Is "eternal" punishment endless? : answered by a restatement of the original scriptural doctrine, by an orthodox minister of the gospel

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UMVERSAUST HISTORICAL SCM
TUFTS COLLEGE, MASS.

IS "ETERNAL" PUNISHMENT

ENDLESS?

ANSWERED BY

A RESTATEMENT OF THE ORIGINAL SCRIPTURAL

DOCTRINE,

BY AN

ORTHODOX MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL.

The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but those things which are
revealed belong unto us, and to our children, forever, that we may do all the words
of this law. — Deuteronomy xxix. 29,

SECOND EDITION.

BOSTON:
LOCKWOOD, BROOKS, AND COMPANY.

381 Washington Street.
1878.

Copyright, 1876, by

LOCKWOOD, BROOKS, AND COMPANY.

BOBTOJI.

\-

ml

CONTENTS.

PAOI

Introduction vii

CHAPTER I.

Does the New Testament teach the Endlessness of Future
Punishment in Explicit Terms ?

The most important text, Matt. xxv. 46. — The important word
ambiguous. — Its meaning dependent on its connection. — Ap-
plied even to time ended. — An assumption corrected. — Avoid-
ance by the New Testament of terms by which the Greek, like
the English, can express endlessness with precision. — Mean-
ing of the primitive word, aon. — Its Biblical use derived from
the Hebrew. — Its use and signification in the New Testament.
— Another assumption corrected. — Forever not always for
ever. — What needs to be shown. — Additions of our trans-
lators to the original of the Scripture. — Nothing to be as-
sumed. — Wresting the Scripture. — Three texts open to
question. — Proof-texts to be weighed. — A suggestive syn-
onyme. — The bias of preconceptions. — Dr. Tayler Lewis's
concession 1-32

CHAPTER II.

Does the New Testament teach the Endlessness of Future
Punishment by Direct Implication ?

The strongest implication is the apparent " aspect of finality." —
Texts quoted. — These texts agree with more than one theory
of the future. — A finality, but how much of one ? — The point

iv CONTENTS.

illustrated from the Garden of Eden. — The Scripture language
variously construed. — Not contradicting a doctrine not the
same as proving it. — Hasty inferences. — Racking the lan-
guage of emotion or parable. — Logic out of place. — Judas.

— "The Unmerciful Servant.*' — Warped conclusions, how
reached. — Other perverted texts. — " The Last Judgment.'*

— The strongest argument examined. — An important ques-
tion. — Is the fundamental idea of the cardinal word (aeo;iian)
quantitative or qualitative? — Texts examined. — The quali-
tative idea fundamental. — Perpetuity not asserted, but a pos-
sible inference. — The resting-place of the argument. — Future
Punishment a terrible certainty. — Its duration a mystery . 33-50

CHAPTER III.

Is THE Endlessness of Future Punishment to be inferred
AS THE Natural Result of Sin ?

Changed nature of the inquiry at this point. — What the punish-
ment of sin essentially consists in. — " ^Eonian destruction.*' —
The question which is suggested. — The phenomena of re-
morse. — Alternatives and objections. — The " Sin unto Death."

— A remarkable omission. — Twofold meaning of " Death."

— A possible explanation. — The extent of our certainty. —
Our liberty of belief 51-62

CHAPTER IV.

The Historical Objection.

The presumption against new readings of the Bible. — Form of
the Historical Objection. — Revising our interpretations. —
The history of opinions respecting the damnation of chil-
dren. — Ancient ideas of justice. — Mitigations through the
doctrine of Purgatory. — Augustine's theory of damnation. —
Common fallacy of the appeal to th6 Greek Fathers. — Testi-

CONTENTS. V

mony of the earliest Creeds. — Justin Martyr's testimony. —
Polycarp. — Irenaeus's testimony. — The Alexandrian School.

— The School of Antioch. — Neander's testimony. — Decisive
influence of the Emperor Justinian L — Hindrances to scien-
tific reinvestigation hitherto. — Dr. Doderlein's testimony. —
The appeal to Jewish opinions. — Christ's reserve. — The
Historical Objection evaporated. — The conclusions of this
Essay historically confirmed 63-83

CHAPTER V.

Restorationism.

A possibility of hope. — Two considerations to qualify this
hope. — Three texts open to question. — "The Spirits in
Prison." — Professor Hadley's criticism. — Testimony of the
American Unitarian Association. — Ominous silence of the
Gospel. — The utmost of reasonable hope is faint . . . 83-90

CHAPTER VL

Adjustments and Readjustments.

Consistency of the views of this Essay with a Trinitarian theol-
ogy. — Their consistency also with efforts to save souls and to
convert the heathen. — They do not weaken the sanctions of
the Divine law. — A remarkable feature of the laws of Moses.

— Practical results of the traditional view balanced. — An ex-
aggerated doctrine creates skepticism. — The best antidote to
heresy. — Estimate of the present practical usefulness of the
traditional doctrine. — The Biblical doctrine as here presented
more useful. — Its salutary moral impression. — Present incon-
sistent attitude of orthodox churches. — The duty of orthodox
scholars to reinvestigate the subject in a free and scientific
method 91-102

Index of Texts referred to 103

Appendix 105

Td. Kpunrd. Kopi<i)T<p Oe^ "^ficaVj rd dk tpavepdi ijiiiv Kal roTq
ri/Cvotg ijiM&v el<; zbv alaJva^ Ttocetv Travra rd /STJfiaTa rod vt^fiou

TOUTOU,—J>eXLt, XZix. 29, JJiX,

PREFACE

TO THE SECOND EDITION.

DURING the year that has elapsed since the publication
of the first edition (written and offered to the publishers
at a time when I was expecting to continue in the pastoral
office), an unexpectedly large number of clergymen, in various
orthodox denominations, have, by letter and in conversation,
assured me of their substantial accord with, or strong inclina-
tion to, the view presented in this Essay. It has, indeed,
thus far, as I suppose, been read chiefly by clergymen, and
among these, as I have been told by one of them, " it has done
its work." While the laity, comparatively seldom called upon
to explain or defend the traditional doctrine, have had but a
dormant interest hitherto in investigating its grounds, the
clergy, on the other hand, have at all times a special interest
in such investigations, because constantly required by object-
ors to vindicate that doctrine as an article of revelation, and
to reconcile it with our faith in a mercy that " endureth for-
ever." From many of these defenders of this faith comes to
me the response, " If your conclusion is no more than a nega-
tive one, it is still to be hailed with joy. The precious gospel
at least is relieved from responsibility for the tremendous
propositions which Calvin," etc. [See Appendix £.]

via PREFACE.

>

Among the few criticisms that have been made there are
none that require further reply, than to request a more attentive
reading of the argument through the first two chapters. No
reply, that I am aware of, has been attempted to the main
argument from the history which the fundamental words, ceon
and CBonian, have in the language of the Bible.

A persistent effort, however, is made to turn the edge of the
exegetical argument by the mere inference, that if heaven is
endless, hell must be, because the two states are presented in
parallel language in Matt. xxv. 46. (See pp. 46-50.) The in-
consistency of such reasoners a very few words will demonstrate.

On the one hand they say to the annihilationist, who urges
his literal interpretation of the terms life and death y that life
is not mere being, but well-being ; death not mere loss of
being, but ill-being. Here, evidently, they claim that life and
death, as terms applied to the future state, denote a kind, not an
amount, of existence ; that is, are to be taken as qualitative, not
quantitative terms.

But, on the other hand, they say to one who doubts whether
the duration, as distinct from the character, of future punish-
ment has been revealed, that ths promise of endless life to the
righteous requires us to infer from the antithesis that the
punishment of the wicked will be endless also. They insist
on the endlessness of this punishment as a vital point, and
some enthusiastic advocates go so far as to place it on a level of
importance in the evangelical system with Christ's Atonement
for sin. Here they cross over to the position of the annihila-
tionist, just combated, that life and death in Christ's teachings
are quantitative terms, rather than qualitative ; they assert,
what they had just before contradicted, that an amount, rather
than a kind, of existence is the primary thought of the
Master.

PREFACE. IX

The inconsistency of such reasoning sufficiently discredits
the inference which attempts to turn the point that exegesis
establishes.

It is quite one thing to admit (as this Essay most distinctly
admits in Chapter III.) the tendency toward permanence that
character, whether sinful or righteous, always exhibits ; and
another thing to assert, dogmatically, that a perfect parallel
exists between the processes of spiritual life and the processes
of spiritual death; or, that the unnatural development of sin
must be endless, because the development of righteousness
will be endless. If it be antecedently as probable^ that God
will evermore uphold in being a soul irrecoverably involved in
the processes of" aeonian destruction" (2 Thess. i. 9), as it is
that He will perpetuate, according to a specific promise Qohn
xiv. 19), the immortality of a soul healthfully developing the
" aeonian life " received through Christ ; then, and not other-
wise, the inference of an endless misery from an endless
happiness may have some rational foundation.

There are indications that the free and scholarly discussion
of this whole subject, which it was the original mission of
this Essay to call out (p. loi), is no longer to be delayed.
The demand ©f theologians who have done up their thinking,
that questions which they have settled shall not be reopened, is
apparently not respected. It is always a privileged question,
whether or no the church has been unintentionally " lying for
God," by representing that God has revealed a thing which He
has not revealed. This only is the question to which this
Essay responds by a simple investigation of the facts, -^ all
rhetoric and speculation put aside.

But should it appear, from the facts, that the endlessness of
future punishment has been revealed with considerable clear-
ness, there would then remain this further question : whether

X PREFACE.

such an article of faith stands in that vital relation to Christ's
system of revealed truth, in which, for instance, the doctrine
of justification through faith stands ; whether any doubt or
dissent as to the duration of hell so touches the heart of the
evangelical system of truth, that it should disqualify for the
ministry of the Word the same as doubt or dissent as to the
fact of Christ's Vicarious Sacrifice. If, as seems probable, a
strong argument could then be made against exclusion, how
much stronger, if the position reached by this Essay should
appear tenable.

A desirable freedom of thought may be somewhat aided by
remembering that these two questions are distinct, and to be
separately treated, although the second must constantly appear
in the background of the previous question, now pressing with
unusual urgency and interest on thoughtful minds : What
does the Bible really say of the duration of future punish-
ment f

Upon this main issue, — with which alone this Essay is con-
cerned, — one can hardly have observed the uncertainty, the
vacillation, the dissatisfaction and dissent, widely spread and
still spreading among the clergy of the orthodox denomina-
tions, in regard to this subject, without having some such
thought as this come into his mind : That if the progress
of discussion should finally give to all an assurance that the
endlessness of hell was not actually taught by Christ, there
would not only be a general feeling of relief from a heavy bur-
den, but a general consent to regard the superseded belief as
an odious nightmare of medieval ignorance and superstition.

James Morris Whiton.

WiLLiSTON Seminary, Eastbamfton, Mass.
December 31, 1877.

INTRODUCTION.

'X*HE Bible was once supposed to give authoritative instruc-
■■" tion on some subjects on which it is now generally con-
ceded to be silent. It was once supposed that the Bible
taught a theory of the universe at variance with the Copernican
astronomy. The true pattern of civil government has also
been regarded as exhibited in the laws of Moses. But the
progress of enlightened views respecting the application of
the Bible to the subjects of human study has uniformly been
in the direction of contraction. It has gradually been learned
that the Bible was not given to teach all truth whatsoever, but
merely all truth needful for our salvation from sin.

The general question respecting the relations of the Bible
to Science seems destined to receive fresh illustration in the
discussion of ^* Eternal Punishment." It is a fit question for
any reverent student of the Bible to propose, whether the
Bible was intended to teach us about Eternity any more than
about the Universe ; whether an infinite duration is not as
much beyond the Bible's actual scope as an infinite space ;
whether the Bible really designs more than to conduct us to
the verge of a mysterious infinitude, leaving all the possibili-
ties of the apparentiy boundless sea, upon which it bids us
A>ok and ponder, to be solved by our experience.

While this Essay deals largely with the inquiry, whether

xil INTRODUCTION.

the original language of the Bible respecting the future state
has been correctly interpreted, yet taking our English Version,
so excellent in the main, precisely as it stands, a question of
the highest moment demands answer. A thoughtful reader,
ignorant of every language but his mother English, and de-
clining to enter into vexed questions of the interpretation of
Greek and Hebrew terms, can yet hardly avoid some such in-
quiry as this : If the Bible speaks of future punishment as
" everlasting," does it speak with scientific precision any more
than when it speaks of the sky as a " firmament," that is, a
solid vault like a great dish-cover, and of this " firmament "
as " dividing " the waters above it from the waters beneath
it (Gen. i. 6, 7) ? Unless, then, we are prepared to let the
devil have, with "all the good tunes," all the scientific in-
quiry into the exact meaning of the Bible, then that inquiry
must be both undertaken and befriended by devout believers
in the divine authority of the Bible. And such inquiry, in
order to reach the truth and command respect, must be per-
formed in a spirit as free as skepticism itself from all the
bias of human tradition and dogmatic authority.

The conclusion reached by this Essay is, in general, that of
Nescience, viz : That the Bible, while teaching Future Pun-
ishment in terms sufficiently explicit and severe for the pur-
poses of moral government, does not positively declare the
duration of that punishment. An unbiased criticism by the
best light that modern scholarship affords does not accept the
sense which tradition has attached to some of the words of
Scripture upon this subject. The Bible, however, reveals no
restoration of " the lost." It casts no ray of hope upon the
future of him who has wasted the present life. But, on the
^ther hand, it does not assert the absolute endlessness of his
punishment. Endless it may be, so far as any divine word to

INTRODUCTION. xiii

tht contrary has reached us. But, after the fullest searching
of the Bible teachings, a cloud of impenetrable mystery hides
the ultimate lot of the wicked, — a mystery so plainly full of
woe that it is likely to prove quite as salutary for moral pur-
poses as any precise and clear disclosure.

