor by word, nor by a letter as from us, as that this DAY
OF CHRIST is imminent.'
He then assures them that that ' day will not come except there
come the Apostasy first (17 dTrooraom), and the Man of Sin be
revealed.' He proceeds to describe the marks of that Apostasy
and power of darkness, showing that it is a religious power, else
it could not 'deceive' (ver. 10) Christians into serving it 'as God'
in the temple ; ' just as he adds, in i Tim. iv. i, that the ' Spirit
announces ' an ascetic apostasy, ' forbidding to marry,' and ' com-
pelling to fast,' under the ' inspiration of daemons ' (8cu/x,oFtW).
Then finally he declares that this Reigning Imposition is to be
put an end to by the returning Christ, concerning the time of
whose coming he now writes to instruct them. Thus Christ
Himself is the destroyer of Antichrist. The ' Sanctuary ' will
then be 'cleansed' (Dan. xii.). And at that time occurs 'the
first resurrection,' the 'resurrection of the just' (i Cor. xv.). If
these things be so, the ' resurrection ' may be nearer than the
majority of our contemporaries imagine, who are saying, ' Where
is the promise of His coming ? for since the fathers fell asleep, all
things continue as they were from the beginning of the Creation.'
Here, then, to make an end of this division of our labour to
recapitulate the sum of the things which have been spoken and
to add credibility to some rejected ideas, let us recall the general
coup d'ceil which the Scripture affords on the method of the
Divine government of the earth ; since here, as everywhere, faith,
so difficult under disconnected views, becomes our strength when
Christianity is embraced as a supernatural whole.
Let the starting-point be found in the words of Christ in His
own prayer : ' THY KINGDOM COME, THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH,
AS IT is IN HEAVEN.' By one space-penetrating glance He saw
how God's will is done in all other places of His dominion, as
THE DIVINE METHOD. 335
also how it is defied or left undone over all the earth : and, under
the effect of that double vision, of transcendent glory and world-
wide misery and death, He breathes into our hearts the invocation
* Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.' What was its
true significance ?
There is no need to travel out of the record for an answer to
this question. The first verses in the Sacred Scripture set our
thoughts on the right track : ' In the beginning God created the
heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and
void ; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And God said,
Let there be Light.'
Here, in fewest words, fitting the mystery, is (i) the Chaos, or
the earth in its earliest stage of inorganic disorder. Then follows
(2) the Kosmos, or the earth of organic life, ascending till it
reaches man, the image and the glory of God, formed originally
for an eternal life, conditional on obedience. Then follows, (3)
The Kingdom of Darkness, the black shadow of death by sin
covering the earth from Adam's fall, till now ; and, (4) Tfie King-
dom of God, secretly counter -working sin and death through
redeeming grace, manifesting itself in the King of this kingdom,
who is ' God manifest in the flesh.' These four stages seem to
constitute together the history of the Divine Method for the
earth, ending in the survival in immortal life of those who have
been * afore prepared unto glory.' This is the grand evolution :
God as Creator first of all, next God in the development, incar-
nate in Christ, and lastly, God in the issue, receiving the Church
into His glory for evermore.
i. First, there was the Chaos, or the earth of inorganic nature.
The divine record reveals nothing of the mysterious past.
Science, the revelation of nature to mature humanity, partially
lifts the veil, yet leaves us still gazing into twilight and darkness.
Whether the earth was at first produced in its present planetary
position, along with the solar system in a state of equilibrium,
as a solid globe of molten atoms fire-pervaded all in fierce
struggle ; or in gaseous condition was flung off from the central
sun, rushing as a flaming mist around that centre, we do not
absolutely know. But what we do know is that, amidst the seem-
ing chaos, the Spirit of Order ruled ; and, through incalculable ages,
336 CHAOS KOSMOS.
that Spirit moved upon the surface and through the mass, con-
densing, combining, solidifying, separating land and water and
air ; till at length the natural forces, acting out the volitions of
orderly Eternal Thought, created an earth on which organic life
was possible ; and the long battle of fire and water, the strife and
attraction of contending elements, ended in a habitable world.
Then dawned the Kosmos,
2. Now Vegetation brightened the desert globe of land and
water, and the living creature came forth, bred of earth and
moisture, as, says our primitive cosmogony, 'Let the waters
bring forth ! ' ' Let the earth bring forth ! ' in this, according
with the latest thought of those who see in what we term
matter the possibility of life ; but not according with that latest
thought, if it be meant to exclude the all-pervading action of the
Eternal Cause, which lives and operates through all causes that
are visible, and communicates some of His own mysterious energy
even to the Atom which has sprung from the depths of His Being.
And so this diviner order of the Kosmos reigned through untold
ages, while the earth swarmed with the mortal lives that sprang
into being in successive bursts of the all-creating Energy, which
never, by existing law, excluded itself from operating by intro-
duction of fresh elements, but vindicated, even in a world of
perishable plants and animals, both its love of continuity, and its
absolute sovereignty and freedom, at once in Creation and
Destruction : it may be bringing, as men say, life out of life,
varying its forms under the pressure of external conditions, and
achieving its present results by a gradual transformation of pre-
existing types though of this the fossil record contains no
evidence, or, it may be, in the popular sense, creating, time after
time, new tenants of the void, and causing the fruitful Earth
to bear in succession the original distinct kinds of living things,
out of which all subvarieties have sprung. These are questions
which we leave to the science of the future. To us the point of
interest is, that this Kosmos of organic life ended in MAN, of
whom we are compelled to believe that, with face uplifted to the
skies, he is a special work of the Heavenly Power, and, though
belonging to the system where death was the ancient and universal
law of animal life, that he wa$ not originally made to die.
KOSMOS. 337
Here, then, comes in the mysterious narrative with which the
sacred history opens, of a primeval paradise and introductory
trial of a man for continuance in life under condition of obedience,
a narrative more rational, and harmonising better with all the
facts of human life and thought, and with our inward yearning
for immortality, notwithstanding our evanescence, than any hypo-
thesis of animal descent, or, rather, ascent, from ascidians and the
fur-clad grinning monsters of the woods.
And so we will accept this narrative even although it leads us
into realms of thought where science founded on eyesight fails us,
and a science based on insight begins. The Scripture, recording
the revelations of God, assures us that man's history as a moral
being cannot be understood apart from its relations, because
it is interwoven with that of higher orders ; just as the history of
inferior species on the globe is entangled with a system of prey
prevailing over all the Kosmos.
This we shall now take as sufficiently proved by the emphatic
declaration of Christ, and of His Apostles that the case of
humanity in sin and death is involved in the malign action of a
Sat anas, an ' ancient serpent,' a mighty ' destroyer,' more fell than
any fiery dragon of preceding ages ; and that the result has been
to poison humanity with the virus of his own rebellion against the
Infinite ; the dread issue being sentence of return for man to the
outer world and lower plane of animals, in penal conformity to
the law of extinction for all earth-born lives incognisant of God ;
the finite eventually falling out of being by necessity when not in
union with the Eternal. ' In the day of thy eating thou shalt
surely die.' ' Dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return.' A
short animal life may remain to man, as to his mortal congeners,
but it is limited by the horizon of time. ' Man that is in honour
and understandeth not, is like the beasts which perish ' (Psalm
xlix. 20).
3. Next, therefore, follows on the Chaos and the Kosmos, the
Kingdom of Darkness, extending over all man's world and sphere
of action. There is an evil spirit that 'energises in the children
of rebellion.' There is, through apostasy which has become con-
genital a world- wide relapse of humanity into animal and demonic
Jife ; a complex result, evolving a new type of sin most hateful
l 22
338 THE KINGDOM OF DARKNESS.
combining the perversion of the animal life with the perversion of
the higher than animal intelligence, and becoming more detestable
in proportion as the demonic intelligence by culture exceeds in force
the animal development Hence man's ever-increasing energy,
but without God. Thought is poisoned at its spiritual fountains,
till at length a profound philosophic atheism measures at once the
daring of humanity and the depth of its degradation.
The Kingdom of Darkness is man's arena of action separated
from his God ; and it is the shadow of death unto death eternal.
Here is the true and real misery of mankind. These nations are
hastening forward to the second death the vast tide of human
will, passion, and intelligence is pouring itself in ceaseless flow,
unless arrested, into the depths of destruction. ' If ye live after
the flesh, ye shall die ; ' 'The world passeth away, and the lust
thereof; ' 'The letter killeth ; ' ' Except ye repent, ye shall all like-
wise perish ; ' ' He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap
(j>6opav, corruption, destruction' The result of the fall was here-
ditary death. Each man's sin has earned a more fearful repetition
of the penalty in the bitter pains of death eternal. Unless born
twice, men must die twice the first and second death.
Awful, indeed, is this view of man's condition ! The millions
destitute of God are sporting on the brink of doom. Imagining
themselves possessed of indestructible being, they are but phan-
toms dancing on the edge of that precipice beneath which is the
gulf of oblivion, the everlasting death in hell.
4. But now dawns upon this darkness the light of the Kingdom
of God, the light of Life. For He whose existence is everlasting
and His glory infinite, and who alone knows all that is lost when
His creatures lose life eternal yearning over the children whom
once that high destiny awaited, and commiserating us as the
victims of malignant spirits who have spread the monarchy of
death over all the earth has from the beginning operated among
men in His grace in a kindness which has defeated the Man-
killer ' in a goodness which is beyond and above the goodness
of beneficent law. This salvation, originating in the depths of the
Divine Love, is destined to end in restoration of the Kingdom of
Heaven upon the earth, the fourth and final stage of the develop-
ment of the 'purpose of the ages ' (irp60c<riv TOH> cuoW, Eph. iii. 1 1).
THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 339
The characteristic of this Kingdom is that in its inception and
method it is supernatural and miraculous a system superinduced
by Divine Love on the laws of heaven and earth.
Every step of the procedure is by necessity supernatural. The
central conception transcends all thought that has been trained
simply under the course of natural law, ' Eye hath not seen the
things prepared by God for them that love Him.' It is nothing
less than the identification of the Divine Nature with the Human
of the Necessary Being with the vanishing phantasmal shadow ;
of the eternal Life with the child of death in the person of the
Christ ; who thus becomes the Life-giver to the dying race, the
King of the kingdom of Heaven and Earth, the Author of Im-
mortality to them that were perishing. This is the sum and sub-
stance of the Gospel.
The Divine Life takes possession of a human form, attracts and
unites to itself, by a new inspiration of grace, all willing souls, and
after stamping on them anew the Divine Image, breathe* into
them the spirit of Immortality.
We may now the better apprehend the meaning of our prayer,
' Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth? The subject
of the New Testament is this Kingdom of Heaven. No less
than forty-four times does S. Matthew represent Christ as speak-
ing of this earthly reign of God. Humanity asks, with fervent
longing, to-day, Where is it ? What is it ? What is our relation
to it ? Is this Kingdom present, is it future ? Is it on earth, or
in the skies ?
Men's ideas in Christendom on this subject widely differ. Not
a few, perhaps the majority, think of the Kingdom of Heaven as
being in Heaven itself, beyond the stars, in a state of which good
men will one day for ever inhabit. Others, in millions, think that
it exists on the earth already, in a visible form, and that it consists
in the subjection of the nations to the Vicar of Christ at Rome.
Others, as the late Mr. Maurice, regard the papal sovereignty as
a diabolic caricature of this divine monarchy, but think that the
Kingdom of God is truly found wherever, as in England, the
State acknowledges the Christ, and consecrates the Civil Power
by the establishment of Christianity.
Each of these hypotheses falls far below the ideal of Sacred
340 STAGES OF THE DIVINE VICTORY.
Scripture. The Kingdom of God is on Earth, in the last days,
but it is nothing less than a restoration of the supernatural
government of God as in the old times, a visible assertion of
Heaven's Sovereignty over all the world. 'Thy will be done on
earth as it is done in heaven.'
But the question returns How can it be reconciled with sober
judgment to believe in a final manifestation of such a sovereignty
of God in this insignificant and sinful world? We will not
answer that the world where Christ died is worthy of Christ's open
triumph. Let us rather reply that it seems easier to believe in a
final triumph of right upon earth than to believe in an indefinite
perpetuation of the reign of evil, or of the chaos which is termed
modern Christendom. For the Scriptures distinctly teach that
the Kingdom of God upon earth passes through three stages :
(i) The stage of spiritual preparation, lasting from the day of
Christ's humiliation until His second coming. (2) The stage of
judgment on the forces of evil, Satanic and human; when evil
spirits, evil sovereignties, deceitful priesthoods, and all things
which do iniquity, shall be ' gathered out ' of Christ's kingdom of
the earth, and the area be left clear for nations, rulers, and teachers
who do His will. (3) The stage of open victory and resurrection,
when Christ, and His servants ' raised in glory,' will reign over
the world, as the first scene of that eternal royalty which awaits
them beyond, of which transcendent issue the Transfiguration was
the prelusory representation. (See 2 Peter i. 16.)
We are not required to believe that this heavenly reign of
Christ must be always visible to the nations of the earth ; much
less that the risen saints will be mingled with the terrestrial popu-
lations. May it not rather be that Christ, and His Church in
angelic natures (urayye/Xoi, Luke xx. 36), will take the aerial places
(cVovpavta, Eph. vi. 12) of the dispossessed spirits of darkness,
and rule as guardians over the earth (over ' five ' or ' ten cities,'
according to desert), enjoying its beauty and glory as a whole,
and ' inheriting ' it, in a sense the most complete and satisfying
until its end in the final conflagration ? Caught up to meet their
Saviour 'in the air' (apTrayrja-o^Oa ets depa, i Thess. iv. 17), His
servants will be ' ever with Him,' as when the attendant angels
hovered unseen around the cloud of Glory on Sinai, or 'the
multitude of the heavenly host ' filled the empyrean at the Saviour's?
HYPOTHESIS ON THE MILLENNIUM. 341
Incarnation. On this hypothesis we may conceive that the
' flaming fire' which is reserved for some selected victims of divine
wrath at the Advent of Christ, who like Korah ' shall go down
alive into hell,' and shall be ' gathered out of the kingdom, as those
that cause stumbling,' is some locally kindled ' sea of fire/
perhaps below the surface and not that general ' melting of
the elements,' which shall occur when, more than a thousand
years later, the burning earth will become the scene and the
instrument of the general destruction of ungodly men of all past
generations, the residuum of evil after the failure of all saving
processes.
On this theory of a limited and selective judgment on the
wicked rulers and teachers found alive at Christ's Advent, we
might also understand the language of prophecy when it tells of
good agencies operating still among the sifted nations in Christ's
Kingdom : so that everything that is more valuable now in the
work of righteous statesmen, legislators, scholars, missionaries,
civilisers, will be, according to the law of continuity, carried
forward into the final blessed state of the renovated world, when
human life will answer to the Divine Idea, and God shall have
* destroyed them that destroy the earth.' (See Isaiah Ixv., Ixvi.)
We know but too well how large a demand is made by such a
hypothesis on the patience of those to whom it is novel, and who
can rest only in the thought of a heaven so transcendental, so
distant in time, or so far away in space, as to exert no direct
influence on the smooth waters of modern life. But the difficulty
may be overcome. Christians are men who ' wait for God's Son
from Heaven ; ' who ' love His appearing ; ' who expect Resur-
rection and Immortality in soul and body, at His return ; who
look to * inherit the Earth ; ' and who know in themselves, * as
to the times and seasons,' that sudden destruction is corning
upon modern society and the wickedness of Christendom, while
all creation waits with outstretched neck for the ' manifestation of
the sons of God.'
For then, as the Kosmos once of old succeeded the Chaos, so
shall the Kingdom of God succeed the present Kingdom of
Darkness : and the men who during the ages of trial have been
found faithful, shall SHINE FORTH AS THE SUN IN THEIR
HEAVENLY FATHER'S REALM.'
BOOK THE FOURTH.
THE NEW TESTAMENT DOCTRINE OF FUTURE
PUNISHMENT.
CHAPTER XXIV.
ON THE FUTURE PUNISHMENT OF THE SECOND DEATH.
* Future retribution has become a kind of figment. Hell is in the world of
shadows. The tone in which educated men speak of it still, is often only that
good-humoured condescension which makes allowances for childish super-
stition.' F. \V. ROBERTSON, Sermons, i., 132.
WE have now reached the point at which we are compelled to
approach the awful theme of future punishment, and to test our
general doctrine by putting to proof its agreement with the
language of Scripture on the doom of men who 'judge themselves
unworthy of everlasting life.' If the previous sections of the
argument, on the state cf mortality into which sin has brought
mankind, on the object of the incarnation and the law of its
beneficial application, be soundly laid in Scripture evidence, it
follows that the New Testament will be found to teach that the
finally impenitent portion of the human race will not live for
ever.
The doctrine of the Second Death, which declares that unless
men are born twice they will die twice, is represented in the
Divine Revelation amidst ' blackness, and darkness, and tempest,'
like that which covered Mount Sinai at the giving of the Law ;
and, therefore, none can break through to gaze into the abyss
whence bursts the fire that ' burns into the midst of heaven.' To
venture into those scenes with a design of exploring the shadows,
on which even the flashes of Divine vengeance throw no light but
rather render darkness visible, be far from us. A certain part of
the moral effect of the prospect of judgment to come depends on
its mystery. This only we know that God, by all the voices of
His prophets, has declared that amidst that darkness the wicked,
under ' few ' or many ' stripes, shall ' utterly perish,' and that
346 FUTURE PUNISHMENT.
the ungodly world shall ' pass away,' 'O KOO-/XOS irapayeToi, while
'he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever' (i John ii. 17).
During many past years much confusion has prevailed respect-
ing the origin and development of this system of interpretation.
Discovering that one of its results is to establish a doctrine of
future retribution which is irreconcilable with the belief in the
eternal misery of the lost, the advocates of the latter opinion,
naturally impressed with the magnitude of the cause at stake,
have, not ' for the space of two hours,' but for a whole generation,
filled the air with doubtless honest outcries against what they
describe as the ' miserable doctrine of Annihilation ; ' and have
persistently represented that this doctrine is the beginning and
the end of our endeavours. It now, however, begins to be
understood, after many years of misconception, that much more
is concerned than a doctrine of future punishment.
And this is indeed worthy of consideration by those who ima-
gine that our starting-point has been a determination to establish
a doctrine of limited retribution, founded on a sentimental
objection to the orthodox creed ; whence we have proceeded to
invent a corresponding dogma on the nature and the fall of man.
The opposite statement would be nearer the truth, that the
doctrine of the destruction of the wicked is a necessary inference
from the positions already supposed to be established by inde-
pendent evidence, on the constitution of Man, and the object of
the Incarnation. A more exact representation is that, starting as
we believe without pre-occupation, we have found the application
of the right principle of interpretation to operate throughout the
records of Divine Revelation, in the development of a theodicy
which hangs together as an organic unity, and proves its truth by
its internal coherence. It is the object of the present chapter to
show that not only does the application of the true canon of
interpretation to both Testaments bring out the uniform doctrine
that life eternal is in Christ alone, and belongs exclusively to
righteous men ; but also the fearful converse, that all finally
impenitent sinners, persistently choosing evil, shall be ' miserably
destroyed.'
The question to be now examined is one to be decided by
interpretation. The theological and spiritual principles which are
FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 347
connected with that question will be considered hereafter. The
issue in this place must be restricted to the inquiry, what is
taught by the apostles of Christ as the original Christian doctrine
of future punishment ? The vastness of the subject, the intense
emotion excited in honest minds, as one interpretation or another
is favoured or threatened, must alike be excluded from view,
during the critical process of ascertaining what the New Testa-
ment writers meant by their words on the punishment of
Destruction.
There is no inquiry of more overpowering interest than this ;
for it bears both upon, men's prospects, if evil, and upon the
moral character of that Omnipotent Being ' with whom we have
to do.' Nothing less indeed is involved than a reconstruction,
by an inductive process, of the moral idea of Deity. The influ-
ence of either conclusion on the whole system of human thought
and conduct must needs be enormous ; and only a crass repre-
hensible thoughtlessness can pretend to make light either of the
mischief wrought by erroneous opinion on the duration of future
retribution, or of the beneficial effect Godward of a belief based
on a revelation of immortal life rightly understood.
What is needed here beyond all else is a doctrine which rests
on well-established principles of interpretation ; one which meets
the eye in every page of the Sacred Writings read in their simplest
and most direct signification; and which will appeal to men's
consciences, and fears of offended Justice without the intervention
of a difficult critical argument to support it.
Any supposed dogma of the Christian revelation that depends
for its evidence on three or four dubious scattered phrases in the
synoptic gospels, and which is not even pretended to be proved
by a single plain statement in the expository writings of the three
great apostles, S. Paul, S. John, and S. Peter, carries on its own
face decisive reasons for its rejection.* Doubtless, each book of
the New Testament, taken apart from the rest, suffices, if it be in
any sense a divine book, to set before the reader the grand issues
of human life, in words which naturally and forcibly express those
* That the doctrinal writings of these three chief teachers of the gospel are
wholly destitute of any assertion of the endless misery of sinners in the literal
sense of the word, can be verified by every reader.
348 TRUTH LEARNED FROM THE WHOLE BIBLE.
issues. It is inconceivable that any doctrine of fundamental im-
portance can have been confided to the care of one or two of the
sacred writers, to express it only once or twice in 1600 years in
its fitting terms ; while they themselves have everywhere else set
it forth in delusive language, and all the rest of their fellow-
evangelists and apostles have employed words in relation to the
subject which by no ordinary rule of interpretation can be made
to agree with these supposed exceptional expressions.
Thus much we are compelled to say at the opening of this
discussion, since the Bible has fallen much into the hands of
those who imagine that a few favourite ' texts ' will suffice to
prove that Omniscience is on the side of even the most ex-
travagant theologies. The world has already suffered too much
from systems founded on a handful of wrested quotations, even
of the English translation, of Scripture, to allow of much reticence
in repudiating these hermeneutical methods, whether of heated
enthusiasts or ascetic priesthoods. Too much stress cannot be
laid on the rule that since the Sacred Writings were for the most
part the work of men who were commissioned by God in different
ways to address the understanding of human beings, fhe law
shall be observed, in interpreting them, of adhering to the natural
and proper meaning of the words which they visually employ. If we
once abandon ourselves to the fancies of dreamers who see every-
thing through an intellectual prism, for whom no word retains its
natural signification, but every vocable is surrounded with an
aureola or many-tinted halo of mysteries and 'inner senses,' we
might as well abandon at the same time the hope of compre-
hending Christianity.
Under an ever-deepening impression of the responsibility
attaching to the conduct of this inquiry, I ask, then, What is
the ordinary language of Christ, as recorded by the evangelists ;
and what is the ordinary language of His apostles on the future
punishment of the wicked? There is no need to support this
argument by presenting numerical tabular statements of their
various expressions, as some recent writers have done. It is
sufficient to reply generally that the following phenomena stand
forth in prominence throughout the New Testament.
AWFUL THREATENINGS OF CHRIST. 349
SECTION I.
I. There runs throughout every gospel, and every epistle of
Christ's messengers, a distinct and thrilling denunciation of judg-
ment to conic on all who, having heard the summons to repentance,
and the word of Divinz Mercy, have persisted in impenitence or
opposition to God.
The language of both Christ and His apostles is very guarded
respecting the persons who lived during ages of ignorance ; in
accordance with S. Paul's declaration on Mars' Hill, that 'the
times of this ignorance God winked at' But their words are
distinct, uniform, and most appalling, in affirming a 'wrath to
come ' on all knowing offenders. There are few subjects on
which the Son of God speaks more decisively than on the reality
and the awfulness of Hell or Gehenna. The ' GOD ' made known
by Christ, though most benign, is not a Power to be ' mocked,'
affronted, or defied. He is a Consuming Fire.
(1) First of all it must be asked, For whom are these judgments
reserved ? Who are the wicked ? They are of several ranks.
The foremost in Christ's enumeration of the victims of ' hell-fire '
are dishonest and time-serving religious teachers to whom He
chiefly traces the ruin of mankind. In all written literature there
is certainly nothing so terrible as our Lord's persistent threaten-
ings of ' damnation 7 to the Pharisees and Sadducees. It is as if
He had opened the abyss, and compelled these hollow pretenders
to look down into the flaming depths into which they should be
cast at the judgment. The twenty-third chapter of S. Matthew's
gospel is the tremendous death-warrant of all self-seeking religious
impostors to the end of time.
(2) Next to these appear, in Christ's teaching, their voluntary
disciples, the ' hypocrites ' of every age, in whom spiritual arro-
gance takes the place of godliness ; whose religion is a doctrine
without morality or love, while their thinking is a tissue of per-
versions woven by party-spirit or self-interest, and often supported
by cruel persecutions.
(3) After these, but at a wide interval, follow the sensual
multitudes who boldly and shamelessly reject the divine message
altogether, that they may follow their own sinful pleasures.
350 CERTAINTY OF JUDGMENT TO COME.
To these three classes of wicked men it will be found that
Christ and His servants steadfastly announce a future punishment
from which there is no redemption ; and which is described as so
dreadful in its ' many stripes,' in its * weeping and wailing and
gnashing of teeth,' in its 'indignation and wrath, tribulation and
anguish ' (Rom. ii. 9), that for nearly twenty centuries the readers
of these warnings have gathered from them an expectation of woe
fitted to appal the stoutest heart that hears them even amidst the
frivolity of the present age.
It must be added that, although, in one solitary description of
the * torment ' in Hades of the spirit of the selfish sensualist,
Christ seems, according to S. Luke, to indicate suffering as
awaiting the separate souls of wicked men who have ' had Moses
and the prophets,' He and His apostles uniformly point to a
* day of judgment ' in the future as the ' appointed ' time of final
execution of these awful threatenings. ' It shall be more tolerable
for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment than for that
city.' And by Christ Himself it seems to be distinctly said that
men who are thus judged will corporeally appear before God to
undergo the infliction. ' All that are in the tombs shall hear His
voice, and shall come forth, they that have done good unto the
resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrec-
tion of damnation ' (John v. 28, 29).
S. Paul speaks of himself as ' having hope towards God that
there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and of
the unjust' (Acts xxiv. 15).
S. John also, in the vision of the Apocalypse, appears to con-
firm this tremendous expectation when he says, ' I saw the dead '
(the dead who 'lived again' at the end of the millennium), 'small
and great' (high and low), 'stand before God; and the dead were
judged out of those things which were written in the books,
according to their works ; and whosoever was not found written
in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire ' (Rev. xx.).
These citations, and many similar expressions in the New
Testament, suggested in the earliest Christian centuries, the awful
idea of a bodily resurrection of the wicked, for the endurance of
physical suffering by fire. It is obvious that Fire, of some kind,
is threatened by all the messengers of God ; notably by Christ,
who is 'appointed to be the judge of the quick and dead.'
CHRIST S THREATENING OF l HELL-FIRES 351
Nevertheless it has become almost an established doctrine of
this age, at least in Protestant countries, that the ' biblical threat-
enings of material fire in hell,' as they are termed, are all to be
understood of mental anguish only, inflicted by the fire of ' men's
own passions,' or of ' God's wrath.' This reaction has been
caused doubtless by the recoil of thoughtful minds from the un-
utterably horrible prospect of endless torment by fire, presented by
such teaching as was exemplified in our sixth chapter. An argu-
ment, too, of very considerable weight for regarding the threaten-
ings of * fire ' as figures of speech for spiritual suffering, has been
drawn from the tropical character of other representations of the
future awards. It has been said, why should the ' fire of hell ' be
more material than the ' water' of life ' ? Why should the ' furnace '
and ' lake ' of Gehenna possess more of physical reality than the
* sea of glass ' or the * pearly gates ' of heaven ?
There would be decisive force in these considerations standing
alone : nevertheless, at the risk of much contradiction, I must, in
the fear of God, as well as in faithfulness to my convictions,
acknowledge that I see no sufficient evidence positively to con-
tradict the belief of the primitive church, that the New Testament
writers, and our Lord Himself, may have intended, by their
menace of judgment, what their awful words appear to portend.
It would be extreme folly to allow the rhetorical extravagances of
some teachers of endless torment to blind us to the fact, if the
New Testament does really teach it as a fact, that God's judg-
ment will be executed by an infliction of fearful severity if of
limited duration. The effect of the tenet of endless suffering
has naturally been to induce its advocates to soften as much as
possible the threatenings of direct infliction, until at last, in this
age, the very defence of the doctrine of endless misery has come
to rest on a ' figurative ' interpretation of the hell threatened in
the Bible.
On a subject so overpowering I desire to speak with profound
caution and reserve ; but I acknowledge that the positiveness
with which both good and bad men at the present time decide
against any retributive infliction, seems to me at variance both
with Scripture and the analogies of the world that now is.* By
* The over-idealistic tendency which operated so powerfully of old to lead
some to deny the physical reality of the Incarnation and of the sufferings of
352 THE FIRE OF GEHENNA.
a divine law physical miseries of the direst description here follow
hard upon law-breaking. Why should it not be so beyond ?
Here men and women in great numbers have endured affliction
for truth and righteousness, under God's permission. In past ages
God's awful judgments have been executed by ' fire and brim-
stone ' on Sodom and Gomorrha, and even on Pompeii and
Herculaneum ; and the former, we are told, were ' set forth as an
example (8e?y/xa) to them that shall hereafter live ungodly.' In
what does the ' example ' consist, if the ungodly of the future
suffer no infliction ? Why the bodily resurrection of the wicked
at all if there be no future judgment on the body? Why should
such physical retribution from the hand of God hereafter be
regarded as more incredible than the manifold inflictions of
CD i temporary providence? If it has not been contrary to fact
that God should judge wicked men by the body here, why
hereafter ?
Is there not some special and terrible intention in our Lord's
so frequent references to the ' fire of Gehenna,' which ought to
render men at least cautious in expounding them. If the second
epistle of Peter (far more probably by his hand than by any other)
speaks Christ's doctrine, it is apparently taught that the fire which
is to melt the elements is the same which will accomplish the de-
struction of ungodly men ; ' the same earth is reserved unto
fire, against the day of judgment, and perdition of ungodly men?
(2 Peter iii.). The ' tares ' are to be ' burned ' on the field where
they grew. S. Paul speaks of men * receiving the things by the
body according to what they have done, good or bad ' (TO, Sia TOV
o-(o//,a.TOS, 2 Cor. V.).
And those who will reflect on the mysterious energy of Heat,
one of the forms of the universal ether, on its relations with
life and soul, as the source of our chief pleasures and pains,
on its all-pervading power as one of the principal effluences of
the Eternal Spirit, will perhaps somewhat modify their confident
assertions of the ' grossness and coarseness ' of the views of those
who fear that these threatenings may be intended to be taken
more ' literally.' Fire is but one of the manifestations of Energy
Christ seems to survive still in the opinion of many learned men as to the
immateriality of future awards.
QUESTION OF PHYSICAL PUNISHMENT, 353
into which the elements are dissolving under the analysis of the
electrician and the chemist. The realities of nature are uncloth-
ing themselves. Both at the beginning and the end science
stretches now beyond the phenomenal sphere into the psychical
and spiritual. The fire threatened may not be the less spiritual
because ' material ; ' for material is not far from spiritual any-
where, ft is ultimately God who is the * Consuming Fire,' and
nothing is gained by dismissing the idea of an external agent of
destruction, if there still remains to be confronted Him who is
said to ' burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.'
If it be said that such suffering is morally * impossible under
God's government/ it is obvious that it has already occurred in
myriads of instances, in the martyrdoms of the saints. It is
therefore not so clear that it is morally impossible in the punish-
ment of the wicked. Is there not reason to fear that men have
reached in our time utterly perverted notions of the Great Power
which is behind Nature ? The Infinite Spirit works by His in-
scrutable will in material forces and forms. Material representa-
tion seems to be the last end of God in His Self-Manifestation.
If the ' Word was made flesh ' in order to redeem men, and
suffered physical agony, is it wholly incredible that a daringly
wicked man shall be ' made flesh ' again, to receive the ' due
reward of his deeds ' ?
The duration of such sufferings must be spoken of with awe,
and only in the language of Christ and His apostles. Nothing is
affirmed by them of ' untold ages/ Inconceivably fearful words
are used respecting the doom of the leaders of the world's" in-
surrection against God and His King ; but both as to these, and
as to men generally, the sayings of Christ must govern us. The
rapid destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha is set forth as an
example ' of the general judgment. There will be * few stripes,'
and ' many stripes,' 'perishing without law,' and ' judgment under
the law,' ' swift destruction/ and a ' greater damnation.' It is
the act of God, and in all its details will be righteous, yet a
doom over which all Heaven will 'rejoice ' (Rev. xix. 3).
If it be still rejoined that this is too fearful and overpowering
a statement to be believed ; it must be answered, that no doctrine
of future punishment can possibly be true which does not bring
1 great fear upon every soul.' It was thus that S. Paul ' reasoned '
2 3
354 REASONABLENESS OF JUDGMENT TO COME.
before Felix of 'judgment to come' until 'Felix trembled'
(e/>i<o/?os yevo/xevos, Acts xxiv.). No doctrine of future punish-
ment, I repeat, can possibly be true at which such men as the
Roman governor do not ' tremble.' To refine away the threaten-
ings, until both gross and refined sinners find hell not so for-
midable, is surely no true kindness to those whom Heaven desires
to convert and save.
Why should it be thought a thing incredible that the Creator
of the world will mark with visible and intense abhorrence those
actions which we ourselves are so made as to look upon with
indignation ?
When we behold a man, created in God's image, degrading
himself by drunkenness many degrees below brute beasts ; or
when we see man or woman desecrating the sacred affection of
love, till it become by misuse a vile and cancerous passion eating
out the forces of life, why should it be thought incredible that
Almighty God, outraged at the ruin of His own Image, should
punish such offenders by a ' miserable destruction ' ?
When we see a daring sinner living by falsehood in his trade
or profession, or committing perjury in a la'wcou^t, by impudently
calling on the God of Truth to witness a deliberate lie, why
should it be thought incredible hat such liars shall, in S. John's
awful words, ' have their part in the lake of fire,' since no
wickedness has more of will in it than wilful falsehood ?
When we see priesthoods making gain, or seeking for power,
by t deceiving the ignorant peasantry with pretended miracles,
when we see kings and statesmen entering upon unjust wars, and
sacrificing thousands of lives to haughty temper, guilty ambition,
or lust of power, when we see professors of false religion and
unprincipled rulers conspiring together to torture to death the
martyrs of truth, as we read in the pages of history, till heaven
itself calls for retribution, does not conscience judge that if God
shall ' take vengeance ' on such men hereafter, He will, as Judge
of all the earth, do right ?
But if God will do rightly in judging the great criminals of
history, He will also surely do rightly in judging all men according
to their works. He will do rightly in punishing with 'many
stripes ' those who knew their Lord's will and did it not ; and
with ' few stripes ' lesser offenders.
THE 'SORER JUDGMENT } SPIRITUAL. 355
And is not this precisely what the Lord Jesus Christ declares ?
There is] severity with God, as well as goodness, in His dealings
with men under the reign of physical law. The same rule holds
in moral law. If I oppose the will of God, I shall reap the con-
sequences in the deserved penalty of sin. There is no un-
righteousness in such recompense. Judgment comeS because
Heaven acts in morals as uniformly, and as severely, as it acts
with the breakers of natural law. The difference is tKat moral
law-breakers will be chiefly dealt with hereafter, when 'sin is
finished/ and the account is closed.
And yet it may well be that, even if there be no bodily inflic-
tion, a greater and more frightful penalty in the spiritual results
of a sinful life, shall precede and accompany the destruction of
great offenders. Christ's words in the monitory parable of the
Rich Man and Lazarus Son, Remember! point apparently to a
previous endurance, at least in some instances, of the unspeakable
misery which an awakening conscience brings. And it is not
necessary to imagine anything beyond this stroke of a scorpion-
conscience a steadfast compulsory review of an evil life, as even
Swedenborg teaches to perceive in many cases the most tre-
mendous consequence of it. What must it be, for example, for
an indevout scientific man to pass into a condition where atheism
is no more possible; because the Divine Wisdom, no longer
beheld at a distance in the order of revolving planets, in the laws
of sidereal motion, in the arrangements of far-off universes, in
that remoter magnificence which shrouded it from view while he
inhabited the body, has now come near as the Ruling Authority,
and closely encompasses the soul, and pierces its secret darkness
through, in one calm, intolerable blaze of the Excellent Glory?
What must it be to perceive, with a clearness which profane
defiance and dishonest speculation can overshadow no longer,
that Almighty God is holy, and that Omnipotence is everywhere,
or to review in thought those inner and outer evidences of a
Divine Revelation of truth, which, made light of on earth, will
seem so appallingly real in their power of condemnation now that
they are remembered in perdition ? Those must be very ignorant
of much that is passing in this world, in the solitudes of enforced
thought, in prisons and on beds of sickness, who peremptorily
35 6 'SON, REMEMBER:
decide that such experiences are improbable beyond. If Christ
be from God, such experiences await every rebellious spirit here-
after, in ' the wrath of the Lord God Almighty and the wrath of
the Lamb.'
Every man's responsibility will then be found to extend over a
wider area than he imagined. And those whose sins are not
forgiven on repentance will justly be held accountable for the
whole stfm of their evil influence in the creation. It may form
the spiritual punishment of many to trace out the whole history
and effect of their misdeeds in subsequent generations. ' It is
appointed unto men once to die, but after this, judgment.' This
subject is to the last degree painful and terrible, but how vain to
deny that it occupies a prominent place in the New Testament
Revelation.
This is what first strikes every reader of the New Testament
writings, a distinct threatening of judgment to come on every
soul of man that doeth evil r , a threatening brought home to the
conscience by all the lines of evidence which prove the truth of
Christianity; for those warnings of 'righteous judgment ' are proved
to be from God by precisely the same arguments which attest the
divine promises.
SECTION II.
The second noticeable fact in respect to the language of the
New Testament, not less than the Old, is that, in ninety-nine
instances out of every hundred in which the issue of God's judg-
ment is referred to, its effect is declared to be to bring the
subjects of it to an end which is described as death, destruction,
perishing, utterly perishing, corruption ; and, negatively, as ex-
elusion from life, or life eternal. Such phrases as endless woe,
endless misery, are unknown to the Bible. The ordinary language
of the pulpit on this subject is systematically unscriptural.
Now the words which occur constantly in the prophetic and
apostolic writings in reference to judgment to come, are, as is
known, taken by nearly all Christendom, and have been taken for
many centuries', to stand for the idea of misery only ; a misery
believed from the supposed nature of the sufferers, as beings im-
mortal, and, from other declarations of inspired writers, to be ah-
HYPOTHETICAL OPERATION ON THE WORD ( LIFE: 357
solutely endless. It is denied with the utmost force of conviction,
by multitudes of Christians, learned and simple, that these words
signify what they seem to signify the utter destruction or ex-
tinction of the life of the condemned. It is held that their real
and proper sense, because their historical sense in Christendom,
is that the existence of wicked men will be carried on through the
boundless eternity, as long as the Necessary Being endures, in a
state of conscious suffering ; greater or less in degree, but illimit-
able in duration.*
There must exist some argument of almost overpowering
influence which has thus determined the interpretation of masses
of language to a sense exactly contrary to its natural meaning.
For the process by which such terms as death, perishing, destruc-
tion are made to stand for the idea of endless misery, is one so
remarkable as to arrest attention and demand instant inquiry.
A corresponding action on the word Life, so often used in the
Bible to denote the eternal reward of the saints, would result in
making it stand for the strange idea of a happy extinction, or a
blessed abolition of existence an euthanasia. The radical idea
of destruction, that is, extinction of being, is first taken out
of the term Death ; then the word is made to stand for its
opposite, eternal being ; and then the associated idea of misery
is grafted upon the stock of the converted primary; the result
being, that destruction stands for endless misery. An exactly
parallel treatment of the promise of Life, therefore, will result,
first, in taking out of it its radical idea of conscious existence
next, in making it stand for its opposite, extinction and, lastly,
in joining the idea of happiness with the converted primary,
so that you obtain the complex result of a happy extinction. It
* No one has exhibited this conviction with greater force than Mr. Darby in
his various tractates on this awful subject. His expression of displeasure at
the spiritual character, and of scorn for the scholarship, of all who hold a
different belief than his own, we must not turn aside to characterise further
than to entreat his reconsideration of much unfitting language. One observes,
however, that zealous Calvinists are often indifferent to the moral credibility of
their doctrines, because it is thought that predestination will secure the ' faith '
of the elect, and the honest moral difficulties of the non-elect are of no con-
sequence to any one. If they do not see the justice of their own helpless
condemnation to endless torment, their opinion is of no account to writers of
this school.
358 DEATH, DESTRUCTION, PERISHING.
would require some argument of overmastering force to per-
suade nine-tenths of the scholars of Christendom to perform this
operation upon the promise of life to the righteous ; and no such
argument has ever appeared or operated.
To what, then, is to be attributed the almost unanimous de-
cision of Europe and America, that the terms in which punish-
ment is threatened to wicked men in the Scripture are rightly to
be treated in the fashion described ?
The answer is obvious. The popular belief of Christendom
has now for many ages been fixed in the Natural Immortality of
the Soul, as a dictate of reason, and first principle of religious
truth ; a principle thought to rest on similarly decisive evidence
with the existence and moral government of God. And since
the soul is Immortal, or deathless, it can never die or perish in
the proper and natural sense of those words, but only in some
figurative or tropical sense, such as this of endless misery. Thus
psychology gives the law to interpretation.
Add to this that there are three passages of the New Testa-
ment, perhaps four, which have been regarded as categorical
assertions of the doctrine of endless misery, and we arrive at the
explanation of 'a handling of words, at first sight so artificial and
indefensible. The argument for the figurative interpretation of
Death, Destruction, and Perishing, derived from these supposed
decisive expressions in the New Testament, will be examined
afterwards. At present we are concerned to consider the language
by means of which Christianity published to the world its doctrine
of future retribution.
The original words (verbs and nouns) generally employed by
New Testament writers to warn wicked men of their future doom,
are the following :
1. The verb to die. ' If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die 1
(/ze'AAcTc airoOvyo-KCLv, ye shall soon and certainly die ; Rom.
viii. 13). * That a man may eat thereof, and not die ' (John vi. 50).
2. The noun death (Odvaros). 'The wages of sin is death*
(Rom. vi. 23).
3. The verb to destroy. God is able to 'destroy body and
soul in Gehenna ' (i/^x^ KCU. <ru>/xa aTroAeom cv ycfwy, Matt. x.
28). In this sense also a man is said to ' destroy his own life.'
SYLLABUS OF NEW TESTAMENT EXPRESSIONS. 359
' He that loveth his life shall lose (destroy) it ' (John xii. 25).
a7roXm avrrjv fyvx*l v m opposition to woyoviy(m avrrfv.
4. The noun destruction. * Broad is the road that leadeth to
destruction' (ets rrjv aTrwXciav, Matt, vii. 13). * Vessels of wrath
fitted for destruction ' (owrdiXeiav, Rom. ix. 22).
5. The verb to perish. 'God so loved the world, as to give
His Only Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should
T&\. perish* (/AT) coi-oXr/rca, John iii. 15).
* The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness '
(rot? aTToXXv/Aei/ot?, i Cor. i. 1 8). * Shall the weak brother perish
by thy knowledge ?' (aTroXXvrat, i Cor. viii. n). 'They shall
perish without law' (di/opos KOL diroXowrcu, Rom. ii. 12).
6. Destruction (oXeflpos). 'Who shall pay the penalty, eter-
nal destruction from the presence of the Lord ' (oXeflpov atwnov,
2 Thess. i. 9).
' Foojish and hurtful lusts drown men in destruction and perdi-
tion ' (eis oXeOpov KCU ctTrwXeiav, I Tim. VI. 9).
'Then sudden destruction cometh upon them' (rare ai<i/i'8ios
avrots c^to-Tarat oXe#pos, i Thess. v. 3).
7. Corruption or death (<f>0opa). ' He that soweth to the flesh,
shall of the flesh reap corruption (<f>0opw), but he that soweth to
the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting ' (Gal. vi. 8).
' That by these ye might become partakers of a divine nature,
having escaped the corruption or mortality which is in the world
through lust ' (<0ops, 2 Peter i. 4). ' These, as irrational brute
beasts made for capture and destruction (<f>9opav), shall utterly
perish in their own corruption, or mortality ' (ev rrj <f>0opa avrwr
KOLTatfrOaprja-ovraL, 2 Peter ii. 12).
In the same sense 8ta<0eipa>, Rev. xi. 18 'to destroy them that
destroy the earth.' Sept., Judges vi. 4. The trans, pass. (Sta-
<0etpo//,ai) to decay wholly, to perish (2 Cor. iv. 16, 'The outward
man perisheth, the inward man is renewed ').
8. Extermination. ' He shall be destroyed from among the
people ' (cgoXoOpevOrja-trai CK TOV Xaov, Acts iii. 23), the Septua-
gint translation of Plffl?! it shall be exterminated, in Exod.
xii. 15. See also Exod. xxii. 20, Zech. xiii. 8; Sept.
9. Being killed. 'I will kill her children with death' (dwro-
ev 0avaTO), Rev. ii. 23). ' The detter (or law) killeth (o.7ro-
, 2 Cor. iii. 6). See also Romans vii. 1 1.
360 USAGE OF THESE WORDS IN PH&DON.
i o. Vanishing. l Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and vanish '
(afJHiviorOrjTc, Acts xiii. 41). The word used by Josephus to
describe the opinion of the Sadducees. ' Their doctrine makes
souls to vanish along with the bodies ' (o-vra<an' ra? i/a^as TO?S
). Antiq. xviii. ch. i. 4.
Let us now consider the history of these words, used (as is
affirmed) in the New Testament, to signify the endless misery of
souls and bodies, immortal or immortalised.
No fact in literature is capable of clearer demonstration than
that the majority of these nouns and verbs, denoting destruction
of some sort, are used by Plato again and again in the Phcedon,
a dialogue on Immortality, expressly for the purpose of convey-
ing the idea of the literal destruction or extinction of the soul. In
proof of this, it will not suffice to refer in a foot-note to the
passages in the *Ph<zdon where these words occur. They must
be presented to the reader in distinct citation. And in order
to dispel the suspicion even of involuntary tampering with
the translation under the influence of theory, we will also for
the benefit of English readers set forth the passages of Plato in
the version of Dr. Jowett, whose impartial accuracy none will
question.
The importance of these citations in this discussion arises
from the fact that the Phczdon was during the four hundred years
before Christ's ministry the great classic treatise on Immortality,
known and acknowledged as such throughout the Greek-speaking
world. Based upon the ever-moving story of the martyrdom of
Socrates, and professing to detail the arguments for the immor-
tality of the soul, on which he rested his hope of a life to come,
on the day of his judicial death by poison, the Phczdon was as
well known among the reading population of the Macedonian and
Roman empires as any tragedy of Shakespeare is known among
English readers. The words, therefore, in which Plato expressed
the leading ideas of this dialogue formed a fixed element of
thought and speech over the wide area where his works were
studied in the numerous academies and schools around the
Mediterranean shores.
The main object of the dialogue is obvious to every reader. It
is to adduce arguments of various kinds in support of the belief
USAGE OF THESE WORDS IN PHALDON, 361
that in death the soul will not become extinct, will not die, perish,
or be destroyed. The reader's attention, therefore, is now invited
to the terms in which that idea is set forth throughout the
Phcedon. They are precisely the terms generally chosen in the
New Testament to denote the punishment of the wicked ; with
this difference, that Plato says the soul will not suffer
aTTwAaa, oAeflpos, <j>0opd; that it is not destined to
Ka.Ta<t>OeipcrOai, 8ia<0etp<r0ai, a.Tro6vr)<TKtw ', while the New Testa-
ment writers declare that wicked men shall suffer what is de-
noted by these terms. In Plato's dialogue these words stand
for extinction of life, for that idea only, and in the strongest
possible contrast to the idea of perpetuation of being. Our argu-
ment is that in the New Testament they signify precisely the
same doom, the final and absolute extinction of life in the case
of the wicked.*
There is, I submit, no possibility of escape from the force of
this argument except by a statement which is fatal to the New
Testament writings as a revelation. It is said that these words
in the New Testament are not used in the sense in which Plato
and all his readers for four hundred years, not less than all good
writers in Greek following the times of Christ, used them ; but
in a new and special sense, which was created for them by inspira-
tion of God ; so that inspiration must be regarded as having for
its object to give, not only a new, but a self-contradictory sense
to some of the most familiar words in the Greek language. But
if this were the effect of inspiration, inspiration would be fatal to
revelation; since revelation consists in making truth known to
the nations through language, and inspiration of the quality sup-
posed deprives words of their proper meaning and affixes one
diametrically opposite.
The passages in the Phtzdon in which the words occur, which
are also used in the New Testament to denote future punish-
ment, are as follows. The Greek words spaced out are the same
with those used in the New Testament to denote future punish-
* Professor Cremer, in his Lexicon of the New Testament, while asserting
that in Scripture these terms stand for the eternal misery of mankind, frankly
allows that ' such a signification is peculiar to the New Testament, and without
analogy in classical Greek.' In voc.
362 CITATIONS FROM PH&DON OF PLATO,
ment. Their English correlatives are given in italics in Mr.
Jowett's version.
CHAPTER XIV. EITTOVTO? Sr; TOV ^WKpdYovs ravra, v7roXa/3wi/ 6
Ke/fys <f>y *O ^wKpaTes, TO. /xev dXXa e/xotye SOKCI KaXuis Xeyco-flat,
Ta 8e 3rept T^S iftvxfjs TroXX^v aTrtcTTtav Trape^a rots di/flpawrois, /XT),
7Tioai/ aTraXXay^ TOV o~w/xaTO9, ovSa/xov crt 17, dXX' eKeiVy
S t a < $ c t prjT at TC Kat diroXXvT/Tai, 17 av avOpimros
' Socrates having said these things, Cebes answered : I agree, Socrates, in
the greater part of what you say. But in what relates to the soul men are apt
to be incredulous ; they fear that when she leaves the body her place may be
nowhere, and that on the very day of death she may be destroyed and perish. '
Jowett, p. 414.
CHAPTER XXIII. Et /X/TOI KCU, cTreiSoV d7ro0ava>/Aev, en rrcu,
cvS* avro) JJLOL SoKet, !<?7, w ^wKpares, aTroScSct^^at, dXX' ert
Kfv o vw S^ Ke)8r/s eXcyc, TO Ttiai/ TroXXwv, OTTW? /A^ a/xa a,7ro0v
TOV avOpwTTOv 8tao-Kc8ajaa^-at 17 '/^^ ^at avr^ TOV eTvai TOVTO T*eXos ^.
Tt' yap KooXvei yiyvco-^at /xcv avr^i/ /cat wrracr0ai aXXo^ei/ TTO^CV Kat
cu/at Trpti/, Kat et? dv^ptoTrctov o-w/xa d<iKeo-$at, eTretSav Se d^)tK^Tai Kat
TOVTOV, TOTC Kat avT^v TeXevrav Kat $La<f)6ipc<rOaL',
* But that after death (says Simmias) the soul will continue to exist is not
proven even to my own satisfaction. I cannot get rid of the feeling of the
many to which Cebes was referring the feeling that when the man dies the
soul may be scattered, and that this may be the end of her. For admitting
that she may be generated and created in some other place, and may have
existed before entering the human body, why after having entered in and gone
out again may she not herself be destroyed a nd come to an end f Jowett, p. 424.
CHAPTER XXIX. 'H & i/o^ apa, TO detSes, TO ets Totovroj/
TOTTOV erepov otxo/xcvov, ycwatov Kat Ka.0a.pov Kat detS^, ets "AtSov a>s
dXryflws, irapa TOV aya#ov Kat <poVi/xoi> Oeov, ov av Ocos fOcXy, avriKa
Kai T^ e/x^ faxO ^ T ^ OJ/ avr>; Se &r) fjfuv f) roiavrrj Kat OVTCO Trc^vKvta
aTraXXaTTO/xer*/ TOV o-w/xaTO? cv^vs 8iair<f>vcrr)Tcu Kat aTroXoXcv, ai?
<^>acriv ot TroXXot dv^pawrot \ TroXXov yc Set, 5 ^>tXe Kc^iys T Kat
St/x/xta.
' And are we to suppose that the soul, which is invisible, in passing to the
true Hades, which, like her, is invisible, and pure, and noble, and on her way
to the good and wise God, whither, if God will, my soul is also soon to go,
that the soul, I repeat, if this be her nature and origin, is blown away and
perishes immediately on quitting the body, as the many say? That can never
be, my dear Simmias and Cebes.' Jowett, p. 428.
WITH TRANSLATIONS BY JOWETT. 363
CHAPTER XXXVI. Ei ow Tvyxam ^ fax*} ^" a <W lol/t ' a Tls
oYt, oral/ x<*Xao-07} TO aw/xa ^/xtov a/xerptos, T-^V /xev \j/v\Y)V avdyKY)
fv@v<s vTrdpx^ aTroXooXevai, KatTrep ovo-ai/ ^etorar^v, axnrep Kat at
aXXat ap/Aovi'ai air' ev rots <0oyyots' apa ow Trpos TOVTOI/ TOI/ Xoyov Tt
<?70-o/Ai', eav Tts dtot Kpacrtv ovVav T>)I/ fax*} v v *" T( ? "^ a ' TL * v
TuJ KaXov/xei/a) $avaVa) Trpornyv aTroXXvo'^at J
' And, if this be true, the inference clearly is that when the strings of the
body are unduly loosened, then the soul, though most divine, like other
harmonies, of course perishes at once. Now, if any one maintained that the
soul, being the harmony of the elements of the body, first perishes in that
which is called death, how shall we answer him ? ' J(nvett, p. 434.
CHAPTER XXXVII. TOVTOV Se TOV Odvarov KCU ravrrjv TVJV Sta-
Xvarw TOU <ra)//,aT09, ^ rfj ^v\V <l>*P fi oXeflpov, /x^SeW ^aoy ctSei/ai.
