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]Viiml»er Four.
®nitj)s for tjjc Sinus.
GOD IS LOVE,
SUPPLEMENT TO THE AUTHOR'S DISCOURSE
ON THE
of f utiw,
WITH A BRIEF NOTICE OF
REV. T. S. KING'S TWO DISCOURSES
IN REPLY TO SAID DISCOURSE.
BY
NEHEMIAH ADAMS, D. D.,
PASTOR OF THE ESSEX STREET CHI'RCH, BOSTON,
BOSTON:
GOULD AND LINCOLN,
59 WASHINGTON STREET.
NEW YORK: SHELDON, BLAKEMAN & CO.
CINCINNATI : GEORGE S. BLANCHARD.
1858.
GOULD & LINCOLN,
PUBLISHERS AND BOOKSELLERS,
59 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON.
CHARLES D. GOULD.
JOSHUA LINCOLN.
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(9)
6
Number Four.
for
GOD IS -LOTE.
> I
< > > >
, * > J
» ) 5 •>
A.
,,, ,, . ,
,>, * ' > > '.
-^
SUPPLEMENT TO THE AUTHOR'S DISCOURSE
ON THE
WITH A BRIEF NOTICE OF
REV. T. S. KING'S TWO DISCOURSES
IN REPLY TO SAID DISCOURSE.
BY
NEHEMIAH ADAMS, D. D.,
PASTOR OF THE ESSEX STREET CHURCH, BOSTON
BOSTON:
GOULD AND LINCOLN,
59 WASHINGTON STREET.
NEW YORK: SHELDON, BLAKEMAN & CO.
CINCINNATI : GEORGE S. BLANCHARD.
1858.
™
VERTISEMENT,
, - , - r—r. - 1 — f - , - . I. , ' <
'-• • * . ,
«•>'.••
r i •> v • • to
HAVING preached a Lecture oh " The R?a.sorta'lM£Jicss ut ^ uta-e, Endless Punishment,"
at his regular Sabbath evening Bervicof&na, ihenext Sabbath evening at Hollis Street
Church, by invitation, the, author v>;as,led tp preach a lecture, of which the following
pages are the substanc*. in. Ms 'ywh pulpit, at H?.? -aext SabBatlic^venjng^serv'ce, with a
i * ^ <
view to complete his statement of a siabje'c?tVhic*a couid riot fe fully ."et forth in one
discourse. It was originally designed to be printed, but with no reference to any reply,
from any source, to the previous lecture, — no such reply having, to the writer's
knowledge, then been made.
The pastor of the Hollis Street Church having since published two sermons in reply
to the one first named, it will not be thought improper if the present publication
should contain, in an appendix, a brief notice of the same. In the discourse itself,
however, of which these pages are the substance, the author finds that he had antici-
pated many things in the " Two Discourses " from Hollis Street, before lie knew that
they had been preached.
No. I. THE REASONABLENESS OF FUTURE, ENDLESS PUNISHMENT.
" II. INSTANTANEOUS CONVERSION, AND ITS CONNECTION WITH PIETY.
" III. JUSTIFICATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
"IV. GOD is LOVE. (Supplement to "Reasonableness of Future, Endless
Punishment.")
" V. OUR BIBLE. (In Preparation.)
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by GOULD & LINCOLN, in the
Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
GOD IS LOYE.
WHATEVER may be the component parts and qualities of
the sun, its prominent characteristics are light and heat, and
all its parts and qualities combine to produce them.
So every thing in God conspires to one thing. That which
presides over all his actions, and rules in all his feelings, and
pervades his whole nature, so as to give its character, in the
view of intelligent beings, to all which he is, and to all which
he does, is Love.
It might have been something else; for example, Justice.
Whatever we heard, or saw, or felt, of the Most High, might
have produced this chief impression upon us, — that God is
Just. Or it might have been Power, illustrated in the works
of nature, and in his dealings with his creatures. Or it might
have been, in a word, Holiness, — every thing conspiring to
produce, with an overwhelming impression, the feeling that
God is Holy. All these attributes are essential to our rever-
ence and love for God ; but these, singly or altogether, are
not so preeminently his characteristic, that it can be said with
truth, God is Justice, God is Power, God is Holiness.
No one has failed to think what an infinitely solemn thing
it is that we live under the absolute disposal of one Being
who made us, ordains our lot, and is able to do with us that
(3)
4 GODISLOVE.
which seems good in his sight. The question will arise, What
security have I for my welfare ? Annihilation is impossible.
There are elements around me which I cannot control. The
wind can destroy me ; the chemical combinations in the atmos-
phere can take away my health, my life ; lightnings may con-
sume me ; the earth can swallow me up. My disembodied
spirit being still susceptible of pleasure and pain, what pro-
tection have I in a future state ? how do I know that existence,
on the whole, will be a blessing, and not a curse? The
mind longs for a feeling of certainty that benevolence is and
will be the law of our being. God is almighty ; no one can
go from his presence ; how may I know that his power will
not be employed to make me unhappy forever, let my charac-
ter be what it may ?
The answer to such thoughts and questionings is found in
the incontrovertible truth, that the perfections of God are
ruled by Love.
But how does it appear that love guides in the divine
administration ; that, to a competent spectator, who could see
the whole scheme of the divine government, it would appear
that the motive, the feeling, and the end aimed at, is Love ?
If we can establish the following proposition, which it will
be a principal object of these pages to do, this question will be
settled in every mind. The proposition is this :
IT IS ESSENTIAL TO THE SUCCESS OF THE DIVINE GOV-
ERNMENT OVER FREE AND ACCOUNTABLE BEINGS, THAT
LOVE SHOULD RULE IN THE DIVINE PERFECTIONS.
It would plainly be impossible for this world to exist, as
tilings are now constituted, if love did not pervade the per-
fections of God, and rule in them. If this is made clear, we
shall have no difficulty in applying the truth wherever there
are intelligent subjects of the divine government.
GODISLOVE. 5
If love were not the motive and end of the divine Being, it
would be necessary to suppose that some other quality would
be ; for in the nature of things, every moral being has some
ruling motive or governing purpose. We have only to sup-
pose that the governing purpose or feeling in God were
something different from love, his object being not to manifest
love as his chief end, but to do something else ; for example,
to show his power. This, therefore, is the testimony, we
will suppose, which is borne by the heavens, earth, and seas —
that God is power. All these things, indeed, now testify that
God is powerful ; but suppose that, in the same sense in which
it is now said that God is love, it should be said, with equal
truth, God is power ?
To begin with the seas : What would be seen there ? Now,
benevolence reigns for the most part over the great deep.
A thousand fold more ships pass safely over it than are sunk
in it; innumerably more lives are preserved than destroyed
there. Men go to sea with the confidence that there will be
favorable winds to bear them to any and every part of the
globe ; and every day or week vessels arrive in the different
ports from northern climes and southern, from the east and
west. This is benevolence ; there is power in it ; but chiefly
it illustrates the goodness of God.
But take away benevolence, consulting the happiness of
man, from its rule in the divine purposes, and let power
ascend and govern to the exclusion of benevolence as the
great end. Then the object would be to make the four winds
show their strength ; the height of waves, the fury of tem-
pests, the roar of ocean, the apparent mingling of sea and
sky, would proclaim, God is power. From the fierce Baltic
to the typhoons of the Indian Seas, this voice would go forth,
— God is power. Few, if any, sails would tempt the winds of
1*
b GOD IS LOVE.
-r;
ft
heaven ; a keel would seldom venture among the waves whose
chief office should be to show that God is power, each billow
then, like a wandering green mound, denoting that some
human form was intombed there. Commerce would cease ;
parts of the earth would bid each other farewell ; for God is
power.
How would it be on land ? Gigantic forms of rocks would
overhang the dwellings of men, which could then be only in
valleys, where the chief locomotive power visible would be the
wings of eagles, mocking the weakness of imprisoned man.
The rain would descend to show its force, not to bless the
earth ; the rivers would be swift with currents defying human
strength and skill ; the springs and fountains which now, like
a child's hymn, murmur, " God is good," would rise into tor-
rents, and cry, God is power. Vegetation would be excessive,
and men would be cumbered under the prodigality of the
earth. Nothing would exist as now merely to give pleasure.
The greenness which refreshes the eye would assume a daz-
zling brilliancy, to impress the mind with a sense of power ;
the hues and fragrance of flowers would be useless ; every
where strength would supplant beauty ; majesty would tread
upon the meek and quiet forms of nature; and the awful
power of God would compel the fear and adoration which
now, involuntarily, arise with mingled love and praise, at the
sight of the touching evidence of his goodness. As for the
heavens, day unto day would, indeed, utter speech of him, and
night unto night would show forth knowledge, but not as
now, (in the elliptical but expressive language of the ori-
ginal,) — " no speech ; no language ; their voice is not
heard ; " but, on the contrary, the air would be full of varied
and awful grandeur both in sights and sounds ; and signs in
the sun, moon, and stars would make the nations pale ; the
grateful vicissitudes of seasons would be exchanged for demon-
GOD IS LOVE. 7
•
strations of omnipotence ; the only impression on the minds
of men would be that which is made by the forlorn Moslem
cry through all Mahometan deserts, and seas, and cities,
" God is great."
But let us. suppose that the justice of God should make the
predominant impression upon our minds. Then, the world
would be a palace of justice ; every place of assembly and
every dwelling would be like a court room ; every where we
should see the signs and ministrations of law. Then every
transgression and disobedience would meet with a just recom-
pense of reward. The common spectacle in the streets
would be people meeting with their deserved fate, ven-
geance seizing on the wicked and mixing for them her cup of
trembling in exact proportion to their crimes. In the midst
of festivity and domestic peace, the sentence of death would
be uttered by ministers of justice, refusing respite or reprieve;
the great end of God's administration of the world would be
to do justice, and to impress a sense of his justice upon men;
the terrors of law and of violated obligation would take the
place of clemency, and the providence of God, which now
makes the sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends
rain on the just and the unjust, would be armed on every side
with admonitions of guilt, and of approaching or instant
retribution. Then the softening influences of contrition and
repentance would be exchanged for fear and despair. True,
goodness would meet with its just reward ; every righteous
act would be duly paid for, every kind deed be recompensed
at once ; but, in that case, virtue would lose the powerful
excitements which disappointment and injury afford ; faith,
with its precious influence on the mind and heart, would dis-
appear ; probation, that means of spiritual benefit, the divine
method of educating us for a nobler- state of existence, would
become impossible ; for pure justice would dispense her
8 GOD IS LO VE.
rewards immediately, without forbearance towards the wicked,
or benevolent delay for the sake of strengthening, and so in
the highest measure rewarding, the good. It is evident, there-
fore, that justice, on which, nevertheless, the safety of the
universe depends, could not properly be the governing purpose
in the divine mind and administration.