Controversy has been far from the writer's aim, which has
been simply to develop and restate the original doctrine of
the Bible. Written at first solely for the eye of a dear rela-
tive, who desired to know the utmost that God, as distinct
from some of His expositors, required her to believe respect-
ing the future state of lost souls, these pages are now, at her
suggestion, offered to that large class of inquiring minds in the
evangelical churches, who, with the most unswerving loyalty
to the Written Word, are yet in doubt whether the sound of
that Word, as it has thus far reached them upon this subject,
is free from commingling voices of human error.

But if any reader be inclined to complain, after reading this
Essay, that it has added nothing to things previously known,
the writer would remind him, that it is often as serviceable to
the cause of truth to define the limits of our knowledge, as to
extend them. To be assured what one is not required to be-
lieve is often helpful to a doubt-encompassed soul, and vital to
its victory in the conflict between faith and unbelief. Igno-
rant must he be of the phases of religious experience, who
does not know that in this way many a struggling swimmer
may be lightened of a weight that threatens to engulf him in
the depths of infidelity.

To the foregoing it needs only to be added, that the object
of this Essay is a mere inquiry \viX.o facts. No entrance is de-
signed into the metaphysical and ethical arguments which the
subject invites, and by which it is often perplexed, but simply

xiv INTRODUCTION.

an inquiry into the answer which the Scripture returns to the
question, Is " Eternal " Punishment absolutely endless f Sin-
cerely and devoutly confessing the supreme authority of the
Written Word in regard to the question of human destiny, we
are now to seek for its simple testimony unencumbered with
the "extra-belief" which results from the ignorance or the
arrogance of dogmatizing interpreters.

Since the very nature of the inquiry before us is such that
some dry discussion must be encountered at the outset, the
suggestion is here made, that those who find the first chapter
too hard to begin with may perhaps acquire the requisite edge
of interest by first perusing the fourth and the sixth.

If any reader, having thought but little on the subject, is
disposed at first sight to criticise the title of this Essay as
proposing to solve a sort of identical equation, as if " eter-
nal " necessarily means the same as " endless," he will gain
direct insight into the matter by referring to page 55.

IS
ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

CHAPTER I.

DOES THE NEW TESTAMENT TEACH THE ENDLESSNESS OF
FUTURE PUNISHMENT IN EXPLICIT TERMS ?

OBVIOUSLY, there are many passages in our Eng-
lish Testaments which read like clear and posi-
tive declarations of the endlessness of future suJffer-
ings. At the head of the list stands Matthew xxv. 46,
" These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but
the righteous into life eternal." The question that im-
mediately starts up is, whether our translators have here
correctly represented the original words of the Lord. Here
we are necessarily obliged to enter into what may seem
to some a dry discussion, viz, an examination of the
proper signification of a word belonging to a dead lan-
guage. It is, however, so necessary to apy clear and
correct decision of the point in question, that few who
are at all interested in the main subject will lack interest
in examining the hinge on which the controversy may be
supposed to turn. The matter is, moreover, capable of
being presented, as will be the endeavor of these pages.

2 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

in a way that is easily followed by the unlearned
reader.

The words " everlasting " and " eternal " stand in our
version as the equivalents of the single Greek adjective
aliavLov {aidnion). This we can anglicize at once by a
word which Tennyson has recommended to English ears,
— *' (Bonian,^^ "Ionian punishment " and " aeonian life "
are set forth as the opposite destinies of the righteous
and the wicked. What, then, is the exact meaning of
this important adjective ?

The adjective osonian is derived from the noun ceon
(atdiv), which has often been taken to mean eternity.
What it exactly means we shall see by and by. Thus
much may be said at present, — granting that the noun
ceon may mean eternity^ then the adjective oeonian would
mean belonging to eternity^ and ceonian punishment might
mean the punishment that takes place in eternity (without
any intimation as to its duration), as well as the punish-
ment that lasts through eternity. Of this, more at another
stage of our inquiry. It is to be admitted here (a point
to be again referred to), that the adjective ceonian had
some reference to duration. The question now to be put
is this : Did it regularly and strictly refer to endless dura-
tion ? In answering this question we have to examine
the New Testament in the light of the Old.

The Old Testament was translated during the third
and second centuries before Christ from Hebrew into
Greek. The version so made, called the Septuagint
(from the number of scholars alleged to have been em-

THE IMPORTANT WORD AMBIGUOUS. 3

ployed upon it ; septuaginta = seventy), was the Bible of
the Apostles. About six sevenths of the quotations
from the Old Testament in the New seem to have been
made directly from the Septuagint — designated by the
numeral LXX. The language of the LXX. moulded the
language of the Apostles. The use of a word in the
LXX. is a help to. understand its use in the Gospels and
the Epistles. If the word (Bonian has not a strict and
uniform reference to endless duration in the LXX., then
we shall need a decisive reason for assigning it such a
meaning in the New Testament.

We are well aware that this statement starts in the
minds of some readers an objection which, for them,
dooms it in advance ; of that objection, however, account
will be made, as soon as the point now raised has been
fairly presented.

Now, in the LXX. we find that iBonian, as far as it may
be taken to refer to duration, has a more or less extensive
sense according to the word joined with it. We find it as
an epithet of God in Genesis xxi. 2iZ'> where we read that
Abraham " called on the name of the Lord, the everlast
ing (ceonian) God." The exact force of the epithet here
will appear by and by. So far as the idea of duration is
found in it, the word is obviously required by its con-
nection here to be taken in the most extensive sense.
But we find the same word applied to a variety of things
that are not strictly everlasting. In Genesis xvii. 8, the
.and of Canaan is given to Abraham and his descend-
ants " for an everlasting (ceonian) possession." In Num-

4 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

bers XXV. 13, Phinehas and his posterity are granted " the
covenant of an everlasting {ceoniari) priesthood.'' The
book of Proverbs (xxii. 28) forbids the removing of "the
ancient {cBoniati) landmark which thy fathers have set."
Habakkuk (iii. 6) sings, " the perpetual (ceoniari) hills
did bow.'* Thus, with varying shades of meaning, the
epithet osonian may denote the eternity of God, or the
continuance of an inheritance, an office, a boundary, or
a hill. In each case the epithet derives its variable exten-
siweness from the word joined with it. The aeonian hills
are deemed more everlasting than the aeonian landmark,
and God only everlasting in the strict sense of the term.
Our own word everlasting itself has this variable meaning
according to the connection in which it stands. We say
of a person who dwells during the prevalence of an epi-
demic in a state of constant apprehension, that he is
" tormented by everlasting anxiety ; " and again we
speak of some who are carried off at the same time as
" gone to their everlasting reward," and no one is misled
by the varied use of the word, because the connection in
each case defines it.

Such, then, being the variable use of the word oeonian
in the LXX., the popular Bible of the Apostles' time, how
can we be certified that with reference to future punish-
ment it denotes, in the Apostles' writings, an endless dura-
tion ? We ought to have some decisive ground for con-
cluding that they use the word any differently than their
Bible had taught them to use it. Will it be said, that the
New Testament does not apply the word to the things of

EVEN riME ENDED IS "iEONIAN." 5

this life, like the Old, but almost wholly to the things of
the life to come ? It might even then be begging the
question to assume that everything in the future state is
endless. But, on the contrary, the New Testament some-
times applies the term ceonian to the ages past^ as in 2
Timothy i. 9, " before the world began " (literally " be-
fore aeonian times," an expression like the LXX., Psalms
Ixxvii. 5, " aeonian years," Eng. Ver., " years of ancient
times"). In such connections, certainly, if the word de-
notes duration at all, it is duration ended rather than end-
less} We do not see how any conclusion can show
greater reason than this, that as in the Old Testament
;50 also in the New, the extent of the epithet ceonian must
be settled, if at all, by the connection in which it stands.
In regard, then, to this most important text, whether we
understand that " aeonian punishment " means simply the
punishment taking place in eternity^ — a translation that the
highest scholarship approves, — or whether we think that
the word has some reference also to duration, we are far
from obtaining from this word ceonian any testimony to

^ Compare here Titus i. 2, which literally reads : *' in hope of aeo-
nian life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before aeonian times."
While cBonian, as joined with life^ refers to the present as extending
indefinitely into futurity^ in connection with times it denotes certain
definite periods of the past. So in Romans xvi. 25, " which was kept
secret since the world began " (literally, in seonian times), we have
the word again in reference to measurable periods of the past which
have come to an end. The idea that aon (aiiiv) is distinctively timeless
and immeasurable, is inconsistent with this use ofaoniau as an epi-
thet of //Vw^.'*

6 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

the endlessness of future punishment. Where the English
version seems clear and decisive, the original is ambig-
uous and indefinite. We must look elsewhere for the de-
cision of the point here left in doubt.

But an objection is made of which notice should be
taken here.

The Rev. H. M. Dexter, D. D., in his " Verdict of Rea-
son " (pp. 125, 126), quotes as "very pertinent and con-
clusive" the following remarks of Prof. S. C. Bartlett,
D. D., in his work on " Modern Universalism " (p. 82).

" Universalists make much parade of a few instances
in which the Hebrew term for * everlasting ' denotes
something less than absolute eternity, as * the everlast-
ing hills.* But the phrase, when applied to future time,
always denotes the longest duration of which its subject is
capable, * Everlasting hills * are those which will con-
tinue to the end of the world. * He shall serve for-
ever,' /. e,y during the longest period of which he is ca-
pable, his whole life. Hannah devoted Samuel to the
Lord * forever ' (i Sam. i. 22) ; /. ^., he was never to re-
turn to private life. * An ordinance forever,* is one
which lasts through the longest possible time, /. <?., the
whole dispensation of which it is a part. Such cases,
few in number, do not contravene in spirit the scores
of instances in which it signifies absolute eternity, the
original and proper sense of the termy

The Professor's language is slightly inaccurate. " Ab
solute eternity " is without beginning, as well as without
end, but he uses the phrase as synonymous with mere

AN ASSUMPTION CORRECTED. 7

endlessness. Let that pass, however. It is remarkable
that he does not see that he takes for granted the very
thing to be proved. If we should accept his assump-
tion that " aeonian punishment " is punishment that lasts
as long as it is capable of lasting, the very point on
which we need information is. How long is that f How
long, with reference both to the desert of punishment,
and the nature of the punishment, and the capacity of
the sufferer to endure punishment, and the character of
Him who appoints the punishment? What right have
we to assume with Dr. Hodge,* that the soul " is in its
own nature imperishable ? " — an assertion which, did
it not come from so high a source, might be deemed
irreconcilable with the Apostolic declaration, that God
" only hath immortality." ^ Or, with regard to the pun-
ishment merely, what right have we to assume that that
punishment is capable of lasting forever ? If Professor
Bartlett thinks we ought to know that from the mere
word (Boniariy he ought to know, that not only " Univer-
salists," but some very considerable scholars of the ortho-
dox faith, do not agree with his assertion, that " absolute
eternity " is " the original and proper sense of the term."
It is well to make here a note of the fact, which
seem to have been strangely ignored, that the Greek,
like the English, has its appropriate words to express
with precision the idea of endlessness. When the end-
lessness of future punishments was first declared to be

1 Syst, Theol. iii. 876.
* I Timothy vi. x6.

8 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

an article of the orthodox faith in the middle of the sixth
century (see Chapter IV.), the word ateleutetos (drcXcunTros
— endless) was employed for that purpose,* a word not
found in the New Testament, though quite classical.
The word endless is found in our version in i Timothy i.
4, — " endless genealogies," where the original is aperan-
tos (airipavToq — interminable), and also in Hebrews vii.
1 6 — " endless life," where the original is akatalutos
(dicaTciXvTos — indissoluble). It is a very natural supposi-
tion, that such words could have been used, guarded with
suitable qualifications, as in English, to express the idea
of absolute endlessness, if it had been desired to make
it appear that future punishments were indeed without
end. And can it be regarded as accidental and insignifi-
cant, that the sacred writers never employed such terms
in describing the future state, but confined themselves to
what appears thus far as an elastic and ambiguous word
— (Bonianl

The fact that the New Testament writers have rigidly
declined to avail themselves at all of the ample resources
of their own language to express the idea of an endless
punishment with the definiteness that modern theologians
so easily give to it, has not been thought worthy of much

1 *' The Holy Church of Christ teaches an endless aeonian life for
the righteous, and an endless punishment for the wicked." — Letter of
the Emperor yustinian to the Patriarch Mennas, Jf aonian by itself
means '* endless," why was it defined by prefixing ateleutetos, which
also means "endless?" (See the Rev. E. Beecher, Dw D., in the
Christian Union, September 17, 1873, P* 236.)

MEANING OF THE PRIMITIVE WORD. 9

notice by advocates of the traditional view. But it is,
beyond all question, a fact that demands to be accounted
for before proceeding to fabricate out of a single ambigu-
ous word, of so varied application as this ceonian^ a test
either of doctrinal orthodoxy or of church-communion.

We shall get, however, a more clear and exact under-
standing of this cardinal word by examining the noun
{Bon (aliov) from which it is derived. Ionian strictly
denotes that which relates or belongs to ceon^ or an oson.
What then is this ?

It is needless to follow controversialists into an exami-
nation of the heathen Greek writers to find out the
meaning of this word ceon in the Scriptures. From the
most ancient times downward, it frequently signified the
life or age of man. Taking the Greek writers through-
out, it certainly has no one invariable signification, being
used now by a philosopher to express the idea of unlim-
ited duration, and now by a poet to denote the spinal
marrow. The Biblical sense of the word, though not
without example in the classical, is distinct from it on the
whole, and quite peculiar, as it is used by the LXX. as
the equivalent of the Hebrew ^olam (sbiv)^ ^Olarn in
the Hebrew Testament very frequently meant a world-
period or cycle,

Ecclesiastes i. 4 — The earth abideth forever, literally,

for the ^olam^ or cycle ; LXX. for the ceon.
Psalm cxlv. 13 — Thy kingdom is an everlasting king

1 See Appendix.

lO IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

dom j literally, a kingdom of all ^olams, or cycles ;
LXX. of all the ceons.
Exodus xl. 15 — Their anointing shall surely be for an
everlasting priesthood ; literally, for a priesthood of
^olam^ or a cycle ; LXX. a priestly anointing for the
CBon.