The whole passage is as follows (the extract is in italics) : * For suppose that
we grant even more than you affirm as within the range of possibility, and,
besides acknowledging that the soul existed before birth, admit also that after
death the souls of some are existing still, and will exist, and will be born and
die again and again, and that there is a natural strength in the soul which will
hold out and be born many times ; for all this we may be still inclined to
think that she will succumb in one of her deaths and utterly perish (navTairaotv
a.7r6\Xvff9at) ; and this death and dissolution of the body which brings destruction
(oXtQpov) to the soul may be unknown to any of MS, for no one of us can have
had any experience of it. And if this be true, then I say that he who is con-
fident in death has but a foolish confidence, unless he is able to prove that the
soul is altogether immortal and imperishable (iravrairafftv dOavarov re Kai
avwXeOpov). But if he is not able to prove this, he who is about to die will
always have reason to fear that when the body is disunited, the soul may utterly
perish ' [ dt /i), dvdyKtjv elvat ai TOV peXXovra diroQaviioQcu Stdikvai virtp
ri]Q avTov tyvxrjc, [trj iv Ty vvv TOV (rw/iaroc Sia&vZti TravTonraaiv diroXij-
rai]. Jowett, p. 436.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. Kat TTO.W Se'o/xai TraXii/, aXXov TIVOS Xoyov,
os fj. TTCicrfL ws TOV aiToOavovTos ov <rvva7ro0i>?7crKi fj
* And now I must begin again, and find another argument which will assure
me that when the man is dead the soul dies not with him.' Jowett, p. 437.
CHAPTER XLI. Kc/fys 8e /MOI eSo^c TOVTO /nev c/xot
TroXuxpoi/uorepoV yc etrai ifsvx*l v "<*V/,aTos, aXXa ToSc aSr/Xov Travrt, fj.rj
TroXXa 8^ orco/xaTa Kat TroXXa/as KaTaTpt^ao~a vj i/a;^ TO TeXeuTatW
croi/xa KaTaXi7roOo-a vvv avrv] aTroXXv^Tai, Kat rf avTO TOVTO 6dva-
T05,
364 CITATIONS FROM PHsEDON.
' On the other hand, Cebes appears to grant that the soul was more lasting
than the body, but he said that no one could know whether the soul (after
having worn out many bodies) might not perish herself and leave her last body
behind her ; and that thing is death, which is the destruction of the soul.'
p. 440.
CHAPTER XLIV.
' You say, Cebes, that the demonstration of the strength and divinity of the
soul, and of her existence prior to our becoming men, does not necessarily
imply her immortality. Granting that the soul is long-lived, and has known
and done much in a former state, still she is not on that account immortal ;
and her entrance into the human form may be a sort of disease which is the
beginning of dissolution (dpx) r/i> avry 6 \ k 9 p o v), and may at last, after
the toils of life are over, end in that which is called death (KOI rfXfyrw.ra yf iv
a v a Tip air o\\v o IT o).' JcrMetl, p. 446.
CHAPTER LV. OVKOVV /cat u>Se, e<r?, dvdyKY] Trept TOV aOavdrov
tiirtiv ei fJLfv TO aOavarov /cat dvuXfOpov COTU>, dovvaTov ^X??
OTOLV OdvaTOs err avrrjv ly, diroXXvo'daL' 6a.va.Tov u\v yap or] ov Several
ovS' ecrrat TfOvrjKvla, u>o~7rep TO. -rrpta OVK co-rat aprtov.
' And the same may be said of the immortal : for if the immortal be also
imperishable, the soul when attacked by death cannot perish ; for the preceding
argument shows that the soul will not admit of death, or ever be dead, any more
than three or the odd number will admit of the even.' Joivett, p. 457.
And again : OVKOVV KO! vvv rrcpl TOV dQavaTov, el fj.ev rjfuv 6/xoA.o-
yctrcu Kat dvwXeOpov eu>ai, if/vyr) av fir] Trpos T<3 dOdvaros eTvat KCU
aVtoXe^pos' et Se /AT), aAAov av Scot \6yov. 'AAA' ovSev Set, t<J>Y), TOVTOV
yc ei/eKa' o-^oXrj yap av TL a\\o <j> 6 o p a v /XT) Se^otro, et TO ye dBdva-
TOV Kat afStov (f> o p d v SeeTai.
* And the same may be said of the immortal : if the immortal is also im-
perishable, then the soul will be imperishable as well as immortal. But if not,
some other proof must be given of her imperishableness. . No other proof is
needed, he said for if the immortal, being eternal, is liable to perish, then
nothing is imperishable.' Jowett, p. 457.
There can be no hesitation in affirming that any ordinary reader
of Greek coming to the New Testament for the first time in the
age of the apostles, would, as Archbishop Whately supposes, have
taken the words now in question, singly, and still more in their
ORDINARY MEANING OF TERMS. 365
striking combination, in the sense in which they are used in the
preceding extracts from the Phcedon. If it can be shown, as per-
haps it can, that some of these words had been occasionally used,
in highly emotional passages of the poets, in a strained and
tropical sense, in which the idea of misery and pain leading to
death is the prominent thought, such a reader would at once
decide that in a grave philosophical or religious treatise these
words must be taken in their proper and obvious meaning;
especially in sacred writings partaking of the quality of public
legislative documents, in which important words are to be always
taken in their strictest and most direct definition.
Unquestionably such a Greek would reply to any one who
proposed to put the * figurative ' sense of endless misery upon
them, somewhat as the head master of an English public school
replied to a recent proposal of the same sort : ' My mind fails to
conceive a grosser misinterpretation of language than when the
five or six strongest words which the Greek tongue possesses,
signifying " destroy," or "destruction," are explained to mean
maintaining an everlasting but wretched existence. To translate
black as white is nothing to this.'*
Nothing less than an argument of overwhelming cogency ought
to prevail to deflect and reverse the ordinary signification of
Greek words in interpreting the New Testament. No scholar
can doubt that the Greek language received in the hands of the
Jews a certain Hebraic education, so to speak, during the three
hundred years before Christ, which fitted it more completely for
its highest use as the instrument for propagating Christianity;
* Dr. Weymouth, of Mill Hill, commenting on and agreeing with a similar
statement by the late Dr. Mortimer of the City School. How differently minds
are constituted may be seen in Professor Moses Stuart's observation on the text,
that ' the wages of sin is death.' He asks, ' Is it in the power of language to
convey a stronger impression of the retribution (of eternal misery) that will be
made in the invisible world than such an expression conveys ? ' Essays, p. 104.
But this, even on the part of so excellent a scholar as Dr. Stuart, seems to be
trifling with that common sense which God in His great mercy has given to the
unlearned, to preserve them from the infatuations occasionally incident to their
superiors in learning. In reply to Mr. J. N. Darby's assertion that the word
' destroy ' is never used for causing the final cessation of existence (p. 144), it is
sufficient to say that it is seldom used to signify anything else than the putting
an end to the organic form, or substance, of existing things.
366 A NEW GREEK LANGUAGE NOT
but it may be safely maintained that no part of that education of
the language was directed to the overthrow and reversal of the
signification of its most familiar words ; or to the establishment
of rare, idiomatic, and secondary senses, as the primary, leading,
and established senses of the chief terms to be employed in
offering the revelation of the gospel to mankind, and in making
known the penalty for rejecting it. Surely the Greek world had
not to learn a new Greek language before it could understand the
apostles, for if so the 'gift of tongues' was an equivocal blessing.
Highly exaggerated notions are entertained by some writers
respecting the peculiarity of the Greek Testament idiom. No
sooner is it demonstrated that the identical terms which are
employed in the New Testament books signify in the pages of
Plato, in a discussion on immortality, and in all other known
classical writers, literal destruction or abolition of life, than you
are met with the statement that New Testament Greek has its
own * spiritual and secondary meanings,' and cannot be rightly
understood if we take its words in ' classical ' senses. The argu-
ment is not indeed always used with consistency, for sometimes
we are urged to attach * figurative ' senses to these very terms in
the New Testament on the strength of quotations supposed to
contain similar figures, taken from the Greek poets / The argu-
ment on the carnality of classical Greek is taken up or laid aside
apparently according to the exigency of the criticism.
But indeed the doctrine is exceedingly pernicious, and destruc-
tive of Christianity, that the evangelists and apostles wrote in
language which was in the main unintelligible to their Greek
converts. When Luke wrote a gospel for the churches planted
by Paul in Achaia, or Macedonia, or Asia Minor, or when S. Paul
wrote two letters to the Corinthians, recently converted from
heathenism, who can imagine, except one who has a theory to
obey, that these compositions were set forth in words which were
employed in senses previously unknown to the readers at Corinth,
Philippi, Athens, or Thessalonica ? Granting that there would
be some tincture of foreign idioms in the combination of their
phrases, and admitting that there would be some new Hebraic
phrases introduced from the usage of Greek -speaking Jews of
Palestine or Alexandria, still it is evident that their ordinary
expressions were, from the very fact that they were used by the.
REQUIRED FOR REVELATION. 367
apostles, judged by them to be intelligible Greek, so that none of
the idioms were beyond the comprehension of an honest, religious,
Greek-speaking man. And equally evident is it that old words
would not be used in new and strange senses, such as making
death (Odvaros, or <0opa) stand for endless misery, without full
warning from such conscientious correspondents.*
Take for example the common verb aTroAAv/xt, to destroy. No
scholar is ignorant that the first, proper, and prevailing sense of
this verb is thoroughly to break up the existence of anything, as an
organic unity; in the case of living things, to destroy their life.
No one will deny also that it bears the secondary, idiomatic sense
of to lose, especially in the first aorist active. There are also
examples in the tragedians, in the 'hyperbole of passion and
poetry,' in which the idea of misery an.&pain might seem to be
more prominent than the destruction they were bringing on, but
* Since this was written we have the added authority of Mr. Baldwin Brown
for believing that the threatening of destruction in the Bible always stands for
the idea of 'annihilation,' only he affirms that it is the sinner's sin which is
to be destroyed in hell, not himself. ' There is a divine and blessed way of
destroying sinners by destroying sin.' There is no need for encumbering our
pages with an argument in reply to this notion borrowed from Origen and the
Universalists. Mr. Constable has sufficiently exposed it. He says, *S. Paul
describes the Gospel thus : " This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all ac-
ceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" (i Tim. i.
15). Mr. Brown would have us think that the very same blessed truth would
have been conveyed if it had been said that " Christ Jesus came into the world
to destroy sinners," for saving a sinner and destroying a sinner mean the same
thing with him. Or, let us read our Lord's awful warning to His generation
as interpreted by Mr. Brown : " Except ye repent, your sins shall all likewise
perish " (Luke xiii. 3). Why, instead of deterring from sin, a premium would
here seem to be set upon impenitence ! What does Mr. Brown make Paul tell
us is the due reward of transgression? " The wages of sin," read after his
interpretation "/> the death of sin" (Rom. vi. 23). What warning does he
make Peter hold out to the false teachers who should privily bring in damnable
heresis, even denying the Lord that bought them? He would nrnke him say
that they would " bring upon their sins swift destruction " (2 Peter ii. i). Such
is the confusion and utter violence to the language and sense of the New Testa-
ment which the adoption of Mr. Brown's theory of interpretation would bring
upon it.' Rainbow, 1876. The same reply is applicable to the argument of
the Rev. Samuel Cox in Salvator Mundi. The whole array of words threaten-
ing destruction to the wicked he regards as in effect so many fatherly promises
of chastisement, restitution, and eternal life to lost sinners ; but he avoids
the consideration of the above arguments against such violent perversion.
3 68 DR. MORTIMER ON 'APOLLUMi:
these are exceedingly rare, and in no cases occur, so far as I can
ascertain, except when the misery is likely to end in destruction.
If now I open the tenth chapter of S. Matthew's gospel, I find
no single word used in the whole chapter in any other sense than
that in which an ordinary Greek would have understood it. Why
should I be asked to believe that in verse 28 the word aTroAeW,
to destroy ', is used in a sacred ' or ' poetic ; sense wholly unknown
to ordinary Greek readers to make miserable, without literally
putting to death ? If I find in the second epistle to the Thessa-
lonians no word used in any other sense than that in which all
the Greeks in Macedonia would have understood it, why am I
to think that in i. 8, the word oXcOpos is used out of its proper
meaning of destruction of life (the sense in which Plato uses it in
the Phaeton), and that it is here to be taken in the sense of misery
which will be endless, to suit the theory of a soul that is neces-
sarily immortal ? Language cannot thus be created anew at the
word of command, any more than a man can immortalise the
human race by an assertion of their immortality. One might just
as reasonably attempt to set up an argument to show that in
Matt. x. 28, o-w/xa does not mean the body, or \f/vxrj the soul,
on the ground that divine revelation is something much higher
than the common Greek-speaking populations were able to con-
ceive of. Such criticism prepares the way for all the ' inner and
deeper senses ' of Swedenborgianism and Universalism.*
* A curious example of the hold which ' figurative ' senses have on even the
ablest men appeared a few years ago in a public discussion on this subject.
Dr. Mortimer, late head master of the City School, had laid it down a little
too broadly that ' diroXXv^it, whenever and wherever it occurs in a Greek
author, has but one meaning the destruction of the object to which it is the
active verb. ' Profiting by this too sweeping statement, which omits to account
for the occasional secondary sense of losing, Dr. Lindsay Alexander (clarum et
venerabile nomen) took advantage of the existence of the secondary sense of
losing to throw a doubt upon the proper and primary meaning of the word as
applicable to future punishment. The following reply was given by the writer
to Dr. Alexander and his associates in this criticism, and I hope will explain
the value of that objection : ' If a man were engaged in teaching English to
a foreigner, and were to inform him that " whenever and wherever the word
strike occurs in an English author it has but one meaning to give a blow to
the object to which it is the active verb" what would be thought if Dr.
Alexander were to step in with an indignant protest against the delusion
practised on the foreigner, declaring that it is notorious that to strike often
MORAL ASSOCIATIONS WITH LIFE, ETC. 369
If the reader will take the trouble to run his eye through any
lexicon of the New Testament, even of that class which might be
described as dogmatic commentaries in disguise, he can judge
for himself whether the spiritual discipline of Greek, to which
I have referred, had the effect of altering the proper signification
of any large family of words to suit the new religious purpose.*
The meaning of many terms was heightened and deepened;
but, as Professor Cremer allows in his lexicon, words which re-
late to the future state form the only class which, it is pretended,
were twisted out of their proper meaning, in the New Testament
dialect; and this notwithstanding the fact that Greek already
abounded in words for expressing with fullest accuracy the ideas
which it is sought to enforce under the perverted terminology.
MORAL IDEAS ASSOCIATED WITH THE TERMS
LIFE AND DEATH.
It is now necessary to consider an argument which exerts more
influence than perhaps any other in supporting what are called
the secondary senses of death and destruction, and with them the
doctrine of eternal misery ; I mean that which is derived from
certain supposed exclusively moral senses of these terms in the
New Testament.
signifies to cease from work, and also to pull down a flag in battle ? Assuredly
every one would think that Dr. Alexander was somewhat needlessly interfex--
ing with the lesson, since the object of the strong general statement made to
the learner was sufficiently obvious to impress upon him the proper, ordinary
signification of the verb to strike, and the radical idea to which all the secondary
and idiomatic meanings are clearly traceable. What would any bystander
think if Dr. Alexander commenced a series of quotations from English poets
and journalists to show that to take the verb in the sense of giving a blcnv
would make nonsense in places were naval actions and trades unions are
spoken of ? I feel certain that the bystanders would consider that the foreigner
was being unfairly treated, and that the teacher ought to be supported in his
general doctrine ; since it is of the last importance that foreign people should
learn the proper meanings of our common words, and not be seduced into
mistaking special and idiomatic use%for normal significations.'
* See for example the meritorious Handbook to the Grammar of the New
Testament, recently published by Dr. Samuel Green, late of Rawdon College.
24
370 MORAL ASSOCIATIONS WITH
An impression widely prevails that the life spoken of by the
Apostle John, oj, does not include the idea of existence, which
is always presupposed, but signifies only a moral condition of
holy union with God, carrying with it the result of heavenly joy,
in ' life eternal. ' Those who do not possess this life are called
the dead, vcicpoi, as in Matt. viii. 22 ; Eph. ii. i, 5 ; Col. ii. 13 ;
Apoc. iii. i.* The words of S. Paul respecting the wanton
widow are also cited : ' She that liveth in pleasure (wo-a
Te'0i/?7Ke) living is dead' Hence, it is argued, the proposal to
take the words life and death, as including the ideas of existence
and non-existence, is contrary to the usage of the Scripture, and
leads to a whole world of wrong conclusions. The * dead,' so
called, are persons actually alive ; and this proves that those who
hereafter are to be ' hurt of the second death ' may be persons
who are still alive and conscious of their sufferings, and are by
no means destroyed, in the literal sense of that word.
i . In clearing up this question, so important in its bearings on
the main controversy, let it be understood that we offer no denial
of the self-evident fact that the term life, as used in Scripture to
describe the present and future states of regenerate men, does
include the associated ideas of holiness and blessedness, arising
from a new relation to God, a spiritual resurrection resulting from
redemption (Rom. vi. 4). No one ought to affirm that the bare
idea of animate existence is all that the term includes. No one
of any account does affirm it. Our position is that the idea of
existence is included in the meaning, is fundamental to it, the
moral ideas associated with it having this conception of eternal
* The expressions which run through the fifth and sixth chapters of S. John's
gospel are usually assumed to be wholly of a figurative character. The ' dead '
hearing the voice of the Son of God, and living, are said to be morally dead,
and their resurrection to be only spiritual. But this rendering overlooks
the references to physical resurrection contained in the words, ' All that are
in the graves (tombs, monuments) shall hear His v\>ice and shall come forth.'
Our Lord's intention clearly was to vindicate His claim to be the Life-giver,
by declaring that He would speedily give token of His power by raising many
from the sepulchre. This was fulfilled during His ministry; and at the
moment of His death, when 'many bodies of the sleeping saints arose,' an
earnest of His ability to raise all mankind, either to the resurrection of ' life '
or of 'judgment.' But the whole chapter Aust be read with new eyes to learn
the force of these references to His Life-giving power.
THE TERMS LIFE AND DEATH. 371
sentient being in the complex humanity (m opposition to death
or destruction) as their basis.*
It follows from this statement that it is no sufficient answer to
our argument to go about to prove that life carries with it an
association of moral ideas ; for this fact we, too, urgently affirm.
What must be established to overthrow our argument is the diffi-
cult position that the terms, life and living for ever, exclude the
idea which they most naturally denote. What we maintain is,
that just as the apostolic phraseology concerning a spiritual resur-
rection-life, as descriptive of the regenerate man's estate (Rom.
vi. 1-16), does not exclude, but rather involves and enforces that
physical resurrection, that re-construction of the dissolved humanity
in corporal immortality, which is the destined portion of every
* A very able writer in the Wesley an Methodist Magazine, for 1877, speaks
of the definition of life thus : ' No exact and exhaustive definition of *' life " has
yet been framed. Perhaps there is no word in our language, not even its
correlative "death," with so many and so delicate shades of significance. A
common, though vague, idea runs through all its meanings, but the sense in
each case depends upon the subject of which "life " is predicated. There is a
plainly perceptible difference between the " life " of an ox and the " life " of the
grass on which it feeds ; and between the " life " of the ox and the "life " of the
man who owns it. It would be ridiculous to confine the term to its lowest
signification ; the inapplicability of a formula so constructed wc-rdd be seen at
a glance. The Conditionalists commit a very similar absurdity, when they
press in their favour what they are pleased to call the " literal sense " of the
word in question, by which they mean the lowest sense. But the ' ' literal
sense " is not necessarily the lowest sense.' On this I observe that there is
one thing common to all the subjects of which life is predicated, that their
death consists in the total destruction of the organism the cessation of the life
of the integer. In order to understand the radical meanings of life and death
they must be considered together. The attempt to set up a sense of death,
which excludes the idea of destruction, is a departure from the analogy supplied
throughout nature, and requires for its establishment somethin much more
forcible than the uninspired assertion of our opponents, that life in relation to
man's religious state and prospects, signifies only union with God and that his
death eternal signifies only endless misery. I cannot too strongly recommend
the appendix to Rev. Thomas Davis's work on Endless Suffering, where the
reader will find critically discussed the phrases in the Pauline Epistles on
which the Augustinian theory of ' death ' is founded (Longmans). Christ
bestows on His servants life in all its * shades of significance ' including the
lowest as well as the highest. ' He will raise them up at the last day.' And
He bestows such complex life on these alone. It is life in His own Image, as
God and Man in one Person for ever. (3rd Edition).
372 FIGURATIVE SENSES OF DEATH.
Christian so the moral idea of eternal life in Christ does not
exclude, but imply, the under-lying fact of an eternal existence,
depending on union with Him as the * life-giving Spirit' And
just as we reprobate the criticism of those who argue, that because
the apostles describe a moral resurrection of believers, therefore
they do not teach a physical resurrection, (the error of Hymenaeus
and Philetus, who said ' that the resurrection is past already '), so
we maintain that the doctrine of those persons is to be condemned
who hold that, because there is a spiritual sense included in the
' life ' possessed by believers, therefore we are to exclude from the
term the fundamental idea of a literal immortality in body and
spirit. The new life, being divine in its quality, is eternal.
2. Next it is necessary, in order to obviate similar misconcep-
tions, to add tkat we do not question the figurative uses of death
in the New Testament. In every language these uses are common.
Thus, in English, we say to be ' dead to any thing or person '
in the obvious sense of ceasing to be in living relations with him or
it. So a man is said to be * dead to the law/ * dead to the world,'
1 dead to sin,' the meaning being that he ceases to live or exist in
certain relations with them. But in these cases the figure is formed
on the proper meaning of the term.
Again, we often speak of one as a 'dead' man, who is in
imminent danger of death; as when you hold a pistol to a burglar,
and say, * You are a dead man, if you move a step further ; ' or,
as when the apostles cried out in the storm, ' Lord, save us, we
perish] dTroXAv'/xefla not intending to indicate that they were in
a state of perpetual suffering, but in danger of literal death. Thus,
also, S. Paul says of himself' In deaths oft ; ' ' We that live are
always delivered unto death ; ' ' Thanks be to God, who hath
delivered us from so great a death' Also, he speaks of ' deliver-
ing such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh '
(oXeOpov). In this passage, the term destruction is used to denote
the effect of the mortal disease with which the incestuous man was
smitten for his sin ; the final result of which was certain, unless
he repented. The fact that he did repent and live (2 Cor.) no
more proves that the oAeflpos was mere suffering, without danger
of death, than the use of the phrase ' we perish ' by the drowning
apostles proves that they were in affliction which threatened no
fatal result. Yet it is on such trifling perversions as these that
PROLEPTIC USES OF THE TERMS. 373
some authors rest a mighty theory of interminable suffering for
sinners of every description. In none of these cases would any
one contend that the words death, perishing, or destruction stand
for a state of sin or misery, but the condition of a man who is on
the brink of death, or in danger of physical destruction. That is
to say, death is used proleptically, in anticipation of a future re-
sult : in a manner the reverse of that which is found in the phrase
' I saw the dead stand before God,' where the persons then
raised up are spoken of as dead, not because they had been
wicked, but dead in the past.
3. Neither, in the next place, is it denied that when sinful and
unregenerate men are called ' the dead,' or ' dead by sin,' or are
said to ' abide in death,' or to be in ' death,' there is a strong
associated reference to the spiritual condition of sin and misery
which brings or keeps them under this category. So that it is
not sufficient to adduce evidence to prove that there is a reference
to a moral condition, for we maintain this as firmly as the advo-
cates of natural Immortality.
But the true question is, whether, underneath all such moral
references in the terms, there is not a deeper reference to the
historical meaning of death as illustrated in that narrative of the
Fall of Man on which redemption is founded ; that meaning
which is explained in the sentence passed upon Adam, ' To dust
thou shalt return,' and which finds its full explication in the
correlative terms used throughout the Bible to reveal it; as in
our Lord's words in Matt. x. 28, 'Fear Him who is able to
destroy both body and soul in hell.' This is the essential question.
The evidence in support of the affirmative answer is as follows :
The synonymous terms employed in the New Testament, in
explanation of the death in which sinners lie by sin, compel the
assertion that the conceptions of existence and non-existence are
at the basis of the terms Life and Death. Take, for example,
the verb aV0KTVco, to kill, or rather kill outright. This word has
dropped out of use in modern theology, because it fails to express
the complicaticn of ideas which in later ages have grown up
around the two words death and destruction, and which have
stifled their proper signification. But in the New Testament
the verb to be killed is used interchangeably with the verbs to
die and to be destroyed; is used, in fact, to explain what it is to
374 THE LETTER KILLETH.
die or be destroyed. Thus, in the Epistle to the Romans,
S. Paul, after previous references (chapter v.) to the death which
descended upon the race from Adam (including, as he specially
observes, that innocent part of mankind who had 'not sinned
after the manner of Adam '), goes on in the seventh chapter to
treat of the effect of the law upon those who attempt to serve
God while under its ban. He says (vii. n), * For I was alive
without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin
revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained
to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the
commandment, deceived me, and by it killed or slew me outright,'
aTrc'/cTeivev. This is in accordance with his statement in 2 Cor.
iii. 6, where he contrasts the different effects of the law, or
ministry of condemnation, and the gospel, or ministry of right-
eousness. 'The letter killeth, aTroKren/ei, but the spirit giveth life.'
Now, in each of these cases, S. Paul uses the verb to kill as ex-
planatory of the death which comes by sin under the law, and this
being so, it ought to be capable of being used interchangeably with
death, and its derivatives, as employed to describe the state and
prospects of sinners. Let us, then, assume the senses attributed
to death and the dead by. established usage. ' Sinners are morally
dead, and the word signifies nothing else than a state of sin and
misery ; there is no reference to existence or non-existence.' If
so, then it ought to make sense to say that a wicked man is
'killed in sins' (Eph. ii. i) ; or that he is spiritually killed by
transgression, and will be slain and killed to all eternity in the
miseries of hell. But ordinary preachers would not now think of
telling a wicked man tl^at the law or curse of God would kill him.
That word would not express their idea of ' death.' They would
be afraid lest the sinful man should take it in the sense of literally
losing his life in hell. S. Paul, however, used the word con-
stantly and fearlessly as synonymous with death a decisive proof
that the radical meaning of death, the loss of literal life or exist-
ence, lies at the basis of it wherever it is held forth as the doom
of the wicked. We conclude then that when the unregenerate
are called 'the dead,' the usage \s> proleptic or anticipatory, one of
the commonest figures in all languages ; * founded upon the
* It is thus that Maimonides, 'the eagle of the Rabbins,' the greatest and
most learned of the Jewish commentators on the Hebrew Bible, explains the
THE LETTER KILLETH. 375
doctrine which underlies the gospel, that men have lost life
eternal by the fall, and have aggravated their doom by their
own sins, so that all who are unsaved are but awaiting that
sentence of the ' second death' which will consign them to
'destruction of body and soul in Gehenna,' an 'everlasting
destruction from the presence of the Lord/ 'If ye live after
the flesh, ye shall soon and certainly die (/te'AAere aTroOvrjo-KtLv) \
but if ye, through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body,
YE SHALL LIVE' (Rom. viii. 13), where the word is used in its
most emphatic sense, as where the eternally existing God is called,
the Living God.
The general philological argument to which attention has been
now drawn, I believe, compels the conclusion that the New
Testament doctrine on the future punishment of obstinately
impenitent men is that they shall be 'blotted out' and finally
perish under inflictions corresponding with their sins. A doom
more credible, indeed, than that of endless existence in misery,
but in another aspect not less awful, for what can be imagined
more tremendous, as the issue of an evil life, than to have incurred
a death which shuts the sinner out of the universe for ever, by
driving him into the abyss of destruction ? The horror of capital
punishment on earth is the best representation of such a doom,
though offering indeed but a feeble image of the catastrophe
when a soul shall ' die in its sins ' by undergoing the final stroke
of extermination as an enemy of God.
SECTION III.
I shall now add some criticisms on the New Testament lan-
guage on future punishment, which taken collectively confirm the
general argument just exhibited.
If the preceding considerations are based on truth, we ought
term. In his book on Repentance, ch. viii., he says, ' But this is the penalty
which awaits the unjust that they shall not attain that life, but shall be
utterly destroyed. He who is unworthy of eternal life is called the Dead,
nnn wn, because he shall not live for ever, but on account of his iniquities
shall be cut off in his wickedness, and like a beast shall perish.' norraD "OKI
rroa ; Edition by Clavering, Oxford, 1705.
376 IMAGES TO DENOTE DESTRUCTION.
to discover in the apostolic writings forms of expression either
openly, or by implication, or by undesigned coincidence, bearing
testimony to the correctness of these interpretations. A wise
inquirer will weigh the conjoint as well as the individual value of
those to be now adduced.
These coincident forms of expression may be divided into
two classes : firstly, the images employed to denote future
punishment; secondly, certain unrhetorical explicit statements
of doctrine.
i. The images used to denote the future punishment of sinners
agree entirely with the doctrine of their ultimate destruction, and
are to the last degree unsuited to denote the idea of their ever-
lasting existence in misery.
The name of the wicked shall be ' blotted from the book of
life.' The wicked man shall be 'cut down* like a dead tree.
He will be ' cut asunder ' amid his ' weeping and wailing and
gnashing of teeth.' He will be cast into the fire to be 'burned '
like a fruitless branch. He will be ' burned up ' like ' chaff,
or ' stubble,' so that the fire shall leave him ' neither root nor
branch ' (Malachi iv.). He will be ' broken to shivers * like a
potters vessel, ' dashed to pieces,' ' ground to powder.' He
shall be thrown down into destruction like a ' house without
a foundation ; ' be ' cast away ' to putrefy like bad fish. If
the destruction so constantly threatened to sinners in the Old
Testament be regarded as a figure of the future punishment in
another state, the image at least is a strong support of the
belief that karat or extermination is the impending penalty.
If the Old Testament threaten ings under the Law are to be
taken as distinct predictions of future punishment, then they
agree in their literal sense with the New Testament, which also
denounces the same ' destruction.'
But there is not one image in either the Old or New Testa-
ment, descriptive of retribution, which encourages the expecta-
tion of a bad man's everlasting life. ' When the wicked spring
as the grass, and all the workers of iniquity flourish, it is that
they shall be destroyed for ever* (Psalm xcii. 7). 'All flesh is
as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass;
the grass withereth, the flower fadeth but the word of the
THE HELL OF MOHAMMED. 377
Lord endureth for ever ' (Isaiah xl. 7). ' The enemies of the
Lord shall be as the fat of rams ; into smoke shall they consume
away ' (Psalm xxxvii. 20). This is language which it is difficult
to believe proceeded from inspired men who thought that the
wicked were immortal, and would endure for ever to be the
plagues of the universe, or a torment of soul to the saved, who
should behold their endless woes.
It has been often said that the proposal to denominate a
limited amount of suffering, terminated by destruction, Death,
is unreasonable. Such a term must signify either misery or
extinction, but not both. To this we reply, that the contrary
is nearer the truth : and that the real objection lies against the
popular interpretation. For it appears to be as irrational to
declare that those persons shall perish and be destroyed, who are
in fact to be kept alive evermore in suffering, as it would be to
say of a man labouring under a distemper, which was certain
not to be fatal and mortal, that he was dying or perishing in it.
We should never be induced to employ these phrases in any case
in which it was not evident or probable that the disease would end
in dissolution ; and it remains to be seen by what process of
thought in the apostles of old it originally was, that they came
as is supposed to affix these expressions to the cases of those
whose torments should be ' without measure or end/
A striking confirmation of this argument arises from con-
sideration of the language employed by Mohammed in the
Koran like the Bible, an Oriental book when denouncing
future punishment to unbelievers. That marvellous farrago of sense
and nonsense is destitute of the threatening of death, slaughter,
and destruction to the wicked in hell. Mohammed intended to
teach the everlasting misery of ' infidels,' and he has given ex-
pression to his ideas in words well fitted to denote them. See
Koran, chaps, iv., vii., xx., xxix.
Indeed, so far is the proposed signification of these words,
'death,' 'perishing,' 'destruction,' from being alien to their
proper application, that it is one of the most ordinary usages
of speech to convey the compound ideas of suffering and final
cessation of life by each one of the very terms under exami-
nation.
So far is it from being the fact that Death must signify either
378 PASSAGES OF NEW TESTAMENT EXPLAINED
misery or non-existence, but not the composite conception of
misery and loss of life, than no phrases are more usual than
these: 'an easy death,' 'a lingering death/ 'a painful death,'
'a violent death,' a 'horrible death,' 'a miserable destruction ; '
in each one of which the notion of a final cessation of life is
associated with the conception of varying degrees of suffering.
Thus, also, in Scripture (as has been shown in the former part
of this chapter), we find the idea of a ' mighty destruction ' and
of a 'great death' (2 Cor. i. 10), presented in reference to
temporal dissolution, in such a manner as to indicate that it is
entirely in accordance with the thoughts of the Bible writers to
denominate the future punishment of the wicked, consisting in
suffering and destruction, by the general name of Death ; leaving
it to other occasions to add the qualifying representations con-
cerning the extent of that suffering, from the 'few stripes ' of the
comparatively ignorant up to the ' greater damnation ' of the well-
instructed transgressor.
(2) We shall now proceed to point out some such portions of
Scripture as appear to fulfil the conditions just stated and
required, commencing with the gospel of Matthew.
Matt. iii. 12. ' He will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into
the garner ; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire* It is diffi-
cult to believe that if John the Baptist had before his imagination the thought
of the indestructibleness of the wicked in the fires of hell, he would have
likened them to chaff, which is proverbially the thing in creation least fitted to
withstand the action of the flames. This is an image which no orthodox
preacher in modern times can be induced to employ. The meaning of the
irvp avfieffTov of the New Testament writers is here revealed. It is a fire
which thoroughly accomplishes its object and burns up the chaff.
Matt. v. 30. ' Cut it off, and cast it from thee ; it is profitable for thee
that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy -whole body should be
cast into hell.' Here there is manifestly a comparison drawn between the
evils of the literal perishing of one member and of the whole body. The
effect of cutting oft" the hand is literal perishing (aTroX^rat). This fixes the
signification of d7ro>\a in relation to the whole body.
Matt. vi. 25. 'Take no thought for your life, tyvxn, what ye shall eat, or
what ye shall drink : nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the
soul, tyvxri, more than meat, and the body than raiment? ' Our Lord by this
last question intimates that if His hearers neglected the kingdom of God on
account of meat and drink, they would lose their lives, body and soul, in the
ON HYPOTHESIS OF LIFE IN CHRIST ONLY. 379
world to come, and therefore He warns them that it is of far more importance
to preserve the soul or life to eternity than to be anxious about it on earth ; to
preserve the body for ever than to clothe it curiously now.
Matt. x. 28. Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the
soul (aTTOKTiivai) ; but rather fear Him which is able to destroy (a7ro\rai)
both soul and body in Gehenna.' ' To kill the soul ' unquestionably signifies
to destroy its life, in the same literal sense as that in which men were able * to
kill the body. ' It is the threat of God's accomplishing what man was unable
to effect, which the Saviour holds out to the timorous ; He ' is able to destroy
both soul and body in Gehenna ; ' and the ability to destroy the soul, to kill
it outright, will be exerted by that God who is a 'consuming Fire,' and
whose threats are not vain. Christ here taught the doctrine which is found
substantially in the Talmud. 'The body shall be consumed, and the soul
burned up, and the wind shall scatter it under the feet of the just ' (Rosc-
hasciana, ch. i. quoted, by S. Cox in Salvator Mundi, pp. 71-3, which see for
further evidence of Jewish belief).
Matt. xvi. 25. 'Whosoever shall wish to save his life, TY\V
ffuaat, shall lose it, diroXkati avTrjv.' ' For what is a man profited if he
shall gain the whole world and lose his own life, ^vx^v, or what shall a man
give in exchange for his life, ^vx^v ? '
The same aphorism occurs in S. Luke, chap. ix. 25, with this variation :
' For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world and lose himself, or
be cast away' (be lost) ; savrbv Sk dTroXtaag % ^^naBtiQ. And again, in chap.
xvii. 33 : * Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it, and whosoever
shall lose his life shall preserve it,' KCU bg t&v d-rroXkay avrriv, Zatoyovrjau
avTrjv.
In the Gospel of S. John also it occurs thus, chap. xii. 25 : ' He that loveth
his life, i//i>x)j', shall lose it, diroXtatt avrijv ; and he that hateth his life, ^vyriv
in this world, shall keep it unto life eternal,' tg Zwrjv ai&viov <f>v\dti avrrjv.
Here, to love or save the life, ^iv^v, m the first clause in each passage, is
determined by the connexion not to signify being concerned for a man's salva-
tion, but the desire of saving his life. If, then, by ' losing it ' our Lord intends
eternal suffering in hell, the tyvxri which shall so suffer must be taken in quite
a different sense from the fox*} of the first clause, which will be a great con-
fusion of terms. The avr^v, ' itj referred to is surely the ^vx^v taken in the
sense of the first clause of the sentence life; which, says our Lord, a wicked
man shall lose. Otherwise the whole will stand thus : ' He that loveth his
^VXTQV in the sense of life, shall lose it in the sense of soul.' But then the verb
lose must also undergo a conversion of meaning in the two clauses of the sen-
tence, as it is given by Luke, chap. ix. 24. There our Lord says, * Whosoever
will lose his life, shall save it.' Here lose must signify literally lose. Else our
Lord will be represented as saying, ' Whosoever shall consign his soul to eternal
misery for my sake, the same shall save it ; ' which is absurd. But if a literal
loss of life is the meaning of the phrase in one clause, it surely stands for the
same idea in the next j unless we are prepared to read the whole passage thus :
380 PASS A GES OF NEW TESTAMENT EXPLAINED
'Whosoever will save his tyvxr)v, in the sense of life, shall lose his ^v\ffv, in the
sense of his soul going to eternal misery : but whosoever shall lose his life in
its literal sense for my sake, shall save or keep it in the sense of soul, and pre-
serve it (woyov?7(re, Luke xvii. 33,) in the sense of making it happy.'
The ' losing, of Matthew and Luke, is the not ' keeping' of John ; and not
keeping is the explanation of losing. And certainly not * keeping ' a man's
life or soul, or self, is the last form of expression fitted to denote that soul's
everlasting existence in torment.
Luke ix. 56. ' The Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives,
dv9p(t)7Tb)v aTToXevai (some MSS. diroicrtivai,) but to save them.' This
verse is omitted by Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Tregelles, and is absent from
all the more authoritative manuscripts. But, as Alford bravely says, ' This
whole passage has been tampered with, as supposed to involve indirect censure
of Elias, and to stand in the way of church-censure.' And we cannot consent
to expunge, where authorities are so much divided, words whose insertion could
hardly have occurred. Their design is obvious. The meaning of Christ's
'saving men's lives' is denned by the converse of killing or destroying them; and
it is just possible that another reason for the early omission of the words was
the perception that they were clean contrary to the ever-advancing doctrine of
man's natural possession of an ' indestructible '
Luke xiii. 1-5. ' There were present at that season some that told Him of
the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus
answering said unto them, Suppose ye that those Galileans were sinners above
all the Galileans because they suffered such things ? I tell you, Nay : but
except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Or those eighteen, upon whom
the tower in Siloam fell and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above
men that dwelt in Jerusalem ? I tell you, Nay : but except ye repent ye shall
all likewise perish.' w<rai>rwg, 6/zoiwc, atroXiioQt. This cannot signify that
they should perish in the same manner, through the cruelty of Pilate, or
through the fall of towers : therefore it remains only to apply the adverbs of
likeness to the doom itself literal loss of life, perishing. If the reference were
to this world, the threat was not fulfilled.
Luke xx. 1 8. * On whomsoever that stone shall fall, it shall grind him to
powder.' Was this figure likely to have occurred to any mind in which the
dissolution of human nature was not regarded as the punishment of the
wicked ?
Luke xx. 35. ' They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world
and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.
Neither can they die any more.' In this passage the resurrection from the dead
is spoken of as the peculiar privilege of the righteous ; notwithstanding the
declarations elsewhere given of the resurrection of the unjust. The same
apparent restriction of the resurrection occurs in John vi. 54, Phil. iii. 1 1,
I Cor. xv. 42 ; in which last passage, as Locke forcibly proves, the wicked are
ON HYPOTHESIS OF LIFE IN CtfRlST ONLY. 381
passed by, and the righteous alone are spoken of as rising to incorruption and
immortality.* How shall we reconcile these seemingly conflicting testimonies?
Are we to suppose that our Lord and His apostles intended by their expressions
that, compared with the eternal happiness of the saved, the eternal misery of
the wicked might be termed no resurrection at all ? Rather, do we not detect
in their words the doctrine that the resurrection of the wicked will take place
only in order that they may undergo the due reward of their deeds in the
second death by ' fire ' ? In this case, no doubt, they may truly be said not to
have 'attained to the resurrection from the dead ' (iZavdaraffiv, Phil. iii. ii).
John viii. 34-36. 'Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Whosoever committeth sin is the slave of sin. And the slave abideth not in
the house for ever : but the son abideth ever. If therefore the Son shall make
you free, ye shall be free indeed.' The intimation that the slave of sin ' does not
abide in the house for ever,' taken in connection with the passage next to be
noticed, seems to point to the interpretation proposed. ' The world passeth
away and its passion, but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever '
(i John ii. 17).
John viii. 51. ' If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death ' (pit ju)
0wpr;cry Oivarov tig rbv aiwvd). To which assertion the Pharisees objected,
that their pious father Abraham was dead, dirt9avt, and the prophets, con-
sequently that His words proved Him 'to have a demon.' They therefore
understood His words, literally, to teach that faith in Him would prevent that
cessation of life which disbelief would infallibly procure. Neither did He object
to their interpretation, but confirmed it, by predicating of Himself an existence
denoted by a form of speech suitable only to a pre-existent divine nature :
' Before Abraham was I am ; ' an existence therefore on which, in fact, the life
of mankind might depend.
John x. 10, 27. ' The thief cometh not but for to steal, and to kill, and to
destroy : I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more
abundantly.' The opposition in which killing and destruction are here placed
to that life which Jesus came to confer, appears to afford ground for the con-
clusion that since that life was the benefit to be obtained through His media-
tion, deprivation of life was the doom of those persons who were not saved
by His death. The possession of eternal life depends on obedience and faith.
' My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me : and I give
unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, av /*} aTrdXwvrai tif rbv
, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.'
John xi. 49, 50. ' And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest
* Mr. Baldwin Brown, in his sermons on Annihilation, takes the words
' Neither can they die any more ' as descriptive of all mankind. But this is
manifestly to force the Scripture. The case put by the Sadducees was the con-
duct of a righteous man. Our Lord's reply corresponded with the question
proposed : ' They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world.'
382 PASS A GES OF NE W TESTAMENT EXPLAINED
that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is
expedient for us that one man should die, airoOavy (ch. xviii. 14, tva avOpwirov
diroXtoBai, that one man should perish}, for the people, and that the whole
nation perish not, diroXriTai. In this unconscious prophecy of Caiaphas the literal
death or perishing of one person is placed in opposition to the impending death
or perishing of the whole nation : in accordance with Christ's own statement,
Luke ix. 56, that * the Son of man came not to destroy meris lives, i^vxC aTroXe-
<rat, but to save them!
Acts iii. 22, 23. ' For Moses truly said unto your fathers, A prophet shall
the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren like unto me. . . .
And it shall come to pass that every soul which will not hear that prophet,
shall be destroyed from among the people,' QokoBpivQijatTai, the same term
employed in the Septuagint translation for the menace of extermination or cut-
ting off.
Acts viii. 2O. * Then Peter said unto Simon, Thy money perish with thee ;
literally, thy money be with thee to destruction, TO dpyvpiov oov avv aoi ilrj
t'iQ dir&Xtiav. If the term rendered perish signifies eternal existence in misery,
it is not easy to perceive the force of this curse on the money ; but if we under-
stand it in the literal sense, then Simon might perish like his money, and his
money like himself. That the word ajrwXaa, usually translated perishing and
perdition, does really signify the literal death of the wicked, will appear to the
reader who remarks how currently it and its derivatives are employed in the
New Testament, in cases where modern theologians would hesitate to employ
its modern representative. Thus, Matt, xxvii. 20, the chief priests sought to
destroy Jesus, 'iva TOV 'irjffovv aVo\<rw<m>. And Festus applies the same term
to the loss of life, Acts xxv. 16 : 'It is not the custom of Romans to deliver
any to die, etc., ec aVolXetaa/.' If that same word stood for endless misery, its
use in such cases would have been almost impossible by the apostles in that
age.
Acts xx. 26. * Wherefore I (Paul) take you to record this day that I am
pure from the blood of all men ;' i.e., no one of you will be able to blame me
for unfaithfulness if finally lost. But by blood a Jew would intend not happi-
ness, but life ; whence we infer that their blood, i.e., their loss of life, in
eternity, was to be upon their own heads.
Rom. i. 32. ' Who (the Gentiles) knowing the judgment of God, that they
which do such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have
pleasure in them that do them.' If by death eternal misery were intended,
this statement would be historically false ; for the heathen at large have never
known that to be the just judgment of God, dtKa'tufta. But if we interpret the
passage so as to understand the term death literally, the language of the apostle
becomes at once, satisfactory. For the heathen knew this. They were * with-
out hope/ being ' without God in the world. '
Rom. ii. 6, 7. ' God will render to every man according to his deeds : to
them who, by patient continuance in well doing, seek for glory, honour, and
incorruption of nature, eternal life. ' Ch. vi. 23 : ' For the wages of sin is
ON HYPOTHESIS OF LIFE IN CHRIST ONLY. 383
death, but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.' In
these passages, Incorruption and Death are declared to be the respective de-
stinies of the righteous and the wicked : and it is conveyed in the strongest
manner, that ' incorruption ' is the * gift of God ' to the godly alone.
Rom. viii. 13. 'If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die (/tsXXere a.TroQvi]<rKiiv,
translated, John iv. 47, on the point of death) ; but if ye, through the Spirit, do
mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.' The insertion of a phrase ex-
pressly adapted to indicate a speedy dissolution, * ye are about to die,' suggests
a literal sense for the words that follow, ' ye shall live.'
I Cor. iii. 14. ' If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he
shall receive a reward : if any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer
loss. ' This warning, directed against the admission of unholy persons into
Christian communion, seems to represent such unsuitable characters as mere
4 wood, hay, stubble,' which would not be able to endure or abide the trial by
fire at the last great day : therefore it follows, ' If any man defile the temple
of God, him shall God destroy.'
Gal. vi. 8. ' He that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption,'
tyQopdv.* The term corruption, in Greek and in English, has two significa-
tions, moral depravity, and literal destruction of life. In the present
instance, the first of these meanings cannot be intended by the apostle, for it
will offer no congruous sense to say, He that soweth to the flesh, shall of the
flesh reap depravity. The term, therefore, in this place, signifies literal death.
Thus the same word is used, Rom. viii. 21 ; I Cor. xv. 42-50 ; Col. ii. 22.
See note on 2 Peter ii. 12, p. 384. The whole verse will then present an
intelligible statement. ' He that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap
utter death ; but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life
everlasting.'
\ Tim. vi. 9. ' But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare,
and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and
perdition ; ' etj oXtOpov /cat ctTrwXetaj/. As the Greek language does not afford
two stronger expressions than these for denoting the idea of literal death and
extinction of being, it requires a large amount of evidence to prove that they
were intended by S. Paul to convey the idea of indestructible existence in
torment.
Hebrews x. 26-31. 'If we sin wilfully after that we have received the
knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain
fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour
* A stronger form of the same word is employed to denote the chemical
breaking up of the frame, ia<f>Qopa (Acts xiii. 34). That <j)9opd was one of the
most usual words to denote corruptibility, or evanescence may be seen in
Irenseus ; who, in disputing against the Gnostics, constantly uses this word to
denote the literal perishing of souls. In this sense also it is used by Plato, 40x5
A.c.,and by Athanasius, A.D. 350, covering a space of 750 years. Seethe
titation from Athanasius, in ch. xxvi.
384 PASSAGES OF NEW TESTAMENT EXPLAINED
(I<r0ieii/, eat up) the adversary. He that despised Moses' law dud without mercy
under two or three witnesses : of how much sorer punishment suppose ye shall
he be thought worthy who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath
counted the blood of the covenant wherewith He was sanctified an unholy
thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace ? For we know Him
that hath said, Vengeance is mine, I will recompense, saith the Lord. ... It
is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God.'
It is evident that this passage is intended to strike an awful alarm into the
hearts of those who are disobedient to the call of Christ ; and the language is
well fitted to excite the utmost apprehensions in the hearts of those who are
' doing despite to the Spirit of grace.' The principle which is established by
these verses is, that the severity of the punishment which is to follow the rejec-
tion of the gospel economy is to be estimated by a consideration of the greater
guilt of despising a gospel of mercy, proclaimed by a Divine Mediator, in
comparison with the heinousness of despising a divine law, proclaimed by a
mortal. Now the usual reply to the inquiry, ' Of how much sorer punishment
suppose ye,' etc.? is, an infinite, an eternal infliction of suffering. Without
diminishing the real terror of the question, it must be suggested that this reply
proceeds upon a contemplation solely of the dignities of the persons of Moses
and Christ, in which, certainly, there is a boundless difference. But there is
one other consideration to be attended to, which will prove the invalidity of
the common conclusion. The law of Moses was the law of God : and therefore
the real comparison to be made is between the guilt of despising the Divine
Law and the Divine Gospel : and while, on the one hand, it is evident that
the punishment for rejecting the gospel of the Son of God will be much more
severe than that for despising His law ; yet, since, on the other hand, the
penalty of God's law was a literal, though terrible death, it seems to confound
all moral sense of proportion to pronounce that the penalty for rejecting the
offer of mercy should be infinitely more tremendous than that, being, in fact,
to suffer through endless duration the torment of ' fire.' What is this but to
assert that the sanctions of the Divine Justice are infinitely less terrible than
the sanctions of the Divine Mercy ; or rather that it is an infinitely less terrible
thing to affront the majesty of God's righteousness than it is to reject the offers
of His love ?
2 Peter ii. 12. ' These, as (wg) natural brute beasts, made for capture and
extinction, yeytvvrjukva tie liXwatv ccu $0opav, speak evil of the things which
they understand not, and shall utterly perish in their extinction, kv ry 00opp
avruv Ka.Ta<})Qapri<TovTai.' Evil men did not resemble beasts in evil speaking,
but they resemble them in irrationality, and will be like them in their destiny.
The beasts are made or born for 00opdt>, extinction, and wicked men will suffer
$9opav also (Gal. vi) ; but if this word signified endless misery, it could not be
said that the 'natural irrational brutes' were ' made ' for that. This is decisive
proof that <p9opa stands for extinction in the apostolic writings, as it does in
the writings of Plato, and in those of Irenaeus and Athanasius in the Christian
literature.
I John ii. 17. * The world pas seth away, irapaytrai, and the lust thereof;
but he that doeth the will of God abidethfor ever' The ' passing away ' of the
ON THE HYPOTHESIS OF LIFE IN CHRIST. 385
world, and the 'abiding for ever ' of the servants of God, are contrasts which
establish the literal interpretation of the subsequent words, ' He that hath not
the Son of God hath not the life.'
Jude 5, 7. 'I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew
this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt,
afterwards destroyed them that believed not ..... Even as Sodom and
Gomorrah and the cities about them in like manner giving themselves over to
fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering
the vengeance of eternal fire' (TrpoKtivrai fitly pa Trupot; aiwviov SiKrjv vTrt^ovrrat.)
1 That this is not spoken ' (says Whitby) ' of the cities themselves, but of the in-
habitants which dwelt in them, is evident ; but yet I conceive they are said to
suffer the vengeance of eternal fire, not because their souls are at present
suffering punishment in hell fire, but because they and their cities perished by
that fire from heaven which brought a perpetual, irreparable destruction on
them and their cities.' 'To fitly pa, an example, is to be taken from some-
thing visible to, or knowable by, all who were to be terrified by it, especially
when it is an example set forth or manifested. Now, such was not the punish-
ment of the souls in hell ; but nothing was more celebrated among ancient
authors than the history of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.' ' The
reduction of those cities with their inhabitants to ashes, is mentioned as the
thing which placed them as an example of God's vengeance on the ungodly to
all future ages ; nor could anything be a more fit example of it ; for since
Peter hath informed us that the heavens and earth which now are, are reserved
unto fire against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men, when
the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up, what could be a
more exact emblem of that day when the elements shall melt into a lake of
fire, and the ungodly shall be cast into it ? Nor is there anything more common
and familiar in Scripture than to represent a thorough and irreparable vastation,
ivhose effects and signs should be still remaining, by the word aiwvioQ, which lue
have rendered eternal. "I will make thee a perpetual desolation" (aiwviov
, Ezek. xxvi. 21), and often elsewhere.'
Rev. ii. 7. 'To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life,
which is in the midst of the Paradise of God. ' What was to be the conse-
quence of this to Adam ? ' Living for ever ' (Gen. iii. 22). What was on the
contrary, the opposite consequence of being deprived of the right to the tree of
life ? Eternal misery ? No : ' returning unto the ground whence he was
taken ; ' 'for dust thou art,' said the Almighty, not an ' Eternal Being,' ' and
unto dust shall thou return. So He drove out the man. ' Therefore, we argue,
all who are not admitted to the tree of life, by the second Adam, the Life-
giving Spirit, abide in death, the doom of the first, and 'have no life in them.'
' Man that is in honour and understandeth not, is like the beasts which perish '
(Psalm xlix.). ' When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers
of iniquity do flourish, it is that they shall be destroyed for ever* (Psalm xcii.).
Rev. iii. 5. 'He that overcometh, the sacne shall be clothed in white
25
3 86 DR. PETAVELS TABLE OF VERBS
raiment, and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life. ' This implies
that it is there at present ; but it refers to one which, by possibility, might not
be there some day : consequently to a bad man, not one whose 'name was
written before the foundation of the world,' in the book of life of the ' Lamb
which was slain,' which contains the names of the finally saved (Rev. xiii. 8).