But can the same objections be made to holiness, as the
predominant manifestation in the divine character ? Yes ;
even now, while the goodness of God attempers the insuffer-
able rays of his holiness to the eyes of angels and men, the
powerful impressions of it are more than they can bear.
Angels veil their faces while they worship. In the temple,
the cherubim had more wings with which to cover themselves
than to fly, while they cried one to another, Holy, holy, holy,
is the Lord God of Hosts. At which voice, and under a
sense of the holiness of God, Isaiah cried, " Woe is me, for
I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I
dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for mine eyes
have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts." If the holiness of
God should universally make the first predominating impres-
sion upon the minds of his creatures whenever they approach
him, or think of him, and this impression should be such that
no sense of his infinite benevolence mingling with it could
mitigate or qualify it, the fear which is cast out by love would
occupy every mind ; the holiness of God would dazzle the
sight beyond endurance ; worship would consist only in dis-
tant prostration, nor would any creature, even the archangel,
venture to say, " Beloved, now are we the sons of God."
A sense of his excellency would make them always afraid.
Job said, " Only do not two things unto me ; then will I not
hide myself from thee ; withdraw thine hand from me, and
let not thy dread make me afraid. Then call thou, and I will
answer ; or let me speak, and answer thou me."
GODISLOVE. 9
But now we see a pleasing contrast to such representations
of the divine character. The methods by which God manifests
himself to us so as to produce the greatest and best effect
upon our moral sense, and thereby to give us the most exalted
views of his greatness, are illustrated, for example, in the
causes by which light is ordained to give us comfort and
pleasure. Power and wisdom are employed in doing it, and
yet benevolence is more conspicuous in it than they. The
different colors of things are owing to certain qualities in the
things themselves, a leaf being constructed so as to reflect
green rays, the atmosphere a soft blue ; that which we call
the color of an object being the result of its construction by
the hand of God, who makes the leaves in the woods such that
when they decay they gratify us with the variety of their
colors. Here the power of God puts forth benevolence as its
illustration. It would not have been as great a proof of
power so to have made every thing in the air, earth, and sea,
that it should absorb all the colors ; then nothing would be
seen but that which was white, and the sun, with his full
splendors reflected from every point, would, with our present
eyesight, have been our sore tormentor. Or creation, by some
similar process, might have been shrouded in black, and
" Night, from her ebon throne," would have stretched her
sceptre into the day. While God has chosen to gratify our
sense by a benevolent arrangement which makes different
objects, and the same objects at different times, shed different
rays upon us, his power is more signally illustrated through
his benevolence than it could have been by overwhelming
impressions of his omnipotent force.
If, therefore, it appears probable that the present state of
things, and the happiness of intelligent beings every where,
could not exist unless benevolence took the lead in the mani-
festations of the divine character, we may argue, from the
10 GODISLOVE.
necessity of the case, that if there be a God, love must per-
vade his perfections and rule in his acts. This is true in those
states of society where the true God has not been and is not
recognized. " Nevertheless, he left not himself without wit-
ness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and
fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness."
The heathen and pagan world could not exist, except as the
benevolence of God countervailed its constant tendency to
self-destruction. " His tender mercies are over all his works."
" The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord." " So is this
great and wide sea." Intelligent men concur in the acknowl-
edgment that the attributes of God are guided by benevolence,
and that there is an evident design in the constitution of things
to make this conciliating impression upon the minds of men,
that God is good.
Now there is one principal objection which is urged against
this view of the divine character. It is drawn from the moral
condition of our race. Our fallen nature, our entrance into the
world with a moral constitution predisposed to evil, is held to
be a sufficient refutation of all proofs of God's goodness drawn
from the works of nature. They are inanimate ; they pro-
mote, it is said, the temporary comfort of man as a necessary
means of sustaining life ; but here are moral beings in a
world blasted by sin, they themselves possessing a sinful
nature ; — is not such a nature a reproach to the character of
the Being who presides over it ? Does it not conflict with the
doctrine now maintained, that God is love ?
The answer may, without hesitation, be, No ; and. the proof
is abundant and clear.
But let it be plainly understood what it is which we now
attempt to show. Not one word is here to be said on that
perplexing subject, the existence of sin. But, assuming that
GOD IS LOVE. 11
the Creator proposes to make free, accountable creatures to
inhabit this world, — it will now be .attempted to show, that
we could not have been more favorably placed under any
other system which they who impugn the present constitution
of things have ever proposed.
May we not all agree upon this question, Whether it is best
that God shall make a universe of intelligent creatures, who
shall be entirely free in their choice to love and serve God or
not ? There shall be no compulsion, no predisposition to sin ;
on the contrary, rich experience of the character of God, and
of what it is to love and serve him, shall be afforded ; and
then his subjects shall decide whether to obey or to sin. Is it
best that God shall create such a universe ? Considering
who he is, and taking into view the infinite blessedness of
those whom he shall love, and on whom he will forever bestow
all that he can give, as far as they are capable of receiving it,
we should all, probably, s-ay, It is infinitely desirable that
creation should be peopled as widely as possible with these
intelligent, free creatures. The probabilities, we should say,
are, that such a Being, once known and loved, will secure the
obedience of his subjects, and, if so, the happiness of which
they will be capable, no finite mind can conceive. It is worthy
of a benevolent God, we should say, to bring such an intelli-
gent universe into bein£r.
C^ f <H3
They come into existence. Some of them dwell in the
immediate presence of God. But there, even there, it appears
that some of them, in the exercise of their perfectly free
choice, keep not their first estate, but leave their own habita-
tion, and, in so doing, forsake their allegiance to God. They
must have had, in heaven, every possible inducement to love
and serve God ; but for some fancied good which they did
not possess, they renounced their loyalty, they became rebels.
12 GODISLOVE.
We say nothing about their punishment ; we only ask, Have
we seen any thing up to this point to impugn the goodness of
God ? They have become sinners, in the exercise of that
freedom with which they were endowed instead of being con-
stituted an intellectual orrery,, made to revolve, by force, around
a central object, whether they would or no. God was good in
making them, and in making them free ; in all this God is
love. Has their transgression cast any reflection upon his
character? It may be said, He could have prevented them from
sinning ; why leave them at such peril ? Would a parent
suffer his child to expose himself thus to ruin, if the parent
could, by any influence, prevent it ? The reply is, Parents
govern their children, when they are at years of understand-
ing, by surrounding them with powerful moral restraints and
persuasive influences ; but there is a certain province in the
child's free agency which they do not invade. Even in the
case of the redeemed, whose perpetual uprightness the Bible
teaches us to believe will be made sure, we cannot suppose that
any thing will be done which will in the least intrude upon the
consciousness of perfect liberty, or suggest the thought or feeling
of restricted freedom. Whether it be just and wise to allow
every race of beings to be placed on probation at first, is a ques-
tion which we have not light enough to discuss at much length ;
we can only say, that there seems to be no want of benevolence
in trying their choice, under a full and explicit disclosure of the
consequences which will ensue upon obedience or disobedience.
No one can properly say that a fair and full statement of a
proposal, with all that will follow its acceptance or rejection,
does not acquit him who makes the proposal from all blame if
the choice inclines to the wrong side. The bias being as
strong towards good as towards evil, and not only so, but being
fortified by experience in the happy consequences of upright-
ness, benevolence is not impeachable, if, in pursuit of some
GODISLOVE. 13
imagined advantage, we forsake our first estate, with all its
obligations, and seek a selfish end> Such, so far as we can
learn, was the case with angels, and we cannot find just cause
of exception in it against the benevolence of God, unless we
take the ground that, rather than expose immortal creatures
to the liability of losing their happiness forever, even by the
exercise of their own intelligent and deliberate choice, it
would be better that God should have no creatures but flying
fowl, and beasts of the earth, and fishes, who cannot possibly,
by choosing wrong, involve themselves in such a calamity as
sin. Let the universe - be an infinite firmament for suns and
planets, and let the only forms of intelligence be mechanical
revolutions, in sublime cycles, by unnumbered worlds, which
shall be dumb, except as their spheres make music, or the
irrational creatures which inhabit them utter their voices ;
and let their wonderful forms of chemistry and mineralogy illus-
trate the wisdom of the Creator ; but let there be no intelligent
creature to behold them, and to love and praise God ; let
almighty goodness bring every thing else into being except
an offspring in his own image, lest, perchance, some of them
should choose to forsake him, in the pursuit of fancied good !
We confidently say that this is not benevolence ; and that it
is far from being any impeachment of benevolence for God to
make spirits in his own image, and give them liberty to every
possible extent, with all its liabilities, and with its privileges
and blessings.
Next, let us pursue the illustration in the case of our first
parents, without any reference to their posterity. Adam is
put on probation as a free, accountable creature. God endows
him with every form of blessing ; holds converse with him ;
instructs him fully as to his duty, and the consequences of a
right or wrong choice. He puts his obedience to the test, by
prohibiting one tree, which was necessary neither to existence
2
14 GOD IS LOVE.
nor to happiness, provided man would prefer obedience to God
above every other gratification. In all this, God is love. It
is not a temptation to sin. On the one hand, there are posi-
tive experiences of blessing in uprightness, and promises of
further good ; on the other, a most explicit dissuasion from
doing wrong, with a disclosure of the consequences. Man, in
the perfectly free exercise of his own will, eats the forbidden
fruit. The temptation could not have been reduced to lower
terms, and yet be a trial of obedience. "We cannot discern
any thing thus far which impeaches the benevolence of God.