In this last instance, the ^olam, cycle, or ceon, closed, as
we see by comparing Hebrews vii. 11, 12, at the end of
the Mosaic dispensation.

Again,

Psalm cxliii. 3 — Those that have been long dead; lit-
erally, the dead of ^olam, or, as we should say, " the
dead of ages ; " LXX. the dead of cBon,**

The word ceon accordingly retains in the New Testa-
ment this peculiar Hebraistic color which the LXX. had
given to it. The reader not familiar with Greek can take
in by a glance at the foot-note^ the various significations
of the word in the New Testament

1 Compare Matt. xxviiL 20— With you always even unto the end

of the world (end of the ison).

Mark iv. 19 — The cares of this world (cares of the aon).

Luke i. 33 — Shall reign over the house of Jacob forever (for the

aons).
John iv. 14 — Shall never thirst (shall not thirst for the aon),

John ix. 32 — Since the world began (since the aon).

Acts iii. 21 — Since the world began (from or of aon [as we say "of

yore''^),

Romans xii. 2 — Be not conformed to this world (to this aon).

THE NEW TESTAMENT USAGE. 1 1

An examination of all the passages of the New Testa-
ment in which the word occurs will yield the following re-
sults : —

1. That it denotes a period of duration.

2. That it is used very frequently, much more often
than by the classic Greek, in the plural. This fact is in
the way of the assertion that aon has inherently the idea
of infinite duration, for only finite things can have the

I Cor. ii. 7 — Which God ordained before the world (before the
aons),

1 Cor. X. II — Upon whom the ends of the world (of the aons) are

come.

2 Cor. xi. 31 — God .... blessed for evermore (for the etons).
Eph. ii. 2 — Walked according to the course (the teon) of this world.
Eph. ii. 7 — In the ages (aons) to come.

Eph. iii. 21 — Throughout all ages world without end {fo all the gen-
ercUions of the ceon of the ceons).

1 Tim. i. 17 — The King Eternal (King of the ceons [a reminiscence

of Ps. cxlv. 13, ** Thy kingdom is a kingdom of all the aons" or

Heb. i. 2 — He made the worlds (the aons),

Heb. ix. 26 — In the end of the world (the consummation of the

aofts),
Hejb. xi. 3 — The worlds were framed (the aons were prepared).

2 Pet iii. 18 — To Him be glory both now and forever (now and to a

day oicBon).
Rev. iv. 9 — Who liveth forever and ever {to the aons of the aons).

There is hardly need to call attention here to the difference between
the use of *' aons ** in the Scriptures to denote periods of duration, and
the later use of the term, in the nonsense of the Gnostics, to denote
** the ideas of the eternal spirit-world ** — such as wisdom, power, etc
'— conceived as emanations from the Deity.

12 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

plural. We can not speak of the coming eternities. But
Paul speaks (Eph. ii. 7) of " the ages (ceons) to come." ^

3. That the present world-period or course of things,
is spoken of as this cBon^ or the ceon^ or an ceon,

4. That the period or course of things which is imme-
diately to succeed the present is likewise called that ceoUj
or the ceon^ or the coming ceon,

5. That4)ast duration, the course or courses of things
that have preceded the present, is called the ceon, or the
ceons, or simply ceons.

1 " The time sense [of 'olamim], worlds after worlds ^ .... was a
conception peculiarly Shemitic, barely found, if at allj among other
ancient peoples, and giving rise to those pluralities of ^olanty and after-
wards oiaotiy which can be accounted for in no other way, since the
conception of absolute endlessness as etymological in ^olam, or aon,
would clearly have prevented it. It is this idea which so refutes the
assertion of Stuart (Comment, Eccles, xii. i) that *time divided is
not strictly predicable of a future state.' He means that all duration,
before or after the present worlds as we call it, must be regarded as
one continuous blank, or unvaried extension of being. There are not
only no days and years, such as measure our 'olam, but no aeons, or
world-times, in that greater chronology. This certainly is not the
Scripture mode of conception, or such language as we find would
never have arisen, or such pluralities as *olamim, aeons, or their redu-
plications, ages of ages, worlds of worlds, exactly like the space
pluralities, heaven of heavens. Such is the Scripture conception.
.... And reason sanctions it. What a narrow idea that the great
antepast, and the great future after this brief world, or *olam, has
passed away, are to be regarded as having no chronology of a higher
kind, no other worlds, and worlds of worlds, succeeding each other in
number aud variety inconceivable." (Dr. Tayler Lewis, Excursus on
Ecclesiastes i. 3. Lange^s Com, p. 47.)

ANOTHER ASSUMPTION CORRECTED. 1 3

6. That future duration, in its whole compass, is de-
scribed as a succession of aeons. (See Appendix B.)

7. That the regular phrases for unlimited duration, —
for the cBons^ or for the c^ons of the (Bons^ strictly denote an
indefinite succession of these finite periods or aeons.

8. That there is no single word that regularly carries the
meaning of our word eternity.

At this point it becomes necessary to criticise the as-
sumption that the phrase eis ton aiona (cis tov aiuiva — for
the aeon), translated in our version " forever," as in John
vi. 58, " uniformly denotes endless duration." If this be
so, then the adjective ceonian, if we could also assume that
it is " uniformly " the equivalent of that plirase (an as-
sumption not likely to pass unquestioned), would un-
doubtedly signify endlessness. We shall not need, how-
ever, to test the correctness of this last hypothesis, until
we have tested that which it depends upon, and which is
advanced, not only by Professor Bartlett, but by an au-
thority no less than Dr. Jlobinson's "New Testament
Lexicon."

It requires some confidence to dissent from a scholar
of such fame as Dr. Robinson, but his assertion, that the
phrase, " for the aeon," is to be regarded as " always im-
plying duration without end " (Lex. p. 21), can be quickly
tested. Dr. R. cites, as instances of this meaning, all
those passages in the Epistle to the Hebrews which speak
!)f Christ as " a priest forever " (for the aeon), as Heb. v.
6. But the priesthood of Christ being, according to the
Westminster Catechism, one of the three offices which

14 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

Christ as our Redeemer executes, continues only as long
as His redeeming work continues. It ends when the re-
demption is accomplished. So Professor Stuart, a high
authority, remarks upon Hebrews v. 6 : " * For the cean '
is to be taken in a qualified sense here, as often else-
where, e, ^., compare Luke i. 33 with i Cor. xv. 24-28.
The priesthood of Christ will doubtless continue no longer
than His mediatorial reign ; for, when His reign as media-
tor ceases, His whole work both as mediator and as priest
will have been accomplished." (Comment. Heb. p. 340.)
Let us try another citation which Dr. Robinson offers
in proof of his assertion, that the words " for the aeon '*
always imply duration without end. Christ promises to
His disciples : " I will pray the Father, and He shall give
you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for-
ever (for the aeon), even the Spirit of Truth " (John xiv.
16). The whole representation of the Mission of the
Comforter limits His special office to the period (aeon),
during which — Christ being gone to prepare a place for
them — the disciples would need the Comforter in His
stead. The Comforter abides with them during the ab-
sence of the departed Lord " for the aeon," until He come
again, and receive them to Himself. As God^ the Holy
Ghost will of coiu'se be with the Christian " world without
end " (to all the generations of the aeon of the aeons) ; *
but as Comforter, He is promised, specifically, only " for
the aeon " in which the disciples would otherwise be left
** comfortless." ^

1 Eph. iii. 21. * John xiv, 18.

/

FOREVER NOT ALWAYS FOR EVER 1 5

Dr. Robinson cites again, i Peter i. 25 : " The word of
the Lord endureth forever" (for the aeon). It is true
that Gk)d's word stands even for the aeons of aeons, but in
view of the passages just examined, it may be doubted
whether we are required thus to intensify the statement of
the Apostle. His thought, as the context shows, is
simply this : that (so far from being of transitory force)
God's word to the world stands to the world's end. This
is certified by a comparison of Deuteronomy xxix. 29, the
things which are revealed belong to us and to our children
forever " (Hebrew^r ^olam : J^'X.'^.for the ceon). The ex-
tent of " the aeon " is defined by the immediately follow-
ing words : " that we may do all the words of this law " —
as the period during which the Mosaic revelation was to
be obeyed, /. <f., the period of the Mosaic dispensation,
which ended eighteen centuries ago.

For a passage in which our translators have stamped
upon their version this limited signification of eis ton aidna^
see I Cor. viii. 13 — "I will eat no meat while the world
standeth " (for the aeon). The fact is, that the New Testa-
ment use of the phrase exactly corresponds to the Old
Testament use of it in the LXX., where, as Dr. Tayler
Lewis observes, " immense extremes " occur " in the use
of the word." He cites for comparison Exodus xxi, 6,
the servant who does not wish to be freed " shall serve
his master forever " (for the aeon) ; and Deut. xxxii. 40,
where God says, " I live forever " (for the aeon). Here
temporal servitude and Divine existence are compre-
hended within the elastic limits of the same phrase.

l6 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

Compare John viii. 35, and xii. 34. In English also, we
often use the word *' forever " with exclusive reference to
the present world, — precisely as the Scripture often em-
ploys eis ton aidna^ — as in legal phraseology, ** to his heirs
and assigns forever." The result of a critical analysis of
all the passages where the phrase occurs is this : It uni-
formly denotes, not " duration without end," but perma-
nent duration, permanent according to the nature of the sub-
ject^ covering in one case merely the period during which
a blasted fig-tree stands,^ and in another, the eternity of
our Lord.^ To affirm that it always implies duration
without end, is as contrary to fact as to affirm that it
never does.

As to any inference respecting the duration of punish-
ment that might be drawn from the point just made —
that eis ton aidna denotes permanence according to the nat-
ure of the subject y compare the criticism already made upon
Professor Bartlett's inference from the similar sense of the

^ Matt. xxi. 19.

* 2 Peter iii. 18. The reader who has been assured by certain or-
thodox dogmatists, that nobody questions their traditional interpreta-
tion of the original language of the New Testament on this subject,
except a few heretics, or sentimentalists, who cannot endure the plain
positiveness of Holy Writ, will appreciate the coolness of that as-
sumption after reading Dr. Tayler \jtyfi\%*^ Excursus on the*Olamic
or Ionian words in Scripture in Lange^s Commentary on Ecclesmstesy
pp. 44-51, a contribution to the discussion of the subject, which,
coming, as it does, from a scholar whose great learning is combined
with an unquestioned orthodoxy, has been surprisingly ignored by
writers on the orchodox side for the last five years.

WHAT NEEDS TO BE SHOWN. IJ

derivative ceonian, (See pp. 6, 7.) It is not a thing to be
assumed, in advance of clear proof from Scripture, that
the nature of the subject is such, that a word or phrase of
varying import must, whenever applied to future punish-
ment, always be interpreted in its widest possible extent.
If it be assumed (i) that the "aeonian punishment " means
punishment forever; and (2) that this "forever " means
as long as the person who is punished exists ; it remains
to be shown, (3) that his existence itself is endless, be-
fore his punishment can be positively declared to be an
absolutely endless one. And the passage of Scripture
that affirms this (3) yet remains to be discovered.

It seems, then, that the adjective ceontan^ neither by itself
nor by what it derives from its noun cBon, gives any tes-
timony to the endlessness of future punishment. Futurity
being represented in the New Testament as a succession
of aeons, "aeonian punishment," so far as the phrase
itself can carry its own interpretation, is altogether of
indefinite duration, all that the definition " aeonian " gives
with any certainty being this, that the punishment be-
longs to^ or occurs in^ the aeon, or the aeons, to come.

It has always been taken for granted, however, that
the epithet ceonian, instead of denoting a kind of punish-
ment, denotes an amount of punishment, punishment not
so much occurring in, as lasting through, a future period
or state. Which of these two, the qualitative or the
quantitative, is the fundamental signification of the epi-
thet, is a question of great moment in this discussion.
We shall presently make a strong objection, to the tradi-

l8 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

tional preference of the quantitative idea. But at pres-
ent we will see what further evidence there may be in its
favor. So far as we have looked into it, the quantitative
idea, namely, that ceonian punishment must mean punish-
ment of a certain length or amount, is an assumption
which needs to be verified, if it can be, by other testi-
mony from the Scriptures.

In proceeding now to this, it barely needs remark, that
none of the words denoting or describing future punish-
ment, which we find coupled with the epithet ceonian^
such as " aeonian yfr<? " (Matt, xviii. 8); or "aeonian dam-
nation " (Mark iii. 29, where a more approved reading is
"aeonian sin"), or "aeonian judgment" (Hebrews vi. 2),
adds any further definiteness to the indefinite adjective ;
indeed, the phrase, "aeonian destruction" (2 Thessa-
lonians i. 9), needs the constant vigilance of the tradi-
tional school to rescue it from the abuse of the annihila-
tionists.

The evidence which we must now look farther for, as
to the extent of the epithet thus far indefinitely applied
to future punishment, may be sought for partly in explicit
statements, and partly in the implication of statements
that are not so explicit. In what remains of the present
chapter we will examine the first-mentioned class, reserv-
ing the other class for the next.