But the book of life, in which all other names could be, can be no other than
the book of the living, or those who exist ; not the book of those who are
' spiritual ' or ' happy,' but of those who are alive. Hence, to be ' blotted
from the book of life ' is loss of existence ; as also to be written in the book
of life of the Lamb, is to ' live for ever.'
Rev. xxi. 8. ' All liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with
fire and brimstone ; which is the second death.' It cannot be said to be a
second death, unless it be a doom bearing some likeness to z. first death. There
is no generic likeness whatever between corporeal dissolution, the breaking up
of human nature, and the everlasting suffering of a living body and soul : but
there is a strong likeness between the mortality of man upon earth, and his
second death at the judgment, when ' both body and soul will be destroyed in
Gehenna.' The latter may reasonably bear the fearful title of the Second
Death ; whereas if neither body nor soul is ever to die again, death was the
last word that was fitted to express that idea. Our Lord is represented by S.
Luke (xvii. 29) as pointing out the result of punishment by 'fire and brimstone,'
viz., that the sulphureous rain ' destroyed them all !' ' Even thus,' He adds,
' shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.'
NOTE.
I subjoin the following synoptical table of Hebrew verbs used in the
Old Testament signifying to destroy r , with their equivalents in the LXX. and
N. T., which will form a valuable addition to the extracts from the Phadon
given in a former page of this chapter. I am indebted for this to Dr. Em-
manuel Petavel, whose book, The Struggle for Eternal Life, is a condensed
summary of critical and theological evidence on the general subject : Kellaway,
1875. This accomplished scholar has also, in the French version of his work,
effectually opened the controversy among the churches of continental Europe.
La Fin du Mai : Sandoz et Fischbacher, Paris, 1872.
IN the Hebrew tongue there are no less than fifty roots, meaning, habitually
or occasionally, to destroy ; most of which are used in the Old Testament to
specify the ultimate doom of the wicked. Many of them denote absolute
suppression or abolition ; some are strictly images, but all point in the same
direction. (See Gesenius, Fuerst, etc., and the " English and Hebrew Lexi-
con " of Selig Newman, on the word to annihilate.} In fact, it is certain that
the Hebrew language has no stronger terms to express a ceasing to be what we
call annihilation than those used respecting the fate of the wicked. The
plain teaching of the Old Testament on this subject is endorsed by Jesus
and His apostles ; its truth is therefore, as it were, riveted. The corresponding
IN PIE BREW SIGNIFYING TO DESTROY: 387
. terms of the New Testament are ordinarily borrowed from the Greek Septua-
gint translation of the Old Testament, and likewise distinctly foretell the
extinction of all evil and evil doers. " The majority of these nouns and verbs
are used by Plato again and again in the Phaeton, a dialogue on Immortality ,
expressly for the purpose of conveying the idea of the literal destruction or
extinction of the soul. They are precisely the terms generally chosen in the
New Testament to denote the punishment of the wicked, with this difference :
that Plato says the soul will not suffer 9a.va.TOQ, dTrwXfia, oXt^poc, $$0joa, that it
is not destined to cnroXtaQai, Kara^QtipiaQai, a7ro9vr]ffKtiv ; while the New
Testament writers declare that wicked men shall suffer what is denoted by
these terms." We are therefore able to state, concerning the Greek, what we
have said concerning the Hebrew, that the authors of the Greek New Tes-
tament have used the strongest terms at their command, to assert a total
extinction of both evil and evil doers. The verbs IZovdevow and tZovBevtw,
which seem more literally to answer to our word " annihilate," are all but
exclusively used with the tropical meaning of "to treat with utmost contempt."
In the Septuagint, however, they are found with the meaning of "bringing
to nought," for instance, in Psalm cviii. 14 (numbered cvii. 13 in the Greek);
in the Vulgate : "Ad nihilum deducet," " He will reduce to nothingness."
In the following quotations, some Greek words refer exclusively to the
Septuagint. With reference to Hebrew verbs, it will be found sufficient for
practical purposes to mention the stem word or chief ground form. On
account of the many inaccuracies of the usual version, the reader will find it
desirable, if possible, to refer to the original texts, in which case the figures
within brackets will facilitate his research. The quotations within parentheses,
though not referring to conscious beings, are intended to point out the proper
'meaning of certain words.
This table, long as it is, might be greatly enlarged. Many illustrations,
symbolical expressions, and suggestive phrases might also be cited. We trust,
however, that, after having gone carefully through the present table, the
honest inquirer will find it sufficient proof in support of our statements. It
seems to us as if the sacred writers had exhausted their vocabulary in order to
convey what is contended for.
To ANATHEMATISE, to devote, to doom to destruction. See To CUT OFF.
To ANNIHILATE, to bring to nought. See also To DESTROY, To LOSE,
To PERISH, etc. 1?3> fjio HDD , rqti nnst, aQaviZw* kXeiTrw, Gen. xviii. 23;
Deut. xxxii. 26 ; (Est. ix. 28) ; Job xxii. 20 ; Psa. Ixxiii. 19 ; xciv. 23 ; ci. 8 ;
cxix. 119; Is. Ixvi. 17 ; Zeph. i. 2 ; cr TUN ware pr) virapxiiv a#rovc, Psa.
civ. 35 ; DD:n p4p, we OVK ovrtg Kal OVK taovrat, Isa. xxix. 20; xli. n, 12 ;
comp. Rev. xviii. 21 ; (Matt. vi. 20 ; Heb. viii. 13); Acts xiii. 41 ; vrr te vm,
Ka9oj oi>x vTraoxovTtQ, Obad. 16 ; b JH T Isa. xl. (17) 23 ; ty nnuj, the pit of
nought, Isa. xxxviii. 17.
To BLOT OUT OF EXISTENCE. nrra, l^aXa'^w, Gen. vi. 7; vii. 4, 23
tie raff ^v^aQ o \6yog avvaQaviZti ro7 erw^ao't. Joseph.
Antiq. xviii. I, 4.
388 TABLE OF HEBREW VERBS
Dent. xxix. 20; Psa. ix. 5 [6] ; (li. 9 [n]) ; Ixix. 28 [29] ; cix. 13, 14 ; (Col.
11. 14) ; Rev. iii. 5 ; (comp. Luke x. 2O ; Phil. iv. 3). 'A0m;af, the efface-
ment or suppression of sin, Heb. ix. 26.
To BREAK IN PIECES, TO SHIVERS. yp: , yna , ysn , *m . iiti, ?r\ nra
cvvOXdw, avvTpifiwj avyicXdu), Job xxiv. 20 ; xxxiv. 24 ; Psa. ii. 9 ; Ixxii. 4 ;
Ixxxix. 23 [24] ; Isa. viii. 15 ; Matt. xxi. 44 ; Luke xx. 1 8 ; Rev. ii. 27=
To BURN UP. See To CONSUME and To DEVOUR.
To BRUISE. See To GRIND TO POWDER.
To CAST AWAY, OFF. m\> f3d\\<t) ?w, t/c/3aX\w, I Chron. xxviii. 9 ; fli; rfjv
Kapivov TOO 7rvpo t into the furnace of fire, Matt. xiii. 42, 48, 50 ; John xii. 31.
To CONSUME, to devour entirely. con , nte , cr . "Cfa . b\a , dvaXlvKia,
KaravaXiaKM, Karajcaiw, <rwvrX?w, TTU/OOW, Job xxiv. 19 ; Psa. xxxvii. 2O ; lix.
13 [14] ; Ixxiii. 19; xcvii. 3 ; civ. 35 ; Isa. i. 28, 31 ; Jer. xxx. 1 1 ; Mai. iv.
I [iii. 19]; Matt. iii. 12; xiii. 30, 40; 2 Thess. ii. 8 ; Heb. xii. 29 ; Rev.
xviii. 18, 7ryp<o<nc, burning, 9, 18.
To CORRUPT. See To PERISH.
To CRUCIFY, to kill or to annihilate. Dravpow, avaravpod) (Rom. vi. 6 ;
Gal. ii. 20 ; v. 24 ; vi. 14).
To CRUSH. See also To GRIND TO POWDER. wa t%ovcev6u t vvvrpipw,
Psa. Ix. 12 [14]; cviii. 13 [14], ad nihilum dedncet, Vulgate -Isa. xiv. 25;
Matt. xxi. 44; Luke xx. 18 ; Rom. xvi. 20.
To CUT IN SUNDER. See To BREAK IN PIECES.
To CUT OFF, DOWN, to suppress. nns ana VID rrfl . "iro , cnn , m , alplw,
foXo0pvw, 6KKo7rrw, aipu>, t/cjrXaw, dva0f/*ari'a>, Gen. ix. II; Ex. xii. 15, 19;
Lev. xxvii. 29 ; cf. Deut. vii. 25, 26 ; xiii. 15 ; xx. 17 ; Jos. x. 39 ; Judg. xxi. 6;
i Sam. xv. 8, 18 ; (2 Chron. xx. 23); Job xiv. 2 (7) ; Ps. xxxvii. 9, 38 ; liv. 5
[7]; Ixxiii. 27; Ixxv. 10 [ii]; Isa. xxix. 20; xxxiv. 2; xlviii. 19; Nah.
i. 12, 15 ; Matt. iii. 10 ; vii. 19 ; Luke xiii. 7, 9 ; John xv. 2; Acts iii. 23 ; xxiii.
12, 21 ; Rom. xi. 20, 22, 24; Dnn, dvdQipa, devoted, doomed to utter de-
struction, Lev. xxvii. 28 ; Josh. vi. 17 ; Rom. ix. 3.
To DASH IN PIECES. See To BREAK.
To DESTROY. See also To LOSE. note , con , yn: . nps , bnn "n
emphatically used by Plato in order to specify annihilation, civaX/crKw,
/carapyw, t4oXo0pyw, Xvw, a TroXXv/ji, (Deut. vii. 24) ; Psa. liv. 5 [7] ; Ixxiii.
27 ; xcii. 7 [8] ; civ. 35 ; cxlv. 20 ; Prov. xiii. 13 ; (Isa. xlviii. 19) ; Lam. iii.
22 ; Zeph. i. 2 ; Matt. (v. 29, 30) ; x. 28 ; xxvii. 20 ; Rom. vi. 6 ; vii. 6 ;
I Cor. (i. 19, 28; vi. 13 ; xiii. 8, 10); ii. 6 ; v. 5 ; xv. 24, 26 ; (2 Cor. iii. 7, 14) ;
Gal. v. (ii) 15 ; i Thess. v. 3 ; 2 Thess. i. 9 ; ii. 8 ; i Tim. vi. 9 ; 2 Tim. i.
10 (comp. Rev. xxi. 4, "no more death"); Heb. ii. 14; (James i. ii) ; i
John iii. 8. Abaddon, Apollyon, the Destroyer, Rev. ix. ri (cf. John viii. 44).
To DEVOUR, to eat up. See also To SWALLOW UP. b? Ifffl/w, KanoOiwi
/corr0aya>, avvTtXib), Deut. vii. 16; Isa. i. 20; Hos. xiii. 8 ; Heb. x. 27;
Rev. xi. 5 : xx. 9.
To DIE, to come to nothing, to cease to be (with regard either to the bodily
life alone or to certain activities of the soul, or both to the body and to the
soul). mo, 3n|f dTroBvrjffKdJ, dTTO-ylvofiai. "I must find another argument
\vhich will assure me that, when the man dies, the soul dies not with him "
SIGNIFYING 'TO DESTROYS 389
(ovvcnroQvi)<?Kti}. Phado, xxxviii. Isa. xxii. 13 ; Zech. xiii. 8 ; John v. 24 ;
vi. 50; viii. 24 : Rom. vii. 6, 10 ; viii. 13 ; I Cor. xv. 22, 32 ; (Gal. ii. 19) ;
Eph. ii. I, 5 ; Phil. ii. 27 ; I Peter ii. 24 ; rno, Qavaroq, death : gradual or com-
plete, apparent or real, proleptic or effective loss of life ; absolutely, the ex-
tinction either of the bodily life or of the whole human being. Deut. xxx. 15;
Rom. vi. 16, 21, 23 ; vii. 5 ; James i. 15 ; y. 20 ; I John iii. 14 ; Rev. xxi. 8 ;
aTtuAcuh violent death, Acts xxv. 16 ; vtKpos, dead, out of existence (James ii.
17, 20, 26).
To DISSOLVE. See To LOSE, To PERTSH.
To DROWN. rip, 2p\, fivOtfa, vavaytw, Psa. ix. 15 [16] ; Ixxv. 3 ; Jer. Ii.
64 ; I Tim. i. 19 ; vi. 9 ; 2 Peter iii. II, 12.
To EAT UP. See To DEVOUR.
To EXTERMINATE. See To CUT OFF.
To EXTINGUISH. -qyi, nja, or/Sli/i/upi, Job xviii. 5 ; xxi. 17 Psalm cxviii.
12 ; Prov. xx. 20 ; xxiv. 20 ; Isa. xliii. 17.
To FALL. See also RUIN. bC2, TTITTTW, Psa. xxxvi. 12 [13] ; Matt. vii. 27 ;
Luke vi. 49.
To GRIND TO POWDER. See also To BREAK, To CRUSH. -we . ppi, pnir
Xt/c/Ltftw, XtirTvvu), (2 Kings xxiii. 6) ; Job xxvii. 21; Psa. xviii. 42 [43] ; Dan.
11. 44 ; Matt. xxi. 44 ; Luke xx. 18.
To KILL OUTRIGHT, to put to death, to put an end to. The middle voice
is used interchangeably with To DIE and its derivatives (to put an end to, with
reference either to the body or to certain activities of the soul, or both to the
body and to the soul). See also To CRUCIFY. :nn, VtDp, CLTTOKTI ivw, dnoXXvfii,
GavaTou, ve*cpow, Kara<r0arrw, dvaiptw, Gvti), Ps. Ixxviii. 31 ; cxxxix. 19 ; Dan.
vii. ii ; Matt. x. 28 ; xxi. 41 ; xxii. 7 ; Mark xii. 9 ; Luke xix. 27 (comp. xx.
36 ;) John x. 10 ; Rom. vii. ii ; viii. 13 ; (Heb. x. 9); 2 Cor. iii. 6 ; Col. iii. 5 ;
Rev. ii. 23 ; dvOpuTTOKTovog, homicide, John viii. 44.
LIFE, LIFE EVERLASTING, u>>j, wr} aluviog ; the impenitent sinner shall
NOT see it, have it : John iii. 36 ; v. 40 ; Acts' xiii. 46 ; i John iii. 15 ; v. 12.
To LOSE LIFE, to be lost, to cease to exist, to come to an end. ins, diroX-
Xu/u, Abaddon, Apollyon (the destroyer) ; dir&Xeia (destruction), Ezra vii. 26;
Esther viii. 6 ; Job xx. 7 ; Psa. ix. 5 : xcii. 9 [10] ; (cii. 26 [27]) ; cxlvi. 4 ;
Prov. xxvii. 20; Tsa. xxvi. 14; xxix. 14; Jer. xlvi. 28; Ezek. xxii. 27;
Dan. vii. n, 26 ; Matt. (v. 29, 30) ; vii. 13 ; Mark iv. 38 ; (xiv. 4 ; John vi.
12, 27); xi. 42; xvii. 12; Acts viii. 20 ; (xxv. 16) ; Rom. ix. 22, "vessels
fitted (or vases ready) for destruction" ; (i Cor. xv. 18) ; Phil. iii. 19 ; 2 Thess.
ii. 3 ; i Tim. vi. 9 ; (Heb. i. n) ; 2 Peter ii. i, 3 ; iii. 7, 16 ; Rev. xvii. 8, n.
To MELT AWAY, Dpn f rqico/mi, ia\vo/iai, kZovStvovpai, Psa. Iviii. 7 [8] ;
cxii. 10.
To OVERTHROW, to overturn. yn3 , 7]prr i Din KaBaipku, <rvj/rapa(r<ra, <j>9e i'pw,
Psa. xxviii. 5; Iii. 5 [7] ; cxliv. 6 ; Prov. xii. 7 ; Jer. i. 10; Luke i. 52.
PERDITION. See To PERISH and To LOSE.
To PERISH, to corrupt, to perish utterly, to putrefy, nnitf' pp^ 00a'/ow,
diatyOiipw, ia(t>9opa, *ara00t'pw, arroXXvp, Lev. xxvi. 39; Psa. Iv. 23 [24];
(Matt. v. 30) ; Acts xiii. 34; Gal. vi. 8 ; i Cor. iii. 17 ; (xv. 18 : 2 Cor. iv.
1 6) ; 2 Peter i. 4 ; ii. 12 ; Rev. xi. 18.
390 VERBS SIGNIFYING 'TO DESTROY:
To QUENCH. Sec To EXTINGUISH.
To ROOT OUT. tJ-TSJ, HD2, erriXXw, Kpiou>, Psa. Hi. 5 [7] ; Prov. ii. 22 ;
Jude 12.
RUIN. Ti nic> /cara.-rpo^ry, Trrwtrtf, pjjypa^job xxi. 17; xxxi. 3; Isa.
x. 3 ; Matt. vii. 27 ; Luke vi. 49 ; 2 Cor. x. 8 ; xiii. 10.
To SHATTER. See To BREAK IN PIECES.
To SLAY. See To KILL OUTRIGHT.
To SWALLOW UP. rV|' ftW* Karcnrivw, Job ii. 3 (Psa. cvii. 27); Isa. xxv. 8;
xlii. 14 ; I Cor. xv. 54 ; i Peter v. 8.
To UNDO. See To LOSE LIFE, To DESTROY.
391
CHAPTER XXV.
EXAMINATION OF THE PRINCIPAL SCRIPTURE TEXTS SUPPOSED
TO TEACH THE EVERLASTING DURATION OF SIN AND MISERY.
' The evidence accompanying the popular interpretation (of the doctrine of
eternal suffering) is by no means to be compared to that which establishes our
common Christianity : and therefore the fate of the Christian religion is not to
be considered as implicated in the belief or disbelief of the popular doctrine.'
ROBERT HALL, Works, v. 529.
IT is well known, notwithstanding the preceding arguments, that
there are three or four passages in the reports of Christ's dis-
courses, and two in the Apocalypse, which are considered by
many pious and able men to contain statements so precise, dis-
tinct, and decisive, in affirmation of the awful doctrine of the
eternal suffering of the wicked, as to compel us to affix a corre-
sponding meaning to the whole mass of prophetic and apostolic
language, which, it is generally admitted, must otherwise bear the
sense which we have imputed to it.
The question is whether these few passages, taken in the
popular sense, are to give the law to the interpretation of the
general current of Scripture language on future punishment ; or
whether the plain and natural sense of this general language is to
determine the force of the few disputed quotations.
Before proceeding to examine these well-known ' texts,' it is
proper to take note of a habit of the mind which is as likely to
affect those who are conscientiously opposed to us as ourselves.
The eye looks, but it is the mind that sees ; and when the mind
contemplates phenomena under a preoccupation of thought, it
interprets them in the light of its own idea : so that unless that
general idea be a right one its view of every phenomenon is in
some measure perverted. This is not less true of the study
392 INFLUENCE OF PRECONCEPTION.
of Nature than of Scripture. So long as men were convinced
that every word of the Bible was a distinct revelation from
God, that there was no element of human limitation in its
pages, and therefore that its statements on the visible universe
were of as much authority as its declarations respecting re-
demption, they looked upon the heavens not only with the out-
ward eye of sense, but with the inner eye of faith in the Ptolemaic
astronomy, which makes the earth a plane, and the centre around
which revolve sun, moon, and stars, a view of matters confirmed
to the observer both by his senses and by the ' authority of Holy
Writ.'
So long as men thus looked on the earth and heavens, every
phenomenon was interpreted in the light of the general theory.
And we are now aware how wrongly men saw what they so beheld
in the creation. The same thing happened with respect to the
strata of the crust of the earth. So long as men observed with
eyes which were forbidden to see anything in the world beyond
the six days' work of Genesis, and a recent creation of all things,
they surveyed the mighty congeries of rocks and fossils with an
eye as good as blind.
The same law of vision applies to the study of the Bible itself.
So long as men read it with minds that recognise in every writer
a mechanical instrument through which ' the Holy Spirit ' has
written a certain number of equally infallible 'texts,' it is im-
possible they can allow themselves even to see the discrepancies
and omissions of a minor sort, which have crept into the writings
of some of the holy and honest men who have ' taken in hand '
to write for us the history of Redemption and of the Redeemer.
It becomes a part of piety not to study phenomena so unedifying,
and so fatal to the preconceived theory of what an infallible Bible
ought to be.
And so long as men look on the Bible a priori, as a series of
writings given to a world of ' immortal creatures ' to teach them
how to escape from eternal misery, and to gain everlasting glory,
half its contents will receive a tinge, or an interpretation, corre-
sponding with that theory of Divine Government ; which is found
not to belong to them, when once the experiment is tried of
reading the Bible through on another theory. The effect then
produced resembles the sudden flooding with sunshine of a thick
MODES OF CITING SCRIPTURE. 393
forest formerly suffused with the darkest shades. And many a
passage once quoted with sincere reverence as evidence of the
eternal duration of sin and misery is seen not only to be capable
of, but to demand, a more luminous and hopeful interpretation.
The indefensible method, moreover, of citing the books of the
Bible as if some one had beheld an angel inditing them in suc-
cession, without consideration of their individual history, of the
degree of confidence due to the fulness of each writer's informa-
tion, of the positive marks of defective knowledge, or misconcep-
tion in some, will serve the cause of truth no longer. We may
read, for example, with general confidence the gospel of Matthew,
whether a Greek original, as Dr. Roberts maintains, or a trans-
lation from the Hebrew, as Dr. Tregelles, after the fathers, affirms,
notwithstanding the omission of one sentence in the middle of
Christ's last discourse on Olivet (the same discussion in which
later occurs the KoAao-ii/ atoWov of xxv. 46) an omission supplied
by S. Luke (xxi. 24), ' And Jerusalem shall be trodden down by
the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled' And in
consequence of that fault of S. Matthew, or his Greek translator,
we shall not unduly question the accuracy of the other reports of
Christ's teaching in this Gospel. Nevertheless it is certain that
that omission, leaving the discourse to end with the unqualified
words, ' Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass till
all these things be fulfilled] xxiv. 34, has thereby created one of
the chief stumbling-blocks to faith in the New Testament, it
being clear that Christ's second advent did not occur in ' that
generation,' but will take place at the end of those ' times of the
Gentiles,' our Lord's reference to which S. Matthew unwittingly
omitted, and S. Luke has happily supplied.
I cannot conceal my conviction that the path of duty and of
wisdom in dealing with such documents as the gospels demands
this practical conclusion : If they offer to us any statements of
Christ's doctrine, by excess or defect conspicuously disagreeing
with the facts, or with the plain sense of His teaching as recorded
by the same or other historians, resolutely to refuse to allow such
exceptional misreports or omissions to interfere with the truth
which has been learned by a wider survey of the evidence.
In a large collection of books, the works of authors living in
different ages, through fifteen centuries, at different distances from
394 GENERAL IDEA OF INSPIRATION.
God, enjoying different measures of that afflatus which sometimes
lifted up a prophet to the third heaven, and sometimes only to
the first, and sometimes left him. to obtain, like S. Luke, a 'perfect
understanding ' by personal inquiry, it is vain to anticipate a
uniform terminology in doctrine, or an equal comprehension of
the truths of redemption. The expectation of reasonable readers
must be restricted to ascertaining the general sense of the books of
Scripture, taken as a whole, and that general sense lies doubtless
on the surface, in words taken in their obvious signification by
honest readers.
It forms no part of the present writer's belief that each contri-
bution to the collection which we combine in one volume and
call ' the Bible ' has been preserved from every tinge of educa-
tional thought, from every defect in statement, from every reflec-
tion of surrounding opinion or faith. The receiving mind
somewhat colours perhaps every communication. There is a
certain allowance to be made for every religious as well as
astronomical observer's eye. S. Matthew did not altogether see
the same Christ with S. John ; S. John saw a far diviner Christ
than he. Our single hope of true knowledge is by comparison
and careful criticism of the whole record.
It is matter of notoriety, moreover, that almost every fact in
Christ's life is received by us under a slight fractional difficulty in
the evidence arising from the differing statements and silences of
the evangelical reporters. The greatest fact of all, the Resurrec-
tion of Christ, we believe, not because there exists any single
perfectly coherent digest of testimonies concerning it in the New
Testament ; but because the general result of all the testimonies
converges to that centre, and removes the partial difficulty which
each narrative taken alone might suggest to the mind.
The same rule applies to doctrine. There is no general dogma of
faith deducible from the Bible, which it is not necessary to believe
under fractional difficulties of interpretation. If we hold to the Tri-
unity in the Godhead, it is not because that truth is taught at all in
the Old Testament, or very systematically even in the New. If we
maintain the personal Deity of Christ, it is not because it is easy to
understand S. Mark's most exceptional report (xiii. 32) that * The
Son of Man knew not the hour of His coming.' If we hold to
the Pauline statement on Justification, it is not because S. James
THE RULE OF INTERPRETATION. 395
has very carefully conformed his elementary terminology to that of
his brother apostles, or because S. James has spoken even once
of the Atonement. If we hold to the doctrine of individual
election to salvation, it is not because there is not a whole array
of ' texts ' which seem strongly to favour the advocates of general
redemption ; or if we hold to this, it is not because the Calvinists
can discover nothing in support of the five points of their theology
in the body of the Scripture.
Thus is it also in relation to the subjects which have occupied
the present volume. There are a few scattered passages which,
taken alone, and much more taken together, may well seem to
countenance the established theology. When such expressions,
in the favourite style of religious controversialists, are extracted,
tabulated, and presented in one view, without respect to masses
of different phraseology, they offer the appearance of a battery
ready to shatter to atoms the argument developed in these pages.
We are not careful to answer such assailants. Each of these
' texts ' requires to be examined in its own terms, in its own con-
nection, and in its own place as an extract from a book with a
special history. And all such 'texts 'have then to be further tried
in the light of the general doctrine of the book in which they
occur, and of the whole Bible. And for our own part, we are
well resolved that no isolated ' text ' of any synoptic gospel shall
overthrow our faith in the lessons learned from the massive records
of a Revelation extending from one end of man's history to the
other, and specially from the writings of those great apostles of
Christianity, S. Peter and S. Paul in their letters, and S. John in
his gospel and epistles. In those great authentic records of ' the
whole truth ' promised by the Holy Spirit, there is, at all events,
not a trace of any other doctrine except that of Eternal Life in
Christ only, and the final destruction of the unsaved/ 1 ' or of any
expression which can with any semblance of reason be perverted
into teaching the opposite.
MATTHEW xxv. 46.
In proceeding to examine the principal passages in the New
* See this, as respects S. Paul, popularly demonstrated in Pauline Theology ',
a small work by Mr. Hastings of Boston, U. S. E. Stock, London.
396 NOTE ON THE READING IN ' VETUS 1TALAS
Testament considered to teach unequivocally the doctrine of
endless" misery, and therefore to overthrow the fabric of the pre-
ceding argument, the first in order is the great text of Matt. xxv.
41, 46 : * Then shall He say unto them on the left hand, Depart
from me, ye cursed, into the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and
his angels . . . And these shall go away into everlasting punish-
ment (et<j KoXacnv utojviov), but the rigJiteous unto life eternal?
The first question to be regarded is the Greek text, the second
the English version, and the third the signification of the words.
(i.) In respect to the Greek text, there is absolutely no various
reading of any account in the most ancient manuscripts ; but it
must always be remembered that the nearly uniform testimony of
antiquity is that the original of Matthew's gospel was in Hebrew,
and that it is uncertain how much of authority attaches to any
particular expression in the Greek translation. It is this which
renders it specially hazardous to build any system of theology on
a single phrase in the Greek of this gospel. We shall, however,
treat this passage on the supposition that the Greek was the
original, and that Matthew wrote what we find in these expres-
sions."
* At the same time the fact deserves to be mentioned not as a basis of argu-
ment but as a matter of interest, and those who know the weight assigned by
Von Tischendorf to similar examples will be ready to allow it a certain degree
of importance, that the two most ancient, and several more modern, manuscripts
of the Italic Version, or ancient Latin translation of the New Testament, in
popular use in Italy, in Spain, and in Africa from the middle of the second
century, before Jerome's Vulgate appeared at the end of the fourth, here have
distinctly, in verse 46, ' These shall go away adignetn aternum, into the eternal
fire,' not ad suppllcium tzternum, into eternal punishment. These MS S. are
the codices of Verona and Vercelli, of the old or ' unrevised ' text of the fourth
century, and were transcribed and edited by Bianchini, librarian of Verona, in
1740. The first sumptuous uncial codex (in the Cathedral library of Verona),
in which I have verified this reading by personal examination, belongs to the
end of the fourth century ; the second, transcribed by the hand of Eusebius,
the bishop of Vercelti, also belongs to the fourth century. See Dr. Westcott's
exhaustive article on the Latin versions, Smith's Dictionary, vol. iii. p. 1692.
The recurrence of the same remarkable reading in two MSS., by different
hands, shows that it cannot be attributed to a slip by a single copyist, but was
the received reading among the Latin populations.
The Latin populations of Italy, Africa, and Spain, so far as evidence re-
mains to us, from the second century onwards, until the days of Jerome, did
not read, ' these shall go away into everlasting punishment J but into eternal
MEANING OF l AIONIOS: 397
(ii.) The English version of the phrase in question requires
to be amended in order to bring it into exact correspondence
with the original. There is no reason why the alwiov should
not be translated by the same word in both members of the
clause, and in the same order. The clause will then in every
respect answer to the Greek. ' These shall go away to punish-
ment eternal, and the righteous to life eternal? The English
adjective everlasting is a good deal stronger in many cases
than the word eternal. That which is eternal is not always
an everlasting process. Eternal judgment is not everlasting
judging, but the eternal effect of a judgment. Eternal re-
demption is not everlasting redeeming, but an eternal effect of
an act of redemption. So an eternal punishment may be not
everlasting punishing, but the eternal effect of an act of punish-
ment, and we have no right to prejudge this question by an
over- forcible rendering of the adjective.
It is easy to distinguish this observation from a criticism
designed to make out different senses as to duration in the use
of aiconos in the two clauses. Of the ninety widely different
subjects to which the Scripture writers apply terms which occa-
sionally take the sense of endlessness, in seventy instances they
are confessedly of a limited and temporary nature. This
suffices to prove (i) that the radical meaning of these words is
not endlessness, but a hidden duration, and (2) that the question
whether they are to be taken in a limited or unlimited sense
depends on the nature of the subject to which they are applied,
Unless, therefore, the absolute eternity of misery can be esta-
blished from extrinsic reasons, such as the immortality of the
sinner, or from the nature of the doom threatened involving
consciousness, the adjective of duration connected with the
sinner's punishment would not alone suffice to prove his endless
misery. In fact it is so used only two or three times in the New
Testament. There are cases where, as in Rom. xvi. 25, 26, the
word is taken in the two different senses, one limited, one infinite,
within the same sentence, ' The mystery kept secret in " ancient
times " (xpoVois cuwwois), but now made manifest, according
fire. The difference is, that the one word expresses only the perpetuity of the
instrument of destruction, the other denotes a final effect of some sort on
the subjects of the infliction, without fixing the nature of the effect.
398 KEY TO MATT. XXV. 46.
to the commandment of the eternal God ' (aiwn'ou). But I
am not disposed to found an argument on such a basis in the
passage before us. The ' punishment,' of whatever nature, is
described in the same terms, as the ' life ; ' and the object of the
passage certainly seems to be to convey the idea that the righteous
and the wicked here spoken of alike will reach a result which is a
final settlement of their destiny.
(iii.) Lastly, the question comes, What did the writer intend by
the words ' punishment eternal ' ? Did he unequivocally intend
everlasting suffering, or did he intend an awful punishment, posi-
tive and privative, extending in its results to eternity, a miserable
death, the opposite of the life of the righteous ?
No one with the fear of God before his eyes can doubt that
the main design of Christ in these closing words of His dis-
course on the Mount of Olives, as throughout all His teaching,
was to raise in the minds of His servants and ministers a
soul-terrifying conception as to the future punishment of the
persons chiefly aimed at in this final prophecy the wicked
world-rulers and church-governors who should be found in
their evil activity when He the Lord should return from
heaven to take possession of His kingdom. This discourse
(xxiv.-xxv.) does not deal with the judgment of the dead (cf.
Rev. xx. 5, 12), but with the judgment of the 'nations' found
alive at Christ's coming, at the beginning of the Kingdom of God.
It represents Christ's dealings with Antichrist and his satel-
lites, and the rebellious nations, at his Second Advent to
establish God's kingdom on the earth. The parallel prophecy
will be found in Ezekiel's much-neglected description of Je-
hovah's dealings with the ' sheep 'and the goats,' chap, xxxiv.,
when He comes to set up His King, and His kingdom, at the
end of the Kingdom of Darkness. The fate of men living at
the advent will be determined by their treatment of the ' Israel
of God ; ' without ' dying the common death of men ' many of
that generation will go at once into life eternal, or into the
'Gehenna of fire.' The angels shall 'gather out of Christ's
kingdom all things that do iniquity,' and shall ' cast them
into a furnace of fire,' when the Devil and his angels will be
' cast out,' and ' shut up in the abyss ' during the thousand years
w - Christ's reign on earth.
MR. DARBY ON ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. 399
If, then, we can ascertain the doom of those who are cast
into the lake of fire at that time, we may learn the nature of
the ' punishment eternal ' here.
The key to the true interpretation, therefore, is, I believe,
with Mr. J. N. Darby, to be found in the collective statements
of Scripture respecting that awful ' fire the ceonial or eternal '
'prepared for the Devil and his angels,' reserved also as the
special instrument of the judgment for those who have been
his agents in church and state, in persecuting God's people and
deceiving the nations. Mr. J. N. Darby, in his early days,
rightly said :
' It is commonly supposed that the judgment which is spoken of in this
chapter is the last judgment, the general judgment : this is a mistake. It is
the judgment of the nations living upon this earth, and not of the dead. There
is no question of the resurrection, but only of the judgment of the Gentiles.
What will happen to the Jews is mentioned in chapter xxiv., then what will
happen to believers, and then the fate of the Gentiles ; it is the judgment of
the living, and not of the dead. We say it is the judgment of the living,
because we read, "Before Him shall be gathered all nations; and He shall
separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the
goats." That which has given rise to the supposition that it is the judgment
of the dead are these words : " These shall go away into everlasting punish-
ment, but the righteous into life eternal : " but this only means that the judg-
ment of the living will \>zfinal, like that of the dead. When God judges,
whether the dead or the living, His judgment sends the good into life eternal,
and the wicked into everlasting punishment. The judgment of the living is as
sure as that of the dead.' Hopes of the Church, p. 66, first edition.
The leading thought clearly is that there is an unquenchable
fire of whatever nature, prepared as the instrument of judg-
ment for the Devil and his angels who are to be ' tormented
therein,' says S. John, ' for ages of ages ' (ets TOVS atwvas rw
aluvw Rev. xx.) along with 'the beast and the false prophet.'
The perpetuity of the fire signifies at least a duration equal to
any demand that may be made upon its punitive energies.
The fire will not burn itself out, for it represents outwardly the
ever burning and consuming fire of God's Holiness.
But the perpetuity of the fire, on which Christ dwells with
terrible emphasis, while holding out the most awful prospect of
irremediable doom to the chief offenders in the universe, does
not necessarily imply the eternal duration of an object thrown
400 THE SHEEP AND THE GOATS.
into it. Sodom and Gomorrah utterly consumed are, neverthe-
less, ' suffering the vengeance of eternal fire ' (Jude 7). We are told
by S. John that he beheld in vision ' Death and Hades cast into
the lake of fire ' (Rev. xx. 14). These were figurative personages,
who represented the Powers presiding over the Body and the
Soul under the reign of death. And when the saints are glorified
there will be ' no more death.' Death will be ' abolished? Their
being ' cast into the lake of fire,' therefore, indicates not their
everlasting survival in it, but their absolute destruction. Here,
then, we have the answer to the question, What is the meaning of
the ' lake of fire ' ? It is the instrument of destruction, but of
1 destruction ' under different degrees and durations of ' torment.'
The ' beast and the false prophet ' are ' cast alive into the lake of
fire,' at the beginning of the millennium. This is perhaps (if, as
is utterly improbable see Daniel vii. u, 26 individual persons
are symbolised)* the ' greater damnation ' of which Christ speaks,
as following upon the inexpiable crime of teaching lies and of
governing for devilish ends. But these, too, after their * many
stripes,' after their long agony in ' remembrance ' of their sins, are
to burn out of being, under the ' consuming fire ' of God's wrath.
' Who shall pay the penalty, eternal destruction from the presence
of the Lord, when He shall come to be glorified in His saints,'
aiurt'tov oKSpov (2 Thess. i. 8), oA.e#pos being with <f>0opa, 0avaro9,
and ctTrwXeta, the very words chosen by Plato, as well as by the
Christian Fathers, to denote the abolition of being when they
desired to express that idea. The fire of judgment is always a
' consuming fire.' When a fire burns and its fuel is 'not con-
sumed,' as in the Bush of Horeb (Exod. iii. 3), that effect is men-
tioned. But 'the chaff' will be 'burned up' with unquenchable
fire. ' All the wicked will He destroy.' ' Our God is a consuming
fire.'
That the ' punishment eternal ' is for a man to have his part in
' the lake of fire which is the second death,' and to reach final
extinction of life through penal infliction bodily and spiritual,
suited to each man's demerits, we see no reason to question.
The 'tares will be bound 'in different 'bundles to be burned.'
Some will be burnt with a less, and some with a far ' greater
* See Petavel's Struggle for Eternal Life, pp, 73-75,
GENERAL DOCTRINE OF MATTHEW'S GOSPEL. 401
damnation,' 1 " corresponding to the atrocious crimes of the mur-
derers of a world of souls. This is written on the face of the
record of Christ's teaching, and is fitted to ' bring a great fear
upon every soul.' For the ' vengeance ' will be righteous, and the
'indignation ' such as all righteous spirits will approve of ; ' I heard
a great voice of much people in heaven, saying Alleluia ! ' (Rev.
xix. i.)
Such, then, is the interpretation we offer of Matt. xxv. 46, a
text, as it stands in our English Bibles, as well fitted to uphold
the traditional belief as Matt. x. 28 is fitted to overthrow it. It
proceeds on the recognised principle that each book in the Bible
should in the first instance be employed in self-explanation, under
its real character as a separate publication.
What then is the general teaching of S. Matthew's gospel on
future punishment? It is (ch. iii. 10-12) that 'the chaff shall
be burned up with unquenchable fire ; ' that the fruitless tree shall
be ' eut down and cast into the fire ; ' that the wicked man shall
be ' cast into hell-fire,' into a ' prison,' from which he shall ' not
come out till he has paid the uttermost farthing' (v. 26); that
his ' whole body shall be cast into hell, or Gehenna,' a doom
from which he is exhorted to escape by rather allowing ' one of
his members to perish] by being 'cut off'(v. 29 the same word
* I have not thought it necessary to reproduce the plentiful evidence of the
limited senses of ai'wv and en'wvioc, on which I build no leading argument. The
reader will, however, remember that the very belief of the Jewish nation in
Christ depends on their learning to understand the temporary character of those
institutions of Moses which were to be 'for ever ; ' that the hills which ' stand
fast for ever and ever 1 are one day to melt away ; and that God's grace is said
to be given to the Church ' before eternal ages ' (Trpo xpovuv aidiviwv}. The
whole of the New Testament, therefore, is a prolonged comment on the limited
senses of a/wj/iof. Nevertheless it is certainly also used in the sense of time
' hidden, ' or indefinitely long, as perhaps in this threatening of torment to the
Devil, Rev. xx. ; and also in the sense of absolute infinity, as in relation to
God, to everlasting redemption, and to the life eternal. In which sense it is
taken in any passage must be learned by other methods than etymology. Even
a little common sense has its uses in interpreting Scripture. Mr. Clemance, in
his book on Future Punishment, has a useful table of the uses of aiW, and its
adjectives ; Mr. Cox, in his Salvator Mundi, a still abler discussion on the same
subject ; although I cannot think that Christ ever held out to the destined
victims of the unquenchable fire what Mr. Cox translates as an ' ceonial
pruning,' (KoKaaiv di&viov).
26
402 GENERAL DOCTRINE OF S. MATTHEW.
being there used which is elsewhere employed to denote the fate
of the ' whole body ' in Gehenna).
The traveller in the ' broad road ' is threatened with ' destruc-
tion' (aTraiAetav, a common word for death, see Acts xxv. 16),
and loss of 'life' (vii. 13). His doom is likened to the ' great
fall of a house built on sand.' The wicked are said to be ' cast
out into outer darkness, where shall be weeping and gnashing of
teeth' (viii. 12). The demons expected to be ' tormented ' at a
fixed epoch (viii. 29), (also, we read in Mark, to be ' destroyed ').
In x. 15 those who reject the Gospel are threatened with a doom
less 'tolerable in the day of judgment than that of Sodom ; ' and
at the twenty-eighth verse the disciples themselves are warned to
' fear not them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul,
but rather to fear Him that is able to destroy both body and soul
in Gehenna.' (A passage in which it is little better than an
evasion to say that Christ represents only God's ability to do this,
not His intention. In respect to the meaning of aTroAe'o-ai, to
destroy life, in this gospel, we may refer to ii. 13, xxi. 40, 41, xxii.
7, xxvi. 52. The word, indeed, signifies this alone when human
life is the object. It never signifies in Greek to torment only.)
In x. 39, 40, our Lord says that he who ' findeth his life,' by
avoiding martyrdom, ' shall destroy it ; ' that is, he shall lose Jiere-
after the life he saved here. In xii. 32 the sin of attributing Christ's
miracles to magic is declared unpardonable ' either in this world
or in the world to come.' In xiii. 50 the wicked are said to be
' cast into a furnace, where shall be weeping and wailing,' etc. In
xvi. 25 the threat of x. 39 is repeated, that ' whosoever shall wish
to save his life shall lose or destroy IT.' In xviii. 8 the man who
sins is said not to ' enter into life,' but to be ' cast into the eternal
fire/ * into the Gehenna of fire.' In verse 14 the ruin of souls is
called ' perishing.' In verse 34 the unforgiving servant is delivered
to the ' tormentors.' In verse 44 the stone which falls from heaven
'grinds to powder' its object. In xxii. 13 the man without the
wedding garment is ' cast into outer darkness, where is weeping
and gnashing of teeth.' In xxiv. 5 1 the evil servant is ' cut asunder,
and has his portion with the hypocrites, where shall be wailing
and gnashing of teeth.' In xxv. 30 the unprofitable servant is
' cast into the outer darkness ; there shall be weeping and
gnashing of teeth.'
GENERAL DOCTRINE OF S. MATTHEW. 403
These are all the places in which this gospel speaks of future
punishment up to this point. Then comes the description of
judgment at the advent of Christ, when those who had maltreated
Christ's poor are represented as the * goats ' on the left hand, and
receive their sentence, ' Depart, ye cursed, into the eternal fire,
prepared for the devil and his angels.' ' And these shall go away
to punishment eternal, but the righteous to life eternal.' Applying
the orthodox canon of interpretation to these words, we say that
the ' punishment eternal] if S. Matthew is to be his own commen-
tator, is to be ' cast into the eternal fire' (whether that fire be an
objective reality, or only a name for God's justice), fitted therefore
to be the instrument of torment, so long as God wills, for all who
are cast into it. ' There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth ; '
the suffering will be, ' intolerable ; ' the prison one from which
there is no escape, the penalty being capital punishment death,
perishing, destruction of soul and body in Gehenna, loss of life ;
words which bear, in Greek prose, only one signification that
which is self-evident.
If asked, Would such eternal destruction be 'punishment
eternal ' ? we reply, It must be such, if S. Matthew may interpret
his own words. S. Paul decides the question affirmatively (2 Thess.
i. 9) ' Who shall suffer punishment ' (pay the penalty), ' eternal
destruction from the presence of the Lord] 6\0pov auoi/iov.
The punishment of death for sin has a double reference to a
life eternal lost by transgression, under the law, and under the
gospel. The cutting off of a sinner from the opening prospect of
an endless life may truly be called a punishment eternal for its
effects in privation run along the infinite duration of an eternity
which, but for rebellion and unbelief, would have been the scene of an
endless glory. When, therefore, objectors ask Would a man who
has suffered temporal death have suffered ' punishment eternal ' ?
we reply Certainly not ; for it was only a short life which was
forfeited here. But as to the world to come, the loss is infinite
and eternal, God ' not willing that any should perish,' but opening
the gate of immortality to all.
MARK iii. 29,
There are two passages in this gospel which are much relied
on in proof of the doctrine of the immortality of the lost, The
404 ' GUILTY OF AN ETERNAL SIN:
first is on the unpardonable sin, Mark iii. 29. The English version
is, ' He that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never
forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.' The Greek
Text of Tischendorf is as follows : OVK e^et a<eer/ cts TOV aiuwa,
aXXa tvoxos eVrtv aliovtov a/xaprTj/AaTo? * hath not forgiveness for
ever ; but is guilty of (chargeable with) an eternal sin'
It is remarkable that in nearly every passage on which it is
attempted to found the argument for the eternal misery of the
lost, there is a less or greater difficulty in settling the text, or in
reaching the conviction that we read as the author wrote. Here
some manuscripts read /cpcVew?, and some later ones have in-
serted KoAacrews, but the Vatican and the Sinaitic read as above,
tt/x.a/)T*7/zaro?, which is adopted by the latest editors. The evi-
dence, so far as existing manuscripts can guide us, is indeed
decisive. The meaning, whether the exact words were spoken by
our. Lord, or are given in substance by S. Mark after S. Peter, is
clear. All other sins can be forgiven and blotted out. This one
sin of imputing Christ's miracles to devilish magic is unpardonable,
here or hereafter. It is, therefore, an eternal sin to be punished
with its fitting doom in the everlasting fire with ' many stripes,'
and finally with that awful destruction from which there can be
no revival. This sin incurs an irreversible sentence. Thus we
read in the book of Enoch (Laurence's translation), ' They shall
be cast into a judgment of fire ; they shall perish in wrath, and
by a judgment overpowering them for ever.' 'An everlasting
judgment shall be executed, and blasphemers shall be annihilated
everywhere' (chs. xc. 13, xcii. 16). The same form of speech is
met with in the Talmud and the Rabbins. Prof. Hudson (Debt
and Grace} quotes the following from Lightfoot (Centuria Chorog.
c. 15) * If the King of kings shall be angry with me His wrath
is eternal ; if He should slay me His slaying is eternal.' ' The
wicked shall descend into Gehenna and shall then be judged for
ever.' On which Abrabanel remarks, ' Now the greatest retribu-
tion in the world to come, and the heaviest punishment, is exter-
mination' (De Capitc Fidei, c. 24). Maimonides says, ' Heretics
have no share in the world to come, but they are cut off, destroyed,
and condemned for ever and ever.' [And what Maimonides
intended by these words may be seen in the note affixed to the
supplement of chapter xvii., in a previous page.]
'THE WORM THAT DIETH NOT: 405
The wicked man who is raised for eternal judgment is under
the wrath of God. He is represented as crushed for ever beneath
the weight of the authority which he has defied, and his ' eternal
sin ' holds him fast in the bands of death. There is no forgive-
ness for him either under the law or under the Messiah's kingdom,
either in this world or in futurity. The ' wrath of God abideth
on him,' and its sentence will be executed to '* the uttermost farth-
ing.' He will suffer 'everlasting destruction.'
MARK ix. 44-50.
The passage in Mark ix. 44-50 offers another example of an
unfortunate corruption of the text in some passages brought for-
ward in support of the eternal duration of evil. That the suspicion
of an early ' pious ' improvement of the original in the interest of
a more terrific theology is not wholly out of the reckoning appears
from the exhibition of a similar honest zeal even in our own
translation, which reads thus :
43. If thine hand offend thee cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into life
maimed than, having two hands, to go into hell, into th> fire that never shall be
quencfud (e a; TOV ysevvav, tig TO irvp TO dafBtffTov}.
44. Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
45. And if thy foot offend thee cut it off; it is better for thee to enter halt
into life than, having two feet, to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall
be quenched.
46. Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
47. And if thine eye offend thee pluck it out ; it is better for thee to enter
into the Kingdom of God with one eye, than, having two eyes, to be cast into
hell-fire.
48. Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
49. For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted
with salt.
The original state of the text here seems hopelessly doubtful.
Tischendorf omits the repetition of the words in verses 44, 46.
Alford thought them emphatic and characteristic, and retained
them in his Greek Testament ; while marking them as doubtful
in his later English version. The 49th verse rests, under any form,
only on a mass of contradictory evidence on its two clauses. But
it matters not, for no valid argument for immortality in sin and
suffering can be drawn hence under any reading. There is
4 o6 'THE WORM THAT DIETH NOT:
absolutely no excuse for rendering TO -n-vp TO ao-/?eorov by any
stronger words than 'the unquenchable fire,' the phrase being
often used to signify only destructive fire.
Such as it is, however, the argument of our opponents is as
follows : The wicked are here said to be cast into the unquench-
able fire, called elsewhere the ' everlasting fire,' and that alone
shows that they are destined to eternal pain ; a conclusion fixed
by the sequence, thrice repeated to bring out the terror of the
prospect, ' where their worm (their conscience) shall not die, or
cease to be, and the fire is not quenched.' They are therefore
pierced eternally by the tooth of conscience, and tormented for
ever by the perpetual fire of God's vengeance. ' For every one
shall be salted for the fire,' every victim of divine vengeance shall
be miraculously preserved to endure the torments of this avenging
flame.
For at least fifteen centuries these words have been employed
in sermons and devout writings in the sense now described ; and
it is not an easy process by which they, or any familiar but mis-
quoted expressions, can be restored to their true interpretation.
Nevertheless I submit to the reader the following observations.
(i) The argument for endless sin and sorrow hence derived is
based upon that very understanding of the verb to die, against
which the argument itself is directed. The eternal suffering is
supposed to be proved by the words 'their worm dieth not. 1
But dieth is here taken in the sense of ceaseth to be, not in the
sense of being miserable or being unholy. ' Their worm ceaseth
not to be,' to live, to exist (T\CVTO.), which is also one of Plato's
words for existence coming to an end. Be it observed, then, that
when it serves the purpose of the doctrine of eternal misery to
prove that the 'worm of conscience will never cease to gnaw,'
then the verb to die must be taken in its natural and obvious sense
of cease to be. It is so taken, indeed, as a matter of course, with-
out a word of exhortation to enforce the figurative meaning of
being 'miserable.' Thus the defenders of the traditional doctrine
adopt or reject this signification at pleasure, but forbid its adoption
in any other instance except this, where, with a negative, it
furnishes a good argument against the same meaning everywhere
else in relation to the death of the sinner. We are at liberty to
accept as scriptural a 'worm ' which shall not ' die,' or cease to be,
'THE WORM THAT DIETH NOT: 407
provided we understand the worm to be conscience, but not to
believe that a sinner shall ' die,' in any other sense than that he
shall live in eternal misery. The sense of the verb to die here,
however, which is admitted by all, shows what its proper meaning
is in relation to other inhabitants of Gehenna ; for if a worm's
death in Gehenna would be its ceasing to exist, the same must be
true of the sinner's ; unless it can be shown that in relation to hell
itself the word death has two opposite meanings.
If it be said that in the Greek version here the worm's death is
represented by reXevra and not by aTroOvrjo-Ka, it is sufficient to
point out that in the Hebrew of Isaiah Ixvi. 24, whence the citation
comes, the worm's death is represented by JT)Jbn> the same verb
which describes the death of the sinner elsewhere.
(2) The -venerable gloss that the ' worm ' here is a symbol of
the sinner's conscience, like other ancient imaginations of similar
value, must give way to opposing evidence. It is indeed a difficult
lesson for a Roman Catholic to learn, that those words of Christ
to Peter, 'Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my
Church ' inscribed in vast letters around the dome of the great
papal Cathedral, and used in controversy for thirteen hundred
years, have no real reference to S. Peters supposed successors
in the see of Rome ; yet that and other hard lessons must be
learned by students of Scripture. Here the Saviour's words are
plainly a citation from the last verse in the prophecies of Isaiah
where the context proves that the ' worm ' stands naturally for
putrefaction, the concomitant of death, and in this case the death of
those ' slain by Jehovah.'
The effect of being eaten by worms, in contrast with the eternal
life of the saved, as it appeared to Isaiah, may be seen in ch. li. 6-8.*
The sixty-sixth chapter of Isaiah describes the awful scenes of
Christ's advent, of which the New Testament version is in Matthew
xxiv., xxv. ' For behold the Lord will come with fire, and with
* 'Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath ;
for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like
a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die like an insect ; but my salvation
shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished. Fear ye not
the reproach of men, and be not afraid of their revilings. For the moth shall
eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool ; but my
righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to generation.'
(From the popular translations of Dr. Boothroyd and Dr. Barne?.)
4 o8 'THE WORM THAT DIETH NOT:
his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and
his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and by sword will the
Lord plead with all flesh, and the slain of the Lord shall be many '
(verses 15, 16). The following verses describe the establishment
of Christ's kingdom on earth, the restoration and conversion of
Israel, and the ' restitution of all things ' in the setting up of
* New Heavens and New Earth.' The closing words describe the
holy central worship set up at Jerusalem ; and the going forth of
the worshippers to the scene of that ' supper of the fowls ' (Rev.
xix. 17-21), to wit, the masses of the dead who have been slain,
like the Assyrian army of Sennacherib, by the hand of God.