Now we come to consider ourselves. In consequence of
this apostasy, all the posterity of these first parents are born
with a sinful nature. To this, objection is made. Let us come
into existence, it is said, without any bias to sin, and let each
of us take his chance for himself, to stand or to fall. This
would be benevolent. Then we should agree that God is
love.
Now, without venturing, as was said before, one step into
the unfathomable abyss of speculation on the subject of moral
evil, let us simply consider whether, in view of universally
acknowledged premises, we are warranted in saying, that a
contrary method with regard to our moral probation would be
any more benevolent than that which God has adopted with
regard to man. Let us see, on the contrary, whether the
present system be not manifestly benevolent, without presum-
ing to speculate as to its being the only method which could
possibly have been adopted. It will be enough if we see that
in the present moral constitution of things with regard, to our
probation, God is love.
Instead of coining into existence as now, with a fallen nature
which will inevitably develop sinfulness, and make us liable to
its fearful consequences, we might each have been born up-
right, free to choose for himself whether he will stand or fall.
GOD IS LOVE. 15
No redemption, however, is to be provided for us in case we
fall. As angels, and as men, took upon themselves the great
responsibility of sinning, with all its possible consequences, so
must we. Which will we do? Assume this responsibility,
each for himself, with no way of recovery if we fall ? or will
we consent that a progenitor shall try the experiment for us,
our nature be determined by the result, and redemption be
provided and offered to us in case that he involves us with
himself in disobedience ? Our nature is the same with that of
Adam ; he sinned ; our will is the same free will ; why should
we think that we should remain upright, if Adam fell ? The
least possible provocation to sin existed in his case ; the love
of God was set against an untasted fruit, his threatenings
against a tempter's word that it would make him happy. A
stronger inducement to remain upright, a smaller inducement
to depart from God, we could not have. Now, will we take
our chance, and put our condition at stake, knowing what the
result of the experiment was in the case of our fellow-creature,
Adam ? It is no want of benevolence in God not to let men
take that risk ; and this is all which we seek to prove.
If angels fell, if Adam fell, for all that appears to the con-
trary, as many of our race would eventually have been lost as
under any other moral system. It is benevolent to let men
come into existence with a fallen nature, and to let this be
their probation — Will you accept free forgiveness and pre-
serving grace ? You who are born in heathen lands, and have
the law written in your hearts, your thoughts the meanwhile
accusing or else excusing one another, your infants and young
children being saved by the exercise of a compensatory dispen-
sation toward them, and you who know good and evil, being
taught by the known consequences of sin in your souls and
bodies, and by the effects of doing right in an inward self-
approbation, — will you accept this testimony on either side,
16 GODISLOYE.
obey, and live ? And you for whom revelation is added to
the light of nature, you with the gospel of Jesus Christ in your
hands, will you obey the gospel, and so be saved ? Motives
of infinite tenderness plead with you to this effect : " for if ye
do these things ye shall never fall ; " but if in a state of origi-
nal uprightness you sin, you sin as angels did, with no Re-
deemer. We may safely assert that our present condition, as
fallen creatures, with a Redeemer, is, to say the least, and to
speak very far within bounds, no less a proof that God is love,
than angels or Adam had in being made to try the question of
obedience or disobedience for themselves, with the conse-
sequences annexed. So far as we are informed, every race of
creatures is placed on probation.
If this be so, and if it would have been indispensable that
every one of us should have had some trial on which his
character and standing forever should depend, we cannot fail
to admit that the question on which we are now tried, viz.,
whether we will repent and accept a free and full redemption,
is as favorable and as safe for us as the question, whether we
will remain upright and live, or fall and be irretrievably lost.
And therefore no injury is done by making our progenitor try
the question for us, and connect us with himself in his fall, and
in his recovery by the infinite mercy of God. Had we fallen
in Adam with no possibility of restoration, the question would
be totally different from the form in which it now stands.
Then it would have been, whether it is benevolent to involve
a race in the doings of their progenitor, and give them no
opportunity to retrieve their state. No such question is raised
by the conduct of God towards us. Redemption is contem-
poraneous with our apostasy ; they must be contemplated
together ; it is injustice towards God to separate them. There-
fore, all the invectives against the present moral constitution of
things as unjust and cruel, are themselves unfair, because they
GODISLOVE. 17
leave out of view one half of the truth ; for the provision made
for man's entire recovery is, to say the least, as great a proof
of benevolence, as his apostasy, which involved us, could, by
any misrepresentation or partial statement, be of the opposite.
Hence, when we hear men say of our coming into the world
with a constitutional bias towards evil, that God is a hard
master, and treats us cruelly, and requires brick without
straw, and sets us adrift with the chances of shipwreck all
against us, we feel that extreme injustice is done to the char-
acter of the ever-blessed God. What would men have had
their Maker do for them ? Do they insist that he ought to
have given them each a chance to test the question for him-
self, whether to remain upright, or to throw away his inher-
itance, like Satan ? Is this the infinite privilege which they
covet ? Is God unrighteous in denying them the opportunity
to draw, in that lottery, the prize of eternal life, or the blank
»
alternative, perdition ? Surely, if they reflect on the plan of
mercy, which, we maintain, God has devised for us, they can-
not, as men of understanding, impeach the divine benevolence ;
and as to its wisdom, it may be well for us to postpone our
conclusions against it till we are better informed upon the
question whether, in the compass of the divine knowledge,
there was any other expedient which was at once so honorable
to God and safe for man. But as to benevolence, there can
be no reasonable denial, that the connecting of us with Adam,
with the intentional provision of a Redeemer, is as kind, there
is as much evidence in it of love, as in allowing angels to stand
or fall each upon his own responsibility, with no provision for
their recovery if they apostatized.
This view of the case is not invalidated by all the misery
which sin has occasioned in the world. God is not the author
of it. He makes man free, tells him what consequences will
ensue upon his obedience or disobedience, and then, if by one
2*
18 GOD IS LOVE.
man sin enters into the world, and death by sin, and so death
passes upon all men, for that all have sinned, the question is,
whether this is any worse than it would have been had we
fallen without a Saviour ; and whether we should have fallen
is a question whose very uncertainty is fitted to appall the
mind, and to make the absolute certainty of restoration from
a fallen state by a Redeemer, if we choose to accept it, an
object of grateful contemplation, and a proof that God is love,
seeing that he is not willing that men should perish.
Yet, it will be replied, they do perish, wre are told, by mil-
lions, and they perish in consequence of their strong constitu-
tional predisposition to sin. Now, before we suffer ourselves
to impugn the goodness of God on this score, would it not be
well to know whether or no as many would not have perished
if each had had a separate probation. Then, if liability to
fall be inseparable from every state of existence, the question
must be removed back to the very origin of all things, and we
must say, Is it right for God to create moral and accountable
beings, some of whom will voluntarily sin and be lost ? He
who feels competent to be the judge of the Almighty, or even
to- be his counsellor, needs at least to read once more, or per-
haps for the first time, the Almighty's words to Job, on the
expediency of sitting in judgment upon the eternal purposes
of God. If it be said that such a remark is fitted to silence,
not to satisfy, it is interesting to know that God did not seek
to silence Job upon the subject, but he addresses him thus :
" Gird up now thy loins like a man, for I will demand of the.",
and answer thou me." And it is not by metaphysical ques-
tions that the Most High argues with him ; but he makes use
of the snow, and hail, and rain, and lightnings, the lion, the
raven, the wild goat, the wild ass, the unicorn, the ostrich,
the peacock, the horse, the hawk, the eagle, behemoth, and
leviathan, to show that he to whom these creatures aiid things
GODISLOVE. 19
•
are mysteries, and more than a match for both his wisdom
and his strength, while they never cease to fill him with won-
der and love at the divine benevolence and skill in their
formation, may safely leave some other questions, relating to
things higher than eagles, and deeper than the snows and
floods, to the same wisdom which he does not fail to recognize
in the works of nature.
But it is said, The penalty which, it is alleged, God has
annexed to disobedience, cannot be consistent with love ; for,
if God knows from the beginning that a great number will sin
and suffer forever, his love is not a perfect attribute, or love
surely does not rule in his perfections. Some stern and
unamiable principle gives its character to the Being who is
willing to see a portion of his . offspring miserable forever,
when he could have prevented it by forbearing to bestow
existence upon them.
The demand here seems to be that God shall make it
impossible for any of his intelligent creatures to commit sin ;
and, if he cannot do so, it is claimed that true benevolence
requires him not to bring them into existence.
We will forbear to consider the question whether, in the
nature of things, God could create moral beings, and yet
prevent them universally from sinning ; or the question why
he cannot prevent all, as well as some, from apostasy. We
need not involve ourselves in the perplexities of that long-
debated point ; for there is an answer to this objection which
lies outside of metaphysical and theological disputes.
We have reason to believe that angels who have maintained
their integrity during their probation, and that the redeemed
who have finished their probationary state in this world, will
be kept by the power of God unto salvation forever, and that
they will " never fall." We do not know in what respects
20 GODISLOVE.
t
the divine influence which will keep them from falling in
heaven differs from the divine influence which was extended
to Adam when on probation, or why it could not have kept
him from falling, (as it will keep the redeemed from apos-
tasy,) and in perfect consistency with his own liberty. This
is a region into which the human mind cannot safely enter ;
for it involves all those questions respecting the origin of evil
which are still open questions. There is a beautiful simplicity
in the manner in which the Saviour treats this subject —
the origin of evil — in his parable of the tares. " So the
servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir,
didst thou not sow good seed in thy field ? From whence,
then, hath it tares ? He said unto them, An enemy hath done
this" This is all the explanation which divine wisdom has
revealed with regard to this perplexing subject. We are left
to suppose that, in order to make a universe of free minds, it
is necessary that all, in some period of their existence, should
be tried as to their allegiance. In saying this, we do not step
beyond the bounds of revelation ; for we surely know that
man was thus tried, and we also know that of the angels some
have fallen. Then the question would be this : Is it, after all,
injustice or unkindness to wake up an immortal spirit from non-
existence, endue it with godlike powers and faculties, place it
under the most favorable circumstances in the immediate pres-
ence of God, and give it permission to choose life or death ?