As to explicit statements, there are some which in our
version are as decisive as the noted text already exam-
ined, but in the original language become as indetermi-
nate as that. For instance, we read in Mark (ix. 43) of

A DOUBTFUL WORD. I9

"the fire that never shall be quenched." The word
" never " is a contribution of our translators to the origi-
nal asbestos (aa-fitarofi). This may be translated "un-
quenched " as correctly as " unquenchable." And even
if we call it " unquenchable," this word is equally open
to a limited or an unlimited interpretation. We often
say that a conflagration " raged with unquenchable fury,"
meaning that it could not be quenched till its material
was consumed. The epithet asbestos, "unquenchable,"
is applicable to a fire that lasts very long, or a fire that
is for a time beyond all control, as fairly as to a fire that
is literally endless. How do we know that the latter is
the real meaning of our Lord's word ? ^ The original of

1 Dr. Hodge, in his System of Theology (iii. 877), well exemplifies
the ease with which an assumed meaning can be read into Scripture.
He sa3rs-: " It is to be remembered that, admitting the word * ever-
lasting ' to be ever so ambiguous, the Bible says that the worm never
dies, and the fire is never quenched. We have therefore the direct
assertion of the word of God that the sufferings of the lost are unend*
ing." A more unfounded statement could hardly be made. To illus-
trate this, let us suppose the correctness of the doubtful statements
that in the valley of Hinnom (Hebrew, Gehenna) the worm-breeding
offal and filth of Jerusalem were consumed by ever-burning fires. It
is certain that to such a place (whether a real or an imaginary place
makes no difference) the words, " where their worm dieth not and
the fire is not quenched " (Mark ix. 48), could be applied with literal
correctness. But no one would find the idea of absolute endlessness
in such an expression. How, then, could Dr. Hodge find in the ex-
pression as figuratively used a " direct assertion " of endlessness
which is not in the expression as literally used, unless he should im-
port it furtively from his imagination, or some more reliable extra-

20 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

the imagery employed in the Gospel is found in Isaiah
Ixvi. 24, where the prediction, " neither shall their fire be
quenched/' has reference to the destruction of " the car-
casses" of rebels, until which is accomplished it is un-
quenchable. In order to make the epithet " unquencha-
ble ** denote anything more in the Gospel, it has to be
assumed that the destructive processes of future punish-
ment will never be accomplished. But we are limiting
our inquiry to that which is revealed,

A similar addition to the limited force of the original
has been made by the translators in Mark iii. 29, " hath
never forgiveness," etc The original, in the most ap-
proved text, reads, " hath not forgiveness for the aeon,
but is involved in an aeonian sin." The idea is stated
more explicitly in the parallel text in Matthew xii. 32,*
where the original, fairly rendered in our version, reads,
"it shall not be forgiven him, either in this aeon, or in
the one to be." It is remarkable that St. Augustine him-
self derived from this text the idea, that in the coming
aeon some would obtain forgiveness who were unforgiven
in the present, an idea from which the majority of mod-
ern Protestants dissent, though following him in most
other matters of faith.^ However, we have observed that

neous source ? Such text-stuflSng is as much of a fraud in its way,
however unconscious, as ballot-stuffing.

1 " For it would not be truly said of some, that they are forgiven
neither in this age (seculo) nor in the future, were there not some
who, though not in this, are forgiven in the future." See the passage
discussed in Lange's Comment. Matt. pp. 227-^29.

NOTHING TO BE ASSUMED. 21

the Scriptures speak of futurity as running its course
through "aeons of aeons.'* What then of him who finds
no forgiveness " in the aeon that is to be " after the pres-
ent ? Are we to assume that he will find it never in any
succeeding aeon ? We must abstain from unauthorized
assumptions. We must leave him where the Scripture
leaves him, without one ray of hope. No more is said of
him, whether he loses his very existence, through the de-
structiveness of his sin, or lives on to no end of conscious
misery, or, in some succeeding aeon, finds forgiveness.
Where nothing is revealed^ nothing is to be assumed. The
condition of such a soul is sufficiently wretched and des-
perate to become a most impressive warning to sinners,
without any need of our adding to the indefinite state-
ment an inferential woe, or attempting to fix the exact
depth of the abyss. We must not omit to notice, how-
ever, that the doctrine of endless misery is not the only
one which squares with the language of these two texts.
They are equally consistent with the theory of the anni-
hilationists, on whatever other grounds that theory may
be combated. So far from the absolute endlessness of
future punishment being taught by these two texts, that
is the very point which they abstain from pronouncing
upon.

Perhaps no text has been more strained beyond its le-
gitimate import, for proof of the endlessness of future
punishment, than John iii. 36, — " He that believeth not
the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth
on him." " Shall not see life ** is assumed to mean " shall

22 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

never see life." " The wrath of God abideth on him," is
assumed to be the same as "abideth evermore." The
text is declared to teach the unbeliever's irrecoverable
abandonment to the powers of punishment Thus have
orthodox men taught their opponents to "wrest" the
Scriptures. But compare i John iii. 14. " He that
loveth not his brother abideth in death." How long ?
So long as he " loveth not his brother." No one presses
the extreme inference that every unloving soul 'n this
world ** abideth" irrecoverably "in death." What war-
rant have we for treating the other " abideth " any differ-
ently ? What reason to assume that it refers to a state
after death, any more than a state before death ? What
reason for assuming that it denotes in any case an irre-
coverable state under " wrath ? " It is an abuse of the
text to make it declare an)rthing more than the truth that
shines on the face of it, namely, that " he who believeth
not the Son shall not see life," while he remains- in unbe-
liefs " but the wrath of God abideth on him," so long as
he continues an unbeliever. Any other interpretation would
condemn to final ruin every person in the world who is at
present not a believer in Christ. And this is the sort of
evidence on which many good people are content, through
the force of unreflecting habit, to rest the tremendous
burden of the doctrine of an absolutely endless punish-
ment.

There are, however, three texts in the New Testament,
in which the form of words elsewhere denoting unlim-
ited duration is used in what seem to be descriptions
of future punishment.

THREE TEXTS OPEN TO QUESTION. 23

A. " The smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever
and ever (for seons of aeons)," Rev. xiv. 11.

B. " And her [Babylon's] smoke rose up (literally, rises
up) forever and ever (for the aeons of the aeons)," Rev.
xix. 3.

C. " And the devil [with the beast and the false proph-
et] shall be tormented day and night forever and ever
(for the aeons of the aeons)," Rev. xx. 10.

" Here," exclaims an advocate of the endlessness of
future punishment, " is an end of all controversy. What
language could be plainer, and what more conclusive ? "

If, however, one undertakes to deal with the subject as
an investigator, rather than as an advocate, he will find
this apparently plain and conclusive testimony involved
in some very reasonable doubts, which are by no means
to be superciliously treated, in the style of some modern
dogmatists, as the cavils of an unbelieving spirit.

It is noticeable, whether significant or not, that the
only apparently positive declarations of the absolute end-
lessness of future punishment occur in that one book of
the New Testament which all concede to be the most
figurative and enigmatical of all. But let us examine
them.

The first two, (A) and (B), may be considered as one.
The original of the imagery is found in Isaiah xxxiv.
10, where it is predicted, as one particular of the judg-
ment to come upon the land of Idumea, "the smoke
thereof shall go up forever " (Heb. " for ^olam ; " LXX.
" time for the aon "). The New Testament prophet sira-

24 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

ply intensifies the ancient figure to " aeons of aeons." But,
of course, neither Isaiah nor John meant literal smoke.
The " smoke " of torment means a sign of torment, just
as smoke is a sign of fire. A sign of torment, or punish-
ment, then, is to " rise up " forever and ever. Here, now,
if we no more desire to exaggerate the declarations of
Scripture than to evaporate them, we have to ask the
question, — Does this mean any more than that the pun-
ishment is to be so signal, so memorable, that its sign, or
memorial, rising up in remembrance, will be before intel-
ligent minds forever ? We find probable warrant for this
view in Jude 7, where we read that, " Sodom and Go-
morrah .... are set forth for an example, suffering the
vengeance of eternal (ceonian) fire." The fires that de-
stroyed those cities sooii ceased to burn. But so signal
was the catastrophe, so proverbial in after ages became
the names of Sodom and Gomorrah, as perpetual monu-
ments of wrath, though buried out of sight, that the tran-
sient fire-storm which overwhelmed them became, in the
living uses of history and of moral instruction, a fire
truly ceonian, the same in moral effect as a fire literally
everlasting.^

The remaining text (C) is unique. The devil, the
beast, and the false prophet (who- or whatever may be

1 A commentator no less orthodox and judicious than Barnes re-
marks in his Notes on this passage : " The destruction was as entire
and perpetual as if the fires had been always burning." Does not the
quasi sense belong to the aeonian phrase as fairly in one text as in the
other ?

PROOF-TEXTS TO BE WEIGHED. 2$

denoted by the last two of this infernal trinity), are to be
"tormented day and night forever and ever." The ex-
pression is so far different from the preceding that, in-
stead of the sign of torment, the torment itself is described
as perpetual. Whether the thought is materially changed
by so slight a change in the expression we cannot be so
certain without further examination. But taking the
words at their face value, as we are bound to take all the
words of Holy Writ, it appears that those three great ene-
mies of God (who, by the way, do not seem to be human
beings) are to be tormented endlessly. Are we now to
take this as a literal statement of fact ? The question is
forced upon us by the context, where we read that
" death and hell {Hades, elsewhere meaning the place
of departed souls) were cast into the lake of fire " (verse
14). Is not either one of these neighboring expressions
probably just as literal, or just as figurative, as the other ?
Or must we believe that John mixed things here, so that
the plainest prose and the most high wrought poetry
stand in contiguity, with no sign of transition to guide
the interpreter ? Certainly, if it be true, as a statesman
has said, that " votes should be weighed as well as
counted," equally should proof-texts. And it is a ques-
tion of which every scholar, at least, will feel the force :
How many such proof-texts from the poetical imagery of
a book of promise, written for the consolation of a mar-
tyr-church, would be sufficient to counterbalance the
omission, from Gospel or Epistle, of the single plain di-
dactic statement that we are searching for ?

26 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

It is to be remembered, in a critical estimate of the real
value of doctrinal proof-texts from John's Revelation, that
there is no other book of the New Testament in which
commentators elsewhere concordant disagree so much.
When interpreters can better agree respecting the expli-
cation of its symbolic language by the facts of past history^
they may with more confidence resort to its metaphors
for proof of a doctrine which lacks other proof in the
New Testament. We cannot, therefore, accept this sin-
gle text, whose highly figurative context, as well as the
unknown character of two of the personages it speaks of,
involves its interpretation in such uncertainty, as fur-
nishing sufficient ground by itself, in the absence of
decisive testimony from the plainer parts of Scripture,
for recognizing the endlessness of the " aeonian punish-
ment " as an article of the Christian faith. The ruling
out of such evidence does not disprove the endlessness of
that punishment, but simply obliges it to seek more sat-
isfactory proof before admission to unquestioned belief.

There is, however, a text in the Epistle of Jude (verse 6),
which some quote as possessing special weight. " The
angels which kept not their first estate .... he hath
reserved in everlasting chains .... unto the judgment
of the great day." The value of this text is thought to
lie in its supplying a decisive synonyme of the uncertain
term ceonian. For " everlasting " does not stand here as
the equivalent of monian^ but for a word didios (dtStos),
which we may anglicize as dtdian. Here, it is said, we
have a synonyme for ceonian, whose meaning is clear;

A SUGGESTIVE SYNONYME. 2^

didian is a word applied to the eternity of God (see Ro-
mans i. 20), " even His eternal {aidian) power and God-
head."

It is to be noticed that these two texts, the latter of
which is taken to interpret the former, are the only ones
in the New Testament that contain the word didian. If
now it be assumed that didian regularly denotes that
which is strictly everlasting, then we are met by a ques-
tion that ought to be answered : " Why, with this word
at hand, to give precise expression to the idea of endless
duration, have the sacred books never employed it with
reference to the future of the human race, but Always the
indeterminate word ceonian 1 For instance, in the very
next verse (7), Jude, in speaking of the punishment of
Sodom and Gomorrah, drops the word didian^ just used
with reference to the angels, and takes the word ceonian^
2l change scarcely noticed in our version by the change
of " everlasting " to " eternal." jEonian and didian may
be used interchangeably in the writings of Plato, but
they are not in the writings of the Apostles ; in these the
futurity of mankind is only ceonian.

Professor Bartlett pronounces the occurrence of aidian
here (in evidence, as he assumes, that ceonian is the same
as endless) to be " singular and startling." His wonder
suggests to us a further wonder. If didian has the mean-
ing of endlessness any more clearly and strictly than
ceonian^ then the entire avoidance of this clearer and
stricter term throughout the New Testament as descrip-
tive of human destiny in the future state is certainly very
" singular," even if not actually " startling."

28 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS? •

It might, however, be regarded as even " startling," if,
after all the reliance that has been placed upon this pas>
sage, it should turn out that a limited interpretation is here
attached to didian by its context. What if Jude only
meant to affirm that the imprisonment of the fallen angels
is " everlasting " until the Judgment ! — thus leaving the
after ages unspoken of. This is Barnes's view, who
remarks in his " Notes," " This passage does not in itself
prove that the punishment of the rebel angels will be
eternal, but merely that they are kept in a dark prison
.... which is to exist forever with reference to the final
trial." What is to be after that, is stated, Barnes adds,
in Matthew xxv. 41.

The result of our inquiry thus far is, that the texts which
in our English Bibles appear to teach in the plainest
manner the endlessness of future punishment, do not
seem to teach it in an exact and unprejudiced interpreta-
tion of the original. The utmost that can be said is, that
they leave the duration of future punishment indetermi-
nate ; they abstain from saying that it is absolutely and
literally endless. It may be endless, notwithstanding ;
there may be other evidence ; we have still to examine a
large class of passages which are thought to teach it by
implication. And we are, if possible, to study them with-
out any desire to make them prop a previously adopted
belief. Such a desire is a prejudgment which cannot
fail to warp the ultimate conclusion.