The reference to that Assyrian slaughter is still more evident
in the Hebrew. ' They shall go forth and look upon the D^"1.JSD
pegarim carcases (the same word translated in the. history of
the Assyrians in i Kings xix. 20 ' they were all dead corpses'} of
the men that have transgressed against me for their worm shall
not die, neither shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be
J1KT} demon an abhorring to all flesh' the word translated
contempt in Dan. xii. 2 ('to shame and everlasting contempt '),
describing the horror excited by the spectacle of the bodies of
those who die under the stroke of God. The use of the term
pegarim, therefore, to describe the condition of these victims of
the worm and the fire decides that the worm does not symbolise
conscience, but absolute death. There will appear on the earth,
at the beginning, and at the end, of the kingdom of Christ, two
fearful scenes of execution of God's enemies, who will be slain
by Jehovah ; the first scene being the destruction of His assembled
foes, of the armies of the kings of the earth, around Jerusalem ;
the second scene, still more awful, being the more gradual de-
struction of all the wicked dead, raised for judgment, at the end
of Christ's reign on earth : when a fearful monument of the effect
of sin will be established on this globe (perhaps in that same
region), in that ' perpetual fire ' into which all shall be cast, ' whose
names are not written in the book of life.'
But in either case the effect will be death ; the wicked will
become dead corpses, than which there is no stronger word to
denote the ' destruction of the soul or life in Gehenna.'
If, then, there be any safety in commenting on verse 49 which
follows, ' For every one shall be salted with fire,' where the Greek
THE APOCALYPSE. 409
text is hopelessly uncertain, the meaning may be, that every such
sacrifice to the avenging Justice will be, like ' Lot's wife] ' salted
with fire,' preserved as a monument in death of the tremendous
results of rebellion against the Omnipotent. ' Remember Lot's
wife] is one of Christ's momentous warnings to His disciples,
THE APOCALYPSE.
Rev. xiv. 10. 'If any man worship the beast and his image,
the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God which is
poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation, and
he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the
holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb, and the smoke of
their torment ascendeth up to ages of ages, and they have no rest day
nor night who worship the beast and his image? Rev. xix. 20.
' These both ' (the beast and the false prophet) ' were cast alive
into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.' 1 Rev. xx. 10. 'And
the Devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and
brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and they
shall be tormented day and night to the ages of ages?
The terms of duration here used are those which beyond doubt
often signify endless duration. It is also certain that they and
their Hebrew parallels are often used to signify long but limited
duration, as when the Mosaic institutions are said to be 'for ever'
(Deut. xxix. 29) a word which must be here understood in the
limited sense before the Jewish people can be expected to believe
in Christianity, which has abolished the law. Dr. Adler recently
assailed the gospel on this ground that the Jewish law was in this
text said to be p Tl^ 7, for ever.*
* In his recent brochure on Future Punishment the Rev. Clement Clemance,
after presenting a carefully drawn table of the limited and unlimited senses of
oi<jjv and aiaiviog, and maintaining that it would be unsafe to affirm positively
that these words are used in their infinite sense in relation to retribution,
since it is the fact that there is no statement which we can discover, either in
the Old or New Testament, which refers to evil, that is so strongly worded in
its expression of duration as is the phrase in Psalm cxlv. 13 (LXX. ), which
refers to the kingdom of God, goes on later to say, ' If we tell the unbeliever
thnt he must accept the doctrine of the absolute unendingness of punishment,
we may cause a fatal revolt against Christianity ; which fatal revolt will be, I
make bold to say, less his fault than ours ; or, if we make any such demand
410 ORDINARY LANGUAGE OF APOCALYPSE.
On this series of passages I offer the following observations :
The Apocalypse, like other books, is best interpreted, first by
the rule of its less obscure portions, and next, by careful com-
parison of the more ancient prophecies on whose pattern it is
framed. From other portions of it, and those the least loaded
with prophetic symbol, we learn directly, or indirectly, that the
doom of wicked men is to be excluded ' from the tree of life '
(ii. 7) ; to lose the ' crown of life' (verse 10) ; to be * hurt of the
second death' (verse n); to 'be killed with death'* (verse 23,
the strongest expression to denote absolute extinction) ; to be
' broken to shivers as a potter's vessel ' (verse 27) ; to have their
' names blotted from the Book of Life ' (iii. 5). Again, at the
close of the book, we are told that ' whosoever was not found
written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire ' (xx. 15).
This ' lake of fire ' is in the preceding verse called ' the second
death.' Into this lake are cast Death and Hades, assuredly not
to give the idea that they were to exist there for ever, but that they
were put an end to, so that henceforth there was to be ' no more
death.' The 'last enemy is destroyed ' or '' done away.'
The description of future punishment as ' the second death '
determines the question as to the general nature of the penalty.
As already remarked, there cannot be a ' second ' of anything
unless it be at least of the same genus as the first. If we say a
second house, there must have been a first house, and not a first
tree. If there be a first and second death, there must be a generic
likeness between them. There would be no likeness whatever
upon him, we impose on him a weight which no human intellect can bear ' (p. 76).
Mr. Clemance therefore will admit that until the publication of his work, in
which was made known the unfixed meaning of Scripture language on the
duration of evil, there was good excuse for those who deviated from the strict
doctrine of endless misery, in which they had been brought up ; since such
deviation was an effort to save at once their senses and their faith, and to
escape from ' a weight which no human intellect can bear.' And Mr. Clemance
on reflection will allow that such an admission is inconsistent with the very
severe blame which he lays on us for 'distorting' Scripture, by taking its ordinary
language in its obvious sense. Considering the temptation to save our ' intellect,'
and considering the words to be interpreted, it appears to us that Mr. Clemance's
condemnation is misplaced.
* This is one of the many phrases used in Scripture to denote Future
Punishment, which modern preachers never dream of employing in ' warning
;he wicked man.' Why ?
,
.
'THE SMOKE ASCENDING FOR EVER: 411
between death as threatened to Adam, or death as men suffer it
here, and the everlasting torment of a living body and soul united
in immortality. Such a doom would not, we may venture to
affirm, have been called, by any writer, a second death. But
there is a strong likeness between the first dissolution of humanity
and the second ' destruction of body and soul ' in Gehenna here-
after. Such a doom in the lake of fire might well be termed the
second death. That which ' the lake of fire,' the instrument of
Divine vengeance, effects for ' Death and Hades,' namely, to put
an end to them, it will effect on wicked men it will ' utterly
destroy ' them,
We conclude, therefore, that the passages in question in Rev.
xiv., xix., and xx., delivered in the symbolic language of prophecy,
must be interpreted so as to accord with these facts. It is re-
markable that the strongholds of the two different theologies
treated of in this volume are found in the two works of the
Apostle John the Gospel and the Apocalypse. The question
really is, therefore, Shall the Gospel be interpreted by the key of
the mystical Apocalypse, or shall the sense of the Apocalypse be
fixed by the Gospel ? We cannot hesitate long over such alter-
natives. In the Gospel we have the recorded words of the Lord
Jesus, delivered in the calm language of His daily life, and also
the latest work of S. John. In the Apocalypse we have in every
line the exalted style of parable and allegory, suitable to a
mysterious prophecy of things only half revealed. In the Old
Testament similar language carries unquestionably the meaning of
a temporal destruction, in Isaiah xxxiv. The terrible words cited
from Rev. xiv. are allowed by nearly all commentators to predict
earthly and terminable judgments on the supporters of the Apostasy.
Chapters xv. and xvi. announce the execution of these plagues.
Chapter xvii. contains the song of triumph over Babylon as
actually undergoing destruction, through the burning of her flesh
by the ' horns ' ' and the beast.' Chapter xviii. continues the
strain of triumph, and here we find word for word the fulfilment in
this world of the threatenings before us. ' How much she hath
lived deliciously so much torment and sorrow give her. Therefore
shall her plagues' come in one day, death, mourning, and famine,
and she shall be utterly burned with fire. And the kings of the
earth shall lament for her when they see the smoke of her burning
412 THE DEVIL IS TO BE TORMENTED
standing afar off for fear of her torment, saying, "Alas," etc. ' And
the sailors cried when they saw the smoke of her burning] etc.
' And a mighty angel took up a stone and cast it into the sea ' (to
give an image of something utterly lost out of knowledge), saying,
( Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down,
and shall be found no more at all.' See the precisely similar lan-
guage respecting Idumea in Isaiah xxxiv. 8-14, a passage which
the reader is invited to consider in detail.* Thus it is that S. John
adds of this ' spiritual Sodom/ xix. i (as Isaiah of Edom), 'And
her smoke went up for ever and ever? The whole of the imagery
describes destructive punishment on earth at Christ's advent.
REV. xx. io.
There remains only to be considered the passage respecting the
doom of the ' Devil,' with that of the ' beast and the false prophet.'
' And the Devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and
brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and they shall
be tormented day and night to the ages of ages' (/cat /?ao-ai/io-$r/o-ovTa(,
rjjj.cpas KCU. VVKTOS ets rovs cuah/as TGJV atwj'tm/ Rev. XX. io).
It is not certain whether * the beast and the false prophet ' are
abstract symbols of the ' Fourth Kingdom upon earth/ in its
double form of Church and State ; or symbols denoting particular
classes of persons, whether satanic spirits who inspired that fourth
system of government, or human kings and priests who received
and acted on such inspiration. It is possible, but not probable,
that they represent individual wicked rulers and teachers who
will receive a ' greater damnation ' (/xeioi/ /cpt/xa, James iii. i ;
TTtpioro-oTepov Kpijjia, Matt, xxiii. 14). But this is less important
to decide than the meaning of the threatening ; * they shall be
tormented day and night to the ages of ages.' There can be no
doubt that the terms of duration here employed are sometimes
used to denote an absolute eternity, as in relation to the nature of
Deity. There is as little doubt that they are as frequently used
* ' My sword shall be bathed in heaven, behold it shall come down upon
Idmnca, and upon the people of my curse to judgment.' ' And the streams
thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the
land shall become burning pitch. // shall not be quenched day nor night ; the
smoke thereof shall go tip for ever, from generation to generation it shall be
waste : none shall pass through it for ever and ever ' (Isa. xxxiv. 5, 9, io).
DAY AND NIGHT FOR AGES OF AGES. 413
to denote a very limited duration. The alternative meaning must
be decided by the nature of the subject, or by other declarations.
Thus the things which were ' revealed to Israel were for them
for ever to do all the words of that law' (Deut. xxix. 29). In this
case forever must be taken in a limited sense (contrary to the
teaching of the Rabbins on the eternity of the law), if Israel is
ever to submit to Christ. Again God gave the land of Israel to
His people 'for ever and ever' (Jer. vii. 7), e atcoj/os KCU e'ws
ataivos : yet the ' earth and all the works therein are to be burned
up.' He set the earth so that 'it should not be removed for
ever :' yet it is to 'pass away' (Rev. xxi. i). The 'everlasting
heavens ' are to ' perish,' while God ' remaineth ' (Psalm cii. 26).
The language here used, then, respecting the doom of the
' Devil, the beast, and the false prophet ' in the ' everlasting fire '
is consistent, according to the Scripture usage of aum/ either with
endless torment or a long but limited infliction, of which the date
of termination is not revealed. In this sense, as may be seen in
the supplement to chapter xvii., a similar phrase is used by the
Rabbins of the Gemara (who did not certainly believe in endless
suffering), in speaking of future punishment.
In this case, although the terms are clearly designed to denote
a most awful infliction of judgment on the chief malefactors in
the universe, surely the terms of duration are not designed to
reverse the sense of others which declare that, like Death and
Hades, who are cast into the same ' lake of fire,' their ' end is to
be burned up ' and abolished. The imagery is taken from the
vision of Daniel (vii. 10), in which he sees a 'fiery stream issue
from the throne ' of God : this very same ' beast,' or fourth empire,
is then ' slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning
flame,' words whose literal sense is fixed by the contrast of the
fate of other ' beasts ' whose * lives were prolonged for a season and
a time.' And it is expressly said Dan. vii. 26 that the action of
the flame is ' to consume and to destroy, fc^iD 1JJ to extermina-
tion,' in our version, ' unto the end.'
If, then, the result to the ' beast ' of being cast into the lake of
fire and brimstone to be ' tormented for ages of ages ' is neverthe-
less that he is 'destroyed,' 'consumed,' ' slain ' (Rev. xvii. S-n)
' He shall ascend out of the abyss, and go into destruction
; if the result to Death -and Hades of being cast into
4i4 DOOM OF THE EVIL SPIRITS.
the same lake is to abolish them, so that there shall be ' no more
death,' so it may be with respect to the other victims of the
'everlasting fire.' For as in the case of 'Babylon' in Rev. xiv.,
xv., xix., the 'smoke of her torment ' ' ascended up for ages and
ages,' yet she was ' destroyed,' and * found no more at all,' so it
may be with other beings who are nevertheless said to go away to
' punishment eternal ' in the ' everlasting fire.'*
It is from other scriptures that we infer that thus it will be with
the Great Enemy of God and man. The ' unclean spirits ' expect
from Christ 'torment 'and 'destruction' (Matt. viii. 29, Mark i.
24 /2a<ravi'crai, aTroXecrat) ; and there seems no reason to think
that their doom is generically different from that of their leader
and lord. His conscious punishment will certainly be vastly
greater than theirs, but it can scarcely differ by a whole eternity
in duration. ' Torment ' and ' destruction ' will therefore be his
doom. The same conclusion seems derivable from the words of
God spoken to our first parents. The seed of the woman is to
' crush ' the ' head ' of the serpent an image vividly denoting the
destruction of his life. ' No murderer hath eternal life abiding in
him,' and ' the Murderer from the beginning ' shall die the mur-
derer's death. ' God shall be all things in all,' an expression
seemingly inconsistent with the eternal survival of any enemy, or
any evil. But through what inconceivable agonies of mind and
' spiritual body ' that Infernal Origin of all Evil shall reach his
final doom no tongue can tell. His judgment will correspond
with his crimes ; and ' many stripes ' and ' great plagues and of
long continuance ' will doubtless avenge the murder of a world of
souls.
I have now considered in detail the principal passages in the
New Testament brought forward in support of the opinion of the
endless future of evil. The suggestions respecting them must be
weighed along with the whole argument of this book. If they
are regarded as sufficient, it will be needless to examine minutely
more vague examples of flying or traditional criticism. If they
are not sufficient, such examination would be useless. It is
morally inconceivable, if it had been the intention of Heaven to
* In Rev. ix. 18, 'fire and brimstone' are said to 'kill the third part of
men.'
' HE THAT IS FILTHY, LET HIM BE FILTHY: 415
convey to mankind, speaking so great a variety of languages, into
which the Bible must be translated, the threatening of torment
which should be absolutely endless, that such a threatening would
be, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, expressed in terms
which literally signify something in all languages wholly incon-
sistent with such a destiny : and that the announcement of the
real danger awaiting the world should be dubiously ascertainable
only from one passage in a gospel (Matthew), which is probably
itself a translation ; from another (in a second gospel Mark),
which has reached posterity in a very corrupted form ; and lastly
from two verses in the latest of the prophecies, where it is difficult
to distinguish metaphors from simple terms, and where the terms
employed are themselves undoubtedly employed by the Jewish
Rabbins, as well as in the Bible, to denote a limited period of dura-
tion in punishment. A question so vast as the eternal destiny of
the human race cannot be determined on the evidence of a few
poetic or prophetic phrases. If the plain sense of the main current
of language is not to be taken as decisive in such a case j we
despair of learning Divine Truth on any subject from a verbal
revelation."
* I will give two examples of the class of criticisms to which I refer. A
learned writer sets forth as the very first ' text ' by which he supports the doc-
trine of eternal suffering the words in S. Jude's epistle, verse 13, ' the blackness
of darkness is reserved for them for ever' These words, as so quoted, suggest
the idea of a dark prison in which condemned souls shall wear out eternity.
But if we consult the connection, and cite the whole clause, we find it to be,
' These are wandering- stars, to whom the mist of darkness for ever is re-
served.' This citation, taken by S. Jude from the Book of Enoch, is part of
an image of future doom drawn, not from prisoners in a dungeon, but from
meteors swiftly extinguished in eternal darkness, an image, therefore, giving
support to the doctrine of extinction, not of endless woe ; a doctrine supported
by the natural sense of every other expression in the epistle of Jude.
A second writer quotes Rev. xxii. II. ' He that is imjiist, let him be unjust
still ; he -which is filthy, let him be filthy still,' as implying an eternal course of
injustice and impurity. But the parallel passages are in Ezek. iii. 27 ; xx. 39.
' Go and serve ye every man his idols,' etc. It is an awful challenge to every man
to choose and pei'severe in whatever course he thinks best, here and now, and to
take the consequences. In the prophecy of Ezekiel the consequence of such
persistent sin is death.
416
CHAPTER XXVI.
ON THE SUPPORT GIVEN BY SOME FATHERS OF THE PRIMITIVE
CHURCH TO THE DOCTRINE OF LIFE IN CHRIST; AND ON THE
PROCESS BY WHICH THE PREVAILING OPINION OF MAN'S IM-
MORTALITY BECAME THE CREED OF CATHOLIC CHRISTENDOM.
SECTION I.
On the Support given by some Fathers of the Primitive Church to
the Doctrine of Life in Christ.
Two stringent demands may justly be enforced on those who
advocate the general system of doctrine which has now been sub-
mitted to the reader. First, it may fairly be required that we
should bring forward some extra-scriptural evidence of the recog-
nition of the doctrine of life in Christ only in the ante-Nicene
ages of the Church ; and, secondly, it may be asked that we
should offer some rational and historical account of the sources of
the now established belief in the absolute immortality of all men,
and the eternity of evil.
This subject has been discussed with so much accuracy and
fulness by previous writers, that there is the less need for a large
exhibition of the evidence in these pages.
In the early years of the eighteenth century the learned non-
juror Henry Dodwell set forth a treatise in which he proved * from
the Scripture and the first fathers that the soul is a principle
naturally mortal,' but he unhappily burdened the doctrine of a God-
given immortality with the high-church conceit that ' the soul is
actually immortalised by the pleasure of God to punishment or to
reward, through union with the divine baptismal spirit ' and that
led him to the strictly logical result that * the bishops alone, since
the apostles, had this immortalising power ' ! This strange con-
TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS. 417
junction of ideas fixed the destiny of his book to oblivion ; but
its patristic evidence on the fundamental idea of man's natural
mortality was clearly and forcibly set forward. Dodwell was
answered with the utmost virulence by Dr. Samuel Clarke, who
attempted to show that his extracts were garbled and his argument
unsound. This brought out a third writer, who describes himself
simply as a * Presbyter of the Church of England? and who was a
much more accurate patristic scholar than Clarke ; and he, with
overwhelming force of citation, vindicated Dodwell's statements
on the main question, and proved beyond reasonable denial that
the earlier ante-Nicene Fathers knew nothing of the natural
immortality of the soul as an apostolic doctrine, showing that ' Mr.
Clarke hath not one sentence of the Fathers or one text of Scrip-
ture on his side.'' This rare work is called The Holy Spirit the
Author of Immortality, and is a well-stored magazine of evidence
on this side of the subject, so far as the historical argument is
concerned. The author well affirms,
' Nothing hath contributed more to the growth of Atheism, Scepticism,
Libertinism, Popery, and Sectarianism than our modern method of recommend-
ing our most holy religion upon the precarious topics of natural light, and
natural religion, which set all mankind upon an equal level with those who
urge only arguments from human corrupt nature, which the oracles of God
frequently represent under the notion of blindness and darkness and philosophy,
which is no better than vain deceit (Col. ii. 8) ; science falsely so called (i Tim.
vi. 20). And nothing hath given a greater shock to many men of searching
and acute parts, and more than ordinary capacities, than the insisting upon and
pressing the vulgar topics of the natural immortality, immateriality, and spirit-
uality of the soul, of all which it's so difficult to form any idea, and thus we
find too often that by the unsatisfactory management of them they only minister
matter of burlesque, buffoonery, scorn, and contempt, for the asserting of
which we find our philosophical theologues run down and silenced most shame-
fully, by even illiterates, and women, very frequently, in conversation.'
In our own age the early opinions have been handled in a care-
ful manner by Prebendary Constable ; * and by the Rev. J. M.
Denniston in his work on The Perishing Soul\ (pp. 283-350).
Mr. Denniston has treated with honest impartiality the variable
doctrine of the first two centuries, specially of Justin Martyr and
* Kellaway, Warwick Lane. Chs. xv., xvi., xvii., of his striking work on
Future Punishment,
f Longmans, 1874.
27
4 i 8 IGNATIUS JUSTIN MARTYR.
Irenoeus, and shown that although they have sometimes spoken the
philosophic or popular language, their deliberate and final teach-
ing is strongly in support of the unpopular, but apostolic doctrine,
of immortality in Christ only.*
The Essay on the Duration of Evil, published anonymously in
1855, and on good grounds attributed to one of the most accom-
plished nonconformist writers of the present age, contains also a
short but vigorous review of the ante-Nicene modes of expression
on immortality, deciding that their language is incompatible with
the modern faith.
But the most complete view of this subject has been given by
the late distinguished Professor Hudson, of Cambridge in America,
in his great work entitled Debt and Grace as related to the Doctrine
of a Future Life, In his eighth chapter he has presented a full
history of both Jewish and Christian opinion on the present con-
troversy and few will, after careful study of his pages, persevere
in regarding the modern doctrine of the Church as a representa-
tion of its faith in those earlier times.
Referring for fuller information to these writers, I shall now
present the principal examples of a scriptural mode of expression
on the subject of Immortality in Christ, which I have found in
the Fathers.
Ignatius, martyred probably A.D. 115.
In the Epistle to Polycarp he says : ' Watch, be vigilant as
God's athlete. The reward is incorruption, and life eternal.'
' The bread of God is the body of Christ, and His blood is love
incorruptible and perpetual life ' (Ephesians, c. 7). He speaks of
Christ as ' our inseparable life ' (Eph. c. 3), who ' breathes the
breath of immortality into his church' (c. 17). 'The bread
which is the medicine of immortality, an antidote that we should
not die, but live for ever, is Jesus Christ ' (c. 20). ' But if as
some (the Docetae), who are atheists, that is to say unbelievers,
pretend, He only seemed to suffer, they themselves only seeming to
exist (eu/ai), why then do I?' etc. (Trail. 10).
Justin Martyr, A.D. 135, bred as a philosopher, several times
* Mr. Bodfield Hooper's misrepresentation of the doctrine of Irenreus de-
serves a harsher name than I shall give to it.
JUSTIN MARTYR ON IMMORTALITY. 419
speaks the language of the schools on the eternity of evil and
misery, in his Apologies to the Emperors, except in one passage
(No. II. c. 7), where he says, ' God delays the breaking up and
dissolution of the world so that evil angels and demons and men
may cease to be (/^/cert w to-), for the sake of Christians who
are in His mind the final cause of nature.' But in the Dialogue
with Trypho, the Pharisaic Jew, he brings in an aged Christian,
who is represented as having taught him the truth respecting the
middle quality of souls. After a discussion on the soul's pre-
existence and eternity, he represents this aged Christian as
saying,
' But if the world was created, it must follow that souls were created also,
and that there was a time when they were not.
' Justin. This has the appearance of truth.
* C. Therefore they are not immortal.
' J. No, they are not, seeing it is evident the world was created.
' C. However, I do not say that all souls will die, for that indeed will be
good news for the wicked.
' What then ? Why, that the souls of the righteous remain in some better
place, but the evil in a worse, waiting till the time of Judgment. And so the
former, being worthy to appear before God, shall not die any more, and the
latter shall be punished so long as it shall please God that they exist and be
punished. ' On this Justin remarks, ' God alone is uncreated and incorruptible ;
but all things beside Him are created and perishable. For this reason souls
both die and arc punished.' ' For it cannot live of itself, as God does. But as
the personal man does not always exist, and body and soul are not ever con-
joined, but whenever this harmony may be dissolved the soul leaves the body
and the man is no more ; so likewise whenever it is necessary that the soul
should no longer be (tTvat), the vital spirit leaves it, and the soul is no more,
but itself returns whence it was taken ' (cc. 4-6).
Iren&tis, Bishop of Lyons, A.D. 202. His view of the nature
and destiny of the soul is most deliberately expressed in the
following passage of his Second Book against Heresies (c. 34).
Irenaeus was the disciple of Polycarp the martyr, who in turn was
the scholar of the apostle John. His testimony, therefore, almost
touches the fountain of truth, and is of transcendent importance.
Not only does Irenseus briefly affirm in the remaining Greek
fragment of the fifth book (c. a) that it is ' from God's Majesty,
not from our own nature, that we receive the gift of enduring for
ever,' TT/V cis ael 7rapa[jiovr)v ; but in the place above referred to he
speaks at large thus ;
4 20 IREXsEUS ON LIFE IN CHRIST ONLY.
1 If any should assert that those souls which a little while since be^an to
exist cannot hold out for many ages, but must be supposed unborn that they
may be immortal, or that if they had a beginning by generation they must die
with the body, let them understand that it is only God the Lord of all things
who, without beginning or ending, is truly and always the same, without any
shadow of change. But all things that are from Him, whatever things are
made, have their beginning by generation, and in this respect are inferior to
Him who made them, because they are not unbegotten ; but they continue their
existence and are extended to the length of ages according to the will and
pleasure of God the Creator, just as it was by His gift that they had their
being at first, and by His gift likewise that they now exist. For as the heavens
above us, the firmament, the sun, the moon, and stars, and all their ornaments,
were created, whereas before they were not, and continue for many ages accord-
ing to His will ; so if any one thinks the same with respect to souls and spirits,
or all things created, he will not be mistaken, since all things that were made
had a beginning of their making, but continue their existence so long as it
is the will of God they should be and continue. The prophetic Spirit bears
witness to all this, saying, " He commanded, and they were created ; He hath
also established them for ever and ever" (Psalm cxlviii. 5). And as to the
salvation of man he saith, " He asked life of Thee, and Thou gavest him length
of days for ever and ever " (Psalm xxi. 4). The prophetic Spirit speaks of Him
as the Father of all, granting perseverance of being to all eternity unto those
who are saved. For life is not from us ourselves, or from our nature, but it is
given or bestoT.vcd according to the grace of God ; and therefore he who preserves
this gift of life and returns thanks to Him who bestows it, he shall receive
" length of days " for ever and ever. But he who rejects it, and proves unthank-
ful to his Maker for creating him, and will not know Him who bestows it, he
deprives himself of the gift of duration to all eternity. And therefore the Lord
speaks thus of such unthankful persons : If you have not been " faithful in that
which is least, who will commit much to you?" intimating thereby unto us,
that they who are unthankful to Him with respect to this short transitory life,
which is His gift the effect of His bounty shall be most justly deprived of
length of days for ever and ever* For as the animal body is not life itself, but
* ' Testatur pro suis sententiis etiam propheticus spiritus, dicens " quoniam ipse
dixit et facta stint" (Psalm cxlviii. 6), etiterum de salvando hominesicait, " vitatn
petiit a te, ettribuistiei longitudinem dierum in saculum saculi" (Psalm xxi.), tan-
quam Patre omnium donante, et in sseculum srcculi, perseverantiam in his qui
salvi fiunt. Non enim ex nobis, neque EX NOSTRA NATURA VITA EST ; SED
SECUNDUM GRATIAM DEI DATUR. Et ideo qui servaverit datum vitoc, et.
gratias egerit ei qui praestitit, accipiet et in saeculmn sceculi longitudinem
dierum. Qui autem abjecerit earn et ingratus extiterit Factori, ob hoc quod
factus est, et non cognoverit Eum qui praestat, ipse se privat in saeculum sreculi
perseverantia. Et ideo Dominus dicebat ingratis existentibus in eum, "Si in
inodico fideles nonfuistis, quod magnum est quis dabit eum / " Significans nobis,
quoniam qui in modica temporal! vita ingrati extiterunt Ei, qui earn procstitit,
juste non percipient ab eo in sseculum s?eculi longitudinem dierum.'
IRE A^ US ON LIFE IN CHRIST ONLY. 421
partakes of life, so likewise the soul itself is not life, but receives the life be-
stowed upon it by God; whence is said, "The first man became a living soul,"
teaching us to distinguish between the soul and the life of the soul. Souls
therefore receive their life and their perpetual duration as a donation from God
continuing in being from non-existence because God wills them to exist and to
subsist.' ' For the substance of life conies by partaking of God, and to partake
of God is to know God and enjoy His goodness. Men, therefore, will see God
that they may live, being made immortal by the vision, and attaining unto
God.'
Again, in lib. iii. 18, 19, Irenaeus writes:
' Therefore, as I have already said, He caused man (human nature) to cleave
to and to become one with God. For unless man had overcome the enemy of
man, the enemy would not have been legitimately vanquished. And again,
unless it had been God who had freely given salvation, we could never have
possessed it securely. And unless man had been joined to God, he could
never have become a partaker of incorruptibility, for it was incumbent upon
the Mediator between God and men, by His relationship to both, to bring both
to friendship and concord, and to present man to God, while He revealed God
to man.
' For in what way could we be partakers of the adoption of sons, unless we
had received from Him through the Son that fellowship which refers to Him-
self, unless His Word, having been made flesh, had entered into communion with
us ? Wherefore also He passed through every stage of life, restoring to all
communion with God.
' For as by the disobedience of the one man, who was originally moulded
from virgin soil, the many were made sinners, and forfeited life ; so was it
necessary that, by the obedience of one man, who was originally born from
a virgin, many should be justified and receive salvation. Thus, then, was the
word of God made man, as also Moses says : " God, true are His works." But
if, not having been made flesh, He did appear as if flesh, His work was not a true
one. But what He did appear, that He also was : God recapitulated in Him-
self in the ancient formation of man, that he might kill sin, deprive death of
its power, and vivify man : and therefore His works are true.
' But again, those who assert that he was simply a mere man, begotten by
Joseph, remaining in the bondage of the old disobedience, are in a state of
death ; having been not as yet joined to the Word of God the Father, nor
receiving liberty through the Son, as He does Himself declare. " If the Son
shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." But being ignorant of Him who
from the Virgin is Emmanuel, they are deprived of His gift which is eternal
life ; and not receiving the incorruptible Word, they remain in mortal flesh,
and are debtors to death, not obtaining the antidote of life. To whom the
Word says, mentioning His own gift of grace, " I said ye are all the sons of the
Highest, and gods ; but ye shall die like men." Ho speaks undoubtedly these
words to those who have not received the gift of adoption, but who despise the
incarnation of the pure generation of the Word of G:>1, defraud human nature
422 1RENAZUS ON IMMORTALITY.
of promotion into God, and prove themselves ungrateful to the Word of God,
who became flesh for them. For it was for this end that the Word of God
was made man, and He who was the Son of God became the Son of man,
that man having been taken into the Word, and receiving the adoption, might
become the Son of God. For by no other means could we have attained to
incorruptibility and immortality, unless we had been united to incorruptibility
and immortality. But how could we be joined to incorruptibility and immor-
tality, unless, first, incorruptibility and immortality had become that which we
also are, so that the corruptible might be swallowed up by the incorruptibility,
and the mortal by immortality, that we might receive the adoption of sons ? '
And again, ch. iii. 2&t * This was done that, man should not suppose that
the incorruptibility which belongs to" God is his own naturally, and also by
not holding the truth, should boast with empty pride as if he were naturally
like to God. For Satan thus rendered man more ungrateful to his Creator,
obscured the love "which God had towards men, and blinded his mind not to perceive
what is worthy of God, and comparing himself and judging himself equal with God.
This, therefore, was the object of God's longsuffering, that man passing through
all things, and acquiring the knowledge of discipline, then attaining the resur-
rection from the dead, and learning from experience wharf: is the source of his
salvation, may always live in a state of gratitude to the Lord, having obtained
from Him the gift of incorruptibility that He might love Him the more, and
that he may know himself how frail and mortal he is ; while he also under-
stands God, that He is Immortal and Powerful to such a degree as to confer
Immortality upon what is mortal, and eternity upon what is temporary*
[Clark's Library of Ante-Nicene * Fathers.' Dr. Roberts' version.]
Theophilus of Antioch states the doctrine thus : ' Some will ask,
was Adam by nature mortal ? By no means. Immortal ? Not
thus, either. What then nothing at all? I answer neither
mortal, nor immortal ; for if the Creator had made him from the
first immortal, He would have made him a god. If mortal, then
God would appear as the author of death. He made him, then,
capable of becoming either ; so that by keeping the commands
of God he might attain immortality as his reward, and become
divine. But if he should turn to mortal things and disobey God,
he would be himself the author of his own death. For God
made man free and with power of self-control.' (Ad Autoly-
chum, ii. c. 37.)
And again at the close of the third century, in the second book
of a treatise devoted to the demonstration of the truth of Chris-
tianity against the errors of the Gentiles, a work of the nature
ARNOBIUS ON IMMORTALITY. 423
of Paley's ' Evidences ' for the African churches, (so vigorously
written as to have survived, even in orthodox hands, until our
own time, contrary to the rule that the Church has generally
preserved the record only of triumphant opinions), ArnoMus
thus delivers the Christian doctrine. After enlarging at great
length in this book on the ' error,' as he terms it, ' of the doctrine
of the soul's natural immortality,' he breaks out into the following
apostrophe to the heathen philosophers :
' Will you lay aside your habitual arrogance, O Men, who claim God as your
Father, and maintain that you are immortal, just as lie is? Will you inquire,
examine, search, what you are yourselves, whose you are, of what parentage
you are supposed to be, what you do in the world, in what way you are born,
how you leap into life ? Will you, laying aside all partiality, consider, in the
silence of your thoughts, that we are creatures either quite like the rest, or
separated by no great difference ? ' a fact which Arnobius then proceeds to
illustrate with great vivacity (ii. 16). ' Your interests are in jeopardy, the
salvation, I mean, of your souls ; and unless you give yourselves to know the
Supreme God, a miserable death awaits you, not bringing sudden abolition,
but destroying by the bitterness of its grievous and protracted punishment.
None but Almighty God can preserve souls, nor is there any one besides who
can give them length of days, and grant to them a spirit which shall never die,
except He who alone is immortal and everlasting, and restricted by no limit
of time ' (ch. 62). ' For souls are of a middle or intermediate quality, as has
been learned from Christ's teaching, and they are such that they may on the
one hand perish, if they have not known God, and on the other hand be
delivered from death, if they have given heed to His threatenings and proffered
favours. And to make manifest what is unknown, this is man's real death
this which leaves nothing behind [hrec nihil residuum faciens]. For that which
is seen by the eyes is only a separation of soul from body, not the last end of
abolition : this, I say, is man's real death, when souls which know not God
shall be consumed in pi'otracted torment with raging fire into which certain
fiercely cruel beings shall cast them, who were unknown to the world [of
heathens] before Christ, and brought to light only by His wisdom ' (ch. 14).*
Lastly, Athanasius (who died in 373) speaks thus of the result
of the Fall of Man, in his treatise on the Incarnation of the Word.\
After asserting that God created the substance as well as the form
of the world by His living Word, he continues :
* This accords with a striking passage in the Ebionite Clementine Homilies^
iii. cap. 6. ' But as I said, at an appointed time, a fifth part being punished
with eternal fire shall be consumed. For they cannot endure for ever who
have been impious against the one God. 1
f Cologne edition, 1686, vol. i., p. 56.
424 ATHAXASWS OX THE OBJECT OF
' For God is good, the fountain of goodness ; and a good Being is envious
of nothing. Whence, envying existence to none, from non-existence He pro-
duced all things by His own Word, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amongst which
things before all others on earth He visited with mercy the race of man. And
seeing that they, according to the condition of their own nature, were not
sufficient to endure for ever (diap,evttv dti), bestowing His grace upon them
in addition, He did not simply create the human race, as He did all the
irrational animals upon earth, but He formed them according to His own
Image, bestowing on them also the endowment of His own Reason ; so that,
as it were, possessing certain shadows of the Logos and becoming rational,
they might be able to continue (diapivftv) in blessedness, living the true life of
saints in Paradise. But seeing again the free-will of mankind, able to go in
two opposite directions, He made more secure to them the grace bestowed,
both by His precepts and by their position in Eden. He introduced them,
therefore, into His own Paradise, and prescribed them a law so that if they
should preserve His favour and continue in piety they might possess this life
in Paradise, without sorrow or pain or care, in addition to the promise of
immortality in the heavens ; but if they disobeyed or became rebellious, that
they might know that they would undergo the destruction in death which was
according to their nature (iavrovQ TIJV iv Oavdr^ Kara tyvaiv tyOopav vrrofjifvfiv),
and no longer live in the Paradise, but outside Paradise afterwards dying, remain
in death and in destruction (<f>9opa). For this the Scripture signifies from the
mouth of God. " In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." For
what else can this signify than this, that not only they should die, but in the
destruction of death remain (d\\d i iv ry row Qavarov (t>&onq, diaptvuv)?
' But perhaps thou wilt wonder when my subject is the Incarnation of the
Word that we are now speaking of the beginning of mankind ; but this is not
foreign to the object of the discourse. For it is necessary that, speaking of
he manifestation of the Saviour, we should also speak concerning the beginning
of mankind ; in order that you may know that our sin became the occasion of
His descent, and that our transgression called out the philanthropy of the
Logos, that He should come down and appear as the Lord among men. For
we have become the cause of the Incarnation ; and it was for our salvation
that He showed His love to man by assuming a human body and appearing in
the flesh.
' Thus, therefore, God made man, and desired him to continue in incorrup-
tion (lv djQapalq, pevtiv). But men, making light of and rebelling against the
knowledge of God, thinking out and inventing evil for themselves, came under
the before-threatened condemnation of death, and afterwards continued no
longer as they were created, but according to their reasonings were destroyed
(ciKjtUtioovTo). Thus Death reigning held them fast. For the transgression of
the command brought them back to their natural condition. So that even as
when not existing they had been created (OVK o>rtc ytyovaaiv] so also they
should undergo destruction of bt'ing in t)ie course of time (ovrtttg Be n}v et TO
tlvai ^Oopav vTrofJiiivuMri ry xpoi/qj). And justly. For if possessing the nature
of not being once (fyvatv t\ovrtQ TO /*) tlvai) by the presence and philanthropy of
the Logos they were called into existence, it was right that men, being emptied
THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD. 425
of the knowledge of God, and turning to the things that are not (for evil things
are things that are not, but good things really are, since they proceed from the
really existing God), should be emptied also of eternal existence (Ktv^Oijvai k rou
tlvai dtt), and this is for them, being dissolved, to remain in death and
destruction (00op). For man is according to nature mortal, as a being who
has been made out of things that are not. But on account of his likeness to
God he could by piety ward off his natural mortality and remain indestructible
if he retained the knowledge of God, or lose his incorruptibility if he lost his
life in God.'
Athanasius then proceeds to describe the object of the Incarna-
tion of the Logos, which was, he says, to save man from relapsing
into nothingness, and to endow him with immortality in the
renewed Image of God, ' so that as by transgression they had
been born for mortality (<f>0opdv), by repentance they might again
come to incorruption. For this cause .that incorporeal and in-
corruptible Word of God came down to our abode, and took our
nature upon Him, in order that by death He might abolish death,
and give to man the hope of life eternal.'
Notwithstanding this sound basis of faith, it must not, however,
be supposed that Athanasius attributed immortality to the saved
alone, for, like Dr. Watts and some other modern writers, he
inconsistently taught, at least in the case of rejectors of Christ,
* that God would immortalise the wicked for an " eternal death "
of conscious suffering.' *
SECTION II.
On the process by which the prevailing opinion on Man's Immortality
became the Creed of Catholic Christendom.
The question now to be considered is of momentous interest
in relation to this discussion. ' If the doctrine of man's immor-
tality, now, and for more than fourteen hundred years past, the
* The seemingly self-contradictory doctrine of Athanasius is well discussed
and accounted for in the work above referred to, The Holy Spirit the Author
of Immortality, 1708. A curious illustration of the fact that the belief in
Conditional Immortality lingered in the churches sporadically for several
centuries after the time of Athanasius, is given by Canon Swainson in his
learned history of the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, p. 250. At the third
council of Constantinople, A.D. 680, under the Emperor Constantine Pogonatus,
at the eleventh session, a sy nodical letter of twenty-one pages in length from
426 DISCUSSION OF THE SOURCES
established faith of Christendom, be, as you think, a direful
delusion, and in its consequences a curse to the Church and
the world, when did this false belief, sanctioned by so many
myriads of the wisest men, originate, and by what steps did it
take possession of the mind of Christianised mankind ? '
The answer to this inquiry demands several preliminary obser-
vations.
(i) It is necessary to admit, in all its force, the antecedent
improbability, according to the natural course of thought, of the
speedy and general obscuration of the great light of truth kindled
by God for the salvation of the world. The mind, left to its own
auguries of the probable future of early Christianity, would un-
questionably have foretold the universal diffusion and solid
establishment of apostolic doctrine. If heresies and errors
arose, they would doubtless be swept away before the triumph
of truth. An infallible and triumphant Popedom, or an in-
fallible and triumphant Church, are the expressions of all that
seems at first view probable in the history of a Divine Reve-
lation.
But the true philosophy in religion, as in other sciences, is
founded on induction of facts. It consisted with the Divine
wisdom to permit first of all of the corruption of patriarchal
theology into pantheism and world-wide idolatry. The worship
of false gods, and the adoration of images, representing grotesque
phantasies of the imagination, has been the religion of Asia, of
Europe, and Africa, almost since the beginning of their settle-
ment. When Moses had been commissioned to found a new
theocratic institution, apostasy commenced very soon after his
death. The history of Israel is the history of a series of reforms
following on a series of apostasies to idolatry, ending with a final
subsidence of nearly all the ablest minds into Pharisaic superstition,
or the materialism of the Sadducees.
Sophronius, who had been patriarch of Jerusalem in the beginning of the
century, was read, in which, after reciting his faith in the Trinity, he proceeds
to speak of the Incarnation ; next of the errors of Nestorius and Apollinaris ;
and ends by declaring the true faith to be that ' men's souls have not a natural
immortality ; it is the gift of God that they receive the grant of immortality
and incorruptibility.'
OF THE POPULAR BELIEF. 427
The preceding history of the world, therefore, did not throw
so encouraging a light a priori on the future of Christianity as
might be at first supposed. On the contrary, to any one who
sincerely believed in the combined action of a corrupt humanity,
and of a host of infernal spirits still battling against God, the
probability of an uncorrupted Christianity was reduced to a
shadowy expectation. The experience of past ages would render
it the most wonderful of all miracles, if Christianity escaped the
universal tendency to perversion.
But we are not left to hesitate between such conflicting proba-
bilities. The ancient prophets foretold a general apostasy from
the faith of Christ (Dan.* vii., xi.). Christ and His apostles
stedfastly enforced on their disciples the same lamentable pre-
diction. Every one of the apostles left the world warning the
churches of some Power of Darkness which was soon to arise,
and to found its throne in Christendom on the basis of a widely
corrupted doctrine. The elements of disorder were, they affirmed,
in action already. ' The mystery, or secret doctrine, of lawlessness
doth already work* (2 Thess. ii.). ' There shall be false prophets,
and many shall follow their pernicious ways '(2 Peter ii.). * The
time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after
their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching
ears, and shall ttirn away their ears from the truth, and will turn
* I venture to quote this book as Daniel's, because the modern objections
have been effectively answered by Dr. Pusey in his learned work on this
prophet, and by Mr. Birks in his best work, The Elements of Prophecy. In
the same manner we adhere in the following pages to the ancient interpretation
of these and other predictions respecting the rise and domination of an evil
spiritual and temporal power at Rome, lamenting only that the theologians of
the Anglican branch, assisted by some extreme and less learned sects of
' Plymouth Brethren,' have laboured so hard of late years to shake the faith
of Protestants in that well-established application of the prophecies. Modern
Rome is grateful to the English and the Germans who have striven to prove
that she is not the Babylon of the Apocalypse. But the Italian people seem
to be unaffected by these arguments. As soon as they become Reformed, they
apply with immense vigour this weapon with which the Scripture supplies
them, rivalling the German and old English Reformers themselves in the zeal
with which they hold up the mirror of the Book of Revelation before the
bedizened face of the ' Mother of Harlots,' and Mistress of all Churches. The
writings of Bishop Wordsworth are also to be commended as efficient replies
to the modern Anglican doctrine on the Apocalypse.
428 THE APOSTASY PREDICTED.
aside unto fables' (2 Tim. iv. 3). ' Of your own selves sJiall men
arise, speaking eorrupt things ' (Acts xx. 30).
The errors of this apostasy had their origin, not in the Eternal
City, but in the human heart. The evil principles which were to
lay the foundation for the throne of the great Antichrist were all
at work in the first stage of Christianity. Human nature was
commencing then the process of degradation, through which the
spiritual would become materialised, and the divine be transmuted
into the diabolical. The spirit of self-glorification and formality,
the spirit of a false mystical philosophy, the ambitious and greedy
sacerdotal spirit, had already revealed themselves in the churches
and these, coalescing with the remainders of paganism, esta-
blished the reign of the powers of darkness. Christianity descended
from the spiritual region into the region of material forms. In-
stead of churches of living stones, there were ' churches ' of dead
stones, and of marble. Instead of regeneration by the truth and
the Spirit, men were offered baptismal regeneration. For eating
and drinking by faith the body and blood of Christ, there was
substituted the gross dogma of transubstantiation. Instead of
faith, there was the endless repetition of an incredible ' creed/
in a foreign tongue ; instead of spiritual discipline, oppressive
ecclesiastical courts ; instead of a royal priesthood of God's elect,
a hierarchy, whose alleged succession from the apostles consisted
in an unbroken series of laying on of hands. In place of the
beautiful garments of Christian piety, this priesthood was arrayed
in purple and gold ; and ' fine linen ' literally became the ' right-
eousness of saints.' Instead of Christ's Gospel, there was eccle-
siastical law; money effected the work of grace, and church
decoration shone in the room of holiness. Music filled the place
of moral harmony, and compensated for the absence of ' melody
in the heart unto the Lord.' Finally, a visible Antichrist and his
satellites usurped the honours due to the ' High Priest of our
Profession,' and pretended to regulate the destinies of souls
departed in that region whose keys are possessed by the Invisible
Potentate alone.
Dr. J. H. Newman excellently described it a very few years
before he seceded, in these words :
* The spirit of old Rome has risen in its former place, and has evidenced its
identity by its works. It has possessed the Church there planted, as an Evil
THE APOSTASY OF CHRISTENDOM. 429
Spirit might seize the demoniacs of primitive times, and makes her speak words
which are not her own. In the corrupt papal system we have the very cruelty,
the craft, and the ambition of the Republic ; its cruelty in its unsparing sacri-
fice of the happiness and virtue of individuals to a phantom of public expedi-
ency, in its forced celibacy within, and its persecutions without ; its craft in its
falsehoods, its deceitful deeds, and lying words ; and its grasping ambition in
the very structure of its policy, in its assumption of universal dominion ; old
Rome is still alive ; nowhere have its eagles lighted, but it still claims the
sovereignty under another pretence.' Archbishop Whately's Cautions for the
Times, p. 240.
Thus was ' that Wicked One revealed, the Son of Perdition,'
who is characterised, in the prophecies, by his intelligence, auda-
city, and political power in connection with the Roman Empire ;
by his blasphemies against Supreme Goodness, Holiness, and
Authority; by his long persecutions against 'the saints of the
Most High ; ' by his bold alteration of Divine Institutions ; by
his assumption of the right to legislate in opposition to the dis-
tinct decrees of the Deity ; by his profane reception of honours
due to Heaven alone, as he ' sitteth in the temple of God ; ' by
his disregard of the gods of his Pagan forefathers, and of the con-
jugal instincts of humanity ; by his boundless self-exaltation, yet
' voluntary humility in the worshipping of angels,' and ' honouring
of a foreign deity,' with the magnificence of a ' gay religion full of
pomp and gold.'
More than twelve hundred years have now passed since the
days of Boniface, and ' the horns,' or civil Powers, have at length
begun, according to the prediction, to ' hate the Whore ' ; but those
baleful eyes of the Man of Sin still fascinate the nations with their
soul-consuming beams. That forehead, beaten by the storms of
centuries, and scarred with the lightnings that have impatiently
hovered over it for ages, still lifts its presumptuous front aloft
above the world's mightiest thrones. That voice of the pontifical
Magician, as of subterranean thunder, still overawes adoring
millions, still sends up to heaven its ' blasphemies against the God
of gods ' : and the tyrant will ' prosper until the indignation '
against Israel be accomplished (Dan. xi. 36).
But ' the adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces ;
out of heaven shall He thunder upon them.' Of this Man of
Sin,' ' the son of perdition,' the perpetual holder of the title
430 VALUE OF ANTE-NICENE CHRISTIANITY.
and apostolate of Judas, who ' betrayed the Son of Man with a
kiss, it is foretold, that the Lord shall ' consume him with the
spirit of His mouth, and destroy him by the brightness of His
coming.' ' And if any man shall worship the Beast or his Image,
or receive his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he shall be
tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy
angels and in the presence of the Lamb.'
The history of the ante-Nicene ages, notwithstanding their
heroic character, offers a convincing comment on the truth of the
apostolic predictions. We may not consult as a final authority
the post-apostolic Church on the interpretation of the holy writ-
ings. Holding these writings in our own hands, we can under-
stand for ourselves, at least as well as they, what Christ and the
apostles taught. And they taught something exceedingly different
from the larger part of ante-Nicene Christianity. We harbour no
irreverent design of questioning the illustrious virtue of that age of
martyrdom ; but it is patent to students of Scripture that the men
of those centuries were better trained athletes in fasting, and in
dying for Christ, than they were in maintaining while alive the
evangelic doctrine against corruption. Let any one peruse S.
Paul's Epistle to the Romans or the circular epistle inscribed to
the ' Ephesians,' or the anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews, and
then, if competently informed in the Christian literature of the
three centuries following, tell us how often we shall find a page of
similar doctrine on the Atonement, or on Justification in Christ,
or on the way of a sinful man's ' access with boldness unto the
holiest by the blood of Jesus ; ' or a page of similarly devout and
loving meditation on the characteristics of family piety ? In
reading the ante-Nicene Fathers you feel as if you were breath-
ing an atmosphere very different from that of the New Testament.
Compare again S. John's Gospel, or Epistles, or S. Paul's Epistle
to the Corinthians, with the fierce ascetic diatribes of Tertullian,
the incredible futility of much that remains even of Justin, the
lame interpretations of Origen and Clement*
* ' Origen neglects and despises for the most part the outward letter ; and in
this devious path displays the most ingenious strokes of fancy, though always
at the expense of truth, whose Divine simplicity is scarcely discernible through
the cobweb veil of allegory.' MOSHEIM, Eccl. Hist. cent. iii. ch. 3.
ON THE SPEED OF CORRUPTION. 431
The truth unhappily is, that these saintly men had either for-
gotten, or never learned, some of the principal peculiarities of
Christ's religion, and were driving hard along the road of a. falsely
philosophic and thence ascetic superstition. If, then, the earliest
ages, in their best remains, offer so meagre a representation of the
apostolic gospel in its faith, joy, and love, why shall we doubt the
possibility of a rapid oblivion of other closely connected ' pecu-
liarities ' of the faith of Jesus Christ, specially those which were
the most characteristic of it ?
(2) The opinion widely prevails that any considerable alteration
of belief in the ante-Nicene churches was not possible within the
time specified in this hypothesis. The idea is that each church
founded by the apostles was a fortress of the truth, fixed on an
independent basis ; so that corruption in one particular article of
faith or practice would be resisted by the general conformity to
apostolic rule, and thus that a vast number of separate associations
would be engaged in handing down the apostolic deposit.
This opinion, so natural in its auguries, proceeds on inattention
to the facts of religious history. Even in the lifetime of the
apostles, each church was prevented from lapsing into apostasy
only by the watchful care of the founders. All the churches of
Galatia had apparently abandoned true Christianity within a short
space from their foundation; they had received 'another gospel.'
The Corinthians had allowed the entrance even of Sadducean dis-
believers in a future state and a resurrection of the dead (i Cor.
xv. 12). Nearly all the apostolic epistles are warnings against pre-
vailing errors.
The apocalyptic addresses of Christ to the ' Seven Churches of
Asia' indicate, in the majority, exposure to influences which were
well-nigh fatal to their faith.
Every century of Christian history teaches the lesson that not
only are separate communities subject to rapid changes of belief
and feeling, through the influence of leading minds; but that
currents of thought sweep, like pestilential gales, over wide areas
of Christendom, poisoning the ideas of men in millions, in a com-
paratively small number of years. Let any one review the history
of English religious thought during the present century, or even
during the last twenty-five years, Who that lived in 1850 could
432 EXAMPLES OF SPEEDY APOSTASY.
have believed that English opinion would have developed so
rapidly in the opposite directions of superstition and scepticism,
under the disastrous influence of a few distinguished writers?
The past ages are full of similar examples. Within forty years the
Nonconformist martyr-churches of the Restoration were sunk
into the apathy and scepticism of the reign of Queen Anne.
Within a generation from Luther's age the Protestant churches of
central Europe had relapsed into Socinianism, when the fervour
of the Reformation died away. Why, then, doubt that, if any
strong and steady influence was at work to corrupt apostolic
Christianity in the department of belief relating to immortality,
nothing short of a miracle could hinder the victory of such an
assailing force ? Not only was a general corruption of doctrine
possible: it was certain, except under one condition that the
reverent study of the New Testament Scriptures should become
the absorbing interest of the best intellect of every sacred society
in Christendom, and that the churches should burn with a flaming
zeal of adhesion to apostolic teaching and example, which would
effectually dispel the danger from corrupted Judaism, from Greek
and Oriental philosophy, and from popular paganism. It is
notorious that this condition did not exist.
The teachers of the first century complied imperfectly with
S. Paul's command to ' commit the things which he had taught
to faithful men who should be able to teach others also.' The
bishops of the churches of the second century sprang mostly
from the schools of Rabbinical Judaism, and from the schools of
heathen 'science falsely so called,' or from no schools at all.