Let us apply the question to the following case, and see
how we decide such questions in human affairs : A man at
the head of the engraving department in the Bank of Eng-
land is intrusted with great responsibilities. If faithful, he is
of immense service to the community in the prevention of
counterfeiting. His salary is in proportion to his great re-
sponsibilities. In his silent, quiet way, he is the means of
unmeasured benefit to the commercial world ; and all these
GODISLOVE. 21
considerations unite to keep him upright, while, at the same
time, great watchfulnesss is exercised over him, and he feels
that unsleeping vigilance marks every one of his official acts.
But notwithstanding all these guards, and his powerful induce-
ments to be honest, we will suppose that he perverts his trust,
commits large forgeries, and is transported for life, to be a con-
vict in a penal colony, making his wife a widow, his children
fatherless, and covering his family and friends with a cloud of
sorrow which is worse than death. Now, who will undertake
to say, It is wrong to place a human being in circumstances
where defalcation is possible ? Who will venture the judg-
ment that the inducements to uprightness and its great re-
wards are not consistent with benevolence, because, if disre-
garded, the consequences will be so fearful ? Surely, if men
should act on this principle, which they require at the hand
of God, they could not even employ a clerk. There must be
no responsibility, because it is capable of being perverted.
But some who will assent to this reasoning, and own that
probation is reasonable and just, demur to the alleged eternal
consequences of transgression under the government of God,
and say, that it is not consistent with the benevolence of God
that any of his subjects should be punished forever, let their
transgressions be whatever they may. They adopt this prin-
ciple as the foundation of every thing, even of the being and
attributes of God. The ultimate, eternal happiness of every
intelligent being, they say, is absolutely required by the great
law of benevolence, and God can neither be nor do any thing
inconsistent with this.
Let us take Satan for an illustration. Let us assert, for the
sake of the argument, that Satan is to be punished without
end. Now it is said, It cannot be true that " God is love,"
while that great spirit is suffering the vengeance of eternal
fire.
To this it may be replied, Good parents punish a child so
GOD IS LOVE.
long as he sins, let the period of transgression be as long as it
may.
To flinch in the chastisement, saying, After all, it is too
much to punish you so long, and to keep you from my love,
while the child is as rebellious as ever, would subject the
parent to contempt. So long as Satan chooses to sin, we
must admit that God does right in continuing the punishment.
If Satan, during the last five or six thousand years, had
chosen to repent, there has been nothing to hinder him ; and
no one can believe that, had he repented, God would have
continued to punish him, whatever the natural consequences
of his transgression might have been ; for we, when forgiven,
may still suffer from the natural effects, in body and mind,
of our evil ways. Yet if Satan were penitent, hell would be
a changed place to him ; loving and fearing God, he Avould
have verified those words which Milton puts into his mouth : —
" The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."
Has not Satan had opportunity to repent ? There is one part of
his experience recorded in the Bible, which, we shall all agree,
should have made him a good angel ; and that is, his intercourse
with Job. He is suffered to strip Job of every thing, and to
afflict him with the severest bodily anguish which infernal inge-
nuity could select. Job comes forth from those trials a better
»/
man. Satan sees that there is that in God which is worthy to
be loved even under chastisement, and to be preferred above
possessions and children, and life itself; for, "though he slay
me, yet will I trust in him." " Till I die, I will not remove
mine integrity from me." But what does Satan after this?
He afflicts Israel in Egypt four hundred years. He insti-
gates Pharaoh to fight against God, and so on to King Saul,
Jeroboam, Ahab, and Jezebel, " the man of sin," the slave
GODISLOVE. 23
trade, and all the barbarities of war. Thus, instead of
'
to sin against God, he has been helping to fill the world with
sin and misery. He has seen the most touching forms of
goodness, vicing with the angelic beauty of his own original
abode. He has seen Ignatius bare his breast to the lions in
the Roman amphitheatre, Polycarp, John Huss, Lambert,
Ridley, and Latimer embrace the stake ; the Huguenots per-
ishing for their religion " upon the Alpine Mountains, cold ;"
he has seen John Bunyan bid adieu to his poor little blind
child, and go into Bedford jail for twelve years for Christ's
sake and the gospel's, — he has seen all this, and has not re-
lented in his opposition to Christ. Were there any thing in
love and pity to redeem the soul, he could not have lived
through such scenes, and have also witnessed the times of
Christ, the transactions in Gethsemane, the judgment hall,
Calvary, and at the Resurrection, and the day of Pentecost,
and not have been reclaimed. We should have to draw to
a greater degree on fancy to invent a more favorable proba-
tion for him, than human fancy has ever yet shown itself able
to depict. In addition to all this, the loss of heaven, and what-
ever there must have been of rigor in the sufferings of such
a being as he under the mighty hand of God, must have sup-
plied him with sufficient demonstration how fruitless it is to
fight against God his Maker. Sympathy for such a being is
misplaced, even though he shall forever eat the fruit of his
doings.
But here is poor, frail, sinful man; — he sins away his
day of grace. Shall a God of love deal thus with him ?
»
We must all believe that in no instance will endless retri-
butions be inflicted, if at all, on a human being, in which the
justice of the infliction will not commend itself to the judg-
ment of every benevolent mind as fully as in the case of
Satan himself. But in arguing upon this subject, men love
24 GOD IS LO YE.
to invent cases of extreme hardship, and then they appeal
to our sensibilities against the justice and benevolence of
God. For example : Here, they say, is a youth about fifteen
years of age, subject to the infirmities and temptations of im-
mature life ; he is not interested in religious things, yet by
no means openly vicious ; he passes along heedless of the
future. He is drowned. There is no evidence that he feared
God, or that he had complied with the terms of salvation.
He had a very short probation. Subtract the years of mere
childhood from the term of his life, and it seems appalling to
think of eternity deriving its hopeless character from the in-
discretions and follies of seven or eight years, and those the
most thoughtless years of life, the most unfavorable to pru-
dent consideration. It is demanded whether we believe that
God will shut the door of mercy upon that youth forever, and
whether we deem it just to cut him off, and consign him to
hopeless woe, while a companion, who escapes death at the
same time, lives to the age of sixty, and enjoys tenfold oppor-
tunities to be saved, and thereby obtains salvation.
The answer to this is twofold. In the first place, We
greatly err in shutting the door of hope, ourselves, against
any sinner as a subject of repentance and faith. Little do we
know what has taken place between the soul and God in the
apparently most hardened cases of sin, or in the most thought-
less and trifling young person, where sudden death has cut
short the clay of grace. Should all that may have transpired
in such cases be disclosed, perhaps it would have the effect to
harden others in their sin, and would lead to great presump-
tion. A wise silence is preserved, and thus our wholesome
fears are permitted to act in deterring us from trespassing on
divine forbearance. At the same time, no one can say what
intercourse the Spirit of God may have had Avith the soul in
the near approach of death, and even in cases where the
GOD IS LOYE. 25 •
senses cannot report to the bystanders the operations of the
mind. Perhaps it will not be deemed unsuitable here to
say, It was not without warrant in the possibilities of divine
mercy that a friend, on a certain occasion, presumingly sought
to impart consolation to mourning parents, whose son, a grace-
less youth, was killed by being thrown from a horse. This
friend succeeded in writing certain words on a plantain leaf
which had grown up from the youth's grave ; and the pious
mother, as she was one day kneeling there, descried these
words upon the leaf : —
" Betwixt the saddle and the ground
"Was mercy asked, and pardon found."
»
This was easily interpreted by many as a preternatural
revelation to the mother, that her child repented and found
pardon through Christ in the last moments of a wicked life.
No one will say that the assertion in this fraud had no warrant
in the nature of things.
We charge God foolishly if we impute to him vindictive
acts before we know that they have occurred.
We have another answer to the inquiry now under con-
sideration. A young person may as intelligently and deliber-
ately refuse the offers of eternal life, and choose to risk the
consequences of eternal death, as a person of the maturest
age. This is subject to the judgment of Him who " will
not lay on man more than right, that he should enter into
judgment with God. For the work of a man will he render
unto him, and cause every man to find his own way." God
can place the subject of religion before the mind of a youth
with such clearness, and vividness, and persuasion ; cause him
to be approached and followed with such heavenly influences
from every source which divine and human love can employ,
and set before him the endless consequences of his conduct;
3
26 GOD IS LOVE.
and the youth may deliberately reject his God and Saviour,
and make answer that he would prefer banishment from God
rather than love such a being as he clearly perceives him to
be, or to be saved in such a way as the gospel makes plain
to his understanding, — so that God will remove him from this
world, where his example and influence would corrupt many
others, and suffer him to indulge his opinions and feelings
among those of his own tastes and preferences. How long
this sinner shall remain in this world of probation before he
is removed to a state of penal infliction, God, the Judge, will
decide. " Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right ? "
This illustration, in some of its particulars, has been drawn
from a recent statement to the writer by a very intelligent
lady now deceased, with regard to her feelings and words
during the period of youth, when convinced of her sins and
of the way of salvation by Christ. She told her Christian
friends that she fully understood the idea of justification by
faith, without works, through the sufferings and death of
Christ, but that she hated it with a cordial hatred ; that she
never would submit to be saved in that way ; and that if
heaven was to be obtained only in that way, she would say
to God that she did not wish to have any part in his heaven,
and that he might dispose of her as he pleased. These were
precisely her words. It could truly be said to her, " Ye have
both seen and hated both me and my Father." There are feel-
ings in many an unrenewed heart which do not make such
explicit and bold expression of themselves ; but many will
recognize in these words their own fearful similitude. This
deliberate and almost impious rejection of divine wisdom and
love in Christ Jesus, did not meet with what might be deemed
its just recompense of reward ; for, by methods of gentle and
winning grace, that heart was prevailed upon to accept the
way of salvation by a Redeemer, and the penitent lived to a
GOD- IS LOVE. 27
good age, eminently useful in bringing souls to Christ, and in
leading some to be preachers of that faith which once she
destroyed. But if God had taken her at her word, and had
removed her from time into eternity, leaving her to her own
choice, one thing is certain, that she could never have im-
peached his goodness in suffering her to choose for herself,
and for being willing to lie down in endless sorrow rather than
to sing "• forced hallelujahs" in heaven.