If, fully persuaded by tradition, or in any other way, of
the endlessness of future punishment, we come to the

THE BIAS OF PRECONCEPTIONS. 29

New Testament to look up proof-texts for it, we find pre-
cisely what we are looking for, and in great abundance.
There are a great many passages in the New Testament,
into which a mind already imbued with that doctrine can
easily put the same, because the language is elastic, and
indecisive. The fact that skeptics have declared that the
Bible teaches endless punishment, is sometimes pointed
out as proof that the Bible does teach it ; an unfair con-
clusion, however. It makes no difference whether one
be a Christian or a skeptic ; if he goes to the Bible to look
for a doctrine which he already thinks to be there, he
will be quite likely to read his preconceptions into the
sacred book, instead of reading God's communications
out* of it. Nor does the fact that a man is a skeptic, — if
by that word unfriendliness to the idea of a supernatural
revelation is denoted — make him any more acute a dis-
cerner of the exact meaning of Scripture texts. But if
we can keep ourselves sufficiently clear of preconceptions
to study the Bible in a tolerably scientific spirit, regard-
ing only what is written^ stripped of all the dogmatizing
that theologians have overlaid it with ; if we endeavor to
recognize the simple objective truth of the Divine word as
unmodified by our own or others^ subjectivity ; if we study
the Bible with a candid willingness that it deliver a testi-
mony at variance with our traditions ; it is possible that
we, — like those before us, who have had their astronom-
ical and political and ecclesiastical and theological mis-
conceptions of Biblical teaching modified by study, —
shall find some of our preconceptions less strongly sus-

30 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

tained by scriptural authority than we had supposed.
When the texts, which, in the common version of the
New Testament, have stood as the Gibraltar of the dogma
of endless punishment, are tested by a rigorous and im-
partial exegesis of the original language, it is found that
they by no means require us to believe that doctrine,
however they razy permit us, without protest, if we have
found other reasons for it

The changed views of the interpretation of the words
that have hitherto been regarded as decisive, which are
now spreading among scholars in the orthodox churches
and ministry, are illustrated in the following remarks
of Professor Tayler Lewis. They are introduced here
both as comment on the preceding criticisms, and as a
text for our following inquiry respecting what the New
Testament teaches by implication on the subject before
us.

" It may be thought that this view of Warn and ceon as
having plurals, and therefore not in themselves denoting
absolute endlessness, or infinity of time, must weaken the
force of certain passages in the New Testament, espec-
ially of that most solemn sentence, Matthew xxv. 46.
This, however, comes from a wrong view of what consti-
tvites the real power of the impressive language there
employed. The preacher, in contending with the Uni-
versalist, or Restorationist, would commit an error, and,
it may be, suffer a failure in his argument, should he
lay the whole stress of it on the etymological, or historical
significance of the words ceon, ceoniaUy and attempt to

DR. TAYLER LEWIS'S VIEWS. 3 1

prove that, of themselves, they necessarily carry the mean-
ing of endless duration. There is another method by
which the conclusion is reached in a much more impres-
sive and cavil-silencing manner. It is by insisting on
that dread aspect of finality^ that appears not in single
words merely, but in the power and vividi^ess of the lan-
guage taken as a whole. The parabolic images evidently
represent a closing scene. It is the IcLst great act in the
drama of human existence, the human worlds or aeon, we
may say, if not the cosmical. It is (Matt. xiii. 39) the end^
the settlement^ the reckoning of the world, or more strongly
(Heb. ix. 26), " the settlement of the worlds," when ** God
demands again the ages fled," Eccles. iii. 15. At all
events, our race, the beni ddhdm^ the Adamic race, the
human ceon^ or world, is judged ; whether that judgment
occupy a solar day of twenty-four hours, or a much longer
historic period. There comes at last the end. Sentence
is pronounced. The condemned go away eis kolasin
aidnion^tht righteous, eis zoen aidnion. Both states are
expressed in language precisely parallel, and so presented
that we cannot exegetically make any difference in the
force and extent of the terms. Aidnios, from its adjec-
tive form, may perhaps mean, an existence, a duration,
measured by aeons, or worlds, just as our present world, or
aeon, is measured by years or centuries. But it would be
more in accordance with the plainest etymological usage
to give it simply the sense of ^olamic or cBonic, denot-
ing, like the Jewish ^olam habba, the world to come, * These
shall go away into the punishment [the restraint, imprison-

32 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

ment] of the world to come, and these into the life of
the world to come.' That is all we can etymologically or
exegetically make of the word in this passage. And so
is it ever in the old Syriac Version [a. d. 100-150], where
the one reading is still more unmistakably clear : * These
shall go away to the pain of the 'olam, and these to the
life of the 'olam.* " (Excursus on Eccles. i. 3. Lange's
Comment p. 48.)

CHAPTER II.

DOES THE NEW TESTAMENT TEACH THE ENDLESSNESS OF
FUTURE PUNISHMENT BY DIRECT IMPLICATION?

PERHAPS the strongest apparent implication of the
endlessness of futiire punishment may be thought to
lie in what Dr. Lewis, as quoted at the close of the pre-
ceding chapter, calls " the aspect of finality " in which the
New Testament portrays the future portion of the wicked.
There can be no doubt that the New Testament repre-
sents the result of the present life as a finality, at least for
an indefinite period. This is taught, literally, and figur-
atively, by a great number of texts. He who heard, and
did not as Christ bade, was to suffer the utter overthrow
of his house by the winds and waters (Matt. vii. 26, 27).
Those who failed to go in with the bridegroom, and so
came late to the feast, found the door shut, and no reply
to their entreaties but, " I know you not" (Matt. xxv. 12).
He who neglected the wedding garment was cast, bound,
" into outer darkness " (Matt. xxii. 13). After death, an
impassable gulf was " fixed " between happy Lazarus and
tormented Dives (Luke xvi. 26). Whatever demurrers any
critics may offer to the traditional application of these
figures to the future world, rather than to the present,

34 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

they are to remember that Christ affirmed in the plainest
speech, " if ye believe not, ye shall die in your sins."
" Whither I go ye cannot come " Qohn viii. 21, 24). He
explicitly showed the danger that a man might "lose
himself, or be cast away" (Luke ix. 25). So the Apostle,
after likening apostates to land that bears only thorns,
" whose end is to be burned " (Heb. vi. 8), goes on to say
expressly, that for such " there remaineth no more sacri-
fice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment
and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries "
(Heb. X. 25, 26). The invariable teaching of the New
Testament is, that the judgment proceeds, and the future
is assigned, according to "the deeds done in the body " (2
Cor. V. 10). Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him
will I confess also before My Father who is in heaven.
But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also
deny before My Father who is in heaven " (Matt. x. 32,
33). All such passages readily favor the doctrine of the
endlessness of that state of future rejection to which they
refer. In order, however, to be accepted as positive
proof of that doctrine, something more is necessary that
they should seem to agree with it. As unbiased critics,
who seek iox proof texts rather thzxi pretexts, we are bound
to ask, whether that doctrine is the only doctrine with
which such passages agree. It is necessary to know what
interpretation such passages exclude, as well as what they
may include. And we are obliged to acknowledge, that
the theory of the endlessness of future punishment is not
the only theory that will agree with the language of despair

A FINAUTY — HOW MUCH OF ONE? . 35

which the texts now before us employ. If the wicked
were ultimately to be annihilated as the result of * aeonian
punishment/* that prospect would agree equally well with
the hopelessness of the tone in which their punishment is
foretold.

Grant now that the New Testament represents the re-
jection and misery of the wicked in the future state as a
•finality. This no one will venture to deny with regard to
the generril current of thought, whatever he may endeavor
to make out of a few texts that seem to form an eddy of
the current (for reference to which see Chapter V.). The
question that now meets us is, whether this finality is
relative or absolute. Does it cover merely an indefinite
period^ however protracted, or rather duration that never
comes to a period 1 Is it a finality for a single " aeon," ^ or
more, or " for the aeons of the aeons ? " If the punish-
ment of the wicked were to be perpetuated for an aeon, or
aeonian period, of great duration, that prospect might not
be inconsistent with the scriptural representation of the
disposition made of the wicked at the last day as a final-
ity. A finality, no doubt, but how much of one Ms the
question which we now reverently put to the Holy Or-
acle.

We are aware that, in proportion as the traditional
interpretations are regarded as conclusive, this question
may seem uncalled for, and even irreverent, as if God
had already spoken too plainly to be misunderstood ex-

1 Compare again Mark iii. 29, " hath not forgiveness for the aou,
but is involved in osanian sin."

36 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

cept by unwilling ears. The reasonableness of our inquiry
may appear, however, from a glance at another appar-
ently absolute finality of doom, that was less of a finality
than it seemed about to be. God originally said to
Adam, " In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt
surely die " (Genesis ii. 17). To Adam, who knew of
death only what he had seen in animals, this must have
seemed an absolute finality. And yet Adam would have
been mistaken in constructing out of that apparently
conclusive word die a. speculative doctrine of extinction,
based upon the patent " aspect of finality '* which that
word of penalty depicted to him. On the one hand, the
sentence was bitterly fulfilled in a way unknown to Adam
till- disclosed by sad experience ; and on the other hand,
God did not, by the terms of His threat, preclude Him-
self from acting as emergency might arise.

Looking forward, then, into the indefinite succession
of the " aeons," we ask. Is there any clear decisive word
of Scripture that shuts us up to the certainty that the
result of the present life is an absolute finality to " the
lost ? " ^ ^ — a term which, in passing, we may notice does
not, as used in Scripture, always express finality, being
applied even to some who in this world get saved, as in
Luke xix. 10. Here is the point, where a strict and can-

1 Such Scripture phrases as "lose his own soul" (Matt. xvi. 26),
" lose himself or be cast away " (Luke ix. 25), although they cannot
fairly be claimed in the exclusive interest of the annihilation theory,
are yet, so far as ** the aspect of finality " is concerned, as congruous
with that theory as with the traditional doctrine.

LANGUAGE VARIOUSLY CONSTRUED. 37

did interpreter of Holy Writ, unwjlling to be " wise above
that which is written," is likely to collide with a dogma-
tism that insists on having everything settled. We have
already noted the fact, that the annihilationist view of
those passages which speak of the doom of the wicked
as without hope is as easily reconcilable with their lan-
guage as is the traditional view. And even restoration-
ists contend with some plausibility that their views are
not contradicted and excluded by the tone of despair in
which the lost are spoken of. While many of them
concede that no restoration of the lost has been re-
vealed, so that no such doctrine can be preached as the
word of the Lord (see Chapter V.), yet, say they. Sup-
posing that the restoration of any of the lost were pos-
sible, it is by no means certain that such a hope would
have been revealed before an experience of that loss,
any more than the redemption was revealed to Adam in
advance of his experience of sin and its deadly work.
If we point to the declaration, " there remaineth no
more sacrifice for sins" (Hebrews x. 26), we are chal-
lenged to show conclusively how far forward this " no
more " reaches. Admitting that this " no more " repre-
sents the " fiery indignation which shall devour the ad-
versaries" as having then become inevitable, it is still
denied to be identical with an absolute nevermore. We
are also reminded that when Christ warned some of their
final state, " Ye shall die in your sins ; whither I go ye
cannot come" (John viii. 21), He abstained from utter-
ing the conclusive never ^ which would sentence them to

38 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

a strictly endless rejection. Even under the supposition
of a possible restoration of some^ but not all, it is still
urged, might not the disadvantageous and wretched and
desperate situation of the lost, as a class, be such as fully
to warrant the despairing aspect of finality in which the
New Testament depicts their doom ?

We do not see, then, how a strict and candid criticism
can deny that the class of texts now to be examined are,
so far as can be judged by the specimens cited, reason-
ably consistent with, at least, more than one theory of the
future. No one theory of the future can therefore be
allowed to assert an exclusive claim to them as invali-
dating all contending theories. An examination of the
particular texts that have been held to teach by implica-
tion the endlessness of the " aeonian punishment " will
show merely that they do not contradict it. The sort of
exegesis that has made them serve as proof-texts for pun-
ishment absolutely endless is the same sort that has
often quoted Genesis i. 26, " Let us make man in our
image," in proof of the doctrine of the Trinity. But as
accurate learning increases, the disposition lessens to use
the words of Holy Writ as a balloon to float any mean-
ing that we please to attach to them.

For an example of the dogmatizing that has forced this
class of texts beyond the plain sense, we may cite John
v. 29. On this text, " they that have done evil to a res-
urrection of judgment " (English version, " the resurrec-
tion of damnation"), Lange indulges in the following
comment : " A resurrection from death temporal to death

HASTY INFERENCES. 39

eternal. Who can realize the awful ideal" (Comment,
p. 192.) The idea of the Divine Judgment of wicked
men is, indeed, sufficiently awful and real. But the idea
of " death eternal " is so wholly imaginary in this passage,
that we may well despair of " realizing " it just here, ex-
cept by the aid of that lively fancy to which the learned
commentator seems for the moment to have surrendered
his sober judgment.

In like manner it has been too hastily inferred, from
the "great gulf fixed" (Luke xvi. 26) between Lazarus
and Dives, that Dives himself was " fixed " (Greek, " made
fast ") forever in the " place of torment." Professor Bart-
lett, in his recent tract, thus moralizes on the situation of
Dives : " If even in Hades, before the resurrection and
the judgment, all help and hope are so utterly excluded,
how shall it be in gehennay after the resurrection of the
body, the 'resurrection of damnation,' and the final judg-
ment ? " We answer : Equally bad, if not worse ; but it
is singular thai Professor Bartlett does not see that this
judgment story does not begin to touch the question.
How long are all help and hope to be "so utterly ex-
excluded," and Dives to be " tormented in this flame ? "

The scene appears to be laid in the middle state be-
tween death and final judgment, and " fixed " may sig-
nify what is unalterable during that state, according to
the old maxim that, " as death leaves us, so judgment will
Snd us." Nothing whatever is said of Dives's condition
beyond the middle state. The situation, therefore, ap-
pears to be parallel to that of the angels in Jude 6, and

40 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

Barnes's comment upon that is equally pertinent to this.
(See p. 28.)

If there is any subject on which expositors of the Bible
should be strict constructionists, it is in regard to those
partly revealed matters of the Divine administration which
lie beyond the veil that separates "the things unseen
and eternal " from " the things that are seen and tem-
poral." These things preeminently " belong to the Lord
our God " (Deut. xxix. 29). Only what He has plainly
spoken can we speak with assurance. But when we pro-
ceed to draw inferences from our certainties here to God's
secrets therey it behooves us to be on our guard, lest we
assume to speak for God where He is silent ; we are to
take nothing for granted, lest we say what may misrepre-
sent God.