Their training in the science of exposition had been neglected
in youth, and had not been attended to in riper age. Books
were rare and expensive, colleges were few and heathenish in
taste, and the feeling soon extended itself everywhere that
apostolic Christianity was a religion so much opposed to all
men's natural ideas that it was hopeless to convince the philo-
sophers of Greece and Rome, or the educated men who governed
the empire, unless at least some compromise were allowed with
notions more attractive and popular. The church was in no
humour to ' become afool^ in order to be wise.'' To the Jews, in
no good sense, the Christian teachers became Jews, to the Greeks
they became Greeks, to gain them both.
WEAK SIDE OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 433
We discern the influence of similar motives at work around us
in the present age. The last lesson that Christians learn is the
strength of ' the weakness of God ' the saving power of that
doctrine which men count ' foolishness ' the irresistible moral
force that dwells in unadulterated Christianity. All this will I
give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me, has been the
tempter's seductive proposal in every age. The Church of the
second century accepted the offer which her Lord had declined.
She ' showed her treasures to the ambassadors from Babylon,'
and learned their speech ; she ' went down to Egypt for help,'
and ' leaned not on the Lord of Hosts ; ' she ' trafficked with
Javan,' and ' committed fornication with Tyre and Sidon ; ' she
received her doctrine from the ascetic heathenism of the
Athenian and Alexandrian philosophies, rather than from the
' unlearned ' but inspired apostles of the Incarnate Word.
And thus it came to pass that every convert from Judaism
brought with him into the Church some remnant of the 'oral
law ; ' the Pharisee-Rabbins of that day, on embracing Chris-
tianity, too often 'betrayed the Son of man with a kiss.' They
came not to learn of the Word of Life, but to teach Christianity
to sanction a qualified Judaism. The Greek and Asiatic philo-
sophers naturally imitated so respectable an example. They
certainly believed in Christ, but many of the ablest of them
believed, as Simon Magus did, with a view to power and profit ;
and the last thing they would submit to do was to adopt the
'degrading' dogma of man's dependence for immortal life on
* Jesus of Nazareth.'
Accordingly every year of growing apostasy witnessed the
decline of the primitive peculiarity which attributed our life
eternal to the Incarnation. The religion of Redemption, in the
person of Christ and His apostles, had descended into a world
where some doctrine of man's natural immortality, and generally
of his pre-existence, was the established opinion of nearly all
who had any belief on the subject of a future state.* Christ
* It may be objected that such a preoccupation of the mind of man must be
regarded as a divinely-inspired preparation for the gospel. In some sense
doubtless every natural tendency of man's thoughts in religion, whether good
or bad, is such a preparation, and, as has been pointed out in chapter viii.,
there are certain elements in the popular belief in immortality which practically
28
434 GENESIS OF THE PREVAILING DOCTRINE.
Himself had shed around, in the darkness which that ' article
of natural religion' inevitably causes on the side of penalty, a
great light for a little time, by proposing Himself to the Pales-
tinian Rabbins as the true fountain of Eternal Life for man.
His faithful apostle John had continued that testimony, (along
with Paul, 'the chosen vessel,') for the space of seventy years
after the ascension. But no sooner were these bright ' lamps '
extinguished than the all-surrounding influence of ' natural '
psychology closed in upon the Church, and effectually shrouded
the main truth of Christianity from its disciples. Here and
there some earnest teacher, faithful to the Scripture, faithful
to tradition, faithful to a sounder philosophy, resisted the grow-
ing opinion, and boldly testified, as we have seen, against the
error which is the germ of nearly all heresies; here and there
a puzzled bishop or apologist, though holding ' philosophic '
language at one time, on other occasions taught the special doc-
trine of Christianity ; but the resistance soon began to die away ;
and by the time that Jerome and Augustine arose, those intolerant
doctors of the demonolatrous ' apostasy,' as Mr. Isaac Taylor has
truly described them, several generations of Christians had lived
beneath the terrific superstitions that overshadow mankind under
the assertion of native immortality, and the denial of God's grace
in the gift of life eternal.
Beliefs in which illimitable terror predominates have the
advantage of confirming their own sway when once established,
by the doom which they hold out even of hostile thought. Un-
godly men, and many not ungodly, sincerely think anything
infinitely horrible is so much more probable than the opposite,
that the path of terror in religion is easy. After the publication
of Augustine's predestinarian theology, Christendom sank para-
served the ends of religion. But in no sense can it be admitted that Chris-
tianity has been anticipated by natural theology, or can be limited by its
supposed conclusions. Its central doctrine of salvation by the Incarnation and
Sacrifice of the Son of God is wholly foreign to the ' wisdom of this world ' ;
and its contradiction of the popular faith in man's native immortality, while
attributing man's immortal life to Christ, is only another example of the
general rule that its revelations transcend every anticipation of nature. ' Eye
hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the
things which God hath prepared for them that love Him,' a passage which
S. Paul specially applies to the revelation of the gospel theology.
JEWISH AND HEATHEN INFLUENCES., 435
lysed on the fiery shores of his eternal hell ; the gloomy priest-
hood ruled the new Gothic world, and the doctrines of Purgatory
and Mariolatry were invented as necessary reliefs for souls
maddened with fear of eternal torments. There were always
' Scripture texts ' enough at hand, duly wrested, to support this
or any other delusion, and they were diligently used during the
following centuries of Christianity, and quoted as defiantly of the
main drift of the Bible as they are to-day.
Such we believe to be the history of 'doctrine in relation to
Immortality. Natural immortality is the first article of ' natural
religion ' to religious men who have not learned of Christ ; as the
Ptolemaic astronomy founded on sense-perceptions precedes the
Newtonian. In every age since the first, Christ witnesses as the
' Life of the world ' against this pretension to native perpetuity
of being, and for the most part witnesses in vain. The multitudes
of learned men who have in every country taught the man-deify-
ing dogma of natural immortality exercise a far greater authority
than He. Athens still rules more powerfully over men's minds
than Nazareth. Christ is the ' Rejected of men,' especially of
philosophers ; but nevertheless He is the Life of the world, and
if men live without Him, He declares that they will die eternally.
In accounting, therefore, for the rise and establishment of the
doctrine of the immortality of the soul in Christendom, with its
logical consequence of the doctrine of endless misery, we have
not far to seek for sufficient causes. It was not Platonism alone
that operated in this direction. All the special influences of
Eastern and Western thought were vigorously at work from the
very beginning of the gospel to contravene the chief peculiarity
of the Christian Revelation, its declaration that immortality is
the gift of God, through the Incarnation, to regenerate men alone.
Against this humbling ' form of doctrine ' all the authority of the
loftiest speculation of both Europe and -Asia was arrayed with
overshadowing influence. Never had such a notion been heard
of, from the Pillars of Hercules to the farthest East, as the de-
pendence of mankind for eternal life on a Jewish artisan who
claimed to be ' God manifest in the flesh ' ! All the old religions
of the world were against it all the old philosophies. It was
the last lesson which even the faithful disciples of Christ would
436 IMPERIAL CHRISTIANITY A CORRUPTION.
consent to learn. From the time when He proclaimed it in the
synagogue of Capernaum (John vi.) 'many of His disciples went
back and walked no more with Him, saying, Who can hear it ? '
The mass of Jewish and Grecian converts, in proportion to their
' culture,' insisted on retaining their old ideas when they entered
the Church,* and it required nothing less than a thorough
acquaintance with the course of written revelation to enable a
teacher to stand up in any locality against the popular opinion.
The doctrine of immortality in Christ was doubtless as unaccept-
able to the majority of Christian scholars and thinkers then as it
is now ; hence the true cause for wonder is, not that, long before
the end of the second century, Tertullian could teach the doctrine
of endless misery in the language of a fiend, f but that so late as
the third and fourth centuries we should find numerous indica-
tions of the partial survival of the apostolic and unpopular con-
tradiction of it.
For then as now the leaders of thought were possessed with
the opinion that the common people must be partially deceived
in order to be restrained. If modern Europe, both scientific
and theological, is honeycombed with secret beliefs, so also was
ancient Christendom. The most alarming theology was naturally
esteemed the safest for the multitude.
Original Christianity, a revelation of truth and grace, was
designed for sincere Christians only. A little later a Christianity
was required for influencing the miscellaneous multitudes of the
Empire. For them, since they were inaccessible to rational and
spiritual motives, magical sacraments, church ceremonial, and
terrific dogma, formed the three necessary elements of ' religion.'
The strongest of such elements, that of terror, was at hand in the
popular notion of the soul's immortality and its consequences.
Not many would look very closely into the Christian standards,
and thus a ' pious fraud ' would, in the judgment of the few who
examined the question at- all, seem to be justified by the necessity
of the times. This would be but to pursue the path of * prudence '
* See Stanley's Essays on the Apostolical Age.
t ' How shall I admire, how rejoice, when I behold so many proud monarchs
liquefying in fiercer fires than they ever kindled for the Christians, so many
tragedians more tuneful in the expression of their own sufferings,' etc. De
Spectaculis t c. 30.
ACTION OF EVIL SPIRITS. 437
trodden by them in other departments, and by so many thousands
of silent divines in later generations. For one teacher of Chris-
tianity who will independently examine his doctrines singly and col-
lectively by the standard of the apostolic writings, there are at least
hundreds who will humbly subscribe in early life an unquestioning
assent to whatever is proposed to them as the condition of the
priesthood or ministry, when sanctioned by the Church, and scores
in our own time who will deny the authority of the apostles altogether.
There is no reason to think that the governing influences of
life were more favourable to independent study and courageous
avowal in the third century than in the nineteenth. Any myste-
rious or terrific dogma once asserted by half a dozen eminent
preachers, scholars, and martyrs, was certain of a long career
of dominion over the masses of mankind, for there is no influence
to which men yield so easily as to unreasoning fear. In this
case, not half a dozen, but the whole body of Jewish converts from
Pharisaic teaching, the Oriental luminaries, and the entire army of
Greek converts from the Alexandrian and Athenian philosophies,
supported on all sides the hell-passion of such a man as Tertullian
whose devoutly ferocious disposition offered a fitting engine for the
fresh propagation of the dogma in the Latin-speaking world.
And this takes no account of that which ought not to be for-
gotten in describing the genesis of the opinion the action of
' seducing spirits and the teaching of demons speaking lies in
hypocrisy,' which may nevertheless be believed to have been con-
cerned in re-establishing that primeval philosophy whispered in
the ear of Eve, ' Ye shall not surely die / ' If a few energetic
preachers, in .our own generation, reckless in uncritical assertion,
ruthless in their treatment of opponents, and moderately well
convinced of the truth of the tremendous doctrine they have
espoused, are able to persuade so many modern multitudes of its
truth, with the printed Bible under their eyes, it is easy to under-
stand that the few scattered protests of the Ante-Nicene ages were
feebly matched against the influnce of numberless Christian teachers,
maddened by the cruelty of the Roman Emperors, and thirsting for
some vengeful threatening of hell-torment which might perchance
scare the heathen into silence or submission. But the Roman
cruelty we believe was stimulated by the ' Christian ' threatenings,
and both parties alike were ignorant of the truth of God.
438
CHAPTER XXVII.
ON THE DOCTRINE OF THE ULTIMATE SALVATION OF ALL MEN,
COMMONLY CALLED UNIVERSALISM.
' And by Him all that believe are justified from all things from which they
could not be justified by the law of Moses. Beware, therefore, lest that
come upon you which is spoken of in the prophets : Behold, ye despisers, and
wonder, and perish' (d^aviaOrjn.) Acts xiii. 39-41.
THE modifications of opinion on the subject of future retribution,
both in the earlier and later ages of Christianity, have been
determined in quality by their point of departure. Psychology
has deeply influenced the history of interpretation, more deeply
than is often allowed. The schools which have held as the result
of inquiry, or accepted with unquestioning faith, the everlasting
duration of the soul, have been compelled to deal with the lan-
guage of the Bible on future punishment under the difficult
conditions imposed by that unbiblical preconception. And it is
hard to say to which of the two parties who are agreed on their
psychology, but differ in their theological views, we owe the more
signal illustration of the fact that no words can bind a man who
approaches Revelation with the main articles of his creed already
settled on a philosophical basis. Even divine words are but air
against the Sit pro ratione voluntas.
The array of believers in the immortality of the soul is divided
into two wings; the first comprising those who maintain the
eternity of sin and misery, as the necessary result of the eternity
of the sinner ; the second those who maintain that the Divine
Goodness will eventually recover all immortal beings from sin
and its direful consequences in hell*
* The Rev. J. Baldwin Brov/n's theory of future punishment is based upon
he assumption qf natural immortality, and combines the faults of both Ortho.
MR. BALD WIN BRO WN, LORD L YTTELTON, MR. COX. 439
Each of these theological parties has operated upon the
biblical language in a manner which seems to enforce the rule
of interpretation advocated by us. To each party the primary
truth that which must on no account be sacrificed, and which
must give the law to the meaning of all judicial words used by
prophets and apostles is the absolute eternity of the soul of
Man. No interpretation which contradicts that first truth must
be admitted. Not the plainest and most obvious sense of words
must be permitted to stand before this supreme necessity of
vindicating the divine dignity of man in one portion of his nature
as an indestructible being. If the Bible seem to assert a psy-
chology of its own, if it seem to present a whole forest of argu-
ments opposing the idea of the actual eternity of all men, then
this ' postulate of all religion ' must pass like a fiery flame and
burn for itself a way through all that forest of opposing language.
But there are two directions in which this flame may travel ; so
that there are two roads between which the philosophic traveller
may choose. The large majority of divines, holding to man's
immortality, have felt themselves compelled to assert, since the
days of the Pharisees'and early Greek Christianity, that the threat-
enings of death and destruction, of perishing and extermination
(karat], stand for the endless misery of souls that cannot die ;
and with respect to the declarations of Scripture that Christ came
to give eternal life, that these stand for the idea, that He came
to give ' spiritual life ' holiness and divine happiness to souls
already immortal.
This conclusion, however, has not satisfied the Universalists
from the days of Origen down to the present time. Endowed
doxy and Universalism. He seems to admit of the eternal suffering of a sinner,
if his ' free-will ' hold out against God for ever. In that case his destruction
will signify his endless misery. But Mr. Brown is hopeful of the conversion of
all sinful beings in hell, and then their destruction will signify the ' destruction
of their sins.' The outlines of this theory were also contained in a paper by
Lord Lyttelton in the Contemporary Review, in 1871. Lord Lyttelton and Mr.
Brown seem to attribute to free-will and the ' fire of hell ' the regenerating
power which the New Testament always ascribes to divine grace and the truth
of the gospel. Mr. Cox*s Salvator Mundi follows on the same track. But his
work is distinguished by a remarkably light estimate of the ' exceeding sin-
fulness of sin.' One might really suppose, in reading it, that the Bible was
chiefly written to give obstinate sinners a cheerful view of their future state.
440 O RIG EX ON THE DEATH OF THE SIXNER.
perhaps with a livelier imagination than their opponents, they
have better apprehended the meaning of everlasting suffering ;
and, like the majority of men who allow themselves earnestly
to meditate upon that appalling prospect as applied to actually
existing human beings, and their own relations, they have found
the inevitable results to be approaching madness, or total
unbelief, or some modification of the orthodox faith. Under
the condition of maintaining the psychological doctrine of man's
immortality, and much more when to that was added the doctrine
of moral necessity, but one modification was possible that of
asserting the final salvation of all mankind.
But this involved the difficult task of dealing with the language
of Scripture. How shall this be reconciled with the speculation
of universal restitution? The answer was not long delayed in
the fertile mind of Origen. The orthodox party had set a bold
example of manipulating the words of the New Testament. If
one party thinks itself entitled to explain death by misery, and
destruction by an immortality of sin, in order to maintain the
soul's immortality, surely the other may claim equal right to
operate for theological reasons upon the same terms ; and declare
that the death of the sinner signifies only the death of his sin, the de-
struction of the wicked, the destruction only of their wickedness ; thus
opening the door to faith in an all-reconciling mercy, supposed to
be explicitly announced in certain passages of the sacred volume.
Such has been the basis of Universalist interpretation for sixteen
centuries, and as long as it endures such must be the method to
which it resorts in vindication of its leading principles.
It is probable that neither Origen nor his followers would
have imagined so considerable a violence to the language of
the Scripture threatening, unless they had been possessed with
an antecedent faith in the incorruptibility of the soul. If a
reader has once accepted the coherent biblical theory elicited
by allowing the death threatened to Adam to stand for impend-
ing extinction, and the life which is conferred in Christ to stand
for restored immortality, restricted to men who choose God for
their portion, the temptation to deal violently with the mass of
biblical language is at once removed. But so* long as men think
all souls immortal, and are oppressed with the horror of the
dogma of endless misery thence arising, the temptation to wrest
SOURCES OF UNIVERSALISM. 441
the terms of Scripture into the sense of universal salvation is
almost irresistible.
In briefly reviewing the arguments by which Universalism
is supported, we shall pass by those which may be classified as
moral, and confine attention to critical considerations. The
moral argument for Universal Salvation is, as we have seen,
founded on the assumption of man's natural immortality. It is
taken as proved that men must live for ever, and then it is argued
with different degrees of confidence to be contradictory to what
is known of Divine Justice and Mercy that they should suffer
for ever : whence it follows, more or less certainly, that Divine
Wisdom will restore them to blessedness again. It is evident that
this argument proceeds on a psychological assumption of man's
eternal duration of being. That stiff-necked assumption we can
neither allow nor argue upon. Its removal from the field of
view leaves no moral difficulty to be solved by the violent hypo-
thesis of universalism. Universalism has no locus statidi in dog-
matics until it has established its psychological postulate : and
this is precisely the work which its psychologers steadfastly
decline to undertake. The natural eternity of all souls is more
conveniently asserted and assumed than demonstrated, and hence
the pernicious custom of taking for granted a principle which
underlies the entire fabric of interpretation. Those who admit
that that ground has been undermined by the preceding argument
will concede that the Universalists may justly be required to
provide some new point of departure. It cannot be permitted to
confound survival of the soul with its eternity.
The critical or biblical arguments for the salvation of all men
are found in three series of scriptural expressions, (i) those
which declare the character of God. (2) those which assert the
merciful provision of God for the salvation of the whole race
of mankind, (3) those which are used directly in announcing the
penalty of sin.
(i) The final salvation of all men is deduced from the revealed
character of God, as the Father of all mankind. The ' fatherhood
of God ' is defined to be a principle in the Divine Mind which
will compel the Divine Will to reach and to rescue every one
of His sons. Without relying on single phrases to prove their
442 HUMANITY, NATURE, REVELATION.
case, the moderate Universalists would affirm that the general
tone of Revelation supports the belief that God's ' tender mercies
are over all His works,' and that ' His mercy endureth for ever,'
reaches, therefore, into the eternity down which the sinful soul is
rushing. No created being can cut himself off from relationship
to the Eternal Love, and that Love will not disown the relation
of sonship which has once existed. It is, therefore, held to be
infinitely incredible that God will inflict eternal misery upon any
creature, and equally incredible that the Father of all will, with
His own hand, slay any of His sons, or extinguish their existence.
The Divine Nature is declared to be the grand argument for the
final restitution of all lapsed creatures.
A thoughtful observer of the world will, perhaps, admit that
more certainty is attainable respecting some things which Divine
Goodness will not do, than as to what it will do in the way of
positive benefaction. We may securely decide, for example, that
if there be a God of justice in any sense in which we can under-
stand that term, He will not allow those who have died in child-
hood to suffer in hell for ever ; but it is not so easy to deduce
from the divine goodness that it will immortalise every sinful man
to eternal joy.
The sources of our knowledge respecting God are our own
nature, the world around us, and the Mosaic and Christian re-
velations. Now in each of these departments of study there are,
it must be admitted, indications of character in the Creator which
reveal something very different from mere indiscriminate kindness.
Goodness, real but limited, is indeed manifested on all sides, but
equally certain it is that beneath nature and providence there is
also a severity which clearly contemplates other ends besides the
enjoyment of creatures, a fixed will to uphold law at all risks,
and to carry out plans at great cost of suffering and life to sentient
beings.
Mr. John Stuart Mill was so much impressed with the severe
and awful element in Nature that he doubted whether the Cause
of the Universe was as ' good ' as is commonly represented. The
forces of the Kosmos, as he has shown in a memorable passage in
his essay on Nature (p. 28), operate inexorably; and if free agents
become entangled, through their own lack of care or knowledge,
in that terrible machinery, no cries of drowning, or agonising, or
SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE ON DIVINE CHARACTER. 443
lacerated, or dying persons avail to deliver them from destruction.
Much, too, of the mental and bodily misery inflicted on men in
the course of Providence bears the aspect of being, not discipli-
nary, but terribly punitive, and that in a measure which holds
out little hope of different treatment beyond. On the ground of
nature, apart from revelation, it is exceedingly difficult, as Socrates
found it, to make out any evidence of a better state for the gene-
rality of souls departed, in case of survival. Nor is this to be
wondered at, when it is remembered that outward nature reveals
God acting by law alone, of which, we are now divinely taught,
that the law, ' working wrath,' cannot save. However great the
Divine Goodness, it has at least been limited in this world suffi-
ciently to allow the major part of mankind to reap the conse-
quences of perverse free-will under terrible issues of life and
death.
If we turn to the Scriptures, assuredly the modem confident
affirmations of the infinite tenderness of God towards all creatures,
good and bad, seem to obtain slight confirmation from either
history or doctrine. The Bible resembles a vast ocean of truth,
and, like the ocean, it offers at one time a boundless expanse of
calm and sunshine ; depths of redeeming mercy overarched by
azure heights of love at another time it is covered with black-
ness and darkness, the heavens above are red with the fiery
storms of Divine indignation, when God ' thundereth marvel-
lously with His voice,' denouncing judgment upon the rebellious.
Every reader can verify for himself this twofold impression made
by the records of revelation. If words possess a fixed meaning,
and have been employed in their ordinary sense by the succession
of prophets and apostles, and by the Son of God Himself, I think
we do not gather that the object was to make us believe that
God's nature is such as to compel Him to save all alike at last.
The bright current of the divine promises to penitent men is not
more visible to the eye, than the fiery stream of curses which
rolls its awful tide into the abyss of perdition, carrying upon its
waves all obstinately rebellious beings whether diabolical or
human. Mankind can scarcely have been mistaken at least in
gathering both from Nature and from Revelation the convic-
tion that there is some attribute of God far different from mere
444 SCRIPTURE STATEMENTS ON GOD'S LOVE
Fatherly Compassion and Goodness, concerned in dealing with
obstinate offenders. ' Our God is a consuming fire ' can scarcely
signify that the Divine Love is determined on saving desperate
malefactors.
The revealed character of God, then, to whatever side we look,
does not seem to be more favourable to the expectation of Uni-
versal Salvation than the Divine Character as shadowed forth by
nature. The biblical doctrine concerning Divine Benignity seems
to be that there is no limit to God's mercy towards the obedient ;
that He will be compassionate towards young children and igno-
rant offenders ; but that there is ' merciless judgment ' for fallen
angels, and for men who ' set themselves ' against Omnipotence.
(2) Let us now turn to the general declarations of Divine Com-
passion towards men, on which some rely to prove that eventually
all will arrive in heaven. The following are the chief :
John iii. 17. ' God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world through Him might be saved.'
John i. 29. Christ was ' the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the
world." 1 (See also John iv. 42, I John iv. 14, ' Saviour of the world,' 6 <rojr/p
John xii. 32. 'And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men
unto myself.'
Rom. v. 15, 18. ' If through the offence of one the many be dead (ol TroAXoi),
much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace hath abounded unto
the many (TOVQ TroXXovg). Therefore as by the offence of one judgment
came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the
free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.'
I Cor. 15, 28. ' When all things are subjected to Him (to Christ), then
also shall the Son be subjected unto Him that put all things under Him, that
God may be all in all.' The subjection of Christ to God is filial, therefore it
is argued the subjection of all things to Christ at last will be filial.
Ephesians i. 10. 'That in the dispensation of the fulness of time He might
gather together in one all things in the Christ, both which are in the heavens
and which are on earth, even in Him.'
Phil. ii. 9, 10. ' God hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name
which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
of the heavenly, and the earthly, and the subterranean (cai KaTaxOoviaiv), and
every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.'
Col. i. 19. ' Having made peace through the blood of Christ by Him to
reconcile all this unto Himself, whether they be things in earth or things in
heaven.'
I Tim. ii. 4. ' This is acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who
THE WHOLE HUMAN RACE. 44$
willeth (0g\a) all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth ;'
again, verse 6, ' Christ gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in the
destined times.'
I Tim. iv. 10. ' We trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men
(ffwn/p iravTuv dvBpwirwv), specially of the believing.'
Titus ii. II. ' For the grace of God salutary or saving to all men (?) <7wr/j-
peoc Traffic) hath appeared.'
I John ii. 2. And He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours
only, but also for the sins of the whole world (Trepi o\ov TOV jco<r/ioiA'
1 Cor. xv. 22. 'As in Adam all died, so in Christ shall all be made alive.'
2 Cor. v. 19. ' God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.'
Rev. iv. 13. * Every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and
under the earth (uTrotcarw rr\q, yijej, and such as are in the sea, heard I saying,
Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power be unto Htm that sitteth on the
throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.'
Such are the general declarations of divine love and com-
passion towards all mankind, and of the final victory of Divine
Sovereignty over all opposition, on which Origen and his fellow-
believers in every generation have depended for convincing
themselves that hell itself is a school of discipline for salvation,
and that the destruction of the wicked signifies ultimately the
destruction of their sin.
We humbly and thankfully accept, in the full breadth of their
meaning, all these declarations of the apostles of Christ, and of
Christ Himself, to the effect that God has so loved the world as
to give His only-begotten Son, that ' whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish, but should have everlasting life.' The foundation
of the gospel is laid in a divine benignity towards mankind, which
embraces in its purpose the whole human race. ' God willeth not
that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance?
In the same spirit we accept with confidence the declarations
of apostolic men that the issue of all the divine dealings in mercy
and judgment will be to ' reconcile all things to God in earth and
in heaven,' by converting all salvable beings to obedience, and by
reducing to destruction, and ' dashing to pieces ' every adversary
who refuses to 'bend the knee,' so that God ' shall be all in all.'
And we perceive in these testimonies of the sacred Word, on the
one hand, the most certain evidence that evil cannot be eternal,
and, on the other, that the notion of a limited intention in the
446 SUCH STATEMENTS NOT AFFIRMATIONS
application of the gospel, is of all figments in theology the most
baseless and dishonouring to God.
But to cite these Scriptures in evidence of the final salvation of
all men is (according to our understanding) to violate the laws of
criticism on which we depend for all our knowledge of the ' mind
of Christ.' For the limitation of those declarations to the idea of
God's merciful intention towards all, and to the final victory of
divine power and wisdom in the salvation of some and the de-
struction of some, seems to be required by the whole body of
apostolic and prophetic testimony.
The reasons of this persuasion are threefold, derived (i) from
the quality of the terms generally employed to denote future
punishment ; (2) from the adjectives of duration several times
affixed to these terms ; (3) from the very nature and conditions
of redemptive action and of probation as unfolded in the
Scripture.
(i) The general terms employed to denote future punishment
compel the interpretation of the above-cited passages in the sense
by us maintained. The plain meaning of the terms carries with
it such an extermination of the wicked as leaves no room for a
restitution. They are to die, to perish, to pass away, to vanish,
to be destroyed for ever, utterly to perish, to be consumed, to be
burnt up like chaff, to be blotted from the book of life, not to see
life, to be destroyed body and soul in Gehenna, to die the second
death, to be ' ground to powder,' ' broken to shivers,' ' dashed in
pieces,' such expressions in Greek being exactly represented by
the force of these English words corresponding to them. Surely
these are not the words which would naturally occur to a writer
desiring to convey the idea of universal salvation. They seem
expressly chosen to shut the door against hope. They convey the
idea, not of the destruction of sin, but of the sinner ; not of the
purging away of wickedness, but of the utter death of the wicked
man. The violence of the proposed interpretation is as con-
spicuous as that which finds in death the threatening of a mise-
rable eternity. It is indeed the one violence which has led to and
supported the other.
On the other hand, if it had been the intention of the prophets
and apostles to teach what has been taught in these pages, that
OF THE ULTIMATE SALVATION OF ALL. 447
man apart from God perishes for ever, it could have been taught
in no other words than those which have actually been chosen.
(2) Relying upon the general system of doctrine which compels
this conclusion, we are led to rely also upon the soundness of the
ancient argument against Origen's opinion ; that the adjectives of
duration affixed in several parts of Scripture to the threatenings
of destruction exclude the hope of any reversal of the doom by
restoration to heaven. Admitting all that can fairly and reason-
ably be advanced respecting the limited senses of auovios ever-
lasting, in certain connections, it must be maintained that its
connection with the threat of o\fOpo<s, or extermination, by S. Paul
(2 Thess. i. 9), is designed to exclude the last ray of hope from
the view of men in regarding the doom of the sinners there
referred to. The ' punishment ' of whatever nature is ' eternal J
the destruction is l everlasting] the perishing is 'for ever,' the
'judgment' is 'eternal,' the blackness of darkness is for eternity
(et? TOV aiStva). ' They shall not inherit the kingdom of God. 5 *
(3) But more than all we are settled in this persuasion by
the nature of the Redemption which the Bible makes known.
So long as mankind is contemplated in the character of immor-
tals, Universalist doctrine marches forward with flying banners
and hopeful prognostics. But the Scripture, whether taken as a
scientific statement, or as a popular revelation, places man before
God in judgment on a different ground.
Man, according to the Bible, is not unconditionally immortal
by nature and destiny. He was created from the dust of the
earth, and called Earth-born, or Man of dust, on the day of his
making. The thinking power may, if God will, survive, in a
maimed, imperfect state, but it alone is not the Man. Man at
his creation was of earth (^oiicds), and perishable. God placed
him in paradise on trial for eternal life. In that trial he failed,
and by sin brought upon himself the sentence of extermination.
Under this sentence, as has been shown, lies the race of mankind
while under the law. ' THE LETTER KILLETH.' We owe to the
Incarnation our hope of immortality, and the application of that
grace is by the transforming power of the Holy Spirit in regenera-
* Matt. xxv. 46; 2 Thess. i. 9 ; Heb. vi. 2 ; Jude 13.
448 THE AWARD FINAL.
tion and resurrection. There is no other power which can effect the
needed change. There is no known tendency in sin, or in suffer-
ing, whether on earth or in hell, to regenerate, or glorify, or immor-
talize a dying sinner ; while there is a known tendency in both to
break up the very being of the offender. We are distinctly taught
that those who are not born again ' cannot inherit incorruption.'
Those who are not born twice will die twice. We must be ' born
again,' or die the ' second death.' This ' second death ' is never
set forth as a sacrament of immortality. The tree of life does
not grow beside 'the lake of fire.' It grows beside the river of
life in paradise alone, and the gate of paradise is ' kept ' by Om-
nipotence against the entrance of the condemned. ' Then shall
the King say unto those on his left hand, I know you not whence
ye are. Depart, ye cursed, into the everlasting fire, prepared for
the devil and his angels.' ' There remaineth no more sacrifice
for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery
indignation, which shall devour (eat up) the adversary ' (lo-BUi,
Heb. x. 27).
It is, indeed, a heart-rending conclusion to arrive at, but we see
no possibility of 'breaking the Scripture.' As a theory to be esta-
blished by criticism, Universalism is based on special pleading ;
while as a delusive prospect to be set before mankind it is likely,
as recent American experience has shown, to ruin innumerable
souls, who will neglect the ' day ' of salvation, for the ' fool's to-
morrow,' which never arrives. Again the writer keenly feels the
pain occasioned by uttering so earnest a protest against the doc-
trine of many able and otherwise admirable writers : but conscience
is forbidden to use smoother language when convinced that a
divine truth is at stake of limitless importance. The doctrine of
the salvation of all extends on every side. It is gradually eating
out the ' fear of God ' in the heart of the modern Church. Mul-
titudes of the ministers of the gospel cherish it in secret, with
more or less of assent, whose ministry suffers in fervency accord-
ingly, the sense of an infinite danger being lost. Yet they are
for some reason afraid to proclaim it. Why afraid ? Is it not
that they suspect that the common sense of serious Christians
will explode their opinion as contrary to Scripture ? The minds
of such good men, honestly unable to sustain the burden of the
CONCEALMENT OF UNIVERSALIST BELIEF. 449
dogma of endless torments, and knowing no other refuge, have
fled to the doctrine of the salvation of all men, quoting the Poet
Laureate's agreeable reveries when Holy Scripture fails them.
Such secret Universalism correctly judges that the common
people will not receive the doctrine as Scriptural, for it can be
extracted from the Bible only by a system of interpretation which
would be rejected in any court of law. It is as if there were an
Act of Parliament partitioning certain lands between a thousand
of the people ; commencing with a general statement of goodwill
towards the whole company so designated for endowment, and
with an expression of the desire and intention of the Queen and
Parliament for an equal division between all the thousand ; but
distinctly providing, in words repeated again and again, that if
any of the beneficiaries should commit robbery or murder, or
disobey the Commissioners appointed to divide the land, they
should on conviction be put to death, and so be shut out and cut
off for ever from their portion of the grant. What should we
think of an advocate employed by such criminals if he rested his
plea, in an action against the Commissioners, upon the clearly
comprehensive language of the general terms of the Act, which
expressed the intention of an equal distribution, and professed an
equal benevolence in Parliament towards every member of the
thousand? If he were to found an argument on the fact that
the Queen loves all her subjects equally, and therefore doubtless
intended good and bad alike to share in the distribution, judges
and juries would make short work with such a plea. They would
point to the oft-recurring qualifying proviso, and to the evidence
of the criminality of the offenders and they would dismiss the
plaintiffs to a criminal court with a deserved rebuke for their
presumption.
The plaintiffs advocate here represents the Universalist theory.
It takes the expressions of God's love to mankind, of His gracious
intentions towards all men in Christ, and boldly brings these
declarations to neutralise the proviso, repeated hundreds of times
in the Deed of Redemption, that all rebellious persons shall die,
perish, and be destroyed for ever.
There is not, I think, a more pernicious example of violence
offered to sacred language in the history of the world. If the
threatenings of death, destruction of body and soul in hell,
29
450
THE TWO OATHS OF GOD.
really signify only ' the destruction of sin,' or a suffering from
which sinners will all escape into heaven at last, it seems useless
to concern ourselves longer with sacred books which do not mean
what they say. But let those who revere the Scripture record,
consider the two oaths of God in respect of Palestine. He
1 sware by Himself ' to give that land to Abraham and to his seed
for ever. He also ' sware by Himself,' four hundred years after-
wards (Numb, xiv.), that none of the generation wJw had seen His
work in Egypt should enter the land. The one oath qualified and
explained the other. There was nothing in the shape of mercy
concealed behind that second oath of exclusion. ' Their carcases
fell in the wilderness.' 'As I live' was no brutum fulincn.
Similarly there is a distinct threatening of ' death,' of ' destruc-
tion for ever,' to all who, hearing the gospel, neglect or reject it.
Surely any tampering with this threat must be injurious to the
influence of religion among men. It not only encourages vain
hope in careless souls, and leads them to waste the present hour,
but it strikes at the root of faith in the veracity of the Almighty.
' I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest '
(Psalm xcv. 1 1 ).
If it be said that this objection is founded on the diminution
in the minds of wicked men of the fear of a suffering which is
sooner or later to come to an end, and therefore tells with equal
force against the doctrine maintained in these pages, we reply
that there is a boundless difference between the moral effect of a
threatening of penal suffering A terminating in glory everlasting, and
that of a threatening of capital punishment, especially when it
is made certain that the latter will be speedily executed in the
'miserable destruction' of 'both the body and soul in hell.' In
the one case men are tempted to look beyond the suffering to the
release, and the subsequent endless glory. In the other they
' shudder ' at the prospect of a doom alleviated by no hope of
redemption, and overwhelming the soul by the fear of absolute
extermination under the blows of an Almighty hand. The
Universalist is always tempted, even when thinking of judgment
to come, to dwell upon the final deliverance j while the teacher
of the remediless award is armed with a ' weapon mighty through
God ' to make even a Felix 'tremble.'
May we not rightly cite in this connection the awe-striking
LOOSE TEMPER OF THIS TIME. 451
warning of the prophet, ' Hearken not unto the words of the pro-
phets that prophesy unto you; who make you vain ; they speak a
vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord.
They say still unto them that despise me, The Lord hath said, Ye
shall have peace, and they say unto every one that walketh in the
imagination of his own heart, No evil shall come upon you ' (Jer.
xxiii. 17). 'With lies ye have strengthened the hands of the
wicked, that he should not return from his wickedness, by promising
him life ' (Ezek. xiii. 22).
At great cost of feeling I must, in view of these fallacious con-
solations offered to impenitence, profess the persuasion that much
of the religious teaching of the last few years has proceeded from
a gradually-declining sense of sin in its evil, and in its deserts ;
as that again has proceeded from a declining sense of the justice
of God. This is but to repeat the lesson of history, that ages of
brilliant external civilisation, and of physical luxury and comfort,
have ever been ages of epicurean theologising. Amidst plenty of
corn and wine, amidst the illusions of art and beauty, men lose
the sense of ' the sinfulness of sin,' of the righteousness and
severity of God, and of the terribleness of the world of doom
beyond. So is it to-day. ' Men heap to themselves teachers,
having itching ears.' They will ' not endure sound doctrine.'
Hell itself must become a school of glory ; heaven the final
refuge of a world of unfortunates, who really had almost every
excuse for their villainies and crimes. Between the fall of Adam
and the force of circumstances and the cheapness of vicious
indulgences, and the bias of heredity and the difficulty of
knowing whom to believe Jesus or Mohammed, Paul or Rousseau,
John or Voltaire a hopeful case must be made out for every
man; and if GOD Himself should ' judge the world in righteous-
ness/ He must unsay all the ancient threats of exclusion from
future blessedness ; and, after some fatherly chastisement of ' dogs,
and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters,
and lovers and makers of lies,' must receive them with open arms
to paradise. This is certainly the tone of much of the most
fashionable preaching of our time, both in and out of the National
Church. Never has this tone taken possession of the Church,
but some epoch of judgment has vindicated the reality of the
452 SODOM AND GOMORRAH ' SET FORTH'
government of Him ' whose eet are like fine brass burning in a
furnace.' Oh for the awful voice of some Savonarola to thunder
to-day over the heads of the ungodly millions of Europe, and
awaken them to the realities of judgment to come ; to turn their
attention away from the ' prophets who prophesy smooth things '
to the true sayings of God. ' The judge standeth before the door,'
and here are the very signs of His approach men saying, Peace
and safety ! all right, and all for the best, in both worlds when
' sudden destruction is coming, and there shall be no remedy?
I wonder what the recent preachers of this ' gospel of love '
would have said if they had stood on high with Abraham, and
seen through the gloom the rain of burning sulphur descending
01 Sodom and Gomorrah, inflicting remediless destruction on
those unclean sinners against their own souls ? Would they have
ventured on these bold philippics against the Power that herein
'confessed the failure of His earthly providence,' so that He
' could do nothing else than kill off' all that lived in the cities of
the plain ? Yet Christ declares that even these Sodomites are to
suffer again in the resurrection of judgment, though not so griev-
ously as the men at Capernaum and Chorazin, who beheld and
rejected the Light of the World. I wonder what they would have
said of the uniformly fatherly and purgatorial action of Divine
judgment, if they had been present in Pharaoh's Court, when, in
the name of the Almighty Lord of Nature, insulted and denied
by ages of Egyptian idolatry and philosophy falsely so called,
Moses, with uplifted rod, stood forth and said, from the mouth of
God : ' Now will I stretch out My hand that I may smite thee,
and thy people, with pestilence, and thou shalt be cut off from the
earth. And in very deed for this cause have I made thee stand,
for to show in thee My power, and that My name may be declared
throughout all the earth' (Exod. ix. 16). If Jannes or Jambres
had essayed similar comments, they would soon have shrunk from
the conflict, and their ' folly would have been made manifest to
all men.' There are circumstances in which it is good for the
world that God's messengers should be armed with a forehead of
adamant, like Jeremiah, when the object is to warn men as with
the trump of God against approaching doom ; when the sense of
Heaven's government has well-nigh died out under the soporifics
and enchantments of so evil a tjme ; and when men and women
XOT AS AN 'EXAMPLE* OF SALVATION. 453
will say and do the utmost wickedness, in assurance of being
fortified at last in death by all the rites of the Catholic Church
or by all the deadlier consolations of a Protestant scepticism.
' Awake to righteousness and sin not, for some have not the
knowledge of God ! '
We read in the Gospels of some unblessed spirits the demons
who spake through the possessed who anticipate, at a ' time '
yet future, ' torment,' and ' destruction,' and who prayed Christ
not to send them down * to the abyss.' Let any one reflect on
that indication of the unseen world *of judgment, and surely they
will think twice before they encourage men to regard the invisible
realms as a region into which fools may safely rush in hope of
salvation. The very grace of the Gospel presupposes a ' wrath to
come,' and that indignation is spoken of also for those who reject
the Gospel, as 'the wrath of the Lamb.'
It is the burden of the Lord, and we feel our own unfitness to
use the language of exhortation to our readers ; but .if of late it
was a good work to delve for seven days through the darkness
and to cleave the rocks, to save those imprisoned Welsh miners
from death in time, it seems to us as if it were for infinitely a
nobler end to struggle through the long years of this fearful con
tention with Universalism, in the endeavour to reach mankind sitting
in death-shade, with the true doctrine of Life Eternal ; for 'he
that hath the Son hath the life, and he that hath not the Son hath
not the life,' but shall ' utterly perish.'
BOOK THE FIFTH.
THE BEARINGS OF THE DOCTRINE OF LIFE IN
CHRIST ON THE FAITH AND PRACTICE OF
MANKIND.
457
CHAPTER XXVIII.
ON THE INFLUENCE OF THIS THEODICY ON THE CHRISTIAN LIFE.
MR. ISAAC TAYLOR, in one of his latest works, Wesley and
Methodism, has the following somewhat enigmatic and prophetic
passage, in which he foretells a re-examination of the doctrine of
human destiny, which will bring new power to the Church of the
future.
' When once this weighty question of the after-life has been opened, a con-
troversy will ensue, in the progress of which it will be discovered that with
unobservant eyes, we and our predecessors have been so walking up and down
and running hither and thither, among dim notices and indications of the
future destinies of the human family, as to have failed to gather up or to regard
much that has lain upon the pages of the Bible, open and free to our use.
Those who, through the course of years, have been used to read the Scriptures
unshackled by systems, and bound to no conventional modes of belief must
have felt an impatience in waiting not for the arrival of a new revelation from
heaven, but of an ample and unfettered interpretation of that which has so
long been in our hands.
' Thus the future Methodism, as we assume, will feel the need of and will ac-
quire for itself, under pressure of the most urgent motives, an incontrovertible
exposition of the Scripture doctrine of the future administration of justice ;
but then it will not make this acquisition as if it could be held as an insulated
dogma ; for whatever is further ascertained on this ground will come to stand
in its true relationship to much beside, which, in the course of the same argu-
ment, will have started to view, as the genuine sense of the inspired books.
The doctrine of future punishment, as a belief drawn from Scripture, and so
drawn as to dissipate prevalent illusions, and to spread on all sides a salutary
and effective alarm such a belief will take its place in the midst of an expanded
prospect of the compass and intention of the Christian system.
' So it will be with the future Methodism ; and although it will rest itself
upon a laboriously obtained belief concerning the " wrath to come" a belief
that will heave the human mind with a deep, convulsive dread, yet, and not-
withstanding this preliminary, the renovation which we look for will come in
458 MR. ISAAC TAYLOR'S PREDICTION.
as the splendour of day comes in the tropics it will be a sudden brightness that
makes all things glad !' (pp. 289, 290.) *
In the foregoing pages we have presumed, in accordance with
this prediction, to discuss, as others have done, the doctrine of
human immortality as taught in the Jewish and Christian Scrip-
tures, having first ascertained that on the basis of science the
question of future life admits of no hopeful solution. Physical
nature points us to the earth for our original, and to the grave
for our possible, nay, our probable, end. But the Immortality
revealed by the gospel is its most signal peculiarity. It is set
forth as derived, not from Adam, but from Christ, not from earth,
but from heaven. It includes body and soul, it is conditional
upon union with God in regeneration, it is denied to the per-
sistently wicked. The wicked will perish, they will not live for
ever, they will be destroyed body and soul in hell.
SECTION I.
In this section I purpose to consider the influence of these
ideas, regarded as a coherent manifestation of the Divine
Character and Government, upon the Christian life ; specially
in respect to the maintenance of that sense of the reality of revela-
tion, and of faith in it, out of which a holy life must spring. A
belief which is a ' make-believe ' can affect life only superficially.
The conviction which is to govern conduct in a world of strong
temptation must be thorough and profound.
The custom which too often prevails both among Christians
ft
* In a letter which I received in 1871 from the late Rev. Isaac Jennings, of
Oakham, a learned contributor to Kitto's Biblical Encyclopedia, he says that
he was well acquainted with Mr. Isaac Taylor, and can testify positively that
he ' differed most decidedly from the popular opinion, and did not believe in
the immortality of the soul. I remember once putting the question to him in
the company of Professor Fraser, "Do you not think that the doctrine of the
natural immortality of the soul is a delusion ? " He replied most distinctly, " I
do ; " Professor Fraser expressing also his assent. I know from intimations he
gave in various conversations that he did not believe in eternal torment ; and I
think that as far back as the time when he wrote Saturday Evening he was of
the same mind on the subject. I know also that Mr. Taylor held that in the
invisible world a remedial process will go on, or goes on now, in the case of all
those who have lived and died without hearing the Gospel.'
INFLUENCE OF TERROR ON SUPERSTITION. 459
and sceptics, of representing Faith and Reason as opposites,
is unbiblical and pernicious. In the Scriptures, Faith is never
opposed to reason, but always to sight. If faith is contrary to
reason, faith is irrational. But right faith is the exercise of puri-
fied reason, using that word to denote both the intellectual and
moral faculties of man. It was to this Conscience or moral
faculty that the apostles appealed in commending original Chris-
tianity to the world ; ' commending ourselves to every man's con-
science ((rwL8rja-Lv) in the sight of God' (2 Cor. iv. 2). The
proper basis of faith is in the intellectual and moral convictions
of mankind; but in proportion as Christianity is corrupted it
retreats from that basis to build a credulous assent on antiquated
custom, or on the authority of the uninstructed multitude. It
may be added that in proportion as faith blindly seeks to build on
these foundations it loses its control over the understanding and
the will, and practical morality is distorted or forgotten, until at
length Loyola's doctrine of the soul's subjection to the will of the
priest, like a dead body (perinde ac cadaver), is reckoned the height
of virtue.
We find no indication in the apostolic writings that Christianity
at its promulgation caused a shock to the general conscience of
mankind. It opposed the world's foolish and degenerate cults, it
denounced vile social customs, it made all things new ; but we
find no record in the Apologies that it was rejected because it
was morally incredible, because the God whom it revealed was a
Being in character unintelligible, or detestable to the moral faculty.
This cause for rejecting Christianity is peculiar to the later ages
of the gospel. There is no trace, in the hostile manifestations
with which the gospel was encountered at first, of that profound
moral loathing which has been felt for it by many able modern
infidels, who nevertheless admire what is good, just, generous, and
compassionate in their fellow-creatures who are Christians.
Nor is it sceptics alone who have found themselves unable to
appreciate or admire the moral element in modern Christianity,
considered as a supposed revelation of the Divine Character.
Popular Christianity can scarcely be said, even by its professional
advocates, to take a very firm hold on the moral sentiments of its
adherents, to commend itself in its highest doctrines to the hearty
assent of conscience, or to awaken the free, graceful, and loyal
460 FAITH UPHELD BY THOUGHTLESSNESS.
emotions of the soul. The general truth of the gospel is received,
and the faith of it operates (through the secret and merciful aid
of heaven) in an admirable degree to the production of holy lives ;
but what is called the ' scheme of salvation ' as a whole, is seen
by the common mind covered with a kind of indistinct haze or
glare, which takes it out of the range of topics adapted for the
ordinary exercise of thought and reflection. A not uncommon
feeling is that the less attention it receives, the better for a man's
belief in it ; since * the faith ' is of such a quality that reasoning
upon it, that is, using the moral faculty, is likely to lead to
unsettlement. Thinking on the ' articles of religion ' comes to
be regarded as a dangerous employment, and inquiring into them
is confounded with scepticism. Thus the pride of Ignorance
reproves what is termed the pride of reason, and a spurious
humility keeps watch over the spiritual slumber of the popular
understanding.
Nor is this indisposition to think upon many of the articles of
modern faith wholly inexcusable. A vigorous application of the
moral sense to some well-established dogmas usually ends in
unbelief, unless the inquirer is happy enough to find a spiritual
clue to guide him out of the labyrinth of his difficulties.
That every unregenerate being, who, having been born in sin,
has died in sin, is destined to an endless existence in some degree
of misery of body or mind, or both an existence, the duration of
which would be only commencing when it had lasted through a
number of millenniums denoted by lines of figures as numerous
as the vibrating beams of light which extend from all the suns
and stars of the firmament into the infinite darkness even if
these innumerable lines of figures should be multiplied into each
other, this is a proposition which requires for its support some-
thing more solid than two or three disputed texts out of the English
version of Matthew's and Mark's gospels, and which nothing short
of absolute demonstration ought to persuade any man to embrace
as from God. The more one knows of revelation as a whole,
the actual history of the human race, and of the character of God,
as made known in the world that now is, and in the Bible, the
greater is the difficulty in believing in this Augustinian doctrine
of hell as Scriptural, and the deeper conviction that the Deus of
SECRET SCEPTICISM. 461
Augustine was, after all, only a fusion of the two eternal powers
of good and evil of his earlier Manichean heresy.
Under the strictly orthodox representation of the action of
Deity in redemption, we can scarcely wonder at the vacant stare
of village labourers, or Sunday-school catechumens, or skilled
artificers, or even at the honest confession of the author of The
Limits of Religious Thought, who maintains that the moral
character of Deity in Christianity is practically unintelligible by
the human conscience. We can hardly wonder at the indignant
repulse given by the astonished Indian idolater, when we inform
him in one breath of the reputed constitution of law which the
Gospel came into the world to replace, and of that constitution of
grace which it came to establish instead. Nor is it enough to
declare that a lack of assent to the theory promulgated is due to
the absence of illuminating grace, since it is not the office of the
Holy Spirit to quench the moral understanding of man ; and large
numbers of persons who afford decisive evidence of enjoying the
teaching of that Holy Spirit experience as much difficulty in the
reception of that theory as the artisan, the philosopher, or the
subtle Hindoo. Indeed the Christians of modern times do not
believe even Protestant Christianity in their inmost souls nearly
so deeply as is supposed. They are afflicted at times with more
serious doubts and difficulties than they care or dare to express ;
and so far from possessing intelligible conceptions of the moral
character of God, which lead to hearty rejoicing, victorious faith,
or triumphant song, the result produced is generally little more
than passive submission to church authority, or the verbal ascrip-
tion of praises to Heaven, as possessing attributes of ' goodness '
and 'justice,' which are nevertheless felt to be enveloped in
impenetrable mystery. Modern church psalmody, however beau-
tiful to the ear in its instrumental element, expresses with the voice
little of that genuine melody of the heart which comes with
intense conviction and joy.
Is not the theology in which Christendom has been fixed for ages
answerable for the loose hold of the moral faculty on Revelation ?
Consider what that theology lays down as its 'scheme of salvation.'
It commences with the statement that Adam was created
immortal, as God Himself with respect to his soul, but as to his
462 VIEW OF THE < SCHEME OF REDEMPTION*
body, susceptible of death ; (2) that he was placed in Paradise,
on trial for everlasting life, under the menace of death; while
notwithstanding, irrespectively of the tree of Life, the chief part
of his nature was already incapable of extinction ; that the
privilege held out to him really was, therefore, to escape death of
the body alone in the literal sense of the threatening, and death
of the soul only in a metaphorical signification of the term ; (3)
that, failing in his probation, he brought upon himself death of
the body, and eternal misery of the soul ; and upon his posterity,
according to one account, simply temporal death (which system
of interpretation does not render any very lucid explanation of the
natural state and legal prospects of the souls of the posterity) ;
according to another account, more ancient and orthodox, and
held by all the great historical churches, both temporal death and
eternal misery of the soul ; (4) that, therefore, all mankind are
born, before they have sinned after the similitude of Adam's trans-
gression, justly liable to everlasting misery, whether through imputa-
tion, or through the possession of a nature necessarily corrupt in all
its developments ; (5) that Christ came into the world to bear the
curse of the law, which was death-^-z. curse which signified eternal
misery in the instance of mankind, but was taken to mean ' death
of the cross ' only, in the person of the Saviour ; (6) that in con-
sequence of this literal death of Christ, death in all the figurative
senses has been removed from the believer, and his physical death
shall be abolished by resurrection; (7) that although the Mosaic
law ' entered that the offence might abound,' it made no mention
of eternal misery, while nevertheless Christ's death delivers us
from that legal curse of which no mention is made ; (8) that while
the penalty for despising the law of Moses was literal ' death under
two or three witnesses,' the penalty of despising a system of
mercy shall be infinitely more tremendous than that, being to
suffer misery throughout endless duration; the punishment for
rejecting the divine mercy being, therefore, infinitely more terrible
than that for rejecting the divine justice; and, lastly, (9) that
although the greater part of mankind have been altogther deprived,
under divine providence, of the means of grace, they have been
placed on the same awful probation, unknown to themselves, for
an eternal existence in happiness or in misery ; the redemption by
Christ having added this incalculable burden to the original curse
ACCORDING TO ROME AND GENEVA. 463
on Adam, that their bodies shall be raised from the dead to die a
second death, which signifies living for ever in torment.