But now it will be said, Inasmuch as ; God was love' in
thus turning her from her sin and folly, we believe that in the
next world he will be the same ; he will perform similar acts of
grace in eternity, or we cannot believe that his character as a
God of love is perfect.
The answer to this may be as follows : Whatever God
might do for the recovery of the soul in the world to come, he
cannot surpass that which, if we believe the gospel, he has
already done to save us. This remark, it will be borne in
mind, does not touch the question whether God will do any
thing more hereafter to save the soul ; but we may say without
fear of contradiction, that nothing can exceed the incarnation
of the Word, and the sufferings and death of Christ, as an
expression and proof of love to sinners. If this be granted,
it cannot be said that, after having bestowed the utmost proof
of love on men, if God should, at a given time, cease in his
efforts to reclaim them, this is a just allegation against him as
wanting in perfect love. " What more could I do in my vine-
yard that I have not done in it ? ' Shall I, by omnipotent
force, create grapes on vines which my sun and rain, my til-
lage and dressing, have failed to make fruitful ?
But it may be said, God has not, in this world, tried the
effect of severity to its full extent. If God is perfect in his
love, he will not give over till he has used extreme measures
of chastisement to save an immortal soul.
28 GODISLOVE.
This implies that chastisement can succeed to accomplish
that which infinite loving kindness has failed to do.
We have had one great experiment tried before our eyes,
as to chastisement being the ultimate means of reformation,
in the history of the Jews. More of them, by a hundred fold,
were converted under the preaching of the gospel, apart from
their chastisements, than have been converted during; their
* o
centuries of punishment. The experiment is sufficient to
show that chastisement, of itself, is not " the power of God
and the wisdom of God unto salvation." Christ is that
" power," that " wisdom." Ages of woe, mingled with prom-
ises of restoration, have not succeeded in making the Jews
submit to the Messiah. But affliction, of itself, even while
holding in its hand exceeding great and precious promises,
cannot reclaim the Jewish people, in a world of mercy, from
their infidelity. He who believes that any process of recovery
is to succeed the atonement by Christ, we will not say, gets no
encouragement to his belief from the Bible, but, does infinite
discredit to the atonement, as the grand and ultimate method
of influencing man as a moral agent ; and, if the Bible does
not represent Christ and his sacrifice to be the last effort of
mercy, and the rejection of him to be followed by " everlast-
ing destruction from the presence of the Lord," and with being
" unjust still," language can make no certain impressions upon
the mind. Surely we may expect that the brightness of the
Father's glory, and the express image of his person, would be
employed hereafter to conduct whatever remedial measures
might be used to recover the soul from sin ; and yet it does
not look like a continuation of his merciful presence and
influence to say to the hopeful subjects of his continued grace,
" Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared
for the devil and his angels ! ':
Yes, " God is love," now and forever ; and the darkest
GODISLOVE. 29
parts of his system are far from countervailing the proofs of
it afforded by all that we know of his ways. They who take
mournful views of the present world, and of their afflicted
and sinful state, should remember that, in coming into this
world, we strike upon a road which proceeds from a region
of blessedness, and leads to a condition of surpassing glory ;
but the section over which we are passing is, for wise rea-
sons, one of trial and sorrow. "We must take into view the
past and the future of the great career ; and, if we obey, we
shall at last have infinite reasons for gratitude that we have
been brought into being. For, if God is love, he is this to
every one who is willing to love him ; and if any refuse, they
have but their choice. Let the heavens, earth, and seas bring
their testimonies that God is love ; let sight, and taste, and
smell, and touch, all the melodies and harmonies of the world,
and all the sensibilities of the soul, declare that God is love :
we have in the incarnation and sacrifice of Christ a proof
which exceeds them all. One of the persons in the Godhead
takes the form of man, lies in the manger of Bethlehem,
passes through the conditions of youth and manhood, and at
last is made a sacrifice for our sins. This is, as literally as it
could be, our Creator suffering in our stead. He was " made
in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin," and " bare our sins
in his own body on the tree." If we esteem it a calamity
that we come into the world with a bias towards evil, he has
set over against it this manifestation of infinite love towards
us, so that no one need perish ; no one will perish who would
not, probably, have lost his birthright had he stood for himself
in some Eden, or in heaven ; for he who will not believe in
and accept Jesus Christ, has no reason to think that, if made
upright and placed on probation, he could have preferred the
favor of God to every possible solicitation to sin, or could
have resisted his desires" for untasted good, more easily than
3*
30 GODISLOVE.
he can now resist the present poor and unsatisfying pleasures
of sin, in preference to the love and service of his Redeemer.
And now, while love will lead and guide all the acts of
God, we have assurance that it will not be a weak love ; it
can never excite the suspicion of imbecility : on the contrary,
all the attributes of God are filled with love, and love is filled
with all the attributes of God. If we decline the proposals
which this love and wisdom make to us as intelligent and free
subjects of the divine government; if we refuse to believe the
simple, plain story of sin and redemption, and prefer our false
philosophy ; if it must be said of us, " He feedeth on ashes ;
a deceived heart hath turned him aside, so that he cannot
deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand ? "
and so we take the risk of going into the next world without a
Saviour, one thing is sure — we shall, nevertheless, be eter-
nally the monuments of the truth that God is love. Our
consciences will bear witness to it ; for we shall remember how,
in our lifetime, we received our good things, and we shall per-
ceive what good things they were, to have been created under
such a dispensation as that of the gospel, with its astonishing
provisions and appliances to effect our salvation and happi-
ness ; and in our separation from those who, unlike us, chose to
love and worship at a throne which is called " the throne of
God and of the Lamb," we shall ourselves illustrate the love
of God in not suffering the universe to present such a mingled
conflict of good and evil as the world presents. " As there-
fore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it
be in the end of the world. The Son of man shall send forth
his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things
that offend, and them that do iniquity, and shall cast them into a
furnace of fire ; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
When a man suffers capital punishment, it is discretionary, in
certain cases, for the government to 'give up his body to the
GODISLOVE. 31
surgeons, and so the felon subserves the purposes of science
and humanity, and involuntarily helps to heal and save men.
" The Lord hath made all things for himself, yea, even the
wicked for the day of evil." To every soul he will say,
" Friend, I do thee no wrong." He " will have all men to
be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth." " As I
live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of him
that dieth, but that the wicked turn and live. Turn ye, turn
ye, for why will ye die, 0 house of Israel ? " But God will
eventually use all, and every thing, to glorify him. The com-
monwealth does not desire convicts for the sake of their man-
ual labor, but if they make themselves felons, the state will
avail itself of their handicraft.
As there is nothing which grows that affords us more pleas-
ure than a noble vine, God selects it as an illustration of men,
when they fulfil the purpose of their creation ; and if they do not,
he represents them to be as useless and worthless as the wood
of the vine. " Son of man, what is the vine more than any
tree ? Shall wood be taken thereof to do any work ? Or will
men take a pin of it to hang any vessel thereon ? Behold,
it is cast into the fire for fuel ; the fire devoureth both the
ends of it, and the midst of it is burned. Is it meet for any
work ? " 1 Thus the soul of man is capable of perpetual
advancement towards God ; but if it persists in sin, it is no
more " meet for any work." As no good use can be made of
a bad book, an obscene picture, or garments infected with con-
tagious disease, but they must be buried or burned, so the
sinner, if he cannot be reclaimed, must be disposed of in such
a way as wisdom and justice shall determine. But some be-
stow all their sympathy on the incorrigible sinner, and forget
that there are rights and privileges belonging to others —
rights of protection, rights of self-defence — which, to say the
least, are of equal importance with his. Others seem to make
1 Ezck. xv.
32 GOD IS LOVE.
small account of sin ; they see no reason for future, endless
punishment, because they perceive nothing to punish. Others
seem to think of God only as of a fond parent, who has no
object but to see his children enjoy themselves, and with whom
the shutting up of one of his offspring in close confinement for
life would be impossible ; and is he, they say, more humane
than God? But so long as there are such subjects as Satan
and his angels, and wicked men, to be governed, there is, of
course, a God with a character appropriate to his office as gov-
ernor of these his subjects. A man with such softness of char-
acter as many impute to the Most High, would not have the
qualifications necessary in the humblest magistrate ; he could
not be trusted to try a question which involved the personal
liberty of an offender. It is enough to make one sick and
faint at heart to think of such a being as at the head of affairs.
Far different is the God whom we have, for example, in the
vision of Nahum,the Elkoshite, — in which terror and beauty
vie with each other : " God is jealous, and the Lord re-
vengeth ; the Lord revengeth, and is furious ; the Lord taketh
vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his
enemies. The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and
will not at all acquit the wicked ; the Lord hath his way in
the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of
his feet. Who can stand before his indignation ? and who can
abide in the fierceness of his anger ? His fury is poured out
like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him. The Lord
is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and he knoweth
them that trust in him ; but with an overrunning flood he will
make an utter end thereof, and darkness shall pursue his
enemies."
If there be such a God, and our aversion to him be owing
to any moral perversity on our part, there will be no need of
outward indict ions lo make us completely wretched, so long as
we remain alienated from him. Our condition for eternity
GODISLOVE. 33
would, therefore, be hopeless, unless in this world we should
become reconciled to God ; for, if this aversion is based upon
any correct perception of his character, the more we know of
him the more s.hall we desire to flee from him.
This brings us to one more proof that God is love, which
must by no means be omitted. All men are by nature averse
to the character and government of God, by reason of sin.
This is true not only of those who by the force of education
are prejudiced against what are called the evangelical doc-
trines, but of those also who have been taught to believe them.