When, however, the language of emotion, or of para-
bles, has been put upon the rack of strict construction,
the testimony elicited has been uncertain or contradic-
tory. Such is the testimony which some suppose to be
given by Christ's remark about Judas (Matt. xxvi. 24) :
"It had been good for that man if he had not been
born." Dr. Lange notes appreciatingly the special ap-
plication of the sa)ring to " that man." ^ To which may be

^ " The Woe pronounced on Judas, — It were better for him that
he had never been bom. This is held, and rightly so, to prove the
perdition of the traitor. But when his endless perdition is estab-
lished by this text, and the words are taken literally, orthodoxy must
take care lest the consequence be deduced that it would have been
better for all the condemned generally never to have been bom, and

LOGIC OUT OF PLACE. 4 1

added, that a reasonable doubt exists whether we are jus-
tified in putting this gush of strong indignant feeling into
the retort of logic, and undertaking to distill Olshausen's
inference, that Christ could have anticipated only an end-
less misery for Judas, because any ultimate obtaining of
everlasting happiness would render it a blessing to have
been born. Keen logic, but out of place in our igno-
rance of the special thought that prompted Christ's re-
mark. He spoke as He felt in view of what He saw
coming upon Judas. Who of us is competent to say
what it was in Judas's situation that then most impressed
the Master's heart ? The remark is, however, be it ob-
served, as consonant with the theory of Judas's ultimate
extinction, as with the theory of his endless punish-
ment

Nay, more, can any one fairly deny that Christ's re-
mark about Judas is applicable, with reference merely to
the present life, to men whom society has determined to
put in the pillory of " shame and everlasting contempt ? "
(Daniel xii. 2.) Is it not perfectly just to say of a traitor
like Benedict Arnold, with reference solely to his in-
famous place in his country's history, " It had been good

evil inferences be drawn as to their creation. But our Lord's ex-
pression cuts off such abstrcLct discussions ; it says only that it were bet-
ter that he, * that man,* had never been born We should

feel and realize the full force of this most fearful word ; yet, without
overstraining it, remembering that it is no ^na/ judicial sentence^ but
a burning expression rather of infinite pity." (Comment, on Matt.

P- 473)

42 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

for that man if he had not been born ? " So the poet
makes guilty Queen Guinevere to say in her despair, —

" Shall I kill myself ?
What help in that ? I cannot kill my sin,
If soul be soul ; nor can I kill my shame ;
No, nor by living can I live it down.
The days will grow to weeks, the weeks to months.
The months will add themselves and make the years.
The years will roll into the centuries.
And mine will ever be a name of scornP

But in the parable of the Unmerciful Servant (Mat-
thew xviii. 23-35), attempts at strict construction have
led interpreters of different schools in opposite directions.
In verse 34, "delivered him to the tormentors till he
should pay all that was due," Universalists have found
restorationism, Romanists their purgatory, Calvinists the
doctrine of an endless punishment — all in the pregnant
monosyllable //'//. The Universalist and the Romanist
assume, that the debt will sometime be paid ; the Calvin-
ist assumes, that it never can be paid. And so, con-
troversialists on opposite sides press the same " ////," as
if it were the key of the whole question. Surely such
word-play utterly perverts the parable, whose purpose was
simply to teach the doctrine which James (ii. 13) puts in
plain words, — " He shall have judgment without mercy,
that hath showed no mercy." As if our conclusions re-
specting the duration of future punishments at all depend
on what may or may not have happened to that prisoner,
%fter he disappeared from sight in the hands of "the

WARPED CONCLUSIONS — HOW REACHED. 43

tormentors ! " What if, in addition to the suppositions
already set up, he actually died under torment in the in-
terest of modern believers in annihilation 1

The history of the interpretation of such a passage ex-
hibits the spell which any prepossession as to the con-
tents of Scripture always casts upon the interpreter, how-
ever endeavoring to construe language strictly. In this
case, the general prepossession seems to have been the
idea, that the Scripture will pronounce decisively on the
duration of the " aeonian punishment." But for any one
to start with that prepossession to investigate the fact, is
as likely to lead to a warped conclusion as is any other
hearing of a case with the judgment formed in advance.

Another passage similarly misused is Matthew v. 25,
26, especially the last clause, " Thou shalt by no means
come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost far-
thing." Professor Bartlett, following Meyer, regards this
as teaching " an endless imprisonment," and that ** the
removal of sin from the prisoner is an impossibility."
Theodore of Mopsuestia, the greatest theologian of the
Eastern Church in the fifth century, •took just the op-
posite view : " For never would He have said, * till thou
hast paid the uttermost farthing,* were it not possible for
us, paying the penalty for our faults^ to be freed from
them." At the root of each view of the passage lies
the mistaken presumption, that it teaches something
i,bout future punishment and its duration. Curious in-
deed are the contortions of commentators to explain
on this presumption, who the " adversary " is. Clement

44 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

thought he was the devil, Augustine thought he was God,
and so on. But the reference of the text to future pun-
ishment at all is as imaginary as in that other text, which
is worth mentioning here only lest some reader should
suppose that we do not know how he relies on it, viz :
" If the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in
the place where the tree falleth there it shall be " (Eccl.
xi. 3). Lange's view is more sensible than Meyer's, viz :
" It embodies a principle of moral right in the form of a
symbolic ordinance " (Comment. Matt. p. 114).

Still another passage where the reference which some
think they find to a changeless future state is wholly for-
eign to the original thought, is in Rev. xxii. 11: " He
that is unjust let him be unjust still," etc. Lange (Com-
ment, p. 397) interprets as it follows : " If we seek for a
common fundamental thought that shall lie at the basis
of all four propositions, it is contained in the following
words : * Since the judgment is at the door, let every one
quickly prepare himself for it after his own free choice.'
That this very idea indirectly offers to the wicked the
strongest admonition to repent, is self-evident." Dr. N.
Adams very fitly remarks: "Among the closing words
of the Bible these accents fall on their ears like the last
notes of a bell that calls to the house of prayer." The
context (verses 10 and 12), certifies that this call is to an
immediate, present decision of the future state. That
this is an unalterable decision for an endless future, may
be true, but, as a conclusion from this text, it is to be
reached only by one of those surprising jumps by which

"THE LAST JUDGMENT." 45

some expositors are wont to leave their text far be*
hind.

The idea presented by the popular phrase, " the Last
Judgment," although this phrase is not biblical, has also
had its influence in the misinterpretation of Scripture.
The Scriptures represent that judgment as taking place
at " the end of the world " (aeon), so that it is the Last
Judgment with reference to things foregone^ and the
" aeon " then concluding. The remark of Schiller —
" The world's history is the world's judgment," is bibli-
cally true, and suggests in what sense " the judgment of
the great day " is the " last." The expulsion of mankind
from Eden, the Flood, the destruction of Sodom and
Gomorrah, the plagues of Egypt, the overthrows of Jeru-
salem, first and second, the fall of the Roman Empire,
the French Revolution, the American Civil War, were all
judgment days (or periods), forerunners of that which is
to be both the " last " in the series of the present aeon,
and also the most comprehensive and decisive of all.
But the obvious fact that the existence of sin does not then
terminate^ although put under restraint, throws some un-
certainty upon the assumption that the last judgment of
this aeon is also the last with respect to all the aeons of
the illimitable future. In this uncertainty, we seek in
vain for any clear word of Scripture to tell us whether
the finality reached at " the Last Judgment " is an abso-
lute and ultimate finality " for the aeons of the aeons," or
rather a finality at most " for the aeon " next succeeding,
our situation in which will then have been settled.

46 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

In summing up the testimony of the class of passages
now before us, it is not to be forgotten that in the tradi-
tional view they shine largely by borrowed light. They
have been read in the light of central texts, like Matthew
XXV. 46, which were once supposed to teach the endless-
ness of future punishment decisively. And were that
supposition correct, some of these secondary texts fall in
with a cumulative force almost tremendous. But the
darkening of the sun darkens the planets. The main ex-
egetical proof failing, the cumulative force of the argument
vanishes, as the value of a row of ciphers vanishes, when
the significant figure before them is taken away. Those
leading texts having actually no express declarations to
make of the endlessness of punishment, this second class
of texts, when separately interrogated and made to speak
to that point wholly by themselves, are found to have
nothing more definite to say.

In concluding this part of our investigation, we now
come to what many rely on as the strongest consideration
of all. It is said that the great text (Matt. xxv. 46), how-
ever indecisive its direct statement may be shown to be,
still teaches the endlessness of the " seonian punishment "
by the plainest implication.

The duration of the punishment of the wicked, it is
said, is directly implied by the admitted duration of the
reward of the righteous. " Both states," says Dr. Lewis,
" are expressed in language precisely parallel, and so
presented that we cannot exegetically mak^ any differ-
ence in the force and extent of the terms " (see pp. 30-

AN IMPORTANT QUESTION. 47

32). Certainly, the word aonian must signify as much
for the wicked as the righteous. If, then, " aeonian life "
denotes something that is strictly endless, why does not
" aeonian punishment " denote something just as strictly
endless ? The question is apparently conclusive, but the
counter-question remains to be put : Does the phrase
" aeonian life " primarily denote life of a certain lengthy
or life of a certain kindl The idea of duration is in-
volved in it, as will presently be shown, but is duration
the primary sense of " aconian " as a description of
" life ?" The point now raised is, whether the fundamen-
tal idea of the expression be quantitative or qualitative.
This point has already been suggested (see page 17),
but postponed till the present stage of the inquiry should
be reached. Thus far no exception has been taken to
the traditional assumption that in Matthew xxv. 46, and
other passages, the word ceonian is to be quantitatively
interpreted. But, even on this assumption, we have
failed to find either any positive statement, or any direct
implication, as to the duration of future punishment. If
it be said that ceonian denotes permanence according to
the nature of the subject, who shall decide exactly what
that requires (see pp. 6, 7) ? Or if it denotes duration in
the succession of coming aeons, who shall certify whether
it is duration through one aeon only, or more than one, or
all the aeons ? Now, however, the proof, that a rigid
textual criticism has failed to find in some express utter-
ance of the sacred text, is sought by way of inference
from the traditional quantitative interpretation of the

48 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

thrase " ^eonian life." It is time, therefore, to test the
validity of this interpretation, on which so great an argu-
ment is now rested.

Granting, therefore, that the epithet ceonian preserves a
fixed meaning in the two members of the brief antithesis,
and signifies as much for the wicked as for the righteous,
it becomes an important question, which is its primary
sense, — that which belongs to the aeon or aeons, or, that
which lasts through the same ? This question is one
which the New Testament seems to answer very plainly.
" Ionian life " primarily denotes a certain kind of life.
It is the life characterizing the aeonian state of the right-
eous, the life which is unfolded in the aeon to come, hav-
ing been communicated by Christ to the believer in the
present aeon, or world. The testimony of many passages
is condensed in these few : " He that heareth My Word,
and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath aeonian life,^ and
shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from
death unto life " (John v. 24). " He that believeth on
the Son ^^3f/^ aeonian life" (John iii. 36). "This is the
record, that God hath given unto us aeonian life, and this
life is in His Son, He that hath the Son hath life, and
he that hath not the Son of God hath not life " (i John v.
II, 12). The Lord Jesus has Himself so defined this aeon-
ian life, as to make it perfectly apparent, that it primarily

1 Where the original adheres so constantly to the phrase " aeonian
life," it is unfortunate that our translators did not adhere to the uni-
form rendering " eternal life," for which, in this and some other pas-
sages, they have less correctly substituted ''everlasting life.'*

THE QUALITATIVE IDEA FUNDAMENTAL. 49

denotes, not life of a certain lengthy but, life of a certain
kind, " This is the aeonian life, that they may know Thee,
the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast
sent " (John xviL 3). Clearly, then, in this expression,
the qualiiaiivej not the quantitative idea, predominates.
The aeonian life, primarily, as defined by its Divine Au-
thor Himself, is that kind of life which is vitalized, formed,
and blessed, by knowing God and His Son. The idea of
perpetuity inheres in it, no doubt, but how ? Not pri-
marily. Only so far as the qualities themselves, which char-
acterize that life (Matt. v. 3-9), are vital, progressive, and
enduring, is that life perpetual. Precisely in the same way,
then, does the idea of perpetuity inhere in the antithesis,
"aeonian punishment." This punishment, like that life,
i^ primarily defined by the term " aeonian *' as of a certain
kind, rather, than of a certain length. Of what kind, the
qualifying predicates, "judgment," "sin," "fire," "de-
struction," inform us. And as we predicate perpetuity of
the life, secondarily, because the characterizing qualities of
the life seem to tend to perpetuity, so in regard to the pun-
ishment, if we also predicate perpetuity of that, it must
likewise be in a secondary sense, and for the similar rea-
son, — that the characteristics of the punishment, the sin, the
fire, etc., are such as seem to tend to perpetuity. Are these,
then, of such a nature ? becomes the next point of inves-
tigation in the inquiry whether the "aeonian punishment "
is endless or not

Here, however, is the present resting-place of our argu-
ment. The doctrine that the punishments of the future

so IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

are endless, is not clearly announced by Divine Revela-
tion. Neither by any express declaration, nor by any clear
implication of Holy Writ, is it certified to us to be an
article of the Christian faith. Future punishment, indeed,
is made to stand out in prophetic solemnity as an awful
reality. Only we are left in uncertainty as to its duration.
That it is endless, is not declared by any unmistakable
word of God. It may be endless, it may not be ; what
reasonable man would lightly expose himself to so- much
of woe as plainly threatens in the way of the transgressor,
and in addition take the hazard of all that is unknown ?
There is much of terror in the very mystery in which the
Scripture leaves the sinner to his fears on that point, sur-
rounded with thronging images of suffering, — the dark-
ness, fire, and worm, — the weeping, wailing, and gnash-
ing of teeth. Everything, excepting that punishment is
absolutely without ^nd, seems to have been revealed,
that can be imagined likely to deter a transgressor from
presumptuously braving the unknown extremity of that
terrible thing which is called " the wrath of God " (Ro-
mans i. 18^).