There are some robust theological minds for whom a horror of
great darkness and difficulty, such as is shed around by this system
of thought and speech, offers a strong tragic attraction ; but to
ordinary people this ' system ' is full of incoherency, and reaches
the conscience as little as the reason. So far as it wins compul-
sory assent, through the pressure of the external evidence of
Christianity, supposed to support it, or in consequence of that
internal evidence, of which no perversion can wholly deprive the
gospel of Christ, it causes in young and meditative spirits an
internal agony of doubt and despair such as is seldom forgotten,
even after years of mature insensibility and decorous conformity.
Full many an elder Christian of our times, if he were to recount
his youthful experiences of faith, might set them forth in some
such terms as these : ' Yes, I remember well and bitterly my own
early days, when, first starting into life, I earnestly desired to
search after my Maker, and to love Him with all my heart and all
my understanding. But the more I tried to approach Him, the
more He escaped me. His was a " justice " which I could not
appreciate. It was a " love " which was altogether different from
my own an incomprehensible mystery. We are all immortals, I
was told, all fallen in Adam, all doomed for sin to everlasting
woe , and some have been chosen to be saved from this horror,
and some not ; and the rest are to " conflict and wrestle for ever
with the flames of this eternal fire."* It was a long-continued
moral agony. The only repose I had in my religion depended
on quenching thought. If I thought, I must doubt; I might
even become wholly infidel. And so I held on to Christ, as it
were, with a finger or two ; but my soul for years was filled with
anguish and difficulty, deepening as I passed along, from which I
was often sorely tempted to find relief in a total relapse into
scepticism. In the fierce conflict with passion to which I was
exposed, I needed a religion which I could believe with heart and
mind ; but I found mine to fail me intellectually when I required
it most; for it confounded all at once reason, conscience, and
affection, and half paralysed my soul under its burden of infinite
* Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the hand of an angry God.
464 INFLUENCE OF SUCH FAITH ON SOULS.
terror. I could not comfort myself, if others could, by the
thought that I was one of the elect, dwelling in light, while that
great darkness was spread around me. That would have been to
content myself with living on the Fortunate Isles, while surrounded
behind and before by nations tossing on the surges of a boundless
fiery ocean. I found little in the higher doctrines of my faith to
exalt my apprehensions of divine goodness and righteousness, or
adapted to encourage a cheerful confidence in that Power on
which rest the foundations of the universe. For if there are some
masterful spirits who can stand upon the edge of the precipice,
observing without any recoil the millions falling in one broad
unbroken stream into the fiery surges below, there,
4 ' Thick as leaves that strew the brooks
In Vallombrosa,"
to remain in torment for ever I was one of those, the majority
of Christian spectators who find repose for their minds alone in
the feminine sleights of forgetting or overlaying the daily remem-
brance of the terrible fact, that they live in a world, the certain
destiny of whose dense unevangelised population after every
deduction for lunatics, idiots, and children dying in infancy is
of a character to fill the creation with everlasting dismay, and to
draw from all ranks of being a shout of congratulation for those
on whom the blessing of insanity or the hand of the infanticide
fell. But oh, what a remedy was not thinking, for such a calamity,
when every weekly advance of the globe along the track of its
marvellous orbit witnessed, as I thought, the departure perhaps of
a hundred thousand fresh victims of Satan to the dolours of that
endless infernal career ! '
The enfeebled state of mind produced by such impressions in
youth or age is that which prepares a deep foundation for sacer-
dotal superstition, the curse of Christendom. It is vain to deny
that the honest belief of misery to last through eternity upon all
the unsaved as long as the Necessary Being shall endure also
endangers the faith of every thoughtful Christian who accepts it.
So long as mein do not think of it, it is comparatively harmless.
As spoken of in a vague, indefinite way by preachers, who do not
labour to bring out the idea of ETERNITY, it even serves (as a true
EFFECTS OF DOCTRINE OF ENDLESS MISERY. 464
doctrine of terror would serve) to arouse the careless to repent-
ance. And in this way it has actually been used for many ages
as the engine of alarm in the conversion of most of those who
have turned to a life of religion just as the partial truth in
Roman errors for ages served to save truth-seeking souls. The
mischief commences only when men, as in our day, trained by
science to larger conceptions, think earnestly of it. The begin-
ning of reflection upon the doctrine of literally ever lasting suffer-
ing is the beginning of agonising scepticism ; and serious doubt
of any fundamental doctrine loosens our hold on all the rest.
Accordingly beneath the faith of most thoughtful Christians lies a
hidden substratum of involuntary unbelief, which breaks out now
and then in a kind of volcanic eruption and earthquake. Hence
good men become fearful of inquiry. They inwardly dread losing
hold on Christianity altogether if they begin to meddle with these
'mysteries.' Their remedy for scepticism is, not to think, or to
surrender themselves, bound hand and foot, to a priesthood.
But the remedy is worse than the disease. There is no true
doctrine which will not bear thinking of. Every truth is revealed
for the purpose of being thought upon, and commends itself to
good men the more they think of it and compare it with Scripture
and experience. Every divine revelation encourages thought by
unveiling the character of God Most High. But this doctrine
hardens the heart, paralyses the reason, and delivers up especially
the female mind to the direction of clerical corporations, who
impose their authority on terror-stricken souls. What else is this
Vaticanism, which sits like a nightmare on the breast of slumber-
ing Christendom, but the perfection of unreason and spiritual
selfishness, the result of an overpowering fear of an eternal hell ?
Well sing the angels in the Apocalypse at the downfall of
' Babylon,' if by Babylon be symbolised that religion which is the
work of theologians to whom 'the heart of a Husband and a
Father is,' in the language of Sir James Stephen, ' an inscrutable
mystery;' and who, by an enforced celibacy, have cut off the
teachers of the people, as well as the masters of the confessional,
from personal experience in those two chief revelations of God's
loving Nature to mankind.
Now we venture to propose it as a positive gain to practical
30
466 DOCTRINAL TEACHING NECESSARY.
trust in God, to discover in the Scripture a doctrine on Immor-
tality which occasions far fewer moral difficulties, and appeals to
none but noble motives. It is simply an immeasurable gain to
the practical influence of faith over our lives to possess a doctrine
which is not incredible by the moral faculty. Irreligion and the
attractions of sinful pleasure take hold of the minds of men by
the handles of so many passions and faculties, by the enchant-
ments of art and fancy, by the customs of society, by the ties and
the sympathies of nature, that it is impossible for Christianity to
fix too firm a grasp on the convictions of the intellect and con-
science, and on the' affections of the heart. No intensity of faith
is excessive. Yet few things are more wonderful than the slight
degree to which modern character is usually influenced by the
' indwelling of God's Spirit.' Seldom does a person of unsteady
will become in religion a man of fixed resolution, or a man of
stern temper one of tenderness and grace. The action of religion
is limited by the faith of the Church, and when the special truths
of the gospel do not take a firm hold upon men's convictions, the
effects proper to those truths are not produced on character. For
the Spirit acts by the truth and grace of the gospel, and great
transformations are wrought only in an age of profound conviction.
When strong faith vanishes, distinctness of type in moral develop-
ment vanishes with it.
For whenever religious preaching becomes chiefly hortatory or
sentimental, the people are easily carried away by new forms of
influence, which leave but faint relics of true Christian character
behind. Doctrinal preaching of the right sort is essential to
stability. But this needs not be dry. If we have no pictures we
may at least attain interesting ideas, the intellect and imagination
supplementing the lack of ceremonial. Popular Protestantism
seems to be strikingly deficient in both logical instruction and a
warm poetic environment. Both the intellect and the imagination
are torpid, and require the awakening of a new inspiration in
faith. They require a morally credible Christianity, which may
enable men to ' love God with all their understanding,' as well as
' with all their heart.'
One effect of such a revolution would be to reform and sanctify
the gladness of Christians. Under the appalling shadow of the
Augustinian Deity, the spirit of innocent gaiety has been greatly
INFLUENCE OF THIS DOCTRINE ON LIFE. 467
paralysed. Under the Old Testament the music and dancing
were all done in Jehovah's presence, as beneath spring sunbeams.
So it will be again, when men have learned to take their pleasures
lawfully in God, and to believe that He is really so loving as to
delight in their gladness. At present these pleasures are too
frequently stolen, the idea of Augustine's Manichaean God being
inconsistent, when His character is realized, with vivid delight
under His eye. A true theology will teach men to include the
whole of life in their religion, as a spectre-ridden asceticism never
can.
The view of the Divine Government presented by the doctrine
of Life in Christ alone, carries with it this advantage, that the
more you dwell upon it, the more it appears to be the truth, and
the more clear becomes the vision of Eternal Righteousness and
Love. Conscience assures us that God its Maker must be
righteous ; and Nature teaches that to break His laws will bring
destruction to the offender. The doctrine that the very object of
the Incarnation is to immortalise mankind, furnishes the vertebral
column, so to speak, on which the fabric of a coherent theology
can be built. There is no truth with which this does not seem to
agree. There is no aspect of revelation which does not both give
and receive fresh strength in this relationship. If another figure
is allowable, it is the golden key which enters without violence
into all the wards of that great lock which God has fastened upon
the ' everlasting doors,' and admits us to adore the harmonious
mysteries.
The doctrine that our eternal life is in the Christ will, as the
experience of many now attests, corroborate that faith which
* conquers the world ' a faith which, rooted in stable conviction,
will not forsake men in difficulties, will seem not less true when
beset with temptation than when the heart is ' lifted up in the
ways of the Lord \ ' not less true when we look upon the thought-
less crowds of great cities, or the brazen face of apostate Christen-
dom, than when we muse in secret, or gaze on the sweet
countenance of Nature.
It is a faith as strong for work as for consolation, and which
will not break down in the crisis of its application. Such is the
horror arising from the prevalent creed, that it is seldom applied
468 ON LOVING GOD WITH THE MIND.
either to living multitudes, or dead relations. A hopeful case is
made out for almost every one who dies, in direct opposition to
Christ's words that ' destruction ' is certain for all except those
who ' hear His sayings and do them.' The effect moreover of the
existing opinion is to lower the standard of morality to zero ; since
the hell believed in is thought too dreadful for all except gigantic
offenders. Thus Christ's words on ' wrestling to enter into life '
become practically inoperative. The masses harden themselves
in wickedness, and Christians deliberately set aside their Lord's
lesson on the ' fewness ' of the saved. The effect of true doctrine
will be to strengthen the moral testimony. When men believe in
a terrible but credible perdition they will allow the limitation of
the offer of eternal life. They will admit of their plain sense
being attached to Christ's awful threatenings to all, whether clergy
or laity, who ' make a lie,' or ' resist the truth,' or ' corrupt the
word of God,' or ' hold a form of godliness, while denying the
power thereof.'
SECTION II.
We have spoken hitherto of the effect of this dogmatic refor-
mation on the personal faith of Christians, as opposed to secret
scepticism which shakes their purposes and embitters their
existence. We have now to consider its bearings on the coher-
ency of theology, considered as a truth to be ' loved with all the
understanding.'
Christianity being like nature, a system or part of a system,
proceeded from the all-perfect Intelligence, and is addressed as
the wisdom of God to the understanding of the ' perfect ' (rcXetot,
established believers). The Church is expected to study and
receive 'the whole truth' (John xvi. 13). But we are witnessing
the breaking up, through the action of external and internal forces,
of the mediaeval and patristic theologies. Multitudes also are
abandoning, at the same time, under the Broad Church guidance,
their faith in Christ as the Incarnate Word, in Christ as God's
Sacrifice for sinners, in Christ as the Righteousness of the unjust,
in Christ as the Sender of the Holy Spirit, in Christ as the
Resurrection of the dead, in a word Evangelical Christianity is
being abandoned in detail j and, as a consequence, the apostolic
RESTORATION OF EVANGELICAL THEOLOGY. 469
writings, which teach it, are being abandoned as an authority in
doctrine. We think we have herein set forth the immediate cause
of this catastrophe, and the divine remedy. If men can be per-
suaded to cast aside the unscientific contention for natural im-
mortality, with its inference of everlasting misery as ' the curse of
the law,' and to adopt the simplest sense of Scripture language
on life and death, -the coherent evangelical system, as taught by
the apostles and prophets, becomes again defensible, victorious,
intelligible, and self-consistent. The doctrine of Immortality
through the Incarnation will prove itself a veritable ' flaming
sword,' not to shut but to keep open ' the way of the Tree of
Life,' and an effectual weapon against those modern delusions
which would close it ; whose pretended ' breadth ' consists sub-
stantially in narrowing the revealed thoughts of the Infinite Being
down to the dimensions of naturalistic fancy.
The hypothesis of man's native immortality is indeed the ful-
crum on which Unitarianism and Universalism place their lever
for the overthrow of biblical Christianity. Restore the primitive
truth on the nature of man, the original sin, the mediation of
Christ, and the consequences of unbelief to the wicked and the
evangelical theology will certainly vanquish its opponents, both as
an argument to be sustained, and as a system to govern the con-
victions of men. For in fact the main position here defended, if
successfully established, is nothing less than a physical and meta-
physical demonstration of the truth of evangelical Christianity.
At one and the same time it turns the position of the adversary,
and shivers his only effectual weapon of attack.*
Unhappily, however, up to the present time, the chief hindrance
to the propagation of these ideas in England has proceeded from
the less instructed representatives of that evangelical theology.
The modern advocacy of the doctrine of immortality in Christ
has been assailed by them with persistent rebuke during the space
of a whole generation (specially by the laymen of the party), as
teaching a doctrine that ' lowers men's views of the Atonement of
Christ, and of the Evil of Sin, which required that atonement for
its expiation.' This objection demands careful study.
It is held that so stupendous a measure as the Incarnation of
* By the evangelical theology here is of course intended that glorious truth
of Christ which is common to all the best schools both of Europe and America.
470 DANGER OF ADDING TO GOD'S WORD.
Deity implies a danger to man of corresponding magnitude ; in
other words, that God would not have found it worth while to
give His Son to die for man unless the end had been to redeem
him from eternal misery.
In reply we submit (i) that the only source of our knowledge
on this subject is the apostolic revelation, and there we are dis-
tinctly taught, not that Christ saves us by His Atonement from
eternal misery, but from death ; and (2) that this view of the
work of our Saviour is fitted to. draw forth the utmost gratitude
and affection to Him for ever, and more fitted to do so than the
opposite representation.
i. The only source of our knowledge of the effect of the Incar-
nation is in those Scriptures which teach us \hzfact of the Incar-
nation. Unless the apostles declare that the death of Christ
saves us from eternal misery, no man ' glorifies God ' by asserting
that it does so. Now the Bible in no place declares this from
Genesis to the Apocalypse. S. Peter bids us ' speak as the oracles
of God.' Solomon says, 'Add thou not unto His word, lest thou
be found a liar.' Additions to Scripture have wrought even more
evil than subtractions. What the Scripture affirms is, that Christ
came to redeem us ' from the curse of the law,' which was death.
* The soul that sinneth, it shall die.' The Second Man came to
undo the work of the first Adam.
Adam brought death into the world by sin, and the curse of
death descended on his posterity. It is said that curse signified
three things dissolution of the body, alienation of the soul from
God (spiritual death), and eternal misery. We reply, This is your
gloss, not Scripture. But observe, we pray you, how you deal
with this curse of death. In respect to Adam you say death
signifies dissolution of the body. For the finally lost you say it
means ever-during torment of a living body.
Again, the elder Protestants, following the mediaeval theology,
taught that the triple death, which descended on Adam for his
sin, descended upon all his posterity, even on infants. So taught
Luther, Calvin, Zwingle, Cranmer, Hooper, Jewel. It was the
foundation of orthodox theology. But this represented infants as
liable to eternal misery through Adam's sin before they had sinned
themselves a truly horrible conclusion. Hence the invention of
FROM WHAT DOES CHRIST SAVE INFANTS? 471
their baptismal regeneration, which saves them from original sin,
and its curse of eternal misery. But our modern divines have
determined that this triple death did not descend to the posterity,
and it is now held that infants are not born in a state of damna-
tion, but of salvation. Now, it is easy to see that this laxity in
the treatment of the word death proves that there is no real
authority for the doctrine that death signifies eternal misery. If
it is maintained that death, as it descended upon infants born of
Adam, does not signify eternal misery, we maintain, as the result
of this admission, either that it did not signify eternal misery in
the case of Adam himself, or, if it did, that it signifies the same
thing in the case of his infant posterity, which you deny and
thus the opponent's mouth is shut with a stopper of his own
invention, unless it is decided that assertion shall stand in the
place of argument, when of course the discussion is ended.
Now what do the apostles teach ? Christ died to redeem us
from death. You affirm that infants are born now not liable to
eternal misery. From what, then, does Christ redeem them ?
Apparently it is admitted that He does not redeem them from
eternal misery. If they die in infancy they are redeemed by
grace, but from what? only from spiritual death a spiritual
death not deserving eternal misery? Therefore in heaven, ac-
cording to you, say we, there will be two classes of sinners some
saved by Christ's Incarnation from spiritual death only; some
saved from eternal misery incurred by their own actual sins. To
save infants, then, the Incarnation was not necessary; for you
hold that God would not have given His Son to die for mankind
unless it were to save them from eternal woe. It was a measure
' too great for the occasion,' and only demanded for the salvation
of accountable sinners from endless misery. We see to what
contradiction men are led by abandoning the rule that death for
man means loss of life in every case the destruction of the
compound nature consisting of body and soul a definition which
will cover under every variety in the mode or speed of infliction,
every case in which death has occurred, or will occur..*
* The over-zealous interpretation of the Scripture-doctrine on the hereditary
curse has in our day operated to procure its total rejection. Nevertheless the
Scripture accords with Nature most completely in its assertion of the law of
472 INFLUENCE OF THIS THEODICY
But to encounter the objection directly is it so mean an object
for the Son of God to propose to Himself to save men from
death, so as to ' give unto His sheep Eternal Life ' ? Consider
the elements of the case. There is, first, deliverance from the
greater part of the penalty incurred namely the second death.
The death men die here is for Adam's sin ; the second death is
for their own. There is a ' wrath to come,' from which Jesus
' delivers ' men who have sinned. Consider, then, what is the
meaning of ' many stripes ' of the ' due reward of our deeds '
of the ' great plagues and of long continuance,' incurred under
the law by the sins of men. Is it nothing to owe to Christ the
remission of all that dreadful debt of woe ?
Again, there is 'death,' the wages, 'the end of these things.'
Take it to signify destruction of life a final cessation of conscious
existence. Then consider that Christ, by His incarnation and
atonement, ' makes an end of sin,' ' abolishes death,' ' gives eternal
life.' Can I say this gift is small and mean? ' How much less
than to be Divine is it to be Immortal ! ' exclaims Mr. Isaac
Taylor. Is it no great thing to escape from being blotted out of
the universe, to owe to my Saviour my very being, my very
existence, to owe it to Him that I shall live for ever not in the
old animal life, but in His Divine and Spiritual life through
eternity ? Who will tell us that this leads to lower views of the
Atonement? Rather, it ennobles and glorifies our thoughts of
the Reconciliation on every side.
Next, these truths afford us at least a glimpse of the reason of
Heredity. M. Ribot, in his learned and useful work on this subject, cites a
passage even from Plutarch, which might check the boldness of some of the
modern antagonists of the truth. In his essay on the Delays of the Divine
Justice, after an argument showing that the Family and the State form a true
organism, Plutarch declares that ' the fact that divine vengeance falls on a state
or a city long after the death of the guilty, has nothing in it contrary to reason.
Beings produced by generation are not like products of art. What is generated
comes from the very substance of the progenitors. The children of vicious
men and women are derived from the very essence of their parents. That
which was dominant in the parents, which lived and was nurtured, which
thought and spake, is precisely what they have given to their sons. It must
not seem strange therefore that there exists a sort of occult identity capable of
justly subjecting the second to the consequences attending the actions of the
first.' Ribot on Heredity (King and Co.), p. 376.
ON THE VIEW OF CHRIST S SALVATION. 473
the Incarnation. It was the incarnation of the LIFE. Christ is
the Life of God incarnate in humanity. Wherefore this marvel-
lous procedure ? Was it not that man, condemned by the law,
must die beyond redemption under the law; that Creation
contains no force, no power, which, even under the law of
continuity in endless development, can save him? None but
the Power which is above nature can deliver him, and even that
Power only by a direct assumption of the human nature into
union with the Uncreated Life so as to make of God and Man
one Christ in one Person for ever. Hence the union of the
Logos and Life with man in Jesus Christ who becomes a foun-
tain of Immortality to believers, who will ' reign in life ' super-
naturally by Jesus Christ, throughout eternity, in the glory of the
Father. These are not lower views of the Atonement, but such as
open vistas of glory on every side.
Again, do we not gain also under these views, I will not say a
full understanding, but a glimpse of the reason, not only of the in-
carnation, but of the death of Christ, and of the cause of His
resurrection ? If the curse of the law were eternal misery, and
Christ as our representative bore the curse of the law, why did He
not suffer eternal misery ? The answer has usually been that the
suffering of death was rendered sufficient and compensatory by
the indwelling of the Godhead. That is not said by the apostles.
What is said by them is that by sin came death, that Christ died for
our sins, and has thereby abolished death and brought in life eternal.
But it will be said, According to you, the curse of the law was
death without hope of revival death for ever. The Christ, how-
ever, rose again. He did not, therefore, undergo the curse of the
law. Is not the true answer here, as has been already argued,
that if Christ had been only a man (supposing on that condition
He could have been a propitiation of our sins by His death), He
could not have risen from the dead? It is not in right of His
destroyed humanity, ' the temple,' that He was raised again, but
through His Deity. He was 'proved to be the Son of God by
His resurrection from the dead.' Here again there comes into
view the Deity of Christ as the essential condition of His redemp-
tive work. The Atonement was the act and suffering of God. It
was Christ's Deity which imparted its value to the sac rifice of His
474 INFLUENCE OF THIS THEODICY
life-blood. It was His Deity to which we owe His resurrection
and our own. So much do the Unitarians misunderstand Chris-
tianity. This is not to encourage lower views of the Incarnation,
to represent it as the essential condition of man's salvation.*
Secondly, and this time not to defend but to assail, If, as was
taught aforetime, the curse which had descended upon us from
Adam was eternal misery, the atonement of Christ was not so much
an act of grace as of equity. If, on the other hand, the curse was
.death, the redemption is, as the New Testament asserts, an act of
Divine beneficence. By how much grace is more glorious than
equity, by so much more does that view of Christ's work ' glorify '
Him which represents it as the restoration, by free gift, of im-
mortal life to the world, which has lost it in Adam, than that
which declares that He came to deliver men from the penalty of
an eternal misery, incurred through no fault of their own brought
upon them by the combined action of an Ancestor whom they did
not commission to act for them, and an evil Spirit who warred
against them in prospect before they had any being.
Let any one consider the proposition that the fall of Adam
brought upon himself, for ' one offence,' an eternity of sufferings
and brought this same penalty upon us, his posterity whether by
* The doctrine that the essence of the Atonement lies in its being a voluntary
suffering of God from the sin of the creature, and not the suffering of an inno-
cent creature from the righteous God, has been argued in the nineteenth
chapter. An objection often made to this representation requires notice in
this place. It is said, If Christ's suffering were the suffering of God, how
could He have given utterance to the cry, * My God, my God, why hast Thou
forsaken me ?' ' How could God forsake Himself? ' I believe that the true
answer to this question is found in accepting as apostolic the ante-Nicene doc-
trine of the real distinction between the Persons of the Godhead, which the ex-
ceeding zeal of the post-Nicene ages for a metaphysical idea of Divine Unity in
Substance has led men to under-estimate. The Divine Word was sufficiently
distinct from the Father to 'empty Himself/ and to lay aside the 'form of God'
(Phil. ii. 9), and therefore was sufficiently distinct to become the subject of
suffering by the hiding of the Father's face in the Agony of the Passion. But
we ought not to think that the Father of Heaven Himself suffered less in thus
being ' pleased to bruise ' the Holy One for our redemption. The apostolic
writings seem to lay far greater stress on the real distinction in the Persons of
the Godhead than on any idea of consubstantial Unity ; though this also is
tenable under ante-Nicene modes of stating this transcendent mystery.
ON THE VIEW OF CHRIST S SALVATION. 475
gratuitous imputation of guilt in which we had no share, or by
the inevitable consequence and operation of a corrupt nature trans-
mitted to us, or by the unasked possession of immortality either
in the half or the whole of our nature, and then say whether the
provision of some such method as the gospel does not appear to
be demanded by rigid justice. Had it pleased the Almighty
Power to bring such a race into existence under the circumstances
supposed, the heirs of damnation to an eternal misery which they
had themselves done nothing to deserve the bestowment of re-
demption, and of the opportunity of salvation from the direful
doom, would assume an aspect of simple righteousness ; and the
withholding of such salvation would have been to lay open the
Divine Government to the darkest imputations of wrong and
cruelty from all minds constituted like our own. And that is
what every unsophisticated person thinks of the ' scheme of re-
demption ' according to the old Calvinistic representation, as soon
as they hear of it.
If any one of us had the power of forming a race of immortal
creatures, whom we should deliberately bring into being under a
law of damnation to eternal misery, without redemption, we should
know what to think, and to say, of such an omnipotent fiend in
human form. If He, who kindles the 'furnace' of hell-fire in
defence of that law which is fulfilled in love, should have thus
deliberately brought an entire race into an immortal existence in
which there was no escape from eternal woe either through free-will
or redemption, unquestionably those voices must have been struck
dumb which proclaim that the ' whole earth is full of His glory.'
Whatever might have been the expense at which deliverance must
be effected, so far as we are capable of applying the moral judg-
ment which is oftentimes appealed to by Christ as a correct rule of
decision, because of divine implantation, the deliverance of them
was demanded by that common justice, the absence of which is
the definition of a tyranny as distinct from a legal government.
Grace could have had no share whatever in the work of salvation.
It was only an equitable procedure.
Yet it is a fact that the apostles represent the gospel as display-
ing the 'riches of God's forbearance,' the 'glory of His grace.'
Whence we conclude that the sin of Adam could not have pro-
cured for his posterity the consequences usually alleged.
476 EFFECTS OF THIS DOCTRINE
But those views of the ruin and redemption of man, for which
we have contended, and which rest on the simpler rendering of
the gospel, answer to the height and depth and length of the
apostolic declarations. If man was not created absolutely im-
mortal if Adam by his sin lost the prospect of immortality and
glory both for himself and his descendants if the redemption
which is in Christ Jesus be regarded as the free gift of righteous-
ness and of life eternal to all repenting sinners in a world which
has forfeited its life for ever then, indeed, the gospel shines forth
in an effulgence of grace fitted to inspire wonder, adoration, and
endless thanksgiving, at once in the race whom He saves from
dying, and who had no claim to be made immortal, and in all
other intelligent beings.
Under this view the Person of the Saviour becomes radiant with
a light ' above the brightness of the sun ' as the Author and Giver
of Immortality, and attracts towards Himself the tide of human
affection through time and eternity. Under this view it is the
glory of God which ' appears in the face of Jesus Christ ; ' and we
are not summoned to render homage to the Son for rescuing us
from an original constitution of things which invests the character
of the Father with the blackest mystery and gloom. Under this
view a Christian finds himself to be related to his Redeemer by
even closer than moral ties. He is Christ's, not merely by salva-
tion from the penal consequences of his own immortality, but by
re-creation. He is indebted to Him not merely for pardon, but
for eternal existence itself; not merely for peace, and joy, and
glory, but for the possibility of being at all. Under this view the
Church is indeed the Bride of the Lamb, the offspring of His own
vitality, the Eve of the second Adam; a member of His body,
of His flesh, and of His bones ; one Spirit with the Life-giver,
living by His very life-blood : and there appears a fresh reason for
yielding ourselves unto Him as ' alive from the dead, and our
members as instruments of righteousness to God.' 'We thus
judge that if one died for all, then all died ; and that He died for
all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto them-
selves, but unto Him that died for them and rose again.' Our
language will be that of S. Paul ' I am crucified with Christ,
nevertheless I live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the
life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the
ON MEATS LOVE TO CHRIST. 4;;
Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me' (Gal.
iii. 20).
I do not ' frustrate the grace of God,' on the one hand, by an
exaggerated representation of the original Curse which converts
that grace into a mere act of justice ; nor, on the other, by claim-
ing as a natural possession the immortality which is a free gift
of spontaneous mercy through that Divine Redeemer THE
RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE to 'the son of man, who is a
worm.'
' Human nature lives in the person of Christ in heaven ; the
Divine Nature lives in Christians on earth. He has thus taken
possession of both heaven and earth already, although the time
has not yet come for all nations to know that He has been chosen
of the Father to universal sovereignty. He is on the right hand
of God, the Head and Representative of His people ; they, on
the earth, are the representatives of His life before the world.
Virtually, they are in heaven where He is, for God sees them in
Him ; virtually, He is on the earth where His people are, for men
see Him in them.'*
SECTION III.
We have now lastly to consider with attention an objection
insisted on by certain able opponents of the hypothesis of ' condi-
tional immortality.' It is said that the habit of thought, which
this will engender in the mind-s of Christians, who believe them-
selves to have become immortal beings in a world of dying
creatures, will be in antagonism with the catholic spirit of Christ
Himself, who embraced the whole of humanity in His heart, and
taught us to 'honour all men.' We are charged with introducing
a doctrine of caste into religious life, which ought to be rejected
with abhorrence. Mr. Baldwin Brown says,
' In place of a great human family of sorrow, struggle, and aspiration, amidst
which, as the brother of the poorest and the saddest, the Saviour moved, they
give us a few godlike, lofty forms, or say that they give us, men complain
that they cannot see them, endowed with a nature that cannot perish, and
like unto the angels, moving about as the Brahmins of creation, amidst in-
numerable creatures who look like them, speak like them, love like them, but
Dr. Leask on Christ Ih'ingin His people. 'The Rainbow,' 1875.
478 INFLUENCE OF THIS FAITH ON CHARACTER.
are perishing pariahs born from the dust. To me this is simply a horrible
picture of the great world of men.'
In commenting upon this allegation, it must be admitted that
the ' form of doctrine ' here maintained can claim no exception to
the general rule, that truth held by evil or even by weak men will
turn to evil and vanity. Christians who are disposed to dwell in
a pretentious spirit upon their ' privileges ' are very likely to look
complacently upon their own immortality, in contrast with the
perishable nature of their unsaved neighbours. But this sin is not
justly chargeable upon the doctrine. There are few things of
which professed followers of Christ do not by turns become vain.
Some glory in their supposed election to salvation some in their
church orthodoxy or high respectability of ritual some even in
their broad philosophical views so much more spiritual than
those of the weaker brethren who are in bondage to New Testa-
ment literalism some even in their simple style of writing, as
contrasted with the magniloquence of inferior authors.
If there are any, then, who have thus spoken or written in a
lofty strain in past time of the high place and destiny of regenerate
men, ' despising others,' on them be the blame, not on the truth
of God. Truth should neither be abandoned nor misrepresented,
in consequence of its perversions, or because of the sins and im-
perfections of its advocates. In the writings of the apostles we
find the clearest assertion not only of Christ's ' brotherhood with
the poorest and the saddest,' but also of the infinite difference be-
tween the natures and destinies of once-born and twice-born men.
Christ Himself is foremost in teaching the necessity of spiritual
regeneration in order to salvation (John Hi.). And the general
drift of apostolic doctrine goes to show that this regeneration unto
life may be known now, by the signs of faith, hope, and love.
Surely no valid objection can be raised against such teaching, on
the ground that it ' gives us a few godlike lofty forms ' of Brah_
mins, amidst ' innumerable creatures who look like them, speak
like them, but are perishing pariahs.' The answer would be ready
that the ascension of the soul into spiritual union with God does
produce a deep change of nature in each genuinely Christian
character. And if some weaker or self-deceived Christians, in-
stead of bearing their honours meekly, flaunted their dignity as
THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 479
' the sons of God ' in the face of the world, looking down upon
'the publicans afar off,' no serious thinker would dream of
abandoning the doctrine of regeneration, because of the sins of its
advocates.
We ask for equal justice to be rendered to humble and holy
maintainers of the present doctrine, supposed to be also apostolic,
that spiritual regeneration carries with it the hope of immortality,
through the indwelling of the Eternal Spirit. After many years'
observation of its effects on character I feel bound to represent
that such transcendent hopes do not naturally lead to the tempers
which are described in the passage above cited. On the contrary
he that hath this hope in him purifieth himself ; the only certain
sign of possessing life eternal is love a love which ' vaunteth not
itself, doth not behave itself unseemly.'
As to the absolute ' fewness ' of the supposed possessors of
immortality, this is an invention of the contrary part. It is firmly
believed by us that the ' little flock,' which includes all who have
' some good thing in their hearts towards the Lord of hosts,' will
nevertheless prove to be a ' multitude that no man can number,'
and that the finally lost will consist, not of the ' poor and sad, who
gathered rffund Christ as their brother,' but of the haughty and
deliberate assertors of their own ' free-will ' against the authority
of Heaven. The final awards of life or destruction will turn upon
that deepest of all differences the difference between righteousness
and wickedness, a difference established and brought out by God's
dealings with each human soul, either here or hereafter. Then
shall ye return and discern between the righteous and the wicked.
If it be maintained that Christians ought still to wish for fellow-
ship, and express sympathy, with the obstinately rebellious, we
have no common basis of further argument. Such pernicious
sentimentalism was unknown to Christ and the apostles.
The New Testament does not teach the survival of the
strongest, but the survival of the fittest ; and these are they who,
* labouring and heavy laden,' embracing righteousness, and trust-
ing in and taking hold of the Redeeming Love, ' look for the
mercy of God to eternal life.'
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE PRACTICAL INFLUENCE OF THE DOCTRINE OF LIFE AND DEATH
ETERNAL ON THE HOPES AND FEARS OF UNGODLY MEN.
OVK d^iovg icpivtre tavrovQ r/fe aiwviov w//f. ' Ye judge yourselves un-
worthy of the eternal life.' ACTS xiii. 46.
THE weightiest objection to the acceptance of the doctrine that
Immortality is the privilege of those alone who choose the right
for ever, is its supposed pernicious influence upon the masses of
mankind. It is said, by many of its opponents, that the doc-
trine of the 'annihilation of the wicked,' as they persistently
describe it, is of boundlessly mischievous character ; -lowering by
infinity the general estimate of the evil of sin, and of its conse-
quences ; removing therefore the chief restraint that rests upon
the wills of presumptuous sinners, by assuring them of the ' trifling
results ' in punishment which will follow even upon the most
stupendous transgressions. It is alleged that, however harmless
may be its influence on those who are already Christian believers,
its effect on the world at large will be immensely disastrous.
It will degrade the whole conception of human life, by reducing
human nature to the level of the animal races as to mortality, and
will sweep away the two chief articles of natural religion, the
stepping-stones of thought for faith in Revelation, namely, man's
belief in his own spiritual being and relationship with a spiritual
and eternal world, and therefore his belief in a spiritual and eternal
God. It will aid all the existing materialism which speculates at
present on the dependence of mind on brain, and thence will
lead logically to a denial of the being of mind where brain does
not exist ; even in Deity. In the thick darkness of the Atheism
which this doctrine will shed over the earth, all murderous and
REDISTRIBUTION OF MOTIVES. 481
suicidal passions will hold sway, and the glory of man will be lost
in a hell-smoke of infidelity.
It must, at the commencement of this chapter, be admitted
that the present argument, if sustained, will result in nothing less
than a redistribution of the pressure of the motives of hope and
fear in the sphere of religion ; and therefore will operate a
revolution of the most momentous character, defensible only on
the ground of Divine Authority clearly demonstrated, and solidly
established. Next it must be admitted, with deep concern, that
even under the wisest and most God-fearing management of this
reformation in public thought on the sanctions and results of
divine government among men, much more under the unwise
management of it, there is reason to fear that some danger may
occur at first in any community where these ideas are suddenly
published.* The revulsion against the almost maddening strain
of the old theology is often so violent that some untrained minds
are likely to be led to views of sin and its punishment at least as
dangerous as those against which this movement is a reaction.
And I would earnestly conjure all into whose hands these
pages may fall, and who may be convinced by these arguments,
to guard their minds against this danger of reaction which
always attends the first stage of theological change ; and not
less to guard all whom they influence against the delusive notion
that the removal of the prospect of endless misery renders the
eternal judgment of ' a sinner ' one to be contemplated otherwise
than with overwhelming horror. Under no truly divine method
of explaining Christianity can it be made to appear other than
transcendent wickedness wilfully to break the laws of Almighty
* This danger is greatly augmented by the conduct of the advocates of the
prevailing doctrine when they represent to the public that our object is to
prove that there is ' no hell ' for the wicked. The former editor of the Morn-
ing Advertiser has distinguished himself during the last few years by the zealous
adoption of these tactics. The evil wrought on the minds of sinful men by
such representations is unquestionably great, but we justly disclaim the re-
sponsibility for it. If any vicious and sinful men have come to think that there
is ' no hell,' this issue has been reached chiefly through the teaching of those
who first proclaimed to them an incredible and unbiblical threatening, and then,
when rebuked, turned round and dishonestly described us as teaching tha
there is no punishment whatsoever.
31
482 CHRISTADELPHIANISM REJECTED.
God. It is not indeed a sound argument to assert that sin is
an infinite evil, because committed against an Infinite Power and
Holiness; for the finite nature of the sinner determines the
quality of the action rather than the infinite quality of the Being
offended against ; but under the category of finite sins there
may be, and there are, offences and courses of offence of a dye
so deep that no infliction less than eternal destruction can form
a fitting expression of their criminality. And as soon as the
public mind has rallied from the early shock of these ideas on
the God-given immortality, the first vision which will be seen
in the future will be that of a Hell so real, so near, and so tre-
mendous, than men will feel as if they had never believed in or
dreaded future punishment before.
If there are those also who, while professing to be fellow-
labourers in this enterprise, yet allow the public to think that
they have discovered the nullity of our Saviour's awful warnings
of woe in the ' furnace of fire ' or who destroy their effect by
making them the subject of controversy in a spirit of vain
jangling, they must bear the burden of their own immense re-
sponsibility. For ourselves, we abjure companionship in such
advocacy, and with all our strength warn the offenders of their
own danger, as perhaps among the foremost objects of the ' wrath
of God.' If any of our contemporaries seek to defend themselves
in making light of the threats of positive infliction hereafter, be-
hind the lying refuge of biblical ' texts ' and ' passages,' we declare
for ourselves that we have found in the New Testament no single
page which leads us to think otherwise of ' judgment to come, 7
' the resurrection of damnation,' than as a prospect before which
all rejecters of Christ may well 'tremble.' ' The demons also
believe, and shudder' (</)iVcrouo-i) (James ii. 19).*
No doctrine alone, and as an abstraction, will produce saving
effects on mankind. A good effect depends on the mode and
spirit of its presentation. If the doctrine of eternal life through
Christ, and of the miserable destruction of the wicked in hell, be
* It is needless to disclaim kindred with American ' Christadelphianism, '
which has perverted some of the truths here defended by conjoining them with
a materialistic type of Unitarianism. There never yet was any truth set forth
which did not suffer from some of its professed friends more than from all its
enemies.
CORRUPTION OF EXEGESIS BY PREJUDICE. 483
proclaimed in a simply dogmatic temper or disputatious tone, it
is as little likely to move or appal a sinful person as any other
dogma similarly set forth. Truths are often lost to the world
through lack of the fitting heralds to publish them. Men who
do not fear God, or who do not believe in the righteousness of
future vengeance, cannot fittingly speak in Heaven's name to
the nations. For if anything moral be true in Divine Revelation,
it must be that wilful liars, murderers, drunkards, fornicators,
thieves, men-stealers, literary corrupters of Christian truth, dis-
honest tradesmen, hypocritical priesthoods, instigators of war,
and cruel oppressors, shall suffer in hell the * due reward of their
deeds,' ' shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire
and brimstone ' (Rev. xxi. 8).
But now, in the fear of that Tribunal to which we all are
hastening, I submit the following considerations in reply to the
objections proposed.
I observe, at the outset, that it is an exceedingly mischievous and
delusive method of procedure, in determining the meaning of the
records of Revelation a method condemned by all past experi-
ence to permit of speculation on the supposed influence of facts
and doctrines, before deciding on their existence in the Bible.
To permit such a method is fatal to faith in Revelation altogether.
Nearly all the prepossessions of mankind derived from uninspired
philosophy are hostile to the actual declarations of Christianity.
' Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,' says S. Paul, ' the things
which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath
revealed them to us by His Spirit' ' The world by wisdom
knew ' neither God nor human nature. Our first business, then,
is interpretation and induction, not prophecy. The foremost
question is, Are the prophets and apostles of Christ clear and
unanimous on these topics ? We judge that they are ; but we
think that we can show that none of the anticipated evil conse-
quences of teaching this truth will occur.
For first of all, the doctrine of immortality by reconstruction
and resurrection meets, on its own ground, all the many-sided
materialism existing in the world, and enables it to believe in
God and a gospel of Salvation. The ordinary preacher of to-day
484 ADVANTAGES OF THIS DOCTRINE
feels that, with his gospel, he can do nothing for materialists.
He must have a metaphysical battle with them first, and compel
them to change their ideas on human nature, before he can per-
suade them to believe in Christ. Now that was not Apostolic
Christianity; nor is it ours. The apostles evidently went forth
with a Message which could save without delay Epicurean Mate-
rialists and Sadducees, without insisting first on a psychological
conversion to faith in man's natural immortality and possession of
a ' never-dying soul.'
This is precisely our position. Those who hold this doctrine
are not necessarily materialists. I myself am strenuously opposed
to that form of opinion. But the ' Gospel which we preach ' is
adapted to meet, on their own grounds materialists of every
type, with a moral certainty of a glorious result as to multitudes
of them. Materialism is a creed which comprises many different
ranks of capacity and respectability. There are the bad kinds
of materialists, who have resolved that they are only a superior
sort of organized animal matter, in order to give an air of
philosophy to their much worse that brutal excesses. But there
are also many far better types of materialism. You have the
scientific materialists who are not atheists ; such as some of our
noblest men of research and discovery ; and these maintain a
conception of Matter as the effect of Energy so exalted as to
include within its possible combinations any degree of created
intelligence, without resorting to the hypothesis of a second sub-
stance such as Mind or Soul. With these thinkers Matter seems
only another name for something like Spirit, so pure and so trans-
cendent are their conceptions of its nature. Some of the most
distinguished philosophers of past and present ages have adhered
to this line of thought, without surrendering their faith in God as
the Supreme and Everlasting Energy and Life of this universe.
Of this opinion was Milton himself, as is proved both by the
explicit argument of his book on the ' Christian Doctrine,' and by
the following lines from the fifth book of the ' Paradise Lost ' :
' To whom the winged hierarch replied :
Oh, Adam, one Almighty is, from whom
All things proceed, and up to Him return,
If not depraved from good, created all
Such to perfection ; one first matter all
IN DEALING WITH MATERIALISTS. 485
Endued with various forms, various degrees
Of substance, and in things that live, of life.
But more refined, more spirituous and pure,
As nearer to Him placed, or nearer tending,
Each in their several active spheres assigned,
Till body up to spirit work, in bounds
Proportioned to each kind.' BK. v.
Of the same opinion still are not a few of the ablest thinkers
in all parts of the world to-day, theists they are, notwithstand-
ing. Then next, there are the materialistic scientific and literary
men, who are really Atheists also, but rather preferring to be
called Agnostics than Atheists ; and some of them of a character
so noble, so pure, so lovely, so sorrowfully sinking into the last
and deepest abysses of doubt, that Religious Faith, instead of
anathematising, must stretch forth a most loving hand to help
their sinking souls before they die.
Now the doctrine of life in Christ is a form of Christianity
which is specially adapted to take hold of men who are thus con-
vinced of the materiality of mind. It would be a poor thing if the
Gospel had no word for those who were Sadducees, as well as for
the Pharisees, if it could do naught to save men who are philo-
sophical materialists ; especially when we consider how tough and
difficult an argument is required even from such men as Doctors
Balfour Stewart, Tait, and Martineau, to beat out of their delusions
a Mill, a Spencer, and a Tyndal. But we find it to be a matter
of simple experience, that men of all intellectual grades, who, for
one reason or another, have become theoretical materialists, and
who, if abandoned to the influence of that philosophy alone,
would be compelled to surrender all expectation of a future state
for man, are drawn to faith in a future state, and faith in God as
the Saviour in Christ, and faith in immortality by Resurrection ;
so that numbers of these are being trained for the kingdom of
heaven in a life truly spiritual. Christ, who is the Word made
flesh, exerts a power which lifts them up to God, with a hope full
of immortality.
Among these certainly must be reckoned the multitudes of
Christian believers who have received the Gospel of Christ on out
theological representation of it, but on a philosophical basis of
486 SALVATION OF SADDUCEES
materialism. Apart from Christianity, they would be materialists
without a future. But see the effect of the teaching of Life by
Christ and by Resurrection. These men, in masses, have become
Christians. These Christian brethren have no faith in man's
possession of a ' soul ' or ' spirit,' in the popular sense of the
words. But they love life in its highest form, in God's likeness,
and long for life eternal, and they have believed in Christ to
salvation. Him they regard as the resurrection, and embrace
Him with all their hearts. There are not a few prominent
examples of such believers, led by the Spirit of God to Christ as
the Life-Giver.
It has simply saved these men, as it is saving similar mate-
rialistic thinkers every day, who find this form of Christianity
precisely adapted to meet their needs. And when I consider the
difficulty and the complexity of the psychological argument for a
survival of the spirit, I am the less desirous of resting all the hopes
of the world on such an obscure foundation; and tenaciously
hold with Mr. Constable that the main object of faith is Resur-
rection by the power of Christ, reconstruction of the whole
humanity by the Omnipotence of God. This is a basis of hope
common to men of all opinions as to the nature of the thinking
substance, and which invites alike the trust of spiritualists and
materialists. Neither does it require much experience to show
that not a few of these 'materialistic' believers in Christ are
among the most ' spiritual ' persons living on the earth men of
the purest lives, of the firmest faith in things unseen and eternal,
of dauntless purpose, of heroic self-sacrifice, of devoted love to
their Saviour, and of the tenderest sympathy to mankind. They
live with Christ now, they think that in death their whole being
will dissolve, but that Christ, whose members they are, is coming
quickly ' to create them anew, to immortalise and glorify them,'
and that they will have no sense of the interval between death
and resurrection. I ask if this can be called a brutalising result
of the Doctrine of Conditional Immortality. The wide diffusion in
this day of scientific and semi-scientific materialism cannot be pre-
vented ; there are millions who, led on by Spencer and Maudsley,
will not listen to the old doctrine of the Immortality of the
Soul, and the more you preach it to them the more fiercely they
revolt, and point to the phenomena of cerebral formation and
AS IMPORTANT AS THAT OF PHARISEES. 487
cerebral decay ; but to us the extension of these ideas, however
lamentable, is not so fatal a hindrance as it is to the advocates of
natural immortality. We can preach a credible Christianity, and
a present salvation to all materialists, high and low, by preaching
to them Jesus and the Resurrection. To this they will listen.
Their faith becomes an antidote to their philosophy, and they will,
perhaps, some day learn to think differently on the one question
which .still divides us.
2. But we have a second answer to the charge of materialistic
tendencies, which goes deeper into the real causes of materialism.
A perfectly logical materialism which, denying a spiritual basis of
mind in man, denies it also in the universe, and enforces the
result in a speculative positivism and atheism, may under certain
circumstances become a real danger to society. It may cornet
the tone of popular feeling as to the moral dignity of man, and @f
popular faith as to his relations with an Unseen Deity. It is not
we who have produced it.
But how may it best be encountered and overcome? My
answer is, not by any simply metaphysical or philosophical
process, not by a psychology which may be riddled by the
objections of Mr. Herbert Spencer, or made to look doubtful
even by Mr. Holyoake. It cannot be checked by discourses
on the immortality of the soul, nor even by the additional bribe
to faith of a promise of universal discipline and salvation. No ;
the true remedy for a debasing materialism (for I will not admit
that Milton's materialism was debasing) is to be found in the
moral rather than in the intellectual realms of thought. It will
be found, not in a contrary theory as to the substratum of mind,
or as to the eternity of the thinking power, but in the preaching
of a credible judgment to come, and of the grace of God in the
salvation purchased by Christ.
If you wish to overcome the evil types of atheistic materialism,
you must awaken conscience, rather than entangle the intellect in
doubtful disputations.
Men's philosophies spring from a great depth within them, from
their spiritual states. Bid them, then, listen to the awful voice
within, the utterance of a Will above the will, which persists in
488 METHOD OF REACHING MATERIALISTS.
denouncing wrong and sin, and inspires an expectation of judg-
ment. The liar, the thief, the fornicator, the adulterer, the
murderer, knows in himself, when once awakened to solemn
thought, that it is not incredible that there are consequences
beyond and consequences of the most tremendous character.
These may be by survival or by the resurrection of damnation.
Whatever makes these consequences appear credible, near, and
certain, tends to awaken such reflections. Whatever removes the
fear which an evil conscience inspires, whether it be an infinity of
threatening, which generates unbelief, or the bold assurance of a
general delivery from perdition at last, is so much gain for mate-
rialism. Whatever confirms the voice of the inward witness, and
points to the ' great white throne ' of judgment, as the needle to
the pole-star, is so much gain for a spiritual view of life and its
belongings.
But this is not the complete answer. Christ is in every sense
the Light of the world. His special message is n jt that of Terror,
but of Mercy. Proclaim that mercy. Preach the Gospel to every
creature. Bring near, with a heart that feels it, the love of God
to sinners. Set before them Christ ' openly crucified for them,'
' bearing their offences, carrying their sorrows ; ' declare to the
penitent the remission of their sins and you will wield against
the bad sorts of materialism the most powerful weapon in the
world.
The true antidote to materialism is not found in a bold ignor-
ing of facts as to the generation of human nature, or as to its
structure and functions ; much less in setting up a metaphysic
which confounds survival with eternal duration, and even main-
tains survival of the soul by arguments which revolt the judg-
ment of many of the foremost philosophers of the age. The true
remedy is to overthrow materialism by ' saving ' materialists, and
this is precisely what the doctrine of Redemption to Immortality
by Resurrection especially enables us to do. It presents Chris-
tianity to man's conscience, judgment, and affection, disentangled
from theories which dissipate its force by awakening scepticism
rather than faith injthe hearers.
DECAY OF PUBLIC FAITH IN HELL, 489
I.
But now to sum up on the positive side : So far is it from
being true that, in relinquishing the ancient tenets of immortality
and eternal suffering, we endanger the hold of religion on the
fears of uagodly men, and banish a wholesome dread of God's
judgments from His own servants that on the contrary it will
be found, under every spiritual and pathetic presentation of the
doctrine of life only in Christ, there is a large gain on the side even
of a useful fear. The eternal hells of all religions are dreadful
to hear of at first ; but there is this hindrance to their operation
on the mind as a converting motive that they are not believed
in by men whom you most desire to alarm. The ordinary Hindoo
or Mohammedan believes as little in his eternal hell as the
English quick-witted artisan or man of science. There is this
circumstance attending the preaching of such a prospect that
the more earnestly it is studied the less it is believed in whether
by clown or philosopher, wise or unwise. The general alienation
from Christianity, of the scientific, literary, and labouring classes
of Europe, so far as it is speculative, is the final result of a
scepticism which began with a denial of the endless torment of
the lost. There can be no surer indication of the deep popular
disbelief than this that the habitual language of profane cursing
and swearing, which nominally is derived from the orthodox doc-
trine of damnation, runs from the lips of the utterers without the
faintest sign of faith in the reality of what they imprecate on each
other's heads.* Much, indeed, that they hear from the most
modern enlightenment concerning the everlasting destiny of
wicked men, is well fitted to ' alleviate ' the terror. ' In bodily,
awful, intolerable torture,' says Mr. F. W. Robertson {Sermons, i.
133), ' we believe no longer. At the idea of a bodily hell we
have learned to smile.' In order to maintain the eternity of hell,
hell has been robbed of its real and appreciable terrors. But it
is only thus that the eternity of it can be maintained in the pre-
sent day. Meantime the Christ of the Bible unveils a future,
with a ' furnace of fire,' at which no man should ' smile.'
* I recently heard a London carman in a raging passion consigning to
' damnation ' his stubborn team of horses.
490 PLACE OF TERROR IN EVANGELIZATION.
The author of the Victory of Divine Goodness teaches in effect
that hell is eternal, but the mistake has been in supposing it to be
a ' place of torment.' According to him, it seems to be rather an
inferior Paradise in Gehenna for the solace of the damned.
It is not an awful severity in the judgment denounced which
occasions unbelief, for both nature and Scripture show that God
is as really a Destroying Power as He is Light and Love ; but it
is the infinity of the threatening which has rendered it powerless
to produce fear. The intellect and the moral judgment are set
against the menace which ought to carry both in one combined
force to operate on the will.* There are many who have been
accustomed to wield the common dogma as an instrument of
immense power over the imaginations of debased sinners, and
who are capable of no other spiritual action, who will at once
declare 'that Satan rejoices over the proposed change in the
* At present the common doctrine seems to the coarser working people,
when they think at all, too horrible to be true ; just as a wicked navigator
recently said to a city missionary, who was urging him to repent, as he sat in
the mud over his midday dinner * But do you really think, master, that God
Almighty will put me in fire for ever and ever, after putting me in this here
muck all my lifetime ? ' And not thinking this to be true, they lose the
restraining influence of all the threatenings in the Bible, and drink, and drink
to perdition. M. Karr rightly says, ' Exaggerations of doctrine are like
those barriers that are too lofty for horses to leap, and which they quietly pass
under.' As for the large majority of irreligious educated men throughout
Europe, and the multitude of well- instructed artisans, they have thrown off
religious faith altogether, and specially faith in hell, alleging the incredibility
of this very dogma. Whatever you exaggerate you weaken.