Every man by nature has " the carnal mind " which " is en-
mity against God ; for it is not subject to the law of God,
neither indeed can be." This aversion is criminal ; yet it is
such that, if left to themselves, all will, freely and wickedly,
refuse to love and obey God. The fall has not impaired
man's natural ability to love goodness ; of course, man is capa-
ble of loving infinite goodness ; but that exists in one whose will
is contrary to that of the sinner, and to whose moral character
the sinner, while he loves sin, has an utter distaste ; so that
no one can even come to Christ except the Father, which hath
sent him, draw him. In this direful predicament, God inter-
poses, and overcomes the sinful reluctance of some ; and still
the invitation is, " Whosoever will, let him take the water of
life freely ; " but while many refuse, others are persuaded
and enabled to embrace Jesus Christ as he is freely offered in
the gospel. They then experience that new birth which is
the special work of the Holy Spirit. It will seem superflu-
ous to some that it should be said, that whoever, for ex-
ample, is reading these lines is as welcome to all the blessings
of the gospel as any other. No secret decree prevents him
from obtaining the full benefits of salvation by Christ. No
abuse of privileges, no rejection of offered mercy, no hard
thoughts, nor unjust accusations, of his Maker, nor" even
blasphemous words against him, have shut the door of mercy
34 GODISLOYE.
upon his soul. He who, for his sake, lay in the manger at
Bethlehem, and expired on the cross, is now his advocate on
high, and as a fruit of his merits, the Holy Spirit strives to
bring the soul to God. Let him reflect how marked the deal-
ings of God have been with him, in his preservations, bless-
ings, and trials, and in the means employed to keep him back
from presumptuous faults, and to bring his attention again and
again to the subject of religion; let him consider, if, in all
this, there be not some appearance of a desire to effect his
salvation, and that, too, notwithstanding great provocations to
give him up forever. Is there any love like this ? Not only
in the ransom paid for us, but in the persevering efforts of
injured mercy, in behalf of every one of us, there are proofs
that God is love which will furnish us with our principal testi-
mony to that truth.
It may, therefore, be said to every one, let his character be
as it may, God loves you. Complacency in us while we are
wicked, of course, he cannot feel ; but there are feelings of
love on the part of God towards every one, such as are not
equalled by any human interest in the object of its good will.
While the displeasure of God against sin, and the necessity
of its endless punishment, are fundamental truths, God is
love ; hell is not the exponent of his character ; it is a sub-
sidiary in his administration ; but as Gehenna did not lie
where the Temple, " beautiful for situation, the joy of the
whole earth, on the sides of the north," was built, so the fore-
most object in the Deity is not wrath, nor punishment. But
when Moses prayed, " I beseech thee show me thy glory," the
Lord said, " I will make all my goodness pass before thee ; ''
yet it is to be noticed that he immediately adds, And I " will
be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy
on whom I will show mercy ; " — in which expressions we see
that while grace and mercy are set forth to make the chief
impressions of the divine character, they are enunciated in a
GODISLOVE. 35
way to suggest the idea of discrimination in the manner in
which they are exercised. And so when, on Sinai, God pro-
claimed his name at the renewal of the tables of stone, it was
" the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering, and
abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands,
forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin, visiting the
iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the chil-
dren's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation."
Here the predominant impression is that of goodness ; yet
the very term " long -suffering " suggests that there are bounds
to mercy, while the avowed principle of connecting parents
and children, as here described, makes one feel that the char-
acter of God has depths in it which are not all explored, nor
sounded, by the analogy of earthly parentage. If we leave
out any essential attribute from the character of God, we do
not worship the true God. At the same time, there is an
order and a proportion, in those attributes, to disregard which
is like applying the wrong end of a magnet for a given pur-
pose. As we are sinners, all the attributes of God have
relation to us ; and hence it is that redemption, unfolding
all those attributes in their various exercise, and in disclosing
to us, as it were by necessity, the mystery in the divine nature
of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is represented as the chief
work of Jehovah.
Each of us is urged to be a subject of that redemption, and
to afford an illustration of the attributes of God in our sal-
vation, and not in our future, endless punishment. " For God
so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have ever-
lasting life. FOR GOD SENT NOT HIS SON INTO THE WORLD
TO CONDEMN THE WORLD, BUT THAT THE WORLD THROUGH
HIM MIGHT BE SAVED."
APPENDIX
BRIEF NOTICE
OF
REV. T. STARR KIXG'S "TWO DISCOURSES," ETC.*
THE circumstances under which the discourse, of which the present
pages are a supplement, was preached, are generally known. They
are stated in the ' Correspondence ' prefixed to it, in the first number
of this series. After the additional statement, in these pages, of the
•writer's views concerning the character of God, .as concerned in the
moral condition and destinies of our race, very little needs to be added
on this point, in this brief notice of the " Two Discourses " recently
published by the Pastor of Hollis Street Church, in reply to the first
sermon on this subject The present publication (' God is Love ') had
its origin as a sermon not in consequence of these " Two Discourses,"
(which, if preached, had not then been published,) but from the desire
of the author to lay before his stated hearers a somewhat more com-
pleted view of the important theme.
"While no complaint is here made, and no objection is felt that the
Pastor of the Hollis Street Church should have replied, as he did, to
the sermon above named, or that he should have published his answer,
yet, as the invitation to preach contained no intimation of a purpose
to use the sermon in aid of a counter statement of doctrinal opinions
on the same subject, the present occasion may fairly be used to say a
few words in reply. Perhaps the apprehension that there would be
any occasion to say them, might have operated as a reason to decline
the courteous and Mr invitation to preach. And now, in the same
friendly spirit which led to the acceptance of the invitation, and which,
it was apparent, dictated it, all that shall be said will be in no contro-
versial spirit, but with a sincere and earnest desire to commend our
evangelical views still further to the understandings and hearts of
others.
1 " The Doctrine of Endless Punishment for the Sins of this Life, un-
christian and unreasonable. Two Discourses, delivered in Hollis Street
Church. By Rev. Thomas Starr King. Boston : Crosby, Nichols & Co."
(36)
APPENDIX. 37
The thought that the discourse on the " Reasonableness," £c., may
have led the author of the " Two Discourses " to say certain things,
which will be quoted, awakens a natural and a friendly feeling of re-
sponsibleness in him who may have been the occasion of such utter-
ances. This makes him more ready to say a few words in reply.
It is a remark of Bucholtzer, " A preacher is known by his perora-
tion." There, his heart, his motive, his governing purpose, appear.
He has ceased to argue ; he appeals ; and the controlling emotions of
his soul are then, to his thoughts and feelings, like the push of the sea
which sends the waves ashore. It was, therefore, with the deepest
interest, and with feelings which cannot be fully expressed, that the
closing paragraph but one of the " Two Discourses " was perused. It
is as follows : —
" Brethren, we need a religion that shall have no fear of the justice of God
forever, but boundless confidence in it, rather. It is heathen to ask for an
interest in Christ, in order to be shielded from God's law. If you are a sin-
ner, seek deliverance from yourself, but not from God's law, or from God.
Face his law. Ask for its searchings and scourge. Even if you are about
to die, be not afraid of infinite justice. To slip away from it would be your
only danger. It is inseparably mixed with God's love, as the gravitation of
the sun with its light and heat."
The thought that these words were addressed to a company of im-
mortal beings, each of whom, with us, is to meet a dying hour, and
then is to answer for the deeds done in the body ; and the recollection
of those explicit words, " Therefore by the deeds of the law shall no
flesh be justified in his sight ; " " to declare, I say, at this time, his
righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of him that be-
lieveth in Jesus ; " and how the very chiefest of the apostles counted
every thing but dung, that he might " win Christ, and be found in him,
not having," he says, " mine own righteousness, which is of the law,
but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which
is of God by faith ; " and moreover, the thought that the speaker him-
self, with us, will one day test the correctness of these words, in their
application to himself, — awakens a feeling of unaffected interest toward
all who believe and speak these things ; and yet it is an interest which
the proprieties of life forbid us to express, save in the guarded man-
ner of deference to the right of private judgment, and of respect for
individual responsibleness. No words from human lips, on this theme,
ever seemed so bold as these. They call up, vividly, the image of a
man leaping the enclosures of Sinai, venturing into the darkness and
tempest which were round about God, and, without availing himself
4
38 GOD IS LOVE.
even of the mediatorship of Moses, protesting, ' I want no mediator,'
and beckoning his tribe in Israel to follow him ; — although Moses
himself had said, " I exceedingly fear and quake."
The innumerable souls which have fled for refuge from the law of
God to Him " who is the end of the law for righteousness to every
one that believeth," cannot have been deceived in the expressions
which divine revelation made upon them ; for they are the great body
of devout persons in all ages. We have no hymns in our language
which celebrate the justice of God as the foundation of a sinner's hope.
Never do we hear men of devout lives saying, in health or in sick-
ness, * God forbid that I should glory save in the justice of God.' He
explicitly tells us in his word that we have no righteousness of our
own ; hence we have no peace with God till we are justified, by his
righteousness, through Christ ; and therefore it is only at the cross of
Christ that, for us, " righteousness and peace have kissed each other."
The grand secret of the unbelief here expressed with regard to the
way of salvation by faith, appears in these words, in another part of
these " Two Discourses." Speaking of the statement commonly
made, that the doctrine of future, endless retribution is inseparably
intertwined with the Supreme Deity of Christ, the preacher says,
(p. 60,) -
" Brethren, I do not believe in the Supreme Deity of Christ, or that it is
taught in any portion of the New Testament. I know that most of the
noblest Christians of the world to-day do believe it. But," &c.
This being so, and while it is so, nothing else which pertains essen-
tially to the great system of revealed truth, as evangelical believers
hold it, is ever truly received. If Jesus Christ is a foundation stone,
the superstructure will correspond to his nature and character. If he
be " the Word who was with God and who was God," there must be
an infinite difference between all which he does and that which a crea-
ture can do. The sufferings and death of such a person as Christ, in
whom the divine Word is incarnate, arc, by an immeasurable difference,
of more consequence than the sufferings and death of a created being.
Accordingly we find a stress laid on the death of Christ which is fully
accounted for, as we believe, only in there being a propitiation for sin.
Perhaps the author of the " Two Discourses " was present with some
ministerial friends when one, formerly a minister of like views with
him, and now a distinguished ornament in the literary world, remon-
strated with them for making use of the Lord's Supper, because of
its absolutely sacrificial associations ; alleging that a principal reason
with him for leaving the ministry was, the necessity of using that ordi-
APPENDIX. 39
nance, when he utterly repudiated the idea of vicarious sacrifice in the
death of Christ. He was, at least, consistent ; his witness is true.