This is all that can be certainly proved from Scripture by
exact and unbiased criticism. Yet many, after having
reached the limit of the terra firma of certainty, are not
content without wading out as far as they can into the
quaking bog of probabilities surrounding. For such it is
possible to carry our inquiry a little farther, with results,
however, which, at the best, are much less certain than
those which we have now arrived at.

CHAPTER III.

rS THE ENDLESSNESS OF FUTURE PUNISHMENT TO BE
INFERRED AS THE NATURAL RESULT OF SIN ?

A PRELIMINARY word must here be said as to the
changed nature of our inquiry.

Thus far we have dealt with a question of fact capable
of a tolerably certain answer, viz : What is the actual
testimony of Scripture as to the duration of future pun-
ishment ? Our conclusions thus far are involved in no
more uncertainty than attaches to any careful and un-
biased application of the science of interpreting lan-
guage.

But now we take up another question. The question
now is not, What do the Scriptures actually say^ or abstain
from saying f But it is a question of a wholly different
kind : What inference can we most reasonably draw from
certain observable moral phenomena, namely, the ten-
dencies of sin, in the light of what the Scripture says
respecting them ?

In answering this question we can no more say what
is certain^ but, at most, only what is probable^ and per-
haps not even that. The change in the nature of our
mquiry, our evidence, and our conclusion, must be care-

52 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

fully noted at this point, and borne in mind as we pro-
ceed. ^

The question raised at the close of the preceding chap-
ter was this : Is the " aeonian punishment " represented
to be of such a kind that, in the nature of things, it tends
to become as endless as the " aeonian life " of the right-
eous? We have to inquire, now, whether our experi-
ence, as illuminated by the Scriptures, requires us to
infer, from the known nature of sin and of its punish-
ment, the absolute endlessness of the "aeonian punish-
ment."

The punishment of sin, as the Scriptures and our own
observation concur in teaching us, essentially consists in
the wider spread and stronger hold of the malady of the
soul. Essentially^ we say, because it is evident that
every other element of punishment, whether self-reproach,
or a sense of God's direct personal displeasure, depends,
so far as actually and normally experienced, upon this
radical element. " His own iniquities shall take the
wicked " (Prov. v. 22). Sin is an unnatural disease that
taints, blinds, and paralyzes the spiritual nature, and
both destroys the power of self-recovery, and neutralizes
the means of recovery. The yielding of the will to evil
cripples its power to resist the evil. Resistance to truth
produces insensibility to the impressions of truth. One
sin brings others in its train. The habit of sinning holds
the wicked " with the cords of his own sins " (Prov. v.
22). Thus the hopeless thing about sin is that it is self-
perpetuating; its punishment consists, primarily, in a
deeper and deeper involvement in sin.

"iEONIAN DESTRUCTION." 53

" This is the very curse of evil deed.
That of new evil it becomes the seed."

In this process the moral instincts become benumbed,
or, in Scripture phrase, " the heart is hardened j " the
moral tastes are reversed ; evil and good change names
and places before the blinded conscience (Isa. v. 20) ;
alienation from God tends to an extinction of the God-
seeking disposition ; association with the wicked shuts
out redeeming influences ; " a moral momentum " in a
downward way continually increases, and tends to be-
come irresistible. The spiritual nature, thus corrupting
more and more (2 Tim. iii. 13), tends to that mysterious
condition which the Scriptures call " aeonian destruction "
(2 Thess. i. 9).

This, then, is the question with regard to the sinner,
whom we see gravitating from worse to worse in a con-
tinually deepening fall. Is this process of destroying both
soul and body in hell, as the Lord Jesus Himself has
termed it (Matt. x. 28), constantly progressive^ and yet
never complete ? Be it observed, that the Scripture has
abstained from explicitly answering this question, and
has left us to draw our own inferences from what it has
revealed of the nature and tendency of sin to perpetuate
its own punishment. If endlessness be characteristic of
the " seonian punishment," it must be discoverable in the
characterizing qualities and tendencies of the " a&onian
lin," the " aeonian fire," etc.

A hint of an absolutely endless punishment seems, at
first, to be given by the phenomena of remorse. Time

54 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

does not apparently blunt its fang. Long years do not
appear to exhaust its ghastly fires. No river of Lethe
seems capable of stilling, for any length of time, the
painful wakefulness of the memory, that ever heaps fresh
fuel on the perpetual flame. As long as the facts of
guilt are capable of recall to the self-reproachful mind,
so long the worm gnaws and the fire bums.

And yet even the pain of remorse is no exception to
the law under which all pain by perpetual recurrence
brings its own antidote of deadened sensibility. The
tormenting power of remorse depends on its intermit-
tency. Other thoughts come in, and break off the sui-
cidal work. The sufferer continually hanging himself is
as continually cut down by some relief, so as to recover,
and go through the self-destructive process again. In
proportion as remorse becomes continual, either callous
despair or dull idiocy supervenes to assuage its pain.

In general, it may be observed that the Scripture rep-
resents the work of sin in the soul not as reformatory,
but as destructive. If now we set aside the question of
a possible restoration (for which see Chapter V.), there
are before us two alternative suppositions, and only two,
which may be expressed in a triple form, viz : Either this
destructive work of sin runs on without end, or its tend-
ency is to a limit, beyond which there is nothing more to
be destroyed, and consequently nothing more to suffer.
Either this worsening growth of sin continues unlimited,
until even the least of lost sinners becomes an incon-
ceivable colossus of iniquity, a vastly intensified Satan,

ALTERNATIVES AND OBJECTIONS. 55

or it stops somewhere. Either the Almighty exerts his
power to preserve hopeless sufferers in existence, for the
sole purpose that they may perpetually endure destruc-
tion, or at length He permits them, when their disease
has run its course and done its work, to lose that exist*
ence, which can no more be anything but to them a
curse, to the universe a discord, and to Him a regret.

The objection is brought against the latter of these
alternatives, that punishment cannot be the cessation
of punishment, 'this is valid against the idea that the
wicked lose their existence at death ; not valid against
the idea of their extinction under punishment at some
time in the aeonian future. In this case they actually
suffer "aeonian punishment."

It is further objected that "eternal punishment" is
incompatible with a future loss of existence, because
extinction is punishment end^//, eternal punishment is
punishment end/ess. Not valid, since such a definition
of eternal punishment simply begs the whole question
outright.^

1 We speak scripturally of ** eternal punishment " only when we
drop from the phrase the idea of duration, and mean simply the pun-
ishment taking place in eternity. That this is no modem liberal use
of the word, our English Bibles bear witness in the phrase " eternal
judgment " (Hebrews vi. 2), which Robinson*s Lexicon refers to " the
judgment of the last day," and which means simply the judgment
taking place in eternity.

It is worth remarking that both " eternal punishment " and " ever-
lasting punishment " have now become somewhat ambiguous terms.
" Eternal punishment " conveys to one mind a quantitative, to another

$6 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

With these alternatives, then, presented to our reason,
we cannot find that the Scripture clearly pronounces in
favor of either. Whichever we adopt, we are equally
within the limits of the reverent liberty of belief allowed
us by the silence of Scripture.

Against these considerations, however, there still lies,
we are well aware, a specious objection. It is pronounced
illegitimate thus to carry into the spiritual domain the
analogy of the material world. Whatever force is to
be allowed to this objection must come mainly, if not
wholly, from our ignorance. That material analogies
go some way into the spiritual world, is certain ; how far
they go is uncertain ; we have no knowledge respecting
spirit existing apart from bodily organization. But it is
certain that we have no /acfs to contravene the presump-
tion that spiritual organization and existence are as ca-
pable of disorganization and extinction by appropriate
agencies as we know bodily organization and, existence
to be. There is neither fact nor testimony in the way of
our inferring that the destructibility which characterizes
the material world, has its analogies in the spiritual. It
may be replied to this that matter itself is never de-
stroyed, so far as we know, but only its phenomenal form

a qualitative idea. By " everlasting punishment " one means endless
punishment, another means punishment that lasts till the subject of
it ceases to exist, and a third means punishment that lasts till the
end of the aeon. In the majority of minds, however, "everlasting
punishment " has become a sort of technical term, specially appro-
priated to the idea of an endless punishment.

THE SIN UNTO DEATH. 57

and organization perish, while its elements are indestruc-
tible. That may pass, however, until some one rises to
reveal a difference between the phenomenal form or or-
ganization, and the elements of spirit.

There are, however, two further considerations to be
presented, which some may regard as making their own
choice of an alternative more clear. One of these is from
a word of Scripture, and the other is from a word which
Scripture has forborne to speak*

We read in i John v. 16, of a " sin unto death." All
sin is scripturally represented as death in beginning, as,
"In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely
die" ((jen. ii. 17), or death in progress, as, "dead in
trespasses and sins" (Eph. ii. i). But the^ "sin unto
death " appears, by the way in which it is mentioned, to
be " unto death " in a specific sense, different from that
in which all sin is " unto death." The preposition trans-
lated unto in this text (irpo?) denotes, says Robinson's
" Lexicon " with reference to this passage, " a tendency
and result." A result can hardly be the same as a proc-
ess. " Unto death," therefore, in the specific sense in
which the phrase is here used, would seem, at least in the
obvious import of language which denotes " a tendency
and result," more consistent with the idea of a limit, a
ne plus ultra of death sometime reached, as a result and
md of the destructive work of sin.

1 The article the is not in the original, but, in place of it, the
stronger word thatf rendered in our version "it." Literally trans-
fated the verse reads thus : " There is sin unto death ; not in regard
to that do I say that he should make request."

58 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

Another view of this text, however, and one which har-
monizes better with the idea of an endless punishment,
considers that the sin referred to is " unto death " only
in a more direct and immediate way than all sin is " unto
death." Just so, while every sin against bodily health is
unto ph3rsical death, as tending that way, some such sins
are more directly and speedily " unto ** such death than
others. The text is doubtless capable of either view, and
the reader's preference must depend not on grammatical
but on ethical considerations.

The other fact to be noted in this connection is, that
the Scriptures, which speak freely of aonian sin^ judg-
ment^ fire^ punishment^ destruction^ never use the expression
ceonian death. The phrase "second death," four times
occurring in the Revelation of John (as Rev. ii. ii), only
shows how near the Scripture comes to that other ex-
pression without using it, and serves to make more
marked the thorough avoidance of it. Yet theology uses
it, or what is meant to be its equivalent, and freely
speaks of "everlasting death." So our h3min, —

" Nothing is worth a thought beneath,
But how I may escape the death
That never, never dies."

It is difficult, for one who believes that the sacred writers
were under a Divine superintendence in their use of lan-
guage, to avoid believing that it is not without reason
that the Scriptures invariably decline to employ a phrase-
ology which the interpreters of Scripture have found so
appropriate to their own views. And while we do well

TWOFOLD MEANING OF "DEATH." 59

to be modest in assigning reasons for the peculiarities of
God's revelations to us, a conjecture may be offered for
what it is worth.

Death is a word of double meaning. It may denote
either a state of modified existence^ or an end of all existence.
In the former sense, we may speak of " a dead body."
Non-existent as a living thing, it exists awhile as an or-
^anized thing tending to become utterly non-existent. In
the latter sense, the influence of a person who has lost
character is " dead," as having ended in utter non-exist-
ence.

Now death, as a spiritual state^ exists, according to
Scripture, even in this world ; see Ephesians ii. i, " dead
in trespasses and sins." This state of death is well
characterized by Professor Bartlett as " the absence of
the power and exercise of certain functions, and not only
so, but of their complete and normal exercise " (" New
Englander," October, 187 1, pp. 677, 678). If now the
theological conception of a future state of endless con-
scious death be correct, then it becomes a question for
those who hold that view, why the Scripture, so constant-
ly applpng the term " death " to an analogous spiritual
state in the present, should so rigidly avoid applying it to
the future state in connection with the epithet " aeonian,"
so freely given to all other words denoting future pun-
ishment. Besides, it may be asked, would not the fre-
quent occurrence of " aeonian life " naturally have brought
out the antithesis " aeonian death,^ if that death, like the
life, were a state of existence ?

6o IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

But if the scriptural conception of " the second death "
were rather that of z. limit of existence reached^ than of a
state of modified existence continuing, then the scriptural
avoidance of the phrase '^ seonian death " is at once ex-
plicable as the avoidance of an ambiguous and easily
misunderstood expression. In this view the scriptural
preference of the word " destruction " (see 2 Thessalo-
nians L 9, " aeonian desjtruction ") would seem to be the
substitution of a more definite word for a less definite.