The progress of drunkenness in England requires for its repression not merely
the advocacy of total abstinence, but Christ's distinct threatening of the 'furnace
of fire ' to all those who defy God by practising, or abetting with their capital,
habits of intoxication. If all the preachers of God's Word believed in that
' Gehenna ' of which Christ speaks, and would firmly present the credible but
overwhelming prospect of the spiritual and physical Hell of Revelation before
the people, it is probable that multitudes would dash from their lips the cup
which to many is nothing less than the 'cup of derils,' and perhaps frighten
out of their gainful occupations some of those ' religious ' distillers and brewers
who are among the chief causes of national ruin, and at the same time the chief
lay supporters of so many perversions of Christian doctrine. But alas ! not
one preacher in a hundred speaks of this ' Gehenna of Fire ' as if he believed
in it. Yet Christ, who did preach it, was to the full as compassionate as the
enlightened scholars who teach the common people that ' torment ' is ' largely
figurative. '
JUDGMENT ON MEN OF EDUCATION. 491
Church's faith.' The idea is that headstrong sinners, both men
and women, deeply committed to a life of vice and crime, will be
sure to say, ' Oh, there is to be an end to hell-torments, is there ?
Very well, we are glad to hear it ; and we will, therefore, persist
in our enjoyments, and risk the consequences.' But the persons
who put this speech into the mouths of reprobates forget that
those profligates have enjoyed the full restraining advantage of
the threatening of everlasting woe, with scarce an interruption
during all their lifetime, and that even this has not deterred them
from their dreadful career. They are already as wicked as they
can be, and cannot be made worse by the modification of a
threatening which they have utterly disbelieved in and defied.
It is even possible that some alteration in the way of presenting
God's justice and love to them may work for the better, and
diminish their blasphemies.
What is needed to arouse such profligates to reflection, and
still more to alarm those numerous Men of Education whom the
divine revelation distinctly threatens with the greater 'judgment,'
but who never associate the idea of perdition with their own
destiny, I refer to the teaching and ruling class, the unfaithful
Ministers of Religion, the Traffickers in souls and many corrupt
Men of Literature and Art, who pervert to meanest or vilest uses
heaven's divinest gifts the Statesmen, who defy in legislation and
government the plainest laws of morals, all at present encased like
leviathan in impenetrable armour, to make them 'tremble' at
'judgment to come,' and to bring them to repentance, is the
proclamation of a future remediless punishment, which carries its
own credentials along with it ; and while shaking the souls of
sinners, even the most intelligent, as at a fiery ' handwriting on
the wall,' with a deep, convulsive dread, shall leave no valid ground
for moral speculations on its injustice and improbability.
Such is, I submit, the doctrine of Judgment as here set forth.
It will not, indeed, form a Dantesque subject for hard and unreal
pulpit rhetoric ; but it fulfils those conditions of credibility, crush-
ing terribleness, nearness, and finality, which are necessary to
move the souls which can be moved by terror at all. The history
of modern reforms in the criminal law demonstrates how much
greater a deterring power is possessed by certainty and nearness
than by disproportionate and indefinite or dubious terribleness, in
492 THE CREDIBILITY OF THREATENINGS.
a threat. And men who can be morally * moved with fear ' will
more certainly be reached by the warning of an irremediable
wrath to come, which is nothing less than the consuming fire
of Deity, visiting with destruction its implacable adversaries, and
' so repaying the sinner to his face,' than by any unauthorised
representations.
I venture, then, to set it down as a much-needed gain on the
side even of terror, that, under this view of God's dealings with
wicked men, retribution may be heartily believed in, in its grada-
tions and equitable proportions ; and none will see better reason
to fear it than those hardened men and women of fashion and
ability who now confidently fling every threatening of hell behind
their backs. For there is no conception of a future state more
awful and more probable as a retribution to powerful minds who
have spent their lifetime in exerting ruinous influence upon their
fellow-men, than that they should be compelled to ' remember '
the whole sum of evil which they have wrought in the universe,
where no ' drop of water will be given to cool the tongue ' which
once poured forth, perhaps, its eloquent blasphemies, or philosophy
falsely so called, or polluting verses, against the sovereignty of
God, and then suffer ' everlasting destruction from the presence
of the Lord and the glory of His power. '*
II.
But another advantage of an alteration in the methods of
approaching sinful men, to persuade them to repentance, will be
found in this ; that the doctrine of the gift of life enables us to
bring to bear on their understanding, conscience, and affections, a
view of the character of their Maker and God incomparably more
efficacious in winning them to a new life than all the threatenings of
endless suffering which can be set before their minds.
I am far from recommending this system of belief as a universal
* This is the answer to such positions as that of the Rev. A. Thompson,
Chairman of the Congregational Union for 1875, that ' it is not by any fancied
irradiation of the dark problems of Retribution that we shall commend God's
character to the confidence of men.' This is just what the high Calvinists say
of their creed, yet high Calvinism is distinctly guilty of producing infidelity,
throughout Scotland, and elsewhere.
VIEW Of THE EVIL OF SIN. 493
remedy for that deep-rooted enmity to a Sovereign God which
dwells in many souls, and which not even the most perfect ex-
hibition of truth can overcome, as we see in the failure of Christ's
ministry among the Jewish nation, and in ten thousand other
examples. Such men will be humbled only by ' the fierceness
of the wrath of the Lord God Almighty.' But in every religion
the chief moral force is the GOD whom it reveals, and whose
sovereignty it establishes. A sleeping Boodh sends nations to
sleep. An impure Vishnu depraves all India. An infinitely
terrific Power hardens and alienates the people. A God of more
intelligible justice and mercy will more powerfully ' draw all men
unto Him.'
Theologians have sometimes given the impression that the chief
attribute of God is His incomprehensibility. But this notion has
more of a ' show of humility ' than of real submission. God has
'revealed Himself.' He is no longer incomprehensible. If In-*
finite Wisdom were asked, as has been well said, what is the sum
of twice six, the answer would not be an unknown quantity or an
endless line of figures, but the limited number twelve. In the
same way God will commend Himself to created judgments in
His moral dealings, and will punish and reward according to the
knowledge and ability of His creatures with an appreciable equity.
Theology, since the days of the apostles, has done at least as
much to conceal as to open Divine Revelation. The rules of
thought, the laws of interpretation, the measures of deference to
authority, accounted specially learned and orthodox seem to
have been devised in good part almost as if on purpose to build
up apostasy in the Church, and atheism in the world.
Here, then, it behoves us to consider the allegation so confi-
dently pressed forward, that the doctrine now defended lowers
men's views of the Evil of Sin, considered as a transgression of
the law of God.
The views taken by men of the evil of sin may respect either
its consequences to themselves, or its intrinsic unrighteousness ;
and these are widely different. There are many who never think
of the evil of sin, except as regards the harm and mischief it will
bring to themselves, and that is indeed one mode of estimating
evil ; for sin is full of danger to the offender. But they never
494 INFLUENCE OF THIS DOCTRINE
consider its intrinsic hatefulness, or its unfilial character as com-
mitted against their Father and God. Their sole idea of the evil
of sin is gathered from the danger to which it exposes them.
The single religious influence which reaches them therefore is
fear, and it is thought the greater the terribleness the more the
restraint, and the more probable the repentance. It is held that
the moment the idea is suggested to men, that the consequences
of their lives will not be ' so bad as they thought before,' they will
take a full swing, and run all risks, if they may but enjoy their
sinful pleasures for a season. The one thing which can exercise
any restraint upon them is thought to be the fear of endless misery
in hell.* But this view is founded on a gross delusion. Men, in
general, are neither restrained from sin nor drawn to God, by
representations concerning the eternity of hell. It requires faith
to lead them to fear judgment, and this requires the awakening of
conscience by a filial repentance. But the world is without faith.
It was Noah who was ' moved with fear,' not the ' world of the
ungodly.' They were filled with violence, notwithstanding the
preaching of the prophets. Souls are not now moved or drawn
to God even by the threat of endless torment. The world has
enjoyed the advantage of this threatening for ages, and resisted
it. With one consent men think it incredible, disproportionate,
unreal ; the more you educate them the more they think so ; and
the present result is a more thorough freedom from anxiety about
judgment to come, and sense of the 'evil of sin,' than has perhaps
ever been seen before. Men either believe that their sins are not
bad enough to deserve that doom, or that there must be some
road out of such an infinite horror for them, in an unrevealed
scheme of universal salvation ; or they give up thinking about
religion altogether because they cannot understand the character
of God. Our country is half filled with young people whose faith
is thus shaken to the foundation.
Never did mankind in general dread less the evil of sin, in the
* This seems to be the ruling thought of some at least of our opponents. The
Rev. Bodfield Hooper clearly believes that if he could make the hair of his
parishioners stand on end; with fright all the year round,* he would greatly
aid their salvation. See Endless Sufferings the Doctrine of Scripture, 1877,
a book in which there is not one word of tenderness from the beginning to
the end.
ON UNGODLY MEN. 495
sense even of its danger, than to-day, and that notwithstanding
the spirit of profane and lustful excess which fills the world ; and
I attribute this chiefly to the effect of the doctrine of endless
misery. We therefore rebut the accusation with all our strength.
Nothing is more needed than a reform in that part of theology
which treats of penalties. Just as penalties which were too severe
to be believed in by criminals in former times were inoperative
they were too terrific to frighten men so it is in religion. Hang-
ing for sheep-stealing was thought to be too terrible a punishment
to be executed, and sheep continued to be stolen until the penalty
was made one which could be believed in. So it will be in re-
ligion. The day which sees a revival in Europe of the vigorous
teaching of some formidable doctrine on future punishment,
credible by the general intelligence of humanity, some doctrine
which men cannot put aside, saying, 'It is too horrible to be
true ; ' which will come home to their consciences as just, to
their fears as most awful, and which will shut out all hope of
redemption from it, when once the indignation begins, that day
will see, among the impressible part of mankind, a wholly new
public opinion prevailing on the evil of sin, taking this phrase
now to signify only its dangerousness to the wicked. That day will
see the majority still, I fear, unmoved, impenitent, ' past feeling/
as in the days of Noah ; but it will see those souls which can be
reached at all impressed with a sense of the reality both of God's
judgment and mercy as never before.
Hitherto we have considered the question only of the Evil of
Sin in its dangerousness to men, and the comparative influence
of the two doctrines of punishment upon mankind in the way of
alarming them by the prospect of judgment.
But there is another view of the subject. The apostles were
not in the habit of pressing by threats of endless torment a rejected
gospel for years on the same people. ' Seeing ye put it from you,
and judge yourselves unworthy of endless life, lo, we turn to the
nations, and they will hear it ' (Acts xiii. 46). Suppose, then, we
think less of the hardened part of mankind, for whom corrupters
of religion have been inventing terrific, or decorative, types of
496 LACK OF LOYALTY TO GOD.
' national Christianity ' for nearly two thousand years. Suppose
we think a little more of those who can be reached by spiritual
influences, of those young souls who are seeking after God in
solitary places, of those perplexed but amenable spirits whom
sorrow and fear and merciful invitations are drawing back to their
Father : is there nothing to be said here of the possibly beneficial
effect of some improvement in the representation of truth?
Would not their sense of the evil of sin be deepened if they were
permitted to feel that the system of God's government is morally
intelligible if they could be assisted to see all things in the light
of an intelligible justice and love, not in the red glare of that lake
into which they have been taught to think so large a portion of
the creation around them is going to burn for ever ? Sin will
never seem so evil as when we can, with heart and soul and
strength, like David, ' sing aloud ' with joy to God our
Redeemer.
What is lacking in the spiritual life of most men is a feeling of
intelligent loyalty to God a love of His righteous will, because
it is His will. And the reason men do not feel this is, I think,
because they cannot. They are too full of doubt, distrust, and
secret controversy with His supposed government, to be able to
feel it. The root of this evil is in the doctrine of endless misery,
springing out of the doctrine of man's natural immortality. Men
thence hold views of the Divine Administration which confound
the conscience, and freeze up spiritual loyalty at its fountain.
If Christians are to be converted thoroughly, to contend stren-
uously, pray earnestly, they must maintain doctrine in which they
heartily believe. If you would have them hate evil, you must
make known to them a God whose very name acts as a watchword
that sets their souls on fire. It is not an enthusiasm for humanity
which Christ sought to inspire so much as this rare enthusiasm
for Divinity ; and that cannot exist where scepticism is eating like
rottenness through the bones. There is no occasion to dread the
lack of wholesome fear. Terror sufficient for all practical ends of
suasion will remain in the awful prospect of the real Gehenna ;
but we shall have, as now a long experience proves in many
lands, an added strength of rational conviction, of satisfied justice,
of joy, of love, in which will be found far more than a compensa-
tion for the lost doctrine of a misery that shall never end.
TERROR AN ANIMAL NOT MORAL EMOTION. 497
But beyond all this it should be observed that, when we analyse
the nature of Terror the feeling which it is the end at least of
the announcement of God's external judgments to awaken we
find that it is not a moral emotion at all, but only an animal
passion. You can frighten a horse or a dog, and you can also
frighten a man, with a prospect of present or future infliction.
But what you cannot do is to perpetuate the alarm ; for all animal
passions, terror among them, are of transitory operation. Each
fit passes away, and each fresh excitement is weaker than the last.
So it is seen in wicked men. The moral alarm which springs
from more spiritual views of God's holiness is less often awakened.
Physical terror predominates in ordinary minds, and you see the
result of it in those older ' revivals,' where the chief influence was
terrific. You cannot reach any in these days, except the most
ignorant and thoughtless, with the threat of endless physical
misery ; and if you could, the impression would be but transitory.
Multitudes hear these menaces without a pang, and ' take sittings '
to listen to them, if eloquently set forth by a tragical preacher.
The true use of terror is to awaken by a sudden blast of the
trump of God. If it fail in that, it is powerless for good after-
wards. The threatening of a judgment on the soul and body, a
judgment to be inflicted on the earth, at the end of all things, and
proved by all the evidence of Christianity, will awaken those who
are susceptible of the saving influences of the Gospel. These are,
truth addressing the understanding, grace appealing to the affec-
tions, holiness appealing to the repenting will. These, and these
alone, are the permanent springs of spiritual life, while terror of
itself can neither convert nor sanctify.
It is holy love which wins the heart, spiritualises the conscience,
and transforms the character ; and the doctrine here defended un-
veils that LOVE OF GOD which is, the transforming Power, like
the bright shining of the morning Sun. It is sin which fills men with
undefined alarms, and leads them to think they do God's service
by depicting Him as pagans conceive of their terrific divinities.
There cannot, indeed, be genuine love to God which has not
been preceded by some deep sense of danger and of guilt j but
it is through loving delight, not by overwhelming fear, that the
power of sin is to be extinguished in the soul. In a word, that is
the safest religion, not which attempts to maintain incessant dread
32
498 INCREASE IN STRENGTH OF NOBLER MOTIVES.
of eternal suffering, but that which most steadily upholds within
man's heart the influence of law, love, reason, truth, joy, divine
authority, delicacy of moral sentiment, and filial awe.
The evil of sin does not consist chiefly, as many coarser
preachers to the populace suppose, in its being an offence against
a Power which is able and willing to inflict unending torment
upon evil doers, but in its being a wilful opposition to the Eternal
Light of love and of righteousness. He has not the deepest
sense of sin who most dreads the avenging rod, but he who most
keenly feels the hatefulness of insurrection against the Father of
Spirits and the All-satisfying Good. Terror of an infinite infliction
generates selfish views of sin, and selfish views of the evil of sin
are in common minds a hindrance to ingenuous repentance.
Fear may arouse, but it is confidence (Trapprja-ia) which wins
men into union with God. From the throne of God there issue
' lightnings and mighty thunderings,' but God is Love ; and the
consuming fire of judgment is kindled in defence of that law of
love which proceeds from the Nature of the Everlasting.
The threatening of eternal misery also loses its hold upon the
mind exactly in proportion to the development of those faculties
which take cognisance of the character of God as displayed in all
His other operations : and this hinders it from acting with the
steady force of an appreciable motive. For even if it be true that
occasionally the mists of time disperse and permit a momentary
glance over the fiery eternity, the very circumstance of the end'
lessness of the vision has a tendency to draw the attention away
from that near and immediate prospect of judgment, which follows
on death, to the inconceivably remote futurity, whose distance,
through the dimness of the perspective, invests it with a haze of
unreality, and prevents it from exercising a definite influence on
the conduct of life.
But, on the other hand, it is matter of fact that a considerable
number of persons, including some of the highest power, who
have seen cause to adopt the foregoing interpretations of Scripture,
have declared that, in consequence of the modification of their
ideas, Redemption, as a display of the Holy Love and Justice of
God, has become a subject of constant and delightful thought,
so that Christianity in general has assumed an air of stronger
reality ; that since, in the language of Baxter, faith has become,
FAITH, CONSCIENCE, AND REASON. 499
in all its exercises, an act of the conscience and reason, God has
drawn nearer to them ; they have perceived fresh force in the
command to love the Lord their God with all their understand-
ings as well as with all their hearts ; and finally, that, instead of
the lustre of the gospel truths which they believed before being
diminished, those truths have come forth into high relief, marked
with a grander and more vivid outline, and surrounded by a
brighter radiance, as if a faded fresco-painting had been trans-
formed into statuary, and illuminated by the beams of the sun.
III.
But we must now encounter a final objection urged on all sides
with wonderful confidence that it is wholly irreconcilable with
any rational view of the Divine Attributes of Wisdom, Justice, or
Goodness, thus to represent the Almighty as ' raising wicked me*
from a state of death only to inflict on them a second and more
thorough annihilation? Or, as it is sometimes stated, ' it is wholly
unreasonable to think that, whereas under the original law of
creation men would simply have died in Adam for Adam's sin,
through Christ they have incurred the risk and the condemnation
of punishment in hell for untold ages.' The indictment varies.
When it is the object to represent this doctrine as teaching a pur-
poseless resurrection of the wicked, then they are said to rise
again 'only to suffer annihilation.' When it is the object to show
that men incur a heavier curse through redemption than through
the original covenant of works, then wicked men are said to be
raised to ' suffer for untold ages.'
Before offering a reply it is necessary to reject both of thete
misleading modes of stating the doctrine in question. It forms
no part of the doctrine, as maintained by us, that any wicked men
will be raised from the dead ' simply to be put to death a second
time.' After God has gathered out of the world's population by
methods of grace on earth, or in Hades, all salvable persons,
there will remain for the 'judgment of the last day ' and the
' resurrection of damnation ' those alone who will deserve seme
terrible positive infliction as the antecedent to extinction, part of
the sentence of a ' miserable destruction ; ' an infliction which will
explode the delusion that they are raised again ' only just for the
Soo ARE WICKED MEN RAISED FROM DEATH,
purpose of being annihilated.' This infliction will be lighter or
heavier according to men's knowledge, and according to the
malignky of their crimes ; but while some will endure few stripes,
others are said to be beaten with many stripes, to endure ' tribula-
tion and anguish] words which raise an awful conception of
impending woe.
But, it is said, this will be suffering with a view to destruction /
and this is inconsistent with any intelligible view of divine justice,
or goodness.
It may be answered at once that at least it is more consistent
with intelligible ideas of divine justice and goodness than the
orthodox doctrine, that they are to be raised to suffer without
amendment, and without mitigation, through eternity. Indeed,
the advocates of the doctrine of everlasting suffering have no
locus standt, as opponents of this view of the Scripture doctrine,
on the ground of its inconsistency with the divine attributes.
They, at all events, must be silent ; for the human mind can form
no conception of either goodness or justice in the infliction of a
misery out of all proportion to the finite quality of the sinner,
and which has no end.
The true supporters of the present objection are the advocates
of a positive doctrine on the salvation of all men. And to this
objection as proceeding from them we have to offer a respectful
answer. Their theodicy is based on the belief that out of all evil
God will bring eternal good, even to the offending individuals in
the kingdom of darkness. Ours is based on the conviction, not
' philosophical ' in its origin, but simply derived inductively from
the instincts of our moral being, and by fair interpretation of the
apostolic writings that the final universal ' reconciliation of all
things ' will be reached through the salvation of some and the.
destruction of some, when ' God shall be all in all.'
The Universalists hold that under a paternal government,
punishment must needs possess the quality of chastisement, and
issue in the final purification of the condemned. It is held to be
a contradiction to all enlightened views of the divine wisdom and
love to suppose that God can intend to inflict a punishment
which is capital and remediless, or that the Heavenly Father can
lift His almighty hand to 'slay His sons.'
Such a theology, we submit, not only offers violence to the
6 ONLY JUST TO BE ANNIHILATED'? 501
record in which is contained the Revelation of the Holy Spirit
of Christ, but is opposed to every defensible idea of the divine
character and government. It is an introduction, into the sphere
of divine rule, of notions which, although popular enough in
modern legislation, are misleading when applied to the interpreta-
tion of God's dealings with His rebellious creatures.
The mistake has arisen from confounding God's action towards
us in grace (and the new corresponding rule of conduct, which
forbids vindictive or compensatory behaviour to those who offend
us) with God's action in law, and His dealings in judgment with
those who, having refused His mercy, must feel the weight of His
justice. This distinction is pointed out by S. Paul in these
words : ' Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give
place unto wrath, for it is written, "To me belongs vengeance, /
will repay," saith the Lord' (Rom. xii. 19). So far as the rule of
State government in criminal law proceeds on the refusal to con-
template ' righteous vengeance' (for blind vindictiveness none
would advocate), this has been caused in part perhaps by the
conjunction of the Church with the State, through which evan-
gelical rules of conduct have been erroneously assumed as proper
maxims of government by law.
Of the three objects which may be contemplated in the inflic-
tion of penal suffering (i) vengeance, (2) prevention, or (3) the
reformation of the offender, the first, vengeance, or the retri-
butive infliction of pain or death for wrong committed, ' the due
reward ' of evil deeds, suffering inflicted because it is deserved,
has latterly, through the influence of a few, chiefly sceptical,
philosophers, been excluded from the objects aimed at in modern
criminal legislation. It is held to be unworthy of a beneficent
sovereignty to 'return evil for evil,' or to exact pain or death
simply for the satisfaction of vengeance. The intellectual process
by which Bentham and his followers have succeeded in establish-
ing this view of the nature of punishment is one of the most
curious phenomena in the history of statesmanship. This trium-
phant school will permit only of two ends in criminal legislation
prevention of similar offences, by affixing pain or loss to the
offence ; and personal reformation of the offender, to be carefully
considered in every stage of the chastisement.
502 ON THE VENGEANCE OF GOD.
This philosophy of punishment has at length asserted its
authority in theology, and we are now taught, almost as a first
principle in divinity, that under the government of God there can
be but two ends in punishment Prevention and Reformation.
Vengeance, Retribution, Remediless Punishment, is not to be
considered as possible for an instant under the government of
Eternal Love. The ' Fatherhood of God ' is security that every
sinner, if punished for a time, shall be. punished no longer than
the interests of himself and the universe require, and shall, having
received correction in the visitation, 'come forth as gold.' This
philosophy necessarily issues in Universalism.*
We dispute its first axioms. Against the notion that it is
inconceivable that God should punish for any other than benevo-
lent and reformatory ends, it must be maintained that the radical
idea of punishment for sin committed is in the Divine Govern-
ment, as in all unperverted human governments, a retribution for
the wrong done. This is the most ancient idea of penalty, but
none the less just and true for its antiquity. It is the idea which
springs first from the depths of man's moral nature, before it has
been perverted by atheism. Wrong-doing deserves punishment or
pain ; this is one of the deepest laws of our moral nature, which
originated in the depths of the Divine Nature. The sinner
deserves to suffer, in vindication of the law, irrespective of benefit
to the creation, or amendment to himself. Other motives may
operate, but the original idea of penalty seems to be vengeance,
or vindication from the Eternal Nature. And vengeance in God
is neither a wrong nor a weakness. It is retributive righteousness.
It is not a mark of barbarous thought, but the first function of
Divine Government in the administration of law. There is not
probably a more pernicious misconception in morals than that
vengeance is an old-world passion of barbarians. It is the action
ef a Personal Deity infusing His own Personality and Will into
the steadfast action of government in resistance to moral evil.
* Mr. Baldwin Brown in his Lectures on Annihilation bases his scheme
of doctrine for the most part on the same philosophical foundation with the
Universalists. The differentia of his system are found in the sphere which he
allots to the sinner's free agency, and in the refusal to affirm a decree of uni-
versal salvation. So far as he agrees with Universalism we assign to him our
replies to that death-dealing delusion, one of the most mischievous, perhaps, of
all perversions of Divine Revelation.
ON RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE. 503
Law is an abstraction, and Nature a fiction, but GOD lives through
all forces physical and moral, and when men say that law brings
retribution, the true and at the same time biblical philosophy
teaches that it is God who ' revenges disobedience ' with a just
re-ward. The idea of a sinful man's guilt is, not that the guilty
has earned some personal chastisement, for his own good, or as a
warning to others, but that he has earned the proper sequence of
sin in suffering, the ' due reward of his deeds,' and in many cases
that due is death. This every conscience testifies, when a man
' comes to himself.' The Scripture asserts only that which Nature
on all sides shows to be a real part of the plan of creation the
penal action of a destructive force, as all-pervading as the creative.
Retributive Justice, the disposition to repay the sinner, must
be an eternal attribute of the Everlasting King. ' Vengeance is
mine; I will recompense, saith the Lord.' If this were not so,
the moral government of God would have no existence except
over large numbers. But if God had created one single being,
surely that being would be bound to obey Him, by working
righteousness for ever. Should he rebel, and become fixed in
hatred of goodness according to the new philosophy of criminal
law God, as a righteous ruler, would have no rights, and could
not punish him ; for there would be, ex hypothesi, no creation to
be benefited by the example, and he himself was irreformable.
God could not punish him, could not afflict him, forsooth, except
for his own advantage. Common sense and conscience revolt at
this extravagant conclusion. The revenging Deity might justly
inflict the ' due reward of his deeds ' by destroying the solitary
spirit who troubled His holy rest and refused to repent.
This idea of retribution, as the fundamental characteristic of
punishment, burns like the everlasting fire throughout the record
of Divine Revelation. The law of Moses inflicts punishment
according to the lex talionis ' Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.
And the death-penalty is ordained for a score of offences in
dreadful forms. RIGHTEOUS VENGEANCE is the key-note of the
Old Testament. There is no attempt to soften this down to the
conception of public or personal benefit. It is ever the ' repay-
ment ' of God's adversaries, the awful debt ' due ' to thoroughly
bad men from Eternal Justice. God is the all-pervading Spirit of
Retribution, both in the realms of physical and moral law.
504 THE SATISFACTION OF DIVINE JUSTICE
The entrance of Redemption in Christ effects no alteration in
the revealed basis of Divine criminal administration. Punishment
is still primarily retribution. ' What a man soweth that shall he
also reap.' Paul speaks of it as the righteous judgment of God to
inflict death on sinners : he declares to the Thessalonians that it
is 'a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them
that trouble you,' and that ' Christ shall be revealed in flaming
fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God ' (2 Thess. i. 6, 8).
The deep-seated sense of the existence of such a retributive
system in the creation often breaks like volcanic fire through the
superimposed strata of modern artificial philosophy and legis-
lation. Now and then whole nations cry aloud for vengeance on
flagrant offenders, as if conscious that the new legislative idea of
universal beneficence did not correspond with the realities of the
moral world. 'Vengeance suffereth not to live' the guilty
murderer.
When, then, the advocates of Universalism object that it is
inconceivable that God should raise wicked men from the dead
' only just ' to punish them by the infliction of the second death,
the reply is that it is inconceivable on the principles of the new
philosophy and of modern legislation ; but not on the principles
of Nature, and of Divine Revelation.
The satisfaction and manifestation of the Divine Attributes
because they are righteous, is the first and last end in creation,
and providence. 'For Thy pleasure they exist, and were created?
The effect on creatures comes only second in the account. If,
then, the Divine Legislator, the Divine Spectator of wrong, the
Divine Ruler and Lord, has an account with rebellious free agents,
and burns in the awful depths of Deity with a resolution to take
vengeance on such offenders as have trampled on His law, and on
His Son, and who have done despite to His Holy Spirit, we may
rest certain that that satisfaction of the Divine Nature is a suffi-
cient end in so calling wicked men to account ; even if the result
of that terrible punishment be their destruction. The original
motive, the regulative method, of the infliction, alike proceed
from the Divine Mind ; from the necessary attributes of God ;
and are not determined merely by benevolent considerations
towards the individual or by the opinion of the universe on its
utility. The personal relation of each free agent to God is his
A SUFFICIENT END IN GOVERNMENT. 50$
chief relation, and carries with it, when he is sinful, all the fearful
consequences of perdition. It is God Himself, not merely the
law of nature, that is described as the ' Consuming Fire.'
Now this sounder philosophy of punishment, while cutting up
by the roots the hope of universal salvation, establishes the
tremendous doctrine of retribution here maintained. Every finally
impenitent offender has an account to render to his Maker, in
soul and body ; and that controversy will be decided by a sentence
on both, which we are taught is capital and eternal. The benefit
of the creation also is consulted in the example so given, ' that
others also may fear ; ' but since the fountain of retribution is the
righteous vengeance of God, the persistent rebel can build no hope
on any reformatory process, for God will destroy him, 'both
body and soul in hell.' Even if men ever so boldly declare that
God ' can never slay His sons,' the Divinity Himself proclaims by
His prophets that He will renounce the sonship of a sinner rather
than abandon His own Sovereignty as the Eternal Righteousness ;
and that though judgment on a rebel is ' His strange work,' He
will ' utterly destroy him.' ' The great day of His wrath will
come ' ' the wrath of the Lord God Almighty and the wrath of
the Lamb.' ' It is a fearful thing (</>o/?epov) to fall into the hands of
the living God.' ' I WILL KILL HER CHILDREN WITH DEATH : AND
ALL THE CHURCHES SHALL KNOW THAT I AM HE THAT SEARCHETH
THE REINS AND THE HEARTS.' 'The Lord thy God is a CON-
SUMING FIRE, even a jealous God. I call heaven and earth to
witness against you this day that ye shall soon utterly perish from
off the earth, ye shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall be
utterly destroyed* (Deut. iv. 24, 26). ' The wrath of God abideth
on ' the rebellious (John iii. 36, ^cVet). ' The Lord will not
spare him, but the anger of the Lord shall smoke against that
man, and every curse that is written in this book shall lie upon
him (IS ny J^O, s ^ a ^ sett ^ e down on him, like a beast of prey on
its victim), and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven '
(Deut. xxix. 20 [19, Heb.]).
5 o6
CHAPTER XXX.
MISSIONARY THEOLOGY : AN INQUIRY INTO THE INFLUENCE OF
THIS THEODICY ON THE METHOD AND SPIRIT OF MISSIONS TO
THE HEATHEN.
IN a recent work by one of the most able managers of modern
missionary societies," the author, desiring to stimulate the zeal of
their supporters, asserts the present apathy of the religious world
in England in relation to them, in comparison with the zeal of an
earlier day. The author traces this comparative apathy in part
to a disproportionate devotion to the prosecution of the Home
Missions of Christianity, an exclusiveness which robs foreign
missions of their fitting share of attention and support. The
larger part of the work is expended in setting forth the general
social effects of Christianity in the East, and in presenting a
vigorous picture of the results to be expected in the future from
the gradual undermining of heathenism.
It is not necessary to question the position that the Churches
of Europe devote the largest measure of attention to European
objects. Men are naturally interested in the visible more than in
the invisible in England, which is seen, more than in India,
which is unseen. The spiritual force which is required to sustain
a deep and settled interest in the missions of the gospel is indeed
far greater than is usually supposed. They make a larger demand
upon the spiritual nature of man than any other form of human
endeavour. To feel compassion for the souls of nations whom
we have never beheld, from whom we are divided by the diameter
of the globe, who are physically and morally our antipodes, and
therefore with whose natural character we have the faintest sym-
* London and Calcutta. By Dr. Mullens.
DECLINE IN MISSIONARY ZEAL. 507
pathy, to expend thought, effort, and considerable property in
furthering the interest of those unknown nations in a world which
is still more completely invisible and unknown, requires a depth
of conviction, a strength of principle, an elevation of spirit,
wholly foreign to human nature, and neither to be produced nor
sustained except by the direct action of the Spirit of God.
The Power which alone can ' thrust forth ' a true labourer into
the harvest, alone can also create or uphold a corresponding spirit
of faith and self-sacrifice in the people who send him forth. The
missionary agency is the hand at the end of a long arm, extended
by the Church at home. If that arm is paralysed at the shoulder,
whence will come the force by which blows shall be struck at the
ends of the earth ? A decline of the spiritual life, therefore, in
England, a decay of faith in things unseen, a loss of spiritual
power through the advance of luxurious habits, would necessarily
take the form first of a loss of interest in the unseen field of
foreign missions soon to be followed by a similar decay of
interest in the evangelical work at home.
It is not the present intention, however, to prosecute this line
of enquiry. We shall proceed on the contrary hypothesis, that
the concern for the salvation of the heathen nations is as earnest
and real as it ever was : and suggest a few considerations tending
to explain the nature of those influences which have, notwith-
standing, repressed of late years the exhibition of that enthusiasm
for missionary societies in Christian communities.
In the first place, I venture to assign as one of these influences,
a growing scepticism as to the theory on which existing missions were
established.
In the apostolic age the doctrinal spirit and the missionary
spirit were evolved by the Spirit of God in the Church with equal
power, and they never ought to be separated. Each requires
combination with the other. It has unhappily occurred several
times since that each has been developed almost alone. In some
ages a zeal for missions has been awakened apart from the spirit
of doctrinal study, as in the second and third, the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries. In other cases, the doctrinal spirit has been
evolved without a corresponding activity leading to the diffusion
of the gospel. At the close of the last century, when the Pro-
5o8 THE MISSIONARY SPIRIT, AND THE STUDY OF
testant Missionary Societies arose amidst the hurricanes of the
French Revolution, the spirit of theological study, of careful,
honest, devout criticism, on which the faith ought to be founded,
was as nearly as possible extinct in England. Perhaps it may be
said that just at the very time when it became of more importance
than ever that the church should take care what was to be taught
as Christianity among all the nations of the world, the work of
evangelising was commenced, as it had been in several similar pre-
ceding ages of activity in Christendom, in a spirit of unquestion-
ing submission to the forms of thought stereotyped by previous
generations. Never was any great enterprise begun with more
simplicity of purpose, heroic faith, and devoted piety than the
enterprise of the founders of the Protestant Missions at the close
of the last century \ and also, it must be added, never was any
great enterprise begun with more implicit adhesion to the tradi-
tions of the fathers. There was scarcely one among the whole
venerable company of persons engaged in that glorious undertaking
who dreamed of doubting any of the doctrines stamped with the
imprimatur of the Reformation. The powers of action awoke,
as often before, in comparative isolation, but the zeal of truth-
seeking still for the most part slumbered.
What has been the result of this phenomenon ? Is it not this,
that inasmuch as the theological spirit has since recovered its
energy, and attention has been devoted once more to biblical
criticism and doctrine, there is now a certain separation between
the missions of Protestantism and some of the deeper convictions
of religious Englishmen ? The formal creed of the Missionary
Societies represents the thinking of eighty years ago, when the
Church accepted without question the traditions of Protestant
theology handed down by the reformers of the different sects.
But those societies are now surrounded by a generation which
has lifted the anchors of its theology, and has drifted or sailed
into other waters.
In some of the most important particulars of Christian faith,
indeed, there is happily little change. The faith in a Divine
Christ, in His Atonement for sin, in the Person and work of the
Holy Spirit, in a gratuitous Justification, is at least professed now
nearly as it was of old. But these doctrines were considered by
the founders of missions as but a superstructure on a deeper
DOCTRINE, NOT ALWAYS CONTEMPORANEOUS. 509
foundation. That foundation was an antecedent belief in the
natural immortality of mankind, and their consequent destiny either
to endless misery or endless joy. In the opinion of Dr. Carey, and
those who first went with him to India, and of Xavier before
them, every human being was an immortal, possessed of a soul as
eternal in the future as the Nature of God. Every inhabitant of
India was thus regarded as an indestructible life. Every unre-
generate soul, descended from Adam, was born under the curse
of endless woe through original sin, and was, by its own trans-
gressions, sunk deeper in that direful destiny. Salvation could be
effected only by the grace of God in regeneration. All the un-
regenerate of all ages were unsaved, and the unsaved of India,
as of all lands, were destined to be delivered over, as Dr. Carey
says in one of his letters, to ' endless misery.' To endless misery
had departed all the unregenerate inhabitants of Asia during the
ages of darkness preceding the advent of Dr. Carey to India.
To endless misery were going all the millions who rejected his
message, or refused to abandon their ancestral creeds. This is
still the foundation of our Missionary Theology. This is still
what may be called the state creed of the missionary societies,
Roman and Protestant. No one is considered at liberty to deny
it in a missionary speech or sermon. It is the basis of the
Propaganda. It is the platform creed of Exeter Hall. The
students at the Missionary Colleges are supposed to believe it.
The missionaries abroad are supposed to believe it. No one who
openly assailed it would be permitted to plead the cause of
missions before the British or American people.
And yet it is disbelieved in the English churches throughout
the length and breadth of the country. It is doubted and denied
with varying degrees of confidence even by many missionaries ;
but most of all by persons of accurate knowledge and spiritual
intelligence. The denial is not confined to mockers or adver-
saries ; but it is professed with more or less of openness by men
whose knowledge gives the utmost weight to their judgment, and
whose hard-working Christianity challenges comparison with that
of any of the advocates of the older faith. One meets with a
few earnest, and able, and unquestionably sincere controversial
supporters of that elder belief. But no one who knows English
religious society will deny that there has been a considerable
510 PRESENT DOUBTS ON HEATHEN DAMNATION.
revolution in opinion as to the probable destiny of the ignorant
idolatrous nations of the earth, and that it is the rarest event to
find even an official of a Missionary Society, or the Tutor of a
Missionary College, who will, when firmly pressed, declare his
unfeigned assent and consent to the opinions, on this question, of
his founders.
Men, now-a-days, have their doubts, their special theories of
relief, their vague hopes, or their positive doctrines. Either they
hold that Scripture gives room for several opposite theories ; or
they lean to Universalism, and secretly teach men to trust in
future purgatories ; or they wholly repudiate and openly denounce
and assail the old missionary doctrine, and believe that they who
have ' sinned without law,' and led impenitent lives under heathen
darkness, shall enjoy evangelisation in Hades ; or, if they reject
that, shall ' perish without law,' and die under the double curse of
God ; but it is simply a fact that opinion is changing here, and
that the churches at home, acted upon by the revived spirit of doc-
trinal study, are silent where our fathers would have spoken, or
doubt where they would have unhesitatingly followed the docrine
of former ages, or boldly deny where they would have anathe-
matised opposition. No one seems moved by the argument that
such good men as their fathers were must have been right in all
their doctrines. We know, for certain, that they were mistaken
in many things which they firmly believed. The fact is that
Nature, and Scripture, and human Life are better understood
than they were eighty years ago, and the conviction is now widely
spread that the notion of the unconditional consignment to ever-
lasting woe of the countless multitudes of the heathen who have
been born in error, bred in superstition, and abandoned to die
either in total ignorance of the true gospel, or in rejection of a
gospel message, but partly revealed to them, cannot possibly be
true under the government of Perfect Justice, Boundless Wisdom,
and Eternal Love.
The decline of interest in missionary societies is, therefore,
partly to be attributed to an unconfessed modification of the
faith on which they were founded. Men feel more coldly towards
a system which sends out agents, whose training consists some-
what in persuading them not to think on the question of human
destiny ; and which discourages the expression of belief, whether
THE FEWNESS OF CONVERSIONS. 511
at home or abroad, in a sense more accordant with the thought
of our generation. The persuasion is general that the missions
of the gospel ought to represent the results of religious England's
present convictions. It is felt that they do not thoroughly repre-
sent them, that there ought to be more space allowed both at
college and in the mission field, certainly for doubt, for undecided
opinion, and even for open variation from the ancient creed,
that there ought to be liberty for Missionaries to express abroad,
especially in their dealings with the educated men of India and
China, ideas which are gaining ascendency over so many able
minds at home. It is felt that the governing power of missions
ought not to be exclusively in the hands of men who think on all
subjects as their fathers did or, worse still, in the hands of men
who only pretend to think as they did. It is felt that Jesuitism
among Protestants is just as demoralising as among Romanists ;
that what is needed in missionary work above all things, is, not
concealment of opinion, not weak compliance with articles insisted
on by the multitude, but earnest enlightened faith ; a faith which
believes, and therefore speaks ; a faith which can blow beneath
the walls of Jericho a ' dolorous and jarring blast,' before which
the defences of heathenism might crumble to the ground. And
until the realities of the future world occupy a far larger space in
the thoughts of missionary societies, the feeling of English
churches towards them is not likely to improve. But Heaven and
Hell must be made to seem more real, and more near, before
either the English senders of the gospel will entirely believe in
them, or the heathen recipients repent at the message.
Another reason for the partial decline of interest in missionary
societies will be found in the discouraging fewness of conversions
among Mohammedans, Brahminists, and Buddhists, who compose
the population of Asia. No considerable Protestant congregation
of converted Moslems is known to exist anywhere on earth. The
death-penalty for apostasy protects Islam from Christian conver-
sion from pole to pole. In India and its adjuncts there are
270,000,000 of people, in China 400,000,000 more. All the
confessed nominal adherents to Christianity in India, after eighty
years of labour, by thirty-one missionary societies, enjoying of
late years strong Government support to their cause, are at this
512 MERITS OF THE MISSIONARY BODY.
moment not much over 300,000 ; the far larger proportion of
these being persons of the lowest castes.
It is certain that the English public greatly errs if it attributes
the fewness of avowed conversions to the lack of ability, zeal, or
holy character in the general body of modern missionaries. The
history of missions is the brightest, grandest page in the history
of the modern world. There are no men or women living who
better deserve the reverence of their contemporaries than the heralds
of Christianity who have laboured in the present century. The
faults which characterise them are generally our own the faults
of the churches who have sent them abroad as their representa-
tives. Their quiet heroism, their learning, their devotion, their
persistence under terrible discouragement, have been such as to
deserve the lasting veneration of mankind. The qualifications
which have received the testimony of Lord Lawrence and Sir
Bartle Frere, in respect of the Indian detachment, dispense with
further reply to the calumnies of sceptical criticism.
Failure is not the word which properly describes the result of
their marvellous labours. It has not been failure in respect to
the display of soldierly courage in every country under heaven.
It has not been failure but signal success in respect to the
apparatus for operating on mind, in the form of established
stations, translated Bibles, and organised instruction, which has
resulted from their efforts. It has not been failure perhaps in
comparison with the spiritual results of evangelical missions at
home. And it may be added that it has not been failure in
respect of the lovely and noble types of character which have
grown up under their fostering care.
Much less has there been failure, but victory, if we may take
into account the indirect civilising influences which have accom-
panied the gospel ; the gradual but almost universal extension
of the dry-rot of disbelief in their own systems among the heathen,
which must be set down in part to the disintegrating action of
Christian ideas in Asiatic society. If Asia has not received the
gospel during the last eighty years, it has, with the exception of
the Wahabite revival among the Moslems, lost much of its faith
in its own superstitions. Dr. Max Miiller declares, perhaps with
too much strength, that Hindooism is practically dead.
But to disbelieve in Buddhism, in Laoutzeism, in the Brah-
MISSIONARY CONFESSIONS. 513
minist religion, as the result of wide education, is very far
from the same thing with believing in Christ to salvation.
And the general alienation of mind from Christian ideas, as re-
presented to us in the strikingly faithful reports of the devoted
missionaries, suggests reflections on the possibility that there
may be ' some awful mistake somewhere,' as Mrs. Stowe expresses
it,* in the quality of the message which we have commissioned
them to deliver.f I do not for a moment believe that the mis-
sionaries are competent judges of their own success. We may
reasonably hope that there are now tens of thousands of secret
disciples in both India and China, and hundreds of thousands
more of men and women saved by God's Spirit in their own twi-
light. Love often evangelises the heart when the doctrine fails
to reach the enfeebled understanding. Christ our Lord alone
possesses the true and full ' report ' of the effect of modern
evangelisation. ' We know but in part,' and probably the least
part, of the operation of the Divine Word among men.J
And yet, after every consolatory reflection, there remains
the fact that apparently more than seven hundred millions
* See Mrs. Stowe's tale, Uncle Tom's Cabin.
f Take as an example a recent Report (1869) of the Baptist Mission. We
may well trust men who do not scruple to record the saddest truths. The
directors, speaking of the known results of gospel itinerancy in India, write
as follows :
' With regard to the immediate effect of these labours, it may be stated in
the words of the missionaries themselves. Mr. R writes : "Of the
visible result of these itinerancies there is little to be said. In some places the
message of the gospel has been gladly received ; in some few instances we
have hoped to see permanent results, but have generally been disappointed."
Mr. E , of Jessore, sums up the results of the daily visits of himself and
preachers to the bazaars thus : " Whilst we lament the absence of manifested
conversions to Christ, we cannot doubt the leaven is at work ; and our hope is
that, by patient labour and prayerful waiting, the result will, perhaps ere
long, be developed in a rapid increase of the Church in this district." Yet
it is seventy years since the gospel was first introduced in Jessore by the Seram-
pore brethren, and that with many encouraging tokens of success. " When
you ask me," says Mr. E , of Benares, "What is the result of all this
preaching ?/ should have to reply, apparently nothing! No one, so far as
I am able to judge, has been impressed with the truth so as to justify m: in
regarding him as a sincere believer in Christ" '
\ There has been a recent conversion of scores of thousands of the ' Babs '
of Persia, quite unknown to the generality of English Christians.
33
5H LACK OF POWER IN MODERN CHRISTIANITY.
of human beings in Eastern Asia are personally unaffected by
Christianity ; they put it from them as an incredible or an
impracticable superstition of the West, and but for the mighty
force of the Western States they would soon, unless Providence
intervened, try to sweep it from their shores.
It is with moderate expectations that experience admonishes
us to contemplate the beneficial results of theological reform,
until the great practical hindrance of a corrupt European example
is immensely diminished.
It is also with profound deference and self-distrust that any
criticism should be ventured upon the gospel which the self-
denying and learned missionary body is proclaiming to the pagan
majority of mankind, with a courage and endurance which puts
us all to shame ; but the knowledge which I possess of the in-
most sympathy of some of the ablest of themselves emboldens
me to express an expectation that the alteration of some of the
modes of stating Christianity abroad, which a similar change at
home may naturally lead to, will be attended with happy results.
Without undervaluing the successes of our contemporaries, it is
impossible not to feel that there is some apparent deficiency in
the power of modern Christianity. There is a want of definite
force on the side of judgment ; a judgment which shall be at
once so credible, yet so overpowering, as to compel the attention
of worldly Europeans and languid Asiatics. There is also a lack
of vital joyfulness in the modern gospel itself, which renders it
weaker than it should be before the fatalism, the pantheism, and
the cruel idolatries of the East. Once the gospel had miraculous
aids. Afterwards, Roman Christianity brought limitless and
remorseless terror to support it. In our time the faith is honey-
combed by a profound scepticism, and its terror is reduced to
the dubious form of a hell ' without fire,' or an endless torment
of which it is thought wiser by many to keep silence altogether
before the heathen.
It is not unlikely that some missionary readers will reply to
the preceding argument, that it is unwise to press on the atten-
tion of the heathen the doctrine of punishment, as a prominent
feature of Christianity, and that the main purpose and aim of
missions is to unfold the tidings of redeeming mercy. But still
'WHERE IS THE ARM THAT SMOTE RAHAB ?' 515
the question will recur, Redemption from what? If the New
Testament is to be the model of preaching abroad as well as at
home, the glad tidings were preceded by a ' ministry of condem-
nation ; ' and were accompanied by threatenings of ' hell-fire '
from the lips of both Christ and the Apostles, for all who rejected
the message ; no difference being made in this respect between
Jew or Gentile, Greek or Barbarian. The question is, What is
the Hell of which the New Testament speaks with such alarming
persistency? Certainly, whatever it is, it is not one which the
missionaries have received any commission not to ' dwell upon.'
It is no answer to this to say that ' the Judge of all the earth
will do right' We acknowledge that to the full. But some
doctrine of terror is part of Christianity, and that which we are
asking is has the Judge of all the earth revealed to mankind
what the founders of missions thought that He had, respect-
ing the prospect of ' endless misery ' ? When that question has
been discussed without result, or decided out of the Scripture,
it will be time to cite Abraham's expression of affiance as an end
of controversy and not before.
Under present conditions the natural force of the gospel is
abated. It does not take hold of the moral understanding of
Asia. Some converts undoubtedly are persuaded, but the masses
are neither convinced, nor alarmed, nor won by a ' love that
passeth knowledge.' ' Where is the Arm that smote RahabV
Where is the force of truth and grace that smote the philosophies
and idolatries of the Mediterranean in the apostolic age, and
shook like an earthquake the whole of Roman Europe and Asia
in a single generation ? Let it not be said it was the stress of
miracles that then availed. Miracles exerted an inconsiderable
influence, in comparison with a truth which inspired an over-
powering energy of faith, a grace that commended itself to all
affections, and an announcement of approaching doom which
struck like a blazing thunderbolt from the uplifted hand of the
Almighty.
Is it not that we are propagating both abroad and at home a
Christianity which is half paralysed in its two chief forces of
hope and fear through the perrersions of an unbiblical theology ?
We fail in thoroughly presenting God's love to the nations,
a love strong enough to melt even Chinese arrogance, and to
516 THE MODERN GOSPEL NOT CREDIBLE
develop the belief of a real and personal God among Chinese
Buddhists, because we have encumbered Christianity with a
doctrine of hell, so unjust, so indiscriminate, so hardening in
its frightful propositions, that men's consciences refuse to receive
it. Our missionary theology cannot ' commend itself to every
man's conscience,' because every man's conscience, whether in
Europe or Asia, in proportion as it is enlightened, rejects it with
horror.
This is, I venture to think, one reason for the general rejec-
tion of the gospel by the Brahminists, Buddhists, and Con-
fucianists of the East. God's* love is hidden from them, and
they ' turn away sorrowful ' from so direful a Christianity. Now,
whatever the better sort of thinking - men of any nation gene-
rally reject will not be long or widely received by the unedu-
cated. The stout English artisans disbelieve it already, because
men of education are rejecting it first. No evangelical ' revival,'
conducted on the present theological basis, will effectually reach
either the artisans or the more cultivated classes.
Public opinion, then, on the reasons of the wide rejection of
Christianity in Asia has begun to form itself under certain in-
fluences in addition to those of our valuable missionary reports
and speeches. These naturally supply us with but a portion
of the truth. We are beginning to learn, not only what the
missionaries think of the learned and able men of India and
China, but what the learned men of India and China think of
some things taught by the missionaries. We are learning to
exercise imagination upon the evangelical enterprise, and to
understand better in what light it presents itself to the ' natives '
whose religion it assails.*
For example, it is now comprehended that the presence of
our European apostles in the ports of China, bringing with them
the ' good news ' of Xavier and Dr. Carey, that the former in-
habitants of that populous country who have been atheists or
idolaters (that is, a very large proportion of the population of the
globe during many ages), and who have died in an unregenerate
condition, have gone, notwithstanding their ignorance, to endless
* Se n The Modern Buddhist, or the views of a Siamese Minister of State
(KJalahom) on his own and other religions of the East, including Christianity.
Trubner, 1870.
BY THE HINDOOS AND CHINESE. 517
misery, in some of its many degrees, it is now comprehended
that such a ' gospel ' strikes the educated men in China precisely
as a similar message would strike the learned men of our
Universities, if brought to England after ages of heathenism by
a handful of Chinese missionaries, landing in the ports of London
and Liverpool. We now understand that, if it would be highly
improbable that our educated classes would listen to so horrible
a proclamation, or recognise in it the voice of a Just and Bene-
ficent Deity, so it is equally improbable that it will appear divine
when taught by our emissaries at Pekin or Ningpo.* And thus
we come to comprehend some of the reasons why, after eighty
years of missionary labour among them, the learned and un-
learned men alike of India and China are as far as ever from
embracing Christianity. Chinese clergymen with a similar
doctrine at London or Liverpool could scarcely hope for greater
success among ourselves by eighty years of persevering preaching
and tract distribution. Men do not ' change .their gods ' except
for better ones.f
* We are informed in the Church Missionary Intelligencer for May, 1875,
p. 136, that a common effect of education on the minds of the young men of
.India, trained in Government colleges, is to make them 'deists and infidels,'
in relation to Christianity. Such men now swarm through Hindostan. This
-is not wonderful, considering what the theology is which in India represents
' Christianity.' We should mostly become ' deists and infidels ' if the Hindoos
were" to land -in England with a similar message.
t I cannot but think that the mode of presenting UChristianity which we
advocate as. apostolic and Divine as a message conferring eternal life as a
donation upon dying men, is not only fitted to assist the faith of European
minds deprived of their old hopes and fears by recent scientific conclusions, but
also probably of the countless millions of Buddhists 'throughout India, Siam,
Japan, and China. In those lands the loss of individual being, nirvana^ has,
under the inspiration of demons, become the final expectation of the human
.race. Will it not give to the joyful voice of Christianity a new energy, when it
has learned to proclaim through Christ -the promise of individual life in con-
scious union with Deity, as the^eternal blessedness of the righteous ? You will
never succeed in persuading the 480,000,000 Buddhists that man already possesses
by nature an indissoluble soul ; for it is the first principle of the Buddhist that
the soul can be dissolved ; and his second that separate existence is so mise-
rable, that the highest object of hope is to lose individual being, and to be
absorbed in .the all. But a better result will probably follow if you teach him
that the Eternal Essence has spoken to mankind, and has declared, in a loving
message to all men, that it is sin which renders separate existence a curse ; that
5i8 POWER OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY.
But the predominant system of teaching in heathendom fails also,
I venture to think, in another department through withholding
the influence of a truth favourable to the production alike of hope
and of fear. Not only does the Retribution preached at home
and abroad fail, by its unscriptural representations, to awaken
terror in the educated classes, since whatever you exaggerate you
weaken ; but it is nearly everywhere the custom with missionary
societies to send out teachers opposed to the belief of Christ's
Advent to judge the nations, as the next great event in the history of
world.