But the author continues his objections to the idea that the atone-
ment involves the doctrine of future, endless retribution ; and he
asks, (p. 61,) —
" Why must the possibility of pardon stop at the grave ? "Why, if a soul
can be saved from just wrath here, through faith in the atonement, cannot
a like faith avail, if a sinner offers it who has suffered for centuries in the
abyss ? "
Such a question — and it is one of fearful interest — must be referred
for the only answer, if any, which can be given, to the revelation of
God. As man did not fix the way and the terms of salvation, he can
himself give no satisfactory answer to this inquiry. How long proba-
tion shall be, is determined only by infinite wisdom. In proportion to
the stupendous sacrifice made for sin, it may be that the term during
which it shall be offered is made brief. This seems to be hinted at
here : " He that despised Moses' law died without mercy, under two
or three witnesses. Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye,
shall he be thought worthy who has trodden under foot the Son of
God, and counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanc-
tified an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace ?
For we know Him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me ; I
will recompense, saith the Lord." These are singular words ; they
relate to the rejection of mercy through the blood of Christ ; and the
" vengeance " and " recompense " spoken of, imply other attributes
and feelings in God than those of a father. When we think of
probation as being short, compared with eternity, we are to remember
what the offer is, who makes it, and by what means it was procured.
True, it is but a little while, at the longest, that any of us live in the
world ; but, during that brief space of time, proposals are made to us
by our God, in our own nature, from an atoning cross ; and a very
few, intelligent, deliberate acts of rejecting or neglecting those pro-
posals, have an importance proportioned to the nature of the propo-
sals : hence it is said, " How shall we escape if we neglect so great
salvation ? " We who have fully known the way of pardon by a
Saviour's death, may not properly ask why we may not avail ourselves
of the same offer ages hence.
The author tells us, (p. 59,) that
"The doctrine [of endless retribution] is a fiction, an invention, pure
and simple, so far as the Old Testament is concerned." --"There are not
any disclosures about the details or destinies of a future life in any book
40 GODISLOVE.
written between the time of Adam and Malachi. The idea of eternal pun-
ishment came into the Jewish mind and literature from heathen sources."
There is no room here to enter fully into an exhibition of the
manner in which the idea of future and final retribution is interwoven
with the whole of the Old Testament history, from the time when it
was said to Adam, " In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt
surely die." Nor is it necessary to pursue the illustration of this
truth, seeing that we have a certain testimony upon the point which
it will be hard for any to set aside. — The statement is, that the
Old Testament nowhere teaches the doctrine of future, endless
punishment.
The rich man in hell was told that between him and heaven there
was a great gulf fixed, " so that they which would pass from hence
to you cannot ; neither can they pass to us, that would come from
thence."
" Then he said, I pray thee, therefore, father, that thou wouldest
send him to my father's house ; for I have five brethren ; that he may
testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment."
Now let us attentively consider the reply wrhich Abraham made to
this proposal : " Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the
prophets ; let them hear them."
We do not then hear the rich man reply, Nay, father Abraham ;
thou knowest that there is not in the Old Testament one word from
Moses to Malachi relating to this hopeless misery.
The opportunity thus to impugn the Old Testament was not
embraced. The reply of the rich man simply was, "Nay, father
Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead, they will
repent."
Then follow those words which stamp the seal of heaven, by the
hand of Jesus Christ, upon the Old Testament, as a sufficient guide
to the men who possessed it, with respect to eternity : " And he said
unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they
be persuaded though one rose from the dead."
All this should awaken in us a candid desire to find those testimo-
Jr nies in the Old Testament to future retributions — testimonies which
even a messenger from the other world, it seems, could not make
more convincing. Wherever and whatever the rich man was suffering,
his surviving Jewish brethren had, in their Old Testament Scriptures
all the information which a spirit from within the veil could usefully
impart.
__/ f
LOCx l~v <? Lxvr*
APPENDIX. 41
The objection perhaps most commonly urged against future, endless
retribution is set forth in these Discourses, with the aid of a quotation
from an eminent writer and preacher of the same faith with our
author. The slight impression and influence which, it is said, the
doctrine has upon those who believe it, is used to show that
" ' It may be a sort of theory to be speculated about, to be coldly believed
in, but it is not truth that can be taken home to the heart. Coldly believed
in, did we say ? No ; so believed, it is not believed in at all. It is not
believed, unless it is believed in horror and anguish ; unless it sends its
votary to his nightly pillow in tears, and wakes him every morning to
sorrow, and carries him through every day burdened as with a world's
calamity, and hurries him, worn out with apprehension and pity, to a
premature grave. He who should grow sleek and fat, and look fair and
bright, in a prison from which his companions were taken one by one, day
by day, to the scaffold and the gibbet, could make a far better plea for
himself than a good man living and thriving in this dungeon world, and
believing that thousands and thousands of his fellow-prisoners are dropping
daily into everlasting burnings.' " l
To allude once more to Rev. John Foster's thoughts on this subject,
we find him also dwelling with much force on this same objection
— that it " sits so easy on the minds of the religious and benevolent
believers of it." " If the tremendous doctrine be true, it ought to be
continually proclaimed as with the blast of a trumpet, inculcated and
reiterated with ardent passion, in every possible form of illustration ;
no remission of the alarm to the thoughtless spirits." " The most
prolonged thundering alarm is but as the note of an infant, a bird,
or an insect, in proportion to the horrible urgency of the case."
What, then, we might ask, can we possibly do, which will be at all
proportioned to the urgency of the case, even if we should live in a
frenzy, and cry out perpetually, as the people in the flood must have
done, to one another ? — In all these strictures, in the first place, there
is not a just consideration of the principles of the human mind as
susceptible to moral suasion. In waking a sleeper from a burning
dwelling, we may adopt measures to rouse and save him, which would
only disgust a sinner if applied to his moral sensibilities. Clamor
and cries of distress, tones of sorrow inarticulate through grief, a
countenance on which unutterable concern for the perishing should
always be depicted, would fail of their benevolent intention, if em-
ployed, Sabbath after Sabbath, and from day to day, by preachers of
the gospel to save men. Christ and the apostles were plain and bold
1 " Two Discourses," pp. 63, 64. — Quoted from Rev. Dr. Dewey.
4*
42 GODISLOVE.
in their warnings ; but they understood human nature too well to
scream their admonitions, or to use the intonations of the affrighted.1
But, further, these strictures are not in accordance with our gen-
eral conduct in other things. "\Ve are all aware that scenes' of inde-
scribable wretchedness exist in this city, perhaps not far from our
dwellings. This knowledge does not keep the most humane among
us agitated, as it is sometimes demanded that we should be, if we
believe in future punishment. Human nature could not endure such
excitement where no help could be rendered. Our various duties
would forbid it.
No minister of Christ, and no believer in the punishment of the
wicked, will fail to confess, with shame and sorrow, that he feels so
little the power of this belief; that it influences his feelings in so
small a measure. But he will make the same confessions with
regard to his conceptions of the Saviour's love, the evil of sin, and
the blessedness of heaven.
But there is a singular inconsistency in those who make this ob-
jection to a belief in future punishment. A pamphlet was published
in this city several years ago, in which the writer dwelt at large on
this objection, quoting Mr. Foster, and expatiating at length on the
argument. Then, strange to say, in another part of his work, and in
seeming forgetfulncss of all this, he compiled two pages, in small
type, of fearful representations respecting future punishment, from
some of the American Tract Society's publications,- — Baxter's Call
to the Unconverted, Alleine's Alarm, Saurin, President Edwards, and
the Peep of Day ; and, in questionable taste, he called this " Hello-
mania." Some men, surely, according to his own showing, have
cleared their skirts of the blood of souls ; even Mr. Foster would
nave admitted this, could he have perused that fearful emblazonry of
the terrors of the Lord. But it seems hard to be reproached by the
same individuals, with unreasonable apathy with regard to future
punishment, and then to have them utter epithets against us, which
seem almost intolerant, for using such terrific representations of the
future. Our friend, the author of the "Two Discourses," has un-
consciously fallen into this inconsistency. On the sixty-third page,
he has, with the concurrence of a distinguished writer, just quoted,
represented us as utterly deceived in believing as we profess to do,
because we are not more in earnest in our tones and efforts. And yet,
1 A distinguished physician of Boston says, that a gentleman once came
into his office, and said, " Sir, I am very deaf, indeed; and now I wish you
to speak slow, and low, and I can hear you."
APPENDIX. 43
on the fifty-second page, he had made severe strictures on a passage
from the sermon on "The Reasonableness," &c., which makes the
supposition that it will be wretchedness enough hereafter for sinners
merely to have their own way. He quotes as follows : —
" God may say, This I will do. I will place all of you who sin, in a
world by yourselves, from which I and my friends will forever withdraw.
He would take away, we must suppose, all their domestic rela-
tions, friendships, social pleasures, books, every pursuit of knowledge, mu-
sic, travels, quiet sleep, morning and evening salutations of loved ones."!
Then our friend exclaims, " All this forever ! All this in a world
devised by the infinite intellect with exquisite relation to purposes of
torture ! " &c.
What shall we do ? We are like " children sitting in the markets
and calling unto their fellows, and saying, We have piped unto you, and
ye have not danced ; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not
lamented." If we are mild in our persuasives, we are insincere ; if
bold and startling, wre shock the sense of our friends, and excite in-
vectives against ourselves not surpassed in terror by President
Edwards's sentences, nor by Alleine's Alarm. — But we must bring a
charge against these same friends of ours, for their inconsistency with
their own belief, in not perpetually denouncing us, and saying to their
hearers concerning us, " Save yourselves from this untoward genera-
tion " — these calumniators of the most High, these tormentors be-
fore the time, and without the least warrant, of innocent men, women,
and children, by their ' unchristian ' doctrine of future woe. O, how
do we deserve to be driven out from among God's children into dry
places, to cry and cut ourselves with stones, if all which is sometimes
said of our belief is true. Where is the zeal of the unbelievers ? Our
dogma " sits too easily " upon them ; they are not half awake ; may
we be excused if we say, Cry louder ; quit yourselves like men, till this
direful faith in future retribution is banished from the world. Else
allow that we are, alike, naturally incapable of responding, as we
should do, to the great, awakening truths of eternity.