The plain doctrine of S. Paul, in the second letter to the
Thessalonians, that the personal advent of Christ will occur for
the purpose of destroying ' the Man of Sin '/ the doctrine of the
prophet Daniel, that the ' Son of Man will come in the clouds ot
heaven ' for the destruction of the ' fourth kingdom,' and of that
' horn that has eyes, and a mouth speaking marvellous things ; '
the doctrine that Christ Himself will come to punish ' with
flaming fire ' an antichristian clergy that has perverted Revelation
until men can no longer believe in it, and to judge nations that
persist in Idolatry after due summons to repentance; this
doctrine of Christ's ever-impending Advent, under the influence
of which the gospel was spread in the first century, is denied by
the missionary societies and the generality of their agents. Here
is a present loss, and possible recovery of power, which may be
readily appreciated. In this department of exegesis, as in so
many others, God is supposed to be glorified by resolving all His
promises into metaphorical unrealities.
Let the Gospel be preached in India and China as the message
of Life to the dead, as the gift of Immortality in body and soul,
to a race sitting in the death-shade of atheism ; let it be preached
as the message of a God who is intelligibly beneficent, but intel-
ligibly and justly ' terrible * to wicked men ; let it be proclaimed
that the times of pagan ignorance this righteous Judge * over-
looked,' but now, on peril of the ' greater condemnation,' commands
that curse is removed by the Incarnate Son of God ; that everlasting life is
given to us in Christ ; and that, therefore, nirvana needs no longer be sought
as a boon. Life in God's image is endless life and endless joy ; and conscious-
ness needs no longer sigh for annihilation of being.
CHRISrs ADVENT TO BE PREACHED. 519
all men everywhere to repent; let the words of the apocalyptic
angel become the topic of the missionary, Fear GOD, and give
glory to Him ! for the hour of His judgment is come ! ' and one
cannot but believe that a new power might attend in the East, as
in the West, the diffusion of Christianity.
There is something so heart-striking, so fitted to compel atten-
tion, in the apostolic warning of Christ's imminent return to
destroy obstinate and obscene worshippers of idols, to avenge
the perversion of the truth in Christendom, to raise in glory the
sleeping saints, and to establish Heaven's kingdom on earth,
that even languid India must lift her head to listen, and haughty
philosophic China hearken awe-struck to the trumpet-blast. Chris-
tianity is a power which is designed to act on men from before as
well as from behind, through the expectation of coming events,
as well as through the study of facts accomplished. It is a pro-
phecy and a mighty world-embracing drama, as well as a history.
But under the prevailing system of teaching it is a gospel without
the vivid hope of that Advent of Christ to crown His followers,
the prospect of which, at the beginning, filled and reddened like a
dawn of glory all the eastern sky. The whole body of prophecy
is now supposed to prove only when interpreted with due caution,
that * the Lord delayeth His coming,' that wisdom consists in
proclaiming the doctrine of the ' evil servant,' and in relegating
the expectation of the Lord's return to a generation that shall live
at the end of the Millennium !
Vain, then, at present are all such warnings as ' Behold He
cometh in clouds, and every eye shall see Him;'' for it is well
understood that such an expectation of the Lord is peculiar to
' weaker brethren,' or to ' servile literalists,' or to spirits in which
fancy takes the place of faith. Thus it has come to pass that
Christ's advent is banished from the thoughts of nearly the whole
body of the ministers of Christ around the globe. To them ' far
off His coming shines ' as a dim nebula in the firmament of the
future. Who, then, can wonder that a Christianity so diminished
in its forces both to win and to appal, so pale and so colourless,
naturally maintains a doubtful fight with the stiff-necked pagans
of Asia ? Is there not required a doctrine that commends itself
more cogently to the reason and to the conscience ot men, of
the teachers as well as the taught, to their imagination not less
520 SOLEMN APPEAL TO MISSIONARIES
than to their affections, a love so real, so tender and intelligible
a terror so soul-subduing, so near at hand, and so appreciably
just, as to shake if it cannot vanquish the stoutest resistance of
the heathen ; a hope of speedy victory to the Church, sufficient
to restore the death-daring energies of the first century, and a
courage founded on overpowering conviction which would engage
in closer conflict with Eastern Buddhism, and the stolid posi-
tivism of Confucius ? That ' throneless king,' as the Chinese
call him, would soon, I trust in God, lose much of his opposing
power, before a Saviour preached as if He were the very JESUS
of the gospels, ' coming again quickly ' to be the Lord of the
world.
I know these are unwelcome, and must seem to some presump-
tuous words ; but, with an earnestness which neutralises the
remembrance of personal insignificance, I implore my fellow-
Christians at home to reconsider in the light of Sacred Scripture
the theological basis of the missionary enterprise. I adjure,
before Christ our Lord, the directors of the missionary societies
not to multiply the number of those who carry out to the heathen
a doctrine which they do not, and dare not, proclaim to the
cultured people either of Hindostan or of England.
And finally, if by -Divine Providence one voice could reach so
far, I would most reverently call upon eveiy honoured missionary
of the gospel around the globe to bend his mind, if he have failed
so to do hitherto, to the consideration of that doctrine of Eternal
Life in Jesus Christ which now seems to so many students to be
the designed sense of S. John's gospel, and S. Paul's epistles ;
and next, to the prophetic promise of Christ's Advent, to judge
the nations, which may be held without the weak additions of
millenarian fancy, which has won the conviction in modern times
of a Mede, a Bengel, a Stier, a Lange, an Olshausen, an Auberlen,
an Alford, and a thousand others, and was unquestionably the
belief of the apostles' followers in the first ages of the Christian
Revelation.*
The following passage is from a letter by Mr. Hobbs, an able
and respected missionary of Sewry in India in the present year :
* See this strongly asserted and proved by Professor Lightfoot on
natural Religion. Contemporary Review. August, 1875.
TO CONSIDER THIS DOCTRINE. 521
' I have not been forgetful of my standing obligation to diffuse as widely as
'possible a knowledge of the special truth so tersely expressed by Paul " The
wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ
our Lord."
* I regard this doctrine as being the backbone of Christianity that which
gives to God's unparalleled expression of love to fallen men both its symmetry
and its intelligibility.
' From Sept. I5th to March 3 1st, not less than ten thousand persons have heard
from my lips, and from the lips of the native brethren associated with me,
what we believe to be the truth as it is in Jesus.
' And here I desire to note a fact which I think worth recording. Years
ago, and before God had brought me to receive Scripture teaching as I now
receive it, I was often sorely pressed in argument by these men of brains
around me (especially those known as Brahmists) in relation to the Christian
doctrine of unending suffering ; in vindication of which dogma I was necessi-
tated to resort to a species of argument which I felt to be as sophistical to my
own mind as it was evidently unsatisfactory to my questioners. I have now,
however, to bear testimony to quite a new and different kind of experience.
Cavilling Hindoos still, ask me the same sort of questions concerning the nature
and extent of God's vengeance ; the triumph- twinkle in fheir eyes indicating
that they have anticipated my answer, and are only politely waiting to hear
my words confirm their anticipation before launching out into a strain of cut-
ting satire, or assumed virtuous indignation at Christians attributing such a
character to God. Their pent-up eloquence, however, rarely finds "its desired
vent. .A minute or two spent in repudiating the doctrine as it is usually pre-
sented, and five minutes more in laying bare to view the essence of Christianity
as set forth by the Lord Jesus Himself (see John iii. 16, 36), gives to the
whole matter such a reasonable and unobjectionable aspect, that in the vast
majority, of cases it leaves, neither room nor .desire for protracted dissussion.'
522
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE PROBABLE INFLUENCE OF THE DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIANITY,
AS HERE PRESENTED, ON PREVAILING ATHEISTIC AND DEISTIC
SCEPTICISMS.
' The gospel saves by the revelation which it makes of the heart and mind
of God. by teaching us to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He
has sent. Now, many preachers of the Gospel declare that God will keep
multitudes of His own creatures alives to all eternity for the sole purpose of
torturing them, knowing perfectly well all the time that it can never do them
one particle of good. Is the representation which this gives of the character
of God to be accepted without discussion ? Is it more " injurious " for men to
try and force themselves to love such a God if they can, and, if they cannot, to
be driven into infidelity, or for them to inquire whether there may not be some
mistake in the common interpretation of the four or five passages that are
thought to attribute such an intention to the Creator? ' REV. S. MINTON, M.A.
THOSE whose professions enable them to acquire ample informa-
tion on the state of opinion in Europe are unanimous in affirming
the existence of a wide-spread unsettlement of the very founda-
tions of religious belief. Canon Liddon says, ' Never since the
first ages of the gospel was fundamental Christian truth denied
and denounced so largely, and with such passionate animosity, as
is the case at this moment in each of the most civilised nations.'
It is declared by those who best know Northern Germany that
the middle and a large portion of the lower classes are estranged
from the religion of their ancestors. Public qginion denies
miracles and the interference of Heaven with the course of events,
encouraged by the attitude of many of the leaders of study. Men
who have had a university education scarcely dare go to church
in some towns, lest they be taken for hypocrites or sentimental
enthusiasts. In France the state of opinion among the male
portion of the population is sufficiently notorious. The nation as
THE ATHEISM OF EUROPE. 523
a whole, just in proportion to the education of its provinces, has
ceased to believe in Christianity. The Bon Dieu, always a shadow
in Roman Catholic countries, has quite vanished out of their
daily thoughts, and is regarded only as a mythological character
by the typical Frenchman of to-day.
Even in our religious England popular opinion, in its slow
and heavy way, is moving partly in the same direction. The
scientific and literary classes are to a great extent alienated
from the theological life of the people. Every increase of ac-
quaintance with interior opinion reveals the growing influence
of the agnostic leaders of the time. The unbelief of large
numbers is scarcely veiled by the thin disguise of courteous
silence, or seeming complicity with a revived medievalism.
The ' praying sister ' is, in accordance with the Laureate's
advice, permitted to enjoy ' her early heaven, her happy views,'
but the younger men of the clubs, and much more the men of
culture and science, in growing numbers, reject the gospel as an
oppressive delusion.
The scepticism of the time is indeed held in check by the
solid faith of the major part of the middle and humbler classes,
and is fairly tolerant towards believers ; but it is deep-seated,
resolved, and thorough-going, and not seldom secretly bitter
and contemptuous. Several of the prominent English periodi-
cals, as, for example, the Westminster and Fortnightly Reviews,
now openly allow fiercely atheistic articles to appear in their
pages. The science of Christian Apologetics meanwhile pre-
serves a prudent, or a necessary, silence on the objections which
chiefly occasion the prevailing doubt. The reputed character of
God the real stumbling-block of modern scepticism is seldom
approached. Hence apologetic literature is more successful in
exposing the weakness of its adversaries than in persuading
them to 'repent and believe the gospel.' It avails nothing to
stay the popular relapse into pantheism ; for this is the chief
characteristic of the momentous revolution, that the current of
thought rushes logically over that Niagara. The opinion of
Mr. J. Stuart Mill (as delivered in his Essay on Nature) is
spreading rapidly, that on one side it is difficult to establish
the proof of any morally intelligible God from physical nature
alone ; and, on the other, that so monstrous a Being as the
524 ROME.
God of the old European theology is a chimera of disordered
imaginations. On the continent Atheism, stark and sturdy,
has of late made astonishing advances among men of scientific
culture : an atheism based first of all on a revolt against the
infinitely unjust and cruel Deity of old Christendom ; and
secondly, on an honest inability to discern any tolerable or
attractive Divinity in the sphere of the world's government
under natural law.
When such is the style of thought 'among men of education ;
when numbers are protected against similar views only by their
incapacity to understand the atheism of their betters ; it is
scarcely to 'be wondered at that many of the working classes,
always more resolute in opinion than the money-making bour-
geoisie, should imitate the atheology of the scientific luminaries
whom thej admire without entirely comprehending. Europe
is on the high road at length to an uncompromising popular
Sadduceeism, against which the Christian churches as organisa-
tions will be almost powerless, and under whose reign not only
religion will suffer, but the higher morality which derives its
practical sanctions from heaven. The Protestant churches
have lost much of their ancient interest in theology ; they are
honeycombed with doubt, yet are contented, under the guidance
of clerical leaders not too spiritual, to continue the old profes-
sions, to repeat the old watchwords, so as to provoke observers
outside to question whether they believe anything in the same
sense as the ancients did.
It happens that I write these closing pages in that Great
City which, since it ceased to trample down the earth by force,
has governed it chiefly by genius, by fraud, and by beauty ;
and still stands as the ancient centre of the religious life of
Christendom. Around on every side are typical forms of the
influences which are working desolation in Europe. Aloft
towers the great historical Church still overpowering the
imagination of mankind by its marvels of architecture and of
art ; revolting their reason and conscience by its representations
of the Omnipotent Enemy, whom it dares to denominate GOD ;
while it exposes Him to ridicule as pacified by the interventions
of S. Peter and of the Madonna, and pleased with the pueri-
ROME. 525
lities of the catholic ceremonial. There are four hundred
churches in Rome and its environs ; but of what religion are
the twenty-seven millions of Italians? With the fewest excep-
tions the educated and richer classes are fast relapsing into the
fashionable indifference. The population has forsaken the
churches, for their thoughts are there no longer. They stand
around Garibaldi, the impassioned patriotic pantheist,* and see
with delight the Italian Government confiscating the rich heri-
tage of the Church, while devoting its plundered wealth to the
armaments of war, and to secular education. Perhaps there is
not a more thoroughly secularised population in Europe than
the inhabitants of this ' holy city,' the Mecca of the West.
There are happily many promising movements in Italy itself;
but what are the measures of the Reformed Churches in the
capital for reviving the. decayed faith of this nation, driven at
length into scepticism by its ancient superstitions? To repro-
duce, in the front of the Vatican, the absurd divisions of England,
Germany, and America ! Here, where, if anywhere, it was
essential that the majesty of original Christianity should be set
forth, like a new sunrise, to dispel the darkness of eternal death,
are the old sects, come together to repeat the ancient mistakes,
and to persevere in the general fixed agreement not to allow a
word to be spoken which might tend to shake the theological
interests which they represent.
And Rome well represents Europe. The religious public
persuades itself that faith is extending on all sides. This may
be true of a few favoured spots ; but at least there is a world
around the churches of Europe of which ordinary Christians
know little, and that world is divided from theirs by an im-
passable chasm of secularist thought and passion. An odious
superstition based on authority a contemptuous unbelief and a
half-reformed protestantism, these are the three elements which
divide and govern, for the most part, European society ; and
between them the world as a whole is losing its faith in God
and in a life to come.
It may indeed be but a fresh example of the hopefulness of
speculation to suggest the expectation of advantage from the
* See his letter to the devout theist Mazzini on his death-bed.
526 THE PRESENT CRISIS IN THOUGHT.
modification of theological belief. Experience certainly does
not sanction any sanguine anticipations. The human nature
which has once corrupted pure Christianity is equal to a sus-
tained resistance to pure Christianity if it could be presented
again. Neither does a change in theory carry with it any
other than an indirect influence upon thought and life. Very
numerous are the limitations under which benefits can be looked
for from revolutions in theology ; and carefully weighed should
be the words in which we venture to indulge the hope that the
cause of Christianity as a whole will gain by the adoption of
new or newly-revived ideas.
Nevertheless there is a time for all things : there is a Pro-
vidence over the world of thought ; and after much battling
between extreme views the world makes decisive progress in
the knowledge both of nature and of God. The writer must
incur the risks of criticism in humbly stating his belief that
the leading ideas maintained in this volume for the fiftieth
time in European history have a special value in the present
condition of European opinion. A judgment on the effect of
the proposed modification of belief, formed after many years'
experience of its influence in individual cases both on the side
of superstition and scepticism, encourages the expectation that
similarly beneficial results might after a time be anticipated
on a larger scale, if the work of representing these ideas should
fall into abler hands, and be commended to general notice by
spiritual men. It is conceived that the views of the Christian
Revelation reproduced from antiquity in these pages might
at least in many cases be well fitted (i) to offer an effective
resistance to the Atheistic tendencies of this age, and (2) to
reclaim to evangelical faith numbers who have been shocked
and provoked into various forms of Deism by the monstrous ex-
aggerations of mediaeval theology, and the conventional life of
the modern churches. The candid reader will not quarrel with
a hope so diffidently entertained and so cautiously expressed.
I.
Those who have followed even slightly the biological studies
of recent years can scarcely failed to have observe the animated
ANTIPATHY TO A PERSONAL GOD. 527
hostility exhibited in the leading scientific works of the period
to the idea of a God who is a Living Personality. There is no
theory of generation so far-fetched as not to obtain a respectful
preference in the minds of many of the foremost naturalists of
Germany, France, and England, before the idea of a Creating
and Governing Father of all.* Even such conspicuously able
men as Professors Helmholtz, Haeckel, and Huxley men of
lofty genius, and far from a disposition towards moral atheism
prefer to account, with Diderot, for the structure of the eye-
system in living creatures by referring solely to a nisus in
nature, rather than by open reference to One Eternal Power
who 'formed' it, who could 'see,' before all worlds, and be-
yond them. Notwithstanding the converging evidence of the
Metaphysical, the Teleological, the Esthetic, the Moral, the
Historical, and the Supernatural arguments for the existence ot
God, we are taught on every side that apparent design is the
subjective illusion of the thinker, not the testimony of nature
to her Maker. We are forbidden to trace in adaptation, pro-
portion, or number, or in provision against future need, the
marks of Intelligence, on pain of severe reprehension from these
formidable adversaries of final causes. For it is held, against
a world of physical and spiritual evidences forcing the con-
viction of a Personal God upon ordinary minds, that nature is
self-developing, that the heavens do not ' declare the glory ' of
any Power beyond their own, and that it is the wise man, not
the fool, who now asserts our necessary ignorance of an Eternal
Cause, t
Is it not strange that the very philosophers who so clearly dis-
cern the marks of design marks of intelligence working towards
an end, in the chipped flint arrowheads and hammers from the
drift, and who pronounce so decisively on the defective sense
of those who fail, after five seconds of inspection, to perceive
that all such chippings were the work of purpose and skill, can
* The Westminster Review, for July 1875, has an article on Evidences oj
Design, curiously illustrative of the antipathy of second-rate physiologists to
unseen Intelligence.
f One of the most interesting brochures lately published bearing on this sub-
ject is by the Rev. Charles Girdlestone, M.A. : Number, a link between Divine
Intelligence and Human. Longmans, 1875.
528 ATHEISTIC EVOLUTION THEORIES.
look upon this great universe of earth and heaven, and declare
that the ten thousand facets of this mighty crystal are probably the
work of unintelligent forces ?
Let us suppose that in our time the Matterhorn, or lovely
Jungfrau, had been found on all its flanks to be covered with
a city of cottages and houses, suited to the succession of
climates occurring, from the icy summits down: to the temperate
region of the rhododendrons ; and that these structures all bore
traces of one internal useful plan, varied according to the heights
of the mountain, or the special conformation of the rocks at
each point of the ascent. Who would dream of accounting for
their existence, their general plan, or their special adaptation to
climate, position, slope, steepness, or prospect, by the theory
that the first cottages at the top were created by stones shot
down from the decaying rocks at the pinnacle ; and that all the
myriads of houses below grew out of the earliest chalets ; and
that from infinite numbers of stone-avalanches, supplying mate-
rial, the fittest forms of habitation survived, and adapted them-
selves to the nooks, or crevices, or platforms, or slopes, of the
ice or granite inclinations? Yet this would be a probable
result from such a cause, in comparison with the development
and growth of the vast system of life, including the flora and
fauna of all levels, out of the dead elements of atheistic physi-
ology. And the attempt to escape from the evidence of Intelli-
gence, exhibited in the similar but varied internal construction
of such a mountain-side of houses, by the supposition that
avalanches were sufficient architectural causes, would be reason-
able in comparison with the idea that ' this universal frame of
Nature is without a Mind.'
To what origin, then, must we attribute the prevailing fanatical
opposition to the common arguments for the existence of the
Living God, and these painful endeavours to displace the doctrine
of final causes, in favour of theories of evolution, which it is hoped
may blot out of the world the very idea of a Creator ? Is this
direful conflict even with the idea of a Heavenly Father to be
attributed to the gratuitous wickedness of the scientific men of
this generation, who, ' professing themselves to be wise, have be-
come fools ' ? I think not wholly. Rather the modern war of
' culture ' against a personal Deity, and the persistent attempt to
FEAR OF THE ROMAN DEMON. 529
evade any recognition of Mind above force and form, is to be
attributed in part to a sound moral reaction against the perverse
theisms of past ages. Manifestly it is the mistaken apprehension
that any Intelligent and Governing God, who might be dis-
covered to exist, must be admitted to be the God whom anti-
Christian and Mohammedan theology has described under so
fearful an aspect which tempts many noble minds forward into
atheistic speculation, as the only secure refuge against the sacer-
dotal ideas which threaten them.
If the Intelligence which Nature dimly reveals were conceived
of as the Deity whom our hearts exultingly acknowledge when we
embrace a more literal interpretation of the Christian record,
assuredly the strength of the atheistic prejudice would be sensibly
abated. Men fear that if but a single window be opened into a
world of mind, in at that aperture will glare the frightful blaze of
the Divinity of Rome and Geneva, under whose terrors so many
generations of our ancestors have groaned and died. And there-
fore they resolve a priori to shut out if possible the very concep-
tion of a Universal Mind.
The intellect is much influenced in its apprehension of evi-
dence by its anticipation of the conclusion to be reached by the
argument. If God be thought of as an unintelligible Power
of darkness, who is capable of tormenting * non-elect ' creatures
throughout eternity, who can wonder if thinking men endeavour
to nullify the evidence of His Being and agency? But let it
be seen beforehand that the God in whom Christians believe,
while acting in the moral sphere with that severe eternal love
of law which nature itself reveals, is yet appreciably good and dis-
criminating even in His righteous judgments, and men will more
willingly Jrace His presence and handiwork in the physical universe.
The God who both hides and reveals Himself in nature will be
sought for with more trustful footsteps when the search is no
longer harassed by the dread of finding a Being who paralyses
by His infinite terrors all the loftier aspirations of the soul. It
is not punishment of the most destructive nature which causes
unbelief but the idea of an infinite and endless infliction.
The conceptions of God long prevailing in Christendom have
been such as to render atheism in its various forms a tempting
refuge from the haunting spectres of superstition. The minds of
34
530 TEMPORARY UTILITY OF ATHEISM.
men have been overshadowed by ideas of Deity which revolt the
soul precisely in proportion to its general intelligence and morality.
The atheism of Europe has become almost a necessary solvent to
eat out the mythology with which men's minds have been filled for
centuries (' They shall turn aside unto [ivOovs, fabtes,' 2 Tim. iv.
4), and so to make room for a true conception of the God of
Nature and Revelation, at once the terrible Destroyer of sinful
beings, and the glorious Life-giver. But the God of orthodox
Romanism is a being surpassingly evil. Occupied from eternal
ages in revolving the plan of the creation, He has at last brought
mankind into existence under the inherited curse of original sin,
native immortality, and endless suffering, as the consequence of
Adam's transgression ; and, though interposing to save some from
the everlasting flames, has abandoned the vast majority to a pagan
ignorance which ensures (as S. Francis Xavier assured his cate- .
chumens) the doom of 'endless misery.' This Being is repre-
sented as pacified towards His elect by the sacrifice of His
innocent Son ; while nevertheless His favour is to be still sought
chiefly through the intercessions of Mary and other earth-born
mediators in a worship which is fatal in most cases to the
spiritual aspirations of the soul.
Was there ever a combination of ideas more immoral, more
fitted to provoke men to atheistic reaction ? Such has been its
effect everywhere in Europe. Except the Roman clergy (whose
early emasculation, and training in the sacrifice of personal con-
viction, gradually qualify them for every enormity of opinion) and
their feminine entourage, it could scarcely be anticipated that
persons of average sense or sensibility would long endure the
burden. The progress of knowledge has, with rare exceptions,
been co-extensive with scepticism in Catholic countries, and the
issue has usually been, as in Rome itself, in pantheistic or
atheistic conclusions. But, indeed, a Spinoza, a Hume, and a
Spencer, are everywhere the inevitable counterparts of a Bellar-
mine, a Baronius, and a Bilio.
Surely it is something more than a hopeful speculation that
when a brighter representation of the living God of Christianity
dawns, like a gladdening sunrise, on the scientific world ; when it
is understood that Redemption, which so many centuries have
celebrated, has in truth been nothing less than a movement of
ATHEISM A PASSING CLOUD. 531
the Being who is Eternal to bless with Immortality in His own
image the ephemeron ' who is of a few days and full of trouble ; '
a new spirit may enter into many of the minds which devote
themselves to the investigation of nature. The chief intellectual
temptation to atheism will have been taken away. The Eternal
Severity and Righteousness, limited in all its actions by consider-
ation for the frailty of the creature, and the Eternal Love
bringing ultimate good out of earlier forms of evil and imperfec-
tion, and commending itself as a reality to every man's conscience,
may win God-ward many of the explorers of the material world ;
as when that self-sustaining Flame, the symbol of the Self-existent
Being, allured in a voice of soft thunder the shepherd of Midian,
who found in the investigation of a natural phenomenon the
revelation of an Essence Divine. It is a consciousness of divine
Love breathing around, a sense, amidst all mysteries, of intelli-
gible justice and goodness, which alone can awaken the belief of
a Divine Personality in atheistic souls ; and this is precisely the
effect of Christ's ministry among men, when He makes Himself
known as THE LIFE OF THE WORLD, and the final Arbiter of its
destinies.
II.
The effect of the preceding argument on Deistical objections to the
Miraculous History of Scripture.
It is not only in the redemption of some minds from atheism
that favourable results may be augured from preceding repre-
sentations. The doctrine of Immortality conferred through the
Incarnation seems likely to operate also a change of opinion
in many thoughtful souls who at present are simply Theists,
and base their opposition to Christianity on its miraculous
character.
It is held by large numbers to form an insuperable objection
to the Scriptural doctrine, that it comes professing to be a super-
natural and thaumaturgic revelation. It is said that if the com-
munication had been really divine it would have approached
mankind on the level of known law, and as a part of the esta-
blished order of nature. Men would easily believe a religion
which was natural, but not one which is self-condemned, by claim-
532 ARGUMENT AGAINST MIRACLES, AND
ing to operate in the sphere, and to support itself by the evidence,
of marvels and improbabilities. If Christianity were true, why
could it not dawn on the world, like sunlight, in the course of
nature ? Why must men's minds be tormented by a challenge
to believe in infractions of the laws of the universe, which offer
violence to every dictate of experience and reason ?
It is added, that a miraculous revelation carries with it the
certainty of its own rejection by all who only hear of its preten-
sions. Miracles which men see might, indeed, convey over-
powering conviction to the spectators. But miracles which are
simply heard of are provocatives to incredulity. Miracles to those
who behold them may be decisive evidence of a revelation. But
to those who are only hearers of a report concerning them they
are necessarily the chief hindrances to faith. A claim to mira-
culous character is the passport to oblivion for any religion just in
proportion as men are acquainted with the steadfast order of
nature. Reported miracles cannot stand for evidence. They
require evidence for themselves. It is thus that some even of the
foremost physical philosophers of our time arraign and condemn
Christianity.
An effective and conciliatory reply is given to such objectors
by this theodicy.
Christianity comes into the world, and urges its claims upon
mankind, not as a theory, or a philosophy, but as a practical
remedy for the two great evils which degrade and oppress us.
These are Sin and Death. Christ appears as the Son of God,
commissioned by the Father of Heaven, to ' make an end of sins,'
and to ' abolish death ' by inspiring us with the spirit of immor-
tality in soul and body.
Neither of these works could from their nature possibly be
works of law. They must be operations of God above law, and
beyond nature. Sin is law-breaking, and the remedy for law-
breaking, if it be by forgiveness, must be found in prerogative,
and not in a legal process. Pardon and renewal of the Divine
likeness, if bestowed, must be supra-legal and supernatural. In
the same way, to abolish death and to confer immortality on a
dying offender, is a work of God essentially above nature and the
regular order of the world.
A CONCILIATORY REPLY. 533
Accordingly everything in Christianity bears the stamp of
the miraculous ; because its aims are supernatural. It is an
exercise of prerogative and redeeming grace. Salvation, there-
fore, is accomplished by a Power above nature, a Personal Saviour
who is Divine. Everything pertaining to His Personality as the
Life-giver is supernatural. His coming was heralded by a series
of preternatural dispensations, in the patriarchal and Jewish
economies. His birth of a Virgin was a miracle. His works of
mercy were beyond the powers of nature. His resurrection was
a miracle. His ascension to heaven was an act above the laws of
heaven and earth, as shall be His second coming in the glory of
the Father. He was ' God manifest in the flesh.'
Every procedure in the application of redemption is super-
natural or miraculous also. Christians are ' begotten again ' in
the image of God's holiness and immortality by a special action of
1 the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.' They are afterwards 'kept by
the power of God through faith unto salvation.' Their spirits in
death are ' caught up into Paradise ' by a miraculous act of God,
to be 'present with the Lord' until the second advent. Their
bodies shall be ' raised from the dead ' in eternal glory, by an act
of supernatural power. The whole eternal life to follow will be
a result not of primeval law but of supervenient grace not of
natural development or of the original law of continuity, but of
special mercy and abnormal compassion.
Can it, then, be thought incredible, since the very essence of
Christianity is thus in its spiritual quality and physical aims a
work not of law but of pardon, from its beginning to its end a
miracle of new creation, if the evidence of its truth be mira-
culous also ? What we term the miracles of the Scripture history
are but the bright cloud overshadowing that Saviour who is Him-
self ' the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the Mighty God,' and whose
work transcends all that Nature can know. ' Eye hath not seen
nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things
which God hath prepared for them that love Him'
Thus the doctrine of the Bible and its recorded miracles seem
to constitute a living and coherent unity. All is in keeping. The
doctrine illuminates the miracles. The miracles only express
and commend the essential doctrine. It is God acting, no longer
according to the course of law, which for man would have issued
5 34 CHRIST AND SCIENCE.
in absolute death, but remedially above law, in a ' grace ' which
literally saves us from death. Christ gives eyes to the blind,
hearing to the deaf, health to the diseased, speech to the dumb,
and life to the dead. He breaks the prison of the tomb. But
all these works of power represent the greater marvels through
which He works from age to age to heal the diseases of the soul
as He will finally raise in immortal glory those who believe in
Him.
Against a representation of Christ's mission so fruitful as this,
so conformable to the facts of man's condition, an ingenuous
scepticism will have little to allege. The incredibility of such a
revelation from God to man will be measured by men's ideas of
the Infinite Compassion. If the Eternal Cause is good as well
as powerful, it is not improbable that He may have vouchsafed a
message of pardon and eternal life to man, the 'paragon of nature.'
But according to the measure of that probability miracles are
probable, in the great supernatural work of counteracting sin and
death.*
* If it be objected here that we represent the security of our eternal life as
guaranteed by a Book, to be ascertained only by criticism of that Book, and as
reaching no further than such dubious criticism can carry us, so that if the
Bible were lost our hope of Immortality would be lost with it, it may be
replied that as a matter of fact the Bible has not been lost ; and that the record
among men of the Incarnation of God in Christ does not depend only upon the
New Testament writings, but also upon that confirmatory tradition of Chris-
tendom, of which the Bible history is but a transcript. Our faith in the His-
torical Revelation rests upon the * twelve foundations ' of the manifold
evidences that God has spoken to the world by His Son. And those who,
like Miss Power Cobbe, find in the mind itself provisions for a belief in the
life to come, are the last persons who ought in consistency to object to the
confirmation of that belief by corresponding provisions in external history, it
external history be a series of events over which the Deity has exercised any
control. This subject of the comparative value and utility of Revelations of
God made through the reason and through a written record, is treated with
consummate ability by Bishop Conybeare in his Defence of Revelation, 1732,
pp. 229-335, a work published four years before Butler's Analogy, and the
reprinting of which would supply an effectual answer to much of the ' magnifi-
cent contempt ' for the Bible which characterises the naturalistic writing of the
present day. Bishop Conybeare lies side by side with Bishop Butler in Bristol
Cathedral, and their works are more nearly of equal value than is understood
by some of our contemporaries. If the force of Butler's argument has been in
some respects exaggerated, the worth of Conybeare's has most certainly been
under-estimated.
UNIFORMITY AND EVOLUTION. 535
In face of such anticipations and recognitions of the moral
nature of God loving and compassionating His creature, the argu-
ment against miraculous intervention founded on the order of
nature loses its force. It is seen that as in man the physical and
moral elements are conjoined, but so that the moral volition
determines more than any other cause the course of physical
phenomena, so it must be in relation to the universe and its
Cause. If there be a God who is a Person, a moral nature must
be of His Essence, and moral volition must determine the action
of His physical providence. In the proportion in which it is pro-
bable that God will act mercifully towards such a creature as man,
everything is also probable which is necessary for his redemption
from sin and death. But this involves the super-induction upon
the course or nature of a procedure which is exceptional and
supernatural.
After all that has been taught of late years respecting develop-
ment, one might apprehend that philosophers would observe
caution in extreme statements on the ' uniform ' action of natural
forces. We are invited to believe that without any special divine
interference whatsoever, but simply through an innate tendency
in the world to develop itself, the globe has passed from a gaseous
into a fiery and fluid condition, and has then finally become solid
in its outermost crust. Here are three actions, to begin with,
which are not uniform but progressive. Next we are informed
that the interior volcanic force, acting under impulses of which
no one has undertaken to assign the law, has from time to time
raised and then depressed many times in succession the solid
surface of the globe in all its portions, thus turning sea into dry
land, and dry land into sea, changing arctic climates into tropical,
and tropical into arctic, as has happened in England more than
once. And this again bears the aspect of intelligent progress
rather than of blind uniformity of action.
Next we are invited to believe that when the earth was suffi-
ciently cooled and solidified, the forces of nature specially light,
heat, electricity, or the force which is convertible into all of them
acting upon certain materials having a tendency to receive a
change, made them alive so that the protoplasm became a cell,
and the cell grew into a moving substance, that received increase,
536 THE FINAL DEVELOPMENT.
and forthwith began to propagate its likeness ; that these earliest
growths passed from plants into plant-animals ; that the animals
began to feel and to act, and finally to see, to hear, to think, and
to advance into higher forms; until at last was produced the
complex animal creation which we behold around us, out of which
finally sprang Mankind, and free-thought in Europe.
We will not here dispute any one of these statements. But
surely those who propose them, and who deduce them from
analytical chemistry, physiology, and the testimony of the rocks
will not again affirm the undeviating uniformity of the action of
nature, or allege it as a reason why we must believe that ' all
things have continued as they were from the beginning of the
creation/ If there has been development of one kind, there may
have been development of another, in the Divine Cause as well
as in Nature. There may have been developed that special form
of Humanity which we denominate The Christ, or God manifest
in the Flesh ; and this may be at least as provable by spiritual
evidence and by sufficient testimony, as the gradual conversion of
protoplasm into a camelopard, or of a simian into a man.
Such a transcendent Divine Evolution has, we believe, ap-
peared on earth in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ ; the
object of whose holy Incarnation, or close union between the
Infinite and Blessed Nature and the sinful, dying creature, was to
pour the fulness of God's eternal life into the dead. It is a Reve-
lation of supernatural truth which meets man exactly at the point
where Natural Law leaves him on the edge of the black abyss
of nothingness. It is a Revelation of Divine Compassion which
meets us precisely at the point where science abandons us, con-
fronting the eternal darkness.
' It moved upon this earth a Shape of brightness,
A Power that from its objects scarcely drew
One impulse of its being ; in its lightness
Most like some radiant cloud of morning dew
That wanders through the waste air's pathless blue
To nourish some far desert r it did seem
Beside me, gathering beauty as it grew,
As the bright shade of some immortal dream
Which walks, when tempest sleeps, the wave of life's dark stream.
ATHEISM AND THE INCARNATION. 537
Faith in God in the modern world depends on believing in
Christ. ' He that hath the Son hath the Life : he that hath not
the Son hath not the Life.' In ancient times, narrow local con-
ceptions of Deity rendered it comparatively easy for the pious
warriors of Palestine to * trust in the Lord.' They were troubled
with few doubts because they had but little knowledge. But now
the veil has been lifted up. Man knows the whole world, and his
views are extended into the infinity around him. The idea of
God has been growing from age to age, until now it is so great
that man's heart is losing its hold on the Divine personality and
providence. The uniformity of the laws of force has weakened
the belief in a Living God working in the creation, and the dis-
order of events in the moral system has completed the scepticism
which physical science had begun. Between the order of nature,
and the disorder of the human world, men are bewildered, and
find God to be a shadow that escapes them in the all-surrounding
darkness. It is for these last days that Heaven has reserved the
Incarnation of the Word. In Jesus Christ we ' see the Father '
once more. We regain our hold on that Power which wields
the energies of creation, and 'manages our mean affairs.' Full
of grace and truth, He reveals God as a Person, as a present
Providence, as a redeeming Mercy, as the Most Righteous Judge
Eternal; and we return to sit at His feet, after all our hard lessons
in science and history, crying out as we look up into His God-lit
countenance, ' LORD, TO WHOM SHALL WE GO ? THOU HAST THE
WORDS OF ETERNAL LIFE.'
The conditions of that glorious destiny we have striven, accord-
ing to our ability, to set forth in the foregoing pages. But the
subject is worthy of the future labours of many a more powerful
pen ; and, when carefully studied, will be found to stand in direct
correlation with the entire circle of physical, intellectual, and
moral science of our time.
For THE WHOLE TRUTH (S. John's ircurav Tr/v dA>j0iav) in-
cluding under that name both these natural and moral knowledges
and the revelations of the Gospel may be compared to a magni-
ficent Organ, placed on high in the fabric of the Catholic Church
538 THE EVERLASTING SONG.
of God. An inferior agency may be employed to cleanse away
the dust and defilement which have accumulated among some of
its ten thousand pipes and internal adaptations, during ages when
its voice was silent, or rendered harsh and dissonant through the
derangement of its powers. But it is only some heaven-taught
performer, commanding the range of all its resources, and versed
in the management of celestial themes, who can fill the trembling
Edifice with its mightiest strains, and by them adequately prove,
that the sweetness which charms us in those milder harmonies
that kindle the transports of immortal joy, rolls downward, without
a single discord, through the vast compass of descending notes,
into the solemn diapason of its thunders, conformably to that
ETERNAL UNIVERSAL LOVE, whose glory, together with the songs
of men and angels, it celebrates and proclaims.
Meantime, if it be denied to all except a few most favoured
mortals, at rare intervals, thus worthily to touch the keys of this
divine and glorious Instrument, let us at least be thankful that
Europe has for centuries been permitted to hear the heart- stirring
music of its central and principal tones the testimony of Jesus
Christ, and the promise of everlasting salvation. A happier gene-
ration shall listen to the perfected chorus in the coming kingdom
of our Saviour. ' And every creature which is in heaven, and on
the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all
that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory,
and power, be unto Him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the
Lamb for ever and ever / '
The following Works may be consulted upon the several subjects
treated in this volume :
REVELATIONS OF A FUTURE STATE. Archbishop Whately. (Longmans.)
ESSAYS IN ECCLESIASTICAL BIOGRAPHY (The Epilogue). Sir James Stephen.
(Longmans.)
LIFE OR DEATH. E. F. Litton, M.A., Barrister-at-Law. (Longmans.)
POPULAR IDEAS OF IMMORTALITY. Rev. W. Kerr. M. A., Incumbent of
Tipton, Staffordshire. (Simpkin, Marshall, & Co.)
ENDLESS SUFFERINGS NOT THE DOCTRINE OF SCRIPTURE. Rev. T. Davis,
M.A., Vicar of Roundhay, Yorkshire. (Longmans.)
THE DURATION AND NATURE OF FUTURE PUNISHMENT. Rev. H. Con-
stable, M. A., Prebendary of Cork. (Kellaway. )
THE TRIPARTITE NATURE OF MAN. Rev. J. B. Heard, M. A., 3rd Edition.
(Clark, Edinburgh.)
ETERNAL PUNISHMENT AND ETERNAL DEATH. Rev. J. W. Barlow, M.A.,
Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Dublin. (Longmans.)
THE DESTINY OF THE HUMAN RACE. Henry Dunn. (Simpkin & Co.)
THE DURATION OF EVIL. (Simpkin, Marshall, & Co.)
THE QUESTION OF AGES. W. Morris, M.D., Philadelphia.
DEBT AND GRACE. Professor Hudson, of Cambridge, U.S.A. (Kellaway,
London. )
THE RAINBOW ; with which is incorporated OUR HOPE, a Monthly Periodical
devoted to Eschatology, edited by Dr. Leask and Mr. W. Maude. (Elliot
Stock.)
PAULINE THEOLOGY. By H. L. Hastings. (Elliot Stock.)
GOD MISUNDERSTOOD. By D. Wardlaw Scott. (Kellaway.)
THE WAY EVERLASTING. By S. Minton. (Elliot Stock.)
HUMAN DESTINY ; a Critique on Universalism. CHRIST OUR LIFE. Both
by Professor Hudson, U.S. A. (167, Hanover Street, Boston, and Kella-
way, London.)
EXTINCTION. By Rev. W. S. Warleigh. (Kellaway.)
THE PERISHING SOUL. By the Rev. J. Denniston, M.A. (Longmans.)
THE HARMONY OF SCRIPTURE ON FUTURE PUNISHMENT ; or the truths
contained in the views of Origen and Augustine reconciled by the
Earlier Doctrine of Conditional Immortality. By S. Minton, M.A.
(Elliot Stock.)
THE ENTIRE EVIDENCE OF EVANGELISTS AND APOSTLES ON FUTURE
PUNISHMENT ; with Notes on the Teaching of Dr. Angus and others.
By Rev. W. Griffith, of Eastbourne. (Elliot Stock.)
THE GLORY OF CHRIST IN THE RECONCILIATION OF ALL THINGS. By
Samuel Minton, M.A. (Longmans.)
Du SORT DES MECHANTS DANS L'AUTRE VIE. Par M. Bost, pere. Paris,
Grassart, 1861.)
LA FIN DU MAL. Par Dr. Petavel. (Paris, Sandoz. 33, Rue du Seine.)
DIE VORAUSSETZUNGEN DER CHRISTLICHE LEHRE VON DER UNSTERBLICH-
KBIT. Von Dr. Hermann Schultz. (Gottingen, 1861.)
DOGMATIK. Von Dr. R. Rothe. Heidelburg, 1870.)
THEOLOGISCHE ETHIK. Von Dr. Rothe. (1867.)
INDEX.
Page
153
IOI
102
333
Abraham's faith in future life
Adam midway between animals
and angels ...
,, his idea of death
Advent of Christ, second -
,, neglected by
modern missions - - $18
Africa, ancient inhabitants of > 46
Alexander, Dr. L., on destruc-
tion 368
Alford on literal sense - - 207
America, ancient inhabitants of 47
Anathema, meaning of - -157
Ancient inhabitants of Europe
and Asia ... - 44
Animals, difference between man
and - - - - 15
mind of - - 1-204
,, process by which their
death occurs - - 23
,, no sign of survival in
death - - 24
,, system of prey among 25
Angus, Dr. , his dilemma on death 1 10
'Annihilation,' outcries against
'doctrine of - - 345
Antichrist 428
Apocalypse, inferior Greek of - 197
,, future punishment
in 409
Apostasy predicted ... 427
Arguments from natural light for
extinction and immortality - 1-9
Arnobius, doctrine of - - 423
Article Ninth, on Original Sin - 51
Assembly of Divines, confession
of 51-2
Athanasius, doctrine of - 424-5
Atheism, modern - - - 527
Atonement, theory of the - - 25 1
Augustine on infant damnation - 54
Baptism according to different
schools .... 267
Page
Baptism, an error to make a sect
on 268
Baptismal Regeneration - - 270
Beast and False Prophet, doom
of - 409
Bees, their mental faculties - 18
Birth, the new - 272
Blood of Christ, drinking the - 243
Blood, salvation by, its meaning 242
Body, the, essential to humanity 96
,, of the Resurrection - - 330
Book, Miss Cobbe on salvation
by a 534
Bread of Life, Christ the - -217
Brown, Baldwin, Rev. , considera-
tion of his statements - 226, 285
Capernaum, Discourse in syna-
gogue of - - - - 217
Caste in religious life, Mr.
Brown on - - - - 477
Chaos and Kosmos - - - 336
Christ's death an atonement 245-51
,, reason of - - 252
Christ's Deity the Crux of the
Gospel - - - - 194
testimony of
synoptics to - - - 195
,, ,, testimony of
Fourth Gospel to - 197
connection of,
with the doctrine of
eternal life - - - 204
Christ's position between the
Pharisees and Sadducees 187-9
Christianity and conscience - 459
,, ante-Nicene - - 430
Clemance, Rev. C. - - - 409
Conditional results, God knows 325
Constable's, Mr. , views on Hades 295
Contempt Everlasting - - 171
Cox's Safaator Mundi - - 223
Curse, Christ's death the legal - 241
INDEX.
54i
Page
Daimonia of the Gospels -136
Danger of error not on one side
only 64
Darby on Matt. xxv. 46 - - 399
Darkness, kingdom of - - 337
Day, in the, meaning of - - 115
Dead by sins, meaning of the
phrase - - - 223-281
Death, fossil evidence of - - 25
,, theological definitions of 50
Roman Catholic doctrine
on - - - - 52
,, modern merciful defini-
tions of - - -54
,, disposal of elements in - 97
,, the, threatened to Adam 104
S. Paul on - 106
,, not annihilation of sub-
stance - - - 109
,, true idea of - - - 108
,, of animals in sacrifice - 146
,, penalty of Mosaic Law - 155
,, defined by Christ - - 210
is gain - - - - 306
,, tropical senses of - - 372
, , synonyms of ; in New Tes-
tament - - - 374
Deification of Jesus, contrary to
Jewish tendency - - 199
Demonology of New Testament 128
,, essential to Chris-
tianity - - - - 131
Destruction not threatened in
Koran .... 377
,, Petavel's syllabus of
words signifying - - 387
Devil, doom of the - - -412
Doctrines, duty of realizing - 56
Edwards, Jonathan, on Hell - 58
Error, examples of wide-spread 68
,, rapid progress of -
Everlasting and eternal, differ-
ence between - - - 397
Evolution, argument for man's
mortality from - - - 6-8
Evolution, the geological record
against - - - - 28
Faith, conscience, and reason - 499
Fatherhood, God's doctrine of - 248
Fathers, ante-Nicene, doctrine
of - - - - - 416
Figurative interpretation, eclipse
of faith through - - - 206
Fire, judgment by - - - 35 1
Page
Fire, a revelation of energy - 352
Forensic justification - - 226
Foster, John, Letter on Eternity 61
Furniss, on the sight of Hell - 60
Future Life, hope of, in patri-
archs - -.. 148-154
Future punishment, the persons
destined to - 349
,, ,, not incredible 354
,, terms used to
denote - 358
,, images to de-
note - - 376
, ,, evil effects of
popular doctrine on - - 563
Generation of animals - - 6
Genesis, Christianity based on - 88-9
Genesis. Book of, key to the
Bible - - . 86-212
Genesis of the prevailing opinion 434
God, sensibility of - - 255
,, suffered in the atonement - 259
,, vengeance of - - -
Gospel, Fourth, reason of late
acceptance - 198
,, object of, to deify
Jesus - - 199
,, argument of - 215
Greek speech, literality of - 21 1-366
Hades, or state of departed souls 298
, , sufferings of some souls in 3 1 2
Heard on unity of man's nature - 94
Heathen saved in imperfect
knowledge- - - - 314
Hell rendered more real by this
doctrine - 489
History of faith in resurrection - 152
Immortality of soul unknown to
Moses and the prophets - 78
imputation - ... 229
Incarnation, eternal life through 204
Infants, salvation of - - 3 2 5*47i
Infant damnation, Augustine on 54
Infidelity caused by doctrine of
endless misery - - -65
Infidelity often involuntary - 66
Instinct and reason - - - 19
Inspiration, limits of- - - 391
Interim beliefs - - - - So
Interpretation, general rules
of - 348
Irenaeus doctrine on life - - 419
Isaac, sacrifice of - - - 151
42
INDEX.
Page
Isaiah, supposed threats of end-
less woe in - - - . - 168
Isolated truths often incredible - 127
Israel not saved by Christian
truth 316
Job, future punishment in book of 1 76
Judgment to come, an awful
reality - - - - 347
Justify, the verb to, its uses - 227
Justification, forensic - - 226
,, various modes of - 228
errors on - - - 231
,, connection between
and Immortality 234-37
Justin Martyr - - - - 418
Killed, being, a definition of death 160
Kingdom of God on earth - - 339
suggestions on nature
of 34i
Koran, death not threatened in- 377
Kosmos ending in man - -337
Law, violation of, results of - 354
Life, modes of treatment of the
word- - - - 357-371
Literal sense, claims of the - 207
Locke on the curse of death - 101
Logos, incarnation of the - - 193
,, Athanasius on 424
Maimonides, doctrine of - - 222
Man a part of nature 8
date of his origin unknown 30
made in image of God - 93
Mosaic account of creation
of 88
palaeolithic, no history of - 38
signs of direct creation of - 33
Man's superiority to animals - 35
Matthew's Gospel, general doc-
trine of 401
Matterhorn - - - - 528
Maude on the Resurrection - 330
Mercy Divine, Faith's ultimate
object - - - - 315
Mill, J. Stuart, on the soul - 76
Missions, in what sense success-
ful - - - - 512
,, as a form of spiritual
life - - - - 506
,, incredulity as to the
basis of - - - 507
Moral ideas of life and death - 369
Moses, resurrection known to - 153
Page
Moses, book of, designed for the
world's childhood - 86
,, Adam of, a probable
being .... 87
,, his death penalties - - 155
Motives increase in strength of
nobler - - - - 497
Necromancy forbidden, Deut.
xviii. 300
New Testament, passages in,
most easily explained by this
theory - - - - 378
Numbers of men in India and
China - - - - 41
Oaths of God, two - - - 450
Old Testament doctrine on future
punishment - - 167-78
Oriental speech, genius of- - 210
Parables, Christ's teaching in - 211
Paul's, S., expectation of survival 316
Pentateuch not scientific - - 85-6
Perowne on immortality - - 77
Petavel's syllabus of terms signi-
fying destruction - - 387
Phsedon of Plato - - 361-365
Pharisees, history of their
opinions - - - 182-220
Plato, meaning of terms in - 365
Pneuma, original or newly-born 274
Prophets, eternal life in - - 166
,, supposed threats of
endless woe in - - - 168
Propitiation, S. Paul on - - 250
Proverbs, future judgment in
book of - - - - 178
Psalms, eternal life in - - 165
,, future punishment in - 177
Psychology gives the law to
interpretation - - - 441
Punishment, eternal, of S. Mat-
thew - - - - - 395
Rabbins, doctrine of the - - 222
Regeneration or New Birth - 261
,, by fragmentary
truth - - 272
in infancy - - 274
Religions, perversions of by
Satanic agency - - - 141
Rephaim, or wicked ghosts - 301
Resurrection, S. Paul's argument
on - - 96
INDEX.
543
ing
S. Paul on
Page
Resurrection, History of faith in 152
,, Christ's, through
His Deity - - 244
,, on the pattern of
Christ's - - 330
,, of wicked - - 353
Revelation most credible in its
integrity - - - -124
Rewards and punishments of
Old Testament - - 145-178
Rome, its religious state - - 524
Romans, epistle to the, doctrine
of 106
Sacrifice 145
Sadducees, history of 181, 220-1
Salvation a work of grace, not
of equity .... 473
Satan's place in Christ's teach-
- 135
. 138
political influence of - 140
,, transformed as angel of
light - - - - 142
Satan's war against human life - 139
Scheme of salvation, the ortho-
dox 462
Scientific knowledge, limits of - 126
Science, Christ and - - - 527
Sensibility of God - - - 255
Serpent, the, in Genesis - - 123
Severity of God in destruction -452
Sheep and goats, parable of 399
Sheol of the Old Testament - 298
Silence of Scripture on immortal
soul 78
Sin, evil of, how to be measured 493
Smith, Pye, on Sacrifice - - 145
Soul, arguments for immortality
of - - . - - -72-8
,, silence of Scripture on im-
mortality of - - - 78
,, and Spirit, distinction be-
tween .... 275
,, man became a living. Gen.
ii. 7- 90
,, survival of, in Hades due to
entrance of redemption 120-309
Souls, separate destiny of, not
uniform .... 310
Species in our time have real
existence - - - - 29
Spirits in prison - - - 320
,, evil, idea of, not absurd- 125
Page
Spirits, evil, doctrine of, in Scrip-
ture ..... 123-150
Spiritualism, its source - -142
,, argument for sur-
vival from - - 310
,, forbidden by Moses,
Deut. xviii. - 300
Spurgeon on hell-torments - 59
Summary of doctrine on re-
demption - - - 116-122
Sun's image depicted by sun-
beams .... 218
Supernatural character of re-
demption - . . -531
Swedenborg's definition of the
Taylor, Mr. Isaac, on future
punishment - - - 457
Theism, contemporary antipathy
to ..... 527
Theos, two uses of 200
Thief on the Cross, Christ's
words to - - - 304
Time, obscurity of geological - 29
Traditions, recent date of human 36
Tree of knowledge - - - 100
Uniformity and evolution - - 532
Union with Christ in eternal
life ..... 215
Unity of human nature - - 96
Universalism, its modes of inter-
pretation - - 440
,, Scriptures on which
it relies - - ^\
Vegetable souls not immortal - 24
Vengeance of God, the - - 502
Warleigh's, Mr. , opinion on Hades 298
Wicked men not raised just to be
annihilated ... 500
Whately on life and death - - 99
Winking, God, at times of igno-
rance - - - - 323
Wishes, influence of, on criticism 294
Worm that dieth not, Mark ix.
44 .... 169-405
Xavier on fate of Japanese - 53
Youth, Spiritual Experiences of- 563
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