It seems useless to quote the names of certain distinguished men
and women as having wavered in their faith about this doctrine. It
is only to be wondered at, that, with so much in it to try then' confi-
dence in it as a matter of pure revelation, thousands instead of tens,
among evangelical believers, do not hesitate to receive it. The over-
whelming majority of devout readers find the doctrine not merely
1 "The Reasonableness," &c., p. 22.
44 GOD IS LOVE.
in certain proof texts, but in the drift of Scripture, its implications,
and in its fearful silence about any future state of probation.
Indeed, it admits of a question, whether, as a general thing, the
most convincing proofs in the Bible of this doctrine, are not those which
may be called incidental. These might fill a volume. For example,
to quote from memory, " In the place where the tree falleth, there it
shall lie ; " " I will laugh at your calamity, I will mock when your fear
cometh ; " " the wicked shall be turned into hell ; " " as the chaff
which the wind driveth away ; " " son of perdition ; " " perish ; " " shall
not see life ; " " good for that man if he had not been born ; " " every
tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast
into the fire ; " — and the implications in the parables — " shall
be taken away even that which he hath ; " and the parable of the net
— where the bad fishes, when drawn ashore, are not carefully thrown
back into the sea, but are " cast away ; " and in the parable of the
tares, which are " gathered and burned in the fire." " So shall it be
in the end of this world."
It is interesting to know that evangelical men, who, from time to
time, have expressed doubts or difficulties with respect to the eternity
of future punishment, often admit that the Scriptures are probably
against them. Mr. Foster is an illustration. A more striking case is
that of Dr. Thomas Burnett, one of the twelve or fifteen quoted by
our author as having denied, or doubted, this article of faith. Dr.
Burnett says, " Human nature shrinks back from the very name of
eternal punishment. Yet the Scriptures seem to hold the other
side.'1 } This good man wrote in Latin against future, endless punish-
ment, and protested against his book being translated, for the reason
that men are hardly restrained, even by the fears of eternal punish-
ment, from going into all manner of sin, and the general disbelief of
the doctrine, he feared, would tend to immorality. Origen, a disbe-
liever in the doctrine, intimates the same thing.2 Surely, if the Scrip-
tures and morality are on the side of the doctrine, it is hardly " un-
christian and unreasonable." 3
1 "Natura humana abhorrct ab ipso nomine pcenarum cetcrnanjm, <S:o. At
Scriptura Sacra a partibus contrariis stare videtur." — De Statu Mort. et Re-
surg. p. 288, 2d cd.
2 Contra Cclsum, lib. vi. p. 232. — Ed. Spencer.
3 Bishop Bull, also, makes a remark on Purgatory, which applies well to the
doctrine of Restoration, as injurious to morals. He calls the doctrine of Pur-
gatory '• a gross imposition, that hath been, I am persuaded, the eternal ruin
of thousands of souls for whom our Lord shed his most precious blood, who
APPENDIX. 45
The words " everlasting " and "forever" in Scripture, do not al-
ways mean without end. All admit this. " The everlasting hills,"
" he shall be his servant forever" and many such expressions, show,
that the words indicate a duration corresponding to the nature of the
object, or subject. Every intelligent reader knows this.
But there is such a thing, such an idea, as having no end; there is a
proper eternitij. Of course, there are \vords to express the idea. This
is certain — the same word is used to denote the duration of punish-
ment, which conveys the idea of the only proper eternity of which the
Bible speaks.1
But as to Gehenna, Dr. George Campbell says, —
" That Gehenna is employed in the New Testament to denote the place
of future punishment prepared for the devil and his angels, is indisputable.
It occurs just twelve times. In ten of these there can be no doubt ; in the
other two, where the expression is figurative, ' child of hell,' and ' set on
fire of hell,' it will scarcely admit of a question that the figure is taken from
that state of misery which awaits the impenitent.2 These two cannot be
considered as exceptions, it being the manifest intention of the writers in
both cases to draw an illustration of the subject from that state of perfect
wretchedness."
Our author's objection to there being any place called hell, is the
common one, and he thus expresses it : —
" One cannot easily see how the word [Gehenna, or the valley of Hinnom]
could pass completely over from an uncertain to a technical sense, so long
as the Jewish state remained, and the polluted valley was there, shedding
its historic and moral associations into the mind of the people of Palestine.
After the destruction of Jerusalem, the word could become unfixed from all
geographical restraints and capabilities, and wither up into a dry, Rabbinic
designation of a place of torment in the future world." — p. 23.
The idea is this : Gehenna could not, to the Jewish mind, in the
Saviour's days, have meant an unseen place of torment, because it was
might have escaped heil, if they had not trusted to a Purgatory." — English
Works, vol. i. p. 115.
1 Some inquire, why, in the last verse of the 25 th of Matthew, we read,
" everlasting punishment," and " life eternal" when one and the same Greek
word, it is said, is used in both parts of the verse. It is because the translators
preferred to use variety, rather than repeat the same word in a brief space.
The same thing is done in John iii. 15, 16 : " That whosoever believeth in
him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world,
that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should
not perish, but have everlasting life." The same Greek word is here trans-
lated by two different English words ; and this Greek word is that which is
translated everlasting, in connection with the punishment of the wicked.
2 Prelim. Dissert, vi. part 2.
46 GODISLOYE.
known that Gehenna literally meant that noisome valley near Jerusa-
lem ; but, in after years, the term may have come into use ; but it
could not have done so while the people saw the smoke ascending
continually.
A complete answer to this is found in the fact that Jerusalem
itself gave its name to heaven: " Jerusalem, which is from above"
— " the heavenly Jerusalem" &c. Lapse of time was not necessary
to grow the moss of sanctity over it, and thereby make it a synonym e
for heaven. We have abundant illustrations of the immediate trans-
ferrence of a name of a place, or thing, into the current phraseology
of the people then living, to represent something in morals or life.
Billingsgate, Coventry, to mention no others, are familiar instances.
But if the word was actually used ten or twelve times in the New
Testament to denote, as we must all confess, something besides the
literal valley of Hinnom, this disproves our author's theory ; whether
it was hell, or any thing else, which the word meant, in those
passages, so long as it did not mean the place outside of Jerusalem.
our author's reasoning fails. And that it did not mean that literal
valley, in these cases, is perfectly clear ; for one who should say to his
brother, Thou fool, was not cast into the valley of Hinnom. God
would not " destroy both soul and body" in the valley' of Hinnom ;
nor were the Pharisees concerned to " escape the damnation of" that
valley. Hence, Gehenna had, in the Saviour's time, given its name to
some other place ; — and where was it ?
Our author tells us, —
" There is no doubt that the Pharisees of the New Testament times
believed in eternal damnation. Let the doctrine receive all the strength and
respectability which such an indorsement can confer." — p. 23.
Great importance belongs to this admission, which is not in the
least diminished by the connection of the truth involved in it with
such bad men as the Pharisees. The great Teacher uttered his woes
against them for their errors ; but, had Jesus been a preacher of uni-
versal salvation, what awful reproofs would they have had from him
for so libelling the " infinite Father " as to teach eternal damnation !
Not a word of this, however ; on the contrary, he charged them with
making their proselyte " twofold more a child of Gehenna than "
themselves. This, from the lips of Him who was at that moment
reprobating their errors before the people ; but he did not say a word
against their belief in eternal damnation as being " unchristian and
unreasonable"
APPENDIX. 47
But the limits of these pages forbid more extended remarks. In
these " Two Discourses " we have the theory laid down that the ulti-
mate, perfect, and eternal happiness of every intelligent creature is
the first great law of the universe. To that idea the Bible must
conform. " Jesus was a poet ; " and all his imagery of punishment
means nothing more than wholesome discipline ; and Milton and
Shakspeare are quoted to prove and illustrate the nature of the
Saviour's figures of speech. There is no system of truth, so called,
in the Bible ; " asterisks," largely sprinkled in the pages of the
Saviour's words, would properly express his elliptical way of commu-
nicating truth; and the apostles are less systematic than Christ.
The Bible, we should judge, in our friend's view, is a glorious dis-
charge of brilliancy, such as we see in the " golden rain," or the flight
of several hundred " serpents " at once, in the pyrotechnic display ; or
like the sudden uprising together of a whole forest of birds, of all
plumages and songs. Every thing is for intellectual and moral exci-
tation, but fragmentary, and it cannot be pushed into a theory;
nothing is very certain, except that all is to be well. God, Christ,
heaven, hell, the Bible, human life, accidents, pain, death, every thing,
is, each and all, subservient to this primal law of existence — the eter-
nal happiness of angels, men, and devils. Judas, we should infer, is,
just now, and perhaps is to be for a long time, rather a bad piece of
statuary marble ; he requires exceeding great labor to chisel off from
his unpromising outside the veins and soft spots ; but he is good at
the centre ; and Judas will yet come out an ornament to the society
of heaven. It will therefore be good for that man, eventually, to have
been born. As for Satan, there is probably no such being ; he and
his hell are Oriental metaphors. In the great sweep of ages, sin and
sinners will exist only in history.
We shall, every one of us, somewhere, both preachers and hearers, for-
ever have personal experience of the truth or error of these views. As
we open the Book of Chronicles, for example, and in its lists of names,
the eye rests on one — let it be Adbeel, — it is interesting to reflect
that he, an immortal spirit, is this day pursuing his deathless career,
with a personal history infinitely precious and important to him. So
with each of us. It is a cause of gratefulness, therefore, to find one's
self on that side of a question like this where, even if it be the wrong
side, we are safe, according to the opposite theory. Great obligations
are upon us who believe those momentous things. One is, not to be
lofty or repulsive towards others, but to remember that our word is
48
GOD IS LOVE.
called the word of 'reconciliation.' And while we preach endless
punishment, salvation from it, through a Redeemer, is to be our great
theme. Hope does more to save men, if Christ be set forth as
the ground of it. than wrath. If we believe more than others,
if we receive what we deem ' the whole counsel of God,' we should
ponder our steps, lest, after having believed, and especially having
preached, such things, we should only have sealed our OMrn hopeless
doom. Let those of us who preach these truths, therefore, make full
proof of our ministry. We are, every Sabbath, helping to save men
from the wrath to come, or causing them to be without excuse, if
they perish forever. "AND WHO is SUFFICIENT FOR THESE THINGS ? "
•V A. 3L XJ A. B 11, E
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