Doubtless it will be said, these are mere speculations.
Only as such are they presented, mere dim tapers, the
only light procurable where no ray of Divine revelation
penetrates the dense darkness that broods over the state
of the impenitent dead. As it was plainly stated in the
beginning of this chapter, we are no longer dealing with
the facts of the Scripture testimonies, but at most with
mere probabilities, in a point which the Scripture has
abstained from deciding for us. Though the suggestions
of this chapter were to be shown wholly devoid of value,
yet such criticism would nowise touch the fact which
this Essay has aimed to show, viz. That the Scripture
has really nothing to say about the duration of the
"aeonian punishment." The speculations of this chap-
ter are not urged upon the attention of any reader. They
are presented to the many who are not satisfied to stop
in their exploration of the future where the Scripture
stops, merely to show how little we have to stand upon,
when we pass beyond the terra firma of the Scripture
testimony. For ourselves we prefer to remain ignorant,

THE EXTENT OF OUR CERTAINTY. 6 1

where God has chosen to remain silent in a matter like
this. But we affirm with the fullest persuasion, that a
doctrine so fraught with horror as the endless conscious
misery of fellow-creatures is not to be accepted as a tenet
of the Christian faith on any less conclusive evidence
than an unmistakable word of God. And none such
can we find. Future punishment is indeed most posi-
tively announced by all the symbolism of pain and woe.^
The duration and result' of it are shrouded in a dread,
impenetrable mystery by the terms that describe it. This
mystery is not unveiled by any hints or allusions. It is
not cleared up by any inference that can be drawn from
what we know of the nature and the tendency of the
" aeonian punishment." The Word of God remits us to
our own conclusions on the subject, and obviously sug-
*gests to him who is inclined to go on in sin, to take
counsel of his fears in a prospect where enough that is
dreadful is revealed to make the presumptuous pause be-
fore braving what is yet concealed of " the terror of the
Lord " (2 Cor. v. 11). The single point of the endlessness
of the " aeonian punishment " is not yet revealed. It is
not disproved by aught that is said. It may be true for
aught that we yet know. But until we have received a

^ It is invidiously and untruthfully assumed by some controversial*
ists, that those who question the endlessness of future punishments
doubt future punishment altogether. In the examination of candi-
dates for the ministry, I have heard the test question on this point
sometimes put in this form : " You believe in future punishment ? "
And I have seen the examiner satisfied with a simple assent, as if that
carried everything I

62 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

positive revelation of it, we are not required to accept it
as an article of the Christian faith. For aught that we yet
know, it may not be true. But if we are not content to
remain without any positive belief on this one point till
it grows light (though the Apostle reminds us " that the
law is not made for a righteous man," i Tim. i. 9), then
we are left at liberty, so far as any voice of Scripture is
concerned, to choose whichever of these two alternatives
our own reason may approve, viz. The ultimate extinc-
tion of the sinning soul by the spreading cancer of its
own decay, or the infinite continuance of the " destruc-
tion " of a finite being, upheld in endless being by Al-
mighty power in order that it may be endlessly de-
stroyed ; like that " Prometheus bound," according to
the Greek poets, on Mount Caucasus, whose liver, per-
petually devoured by vultures, and as perpetually grow*
ing to be devoured unceasingly, gave an endless banquet
to them, and to him an endless torment.

He who can be certain that these opposite alternatives
bound the diverse possibilities of the case, will perhaps
not be at a loss which to choose. But he who reflects,
with Hamlet, that

" There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in our philosophy,"

will probably hold it wiser to wait in the dark just where
the Word of God has left him, and, with Paul, to " judge
nothing before the time until the Lord come " (i Con

•v. S). ♦

CHAPTER IV.

THE HISTORICAL OBJECTION.

THE chief objection to the conclusion we have reached
is derived from the historical view of the subject,
which, however, when properly adjusted, will seem rather
to countenance our position than to look the other way.

The majority of Christians have a justifiable repug-
nance to novelties in the interpretation of the Scriptures.
The significance of the original Greek or Hebrew they do
not feel competent to discuss, but they know what has
been accepted for ages by the most learned and godly in
the church, and in this they confide even more than in the
special learning of modern lexicographers and gramma-
rians. Some things, they are certain, may be considered
as settled by this time. The verdict of what has passed
for the most enlightened Christian reason is thus per-
mitted to rule out of court, in advance of argument,
questions that are raised from time to time as to what is
actually taught us by evangelists and apostles.

It is possible, that this ** safe " method of dealing with
new interpretations of Scripture may be carried too far.
The fact that it has been thought necessary to revise our
common version of the Bible, and that the best scholars

64 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

of England and America are now laboring upon the task^
should, at least, secure for any proposed new view of the
meaning of words an unprejudiced hearing.

The historical objection to the conclusion reached by
this Essay is presented in some such form as this. It is
said : The doctrine of endless punishment is not attractive
to any mind. How comes it, then, that the best minds in
the church have for many ages recognized it in the New
Testament, if indeed it be not there? This question,
though weighty, is neither unanswerable nor difficult.
The conclusions of the best minds as to what the Script-
ures actually teach are liable, especially in uncritical ages,
to be vitiated by wrong translations.

For instance, the notion that we " all sinned in Adam "
came down to modem old-schoolism from Augustine, who
built that theory on the Latin version of Romans v. 12,
which reads, " in whom all sinned." Augustine ignored
the Greek, which reads, " because all sinned." In Matt
XXV. 46, the Greek aidnios (aeonian) is translated in the
Latin by cetemus, which had none of that Hebraistic col-
oring that aidnios had contracted in the Septuagint Ver-
sion of the Old Testament (see p. 10), but expressed the
idea of limitless duration in the absolute sense of our
word eternal. This Latin version, from about the year
150, shaped the doctrine of the North African church,
whose first theological teacher of note was Tertullian
{died about 226), whose nature, as Dr. Schaff says in his
** History of the Christian Church," was one of " ascetic
gloom and rigor" (vol. i. p. 515). One of the oftenesi

REVISING OUR INTERPRETATIONS. gj

quoted passages of Tertullian's writings is a horrible de-
scription of the exultation of the saints hereafter over the
torments of the damned. In that portion of the Christian
worid, where a great bishop like Cyprian called him " the
master," it is known that the theory of the endlessness of
future punishments prevailed to greater unanimity than in
those regions of Christendom where Greek was the com-
mon tongue.

As modem ability to secure a more and more accurate
understanding of the original tongues of the Bible ad-
vances, it is always in order, and of service, to examine
and reexamine traditional interpretations. And while
the fact, that the doctrine of endless punishment has
been so widely affirmed to be a doctrine of positive rev-
elation, ought certainly to guard us from hasty or arro-
gant confidence in a different conclusion, it cannot be
accepted as a prejudgment of the case, when we remem-
ber these two things, (i) That the progress of modern
learning has obliged us to revise our interpretation of the
Bible here and there in regard to the past, as in the book
of Genesis. For instance, the Flood, once supposed on
the strength of such passages as Gen. vii. 19, 20, to have
overwhelmed all the land on the globe, Alps, Andes, and
all, is now restricted to the narrow limits of the then
inhabited district of Asia. It is not incredible that can-
did scholarship may see cause to revise our interpretation
with regard also to th^ future. And (2), that other doc-
trines, which once were generally believed, are now pre-
served only in the museum of theological fossils.

S

66 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

The history of opinions respecting the future destiny of
children dying in infancy is in point here. A large sec-
tion of the Christian church still believes, as the whole
church once believed, in the damnation of infants who die
unbaptized.' And another large section still cherishes in

^ What things the Heavenly Father is still supposed by some who
repeat the Lord's Prayer to be capable of doing to little children, ap-
pears from the following extract from a Roman Catholic book, by
Rev. J. Furniss, published in England, not long since, *' for chil-
dren "

" The fourth dungeon is ' the boiling kettle.* Listen, there is a
sound like that of a kettle boiling. Is it really a kettle which is boil-
ing ? No. Then what is it ? Hear what it is. The blood is boil-
ing in the scalded veins of that boy ; the brain is boiling and bubbling
in his head ; the marrow is boiling in his bones. The fifth dungeon
is the * red-hot oven,' in which is a little child. Hear how it screams
to come out ; see how it turns and twists itself about in the fire ; it
beats its head against the roof of the oven. It stamps its little feet
on the floor of the oven. To this child God was very good. Very
likely God saw that this child would get worse and worse, and would
never repent, and so would have to be punished much more in hell.
So God in His mercy called it out of the world in its early childhood^
(Quoted by Dr. J. F. Clarke in Truths and Errors of Orthodoxy ^
p. 360.)

Bad as this is, it may be doubted whether it involves a greater mis-
conception of God than the following statement of Calvin : —

" Infants themselves, as they bring their condenmation into the
world with them, are rendered obnoxious to punishment by their own
sinfulness, not by the sinfulness of another. For though they have
not yet produced the fruits of their iniquity, yet they have the seed of
it within them ; even their whole nature is as it were a seed of sin,
and therefore cannot but be odious and abominable to God^ (Insti'
tutes, IL i. 8.)

INFANT DAMNATION. 6/

its confession of faith a form of words, which commemo-
rates an old belief that those infants are damned, whose
names are not on the roll of God's elect : " Elect infants,
dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved." ^ (" West-
minster Larger Catechism," chap. x. 3.) Augustine and
Calvin are both on record as believers in infant damna-
tion, in accordance with their interpretation of the
Scriptures. But, as the New Testament has been more
carefully studied, the strictest orthodoxy, finding the
Scriptures silent respecting the future destiny of those
who die before the age of moral responsibility, has
availed itself of the conceded liberty of belief on that
subject, and has rested its present doctrine of the univer-
sal salvation of those who die in infancy chiefly on a
priori conclusions respecting the probable dealing of
Infinite Justice with infant creatures. It is largely by the
fiat of our moral instincts, guided by such passages as

* " This plainly implies that non-elect in&nts are not saved. It is
nonsense to speak of elect infants as saved, if all infants are meant.
Besides, the added clause in the same paragraph, about the salvation
of ** all other elect persons, who are incapable of being outwardly
called by the ministry of the word," settles the meaning of the pas-
sage ; for, of course, not all of the heathen are here declared to be
among the saved. Moreover, it is immediately declared that " others
not elected " " cannot be saved." The framers of the Confession
held that de jure all infants are lost ; that de facto there are two and
only two ways in which they can be saved — through the Abrahamic
covenant, which saves the baptized among them, and sovereign
election, which is not limited by the covenant." (Prof. Geo. P
Fisher, in the New Englander for April, 1868, p. 338.)

68 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

Mark x. 14, that the monstrous dogma of infant damna-
tion has been recently banished from the churches of the
reformed faith.

So, too, a more liberal belief is now cherished in the
orthodox churches respecting the future of those whom
Dr. Schaff terms " such adult heathen as live and die in a
frame of mind predisposed to receive the gospel,** — who
once were considered hopelessly lost because not having
actually received a gospel that had never been preached
to them. (See Dr. Schaff in Lange's " Commentary on
Matthew," p. 229.)

If it be asked, Did not the ancients, accepting the
sternest dogmas, have the same moral instincts as we ? it
may be said, they were undoubtedly under the influence
of their times, in which the administration of human
" justice " was harsh, sanguinary, and barbarous to a
frightful degree. The generations that were familiar with
severe punishments for slight offenses, and habituated to
the axe, the quartering knife, the rack, the pestilential
dungeon, the fiery stake, as the instruments of an arbi-
trary and cruel " justice," must have taken a more som-
bre and awful view than we of the administration of
justice by the Almighty Sovereign. The ideas of such
ages respecting the procedures of Divine justice must not
be allowed to strain our interpretations of God's judg-
ment-words.

Yet it would be an exaggeration to impute to the
church of less humane and enlightened times than ours
% correspondingly severe conception of future punish-

" PURGATORY." 69

ments. Starting, as we view it, from a hint of Tertullian
(died A. D. 220), who supposed that the slight faults of
the righteous would be atoned for after their death
merely by " a delay of their resurrection," the notion of a
middle state of purification^ for the benefit of baptized and
penitent, but faulty, people on their way to heaven, was
first stated, as Neander thinks, by Cyprian (a. d. 258) ;
was declared by Augustine (a. d. 430) not "incredible;'-
was asserted by Gregory the Great (a. d. 604) " worthy
of belief ; " and, with varied amplification,* has become
one of the most potent doctrines of that church which
reckons more souls in her communion than any other in
Christendom. Denying the benefits of Purgatory only
to the unbaptized and the excommunicate, the doctrine,
not only of the Roman Catholic Church, but of the Old
Catholic from the third century, has been, for all souls
who accept her last consolations, practically restorationist.
As opposed to this, the doctrine of the reformed churches
reacted with a severity, and sometimes an atrocity, quite
foreign to the primitive age. The modern Protestant
doctrine of hell has far exceeded in horror the views en-
tertained, for instance, by that one church-teacher of the
primitive period to whom Protestants are wont to accord
a special reverence as a sort of forefather of the Refor-
mation.^

^ See Milman's Hist, Lot, Chr, viii. p. 224/.

2 An extended statement of Augustine's views respecting future
punishment, especially as contrasted with those of Calvinists, is given
in Brownson's Quarterly Revino for July, 1863. In Augustine's

70 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

As it has been with the doctrine of the future state
of children, so it may be with the doctrine of the end-
lessness of punishment. It is not unlikely that the
church may find that she has ignorantly added to that
which is written in the book (Rev. xxii. i8). It may be
that a more critical study of the original of our common
version will show that the endlessness of the " aeonian
punishment " is not so decisively taught that it should be

view, says the writer, ** eternal death is a subsidence into a lower
form of life, a lapse into an inferior mode of existence, a privation of
the highest vital influx from God in order to everlasting life, or su-
preme beatitude, but not of all vital influx, in order to an endless
existence which is a partial and incomplete participation in good.
.... There is no trace [in A.] of the idea that God hates a por-
tion of His creatures with an absolute, infinite, and eternal hatred,
and is hated with a perfect and eternally enduring hatred by them in

return, to the utmost extent of their capacity There is no

trace of the idea that God has withdrawn Himself from a portion of
His creatures, except so far as to retain them in existence : . . . .
that those who die in sin lose all that is good in their nature, and all
good of existence, become completely evil, and continue to grow
everlastingly in the direction of an infinite wickedness, which merits
a corresponding degree of pain. On the contrary, St. Augustine
teaches that God preserves in endless existence those creatures who
have forfeited their capacity of attaining to the supreme good, because

of the good of which they are still capable However great

their suflering from the pain of loss, or the pain of sense may be,
according to the doctrine of St. Augustine, it cannot be such through-
out eternity as to destroy the good of existence, and make it a pure,
unmitigated, penal evil to live forever." It should be added, that
Augustine's idea of infant damnation was correspondingly mild,
though involving privation and suflering.

A FALLACIOUS APPEAL. 71

unhesitatingly received as an article of our faith. It
may result, then, that we shall see ourselves permitted,
as in a point where the word of the Lord has given no
authoritative decision, to exercise our liberty of choice
between the seeming alternative probabilities of the case,
if indeed we cannot be content to leave the matter in
that awful cloud of mystery in which the Scripture has
left it.

The most definite, and apparently decisive, and also
easily refuted form of the historical objection is presented
in the persons of the primitive church-teachers. These
have been summoned to testify that the New Testament
conveyed to them, in their vernacular tongue, a very
clear and positive doctrine of endless punishment. This
appeal to the Greek Christian writers of the first few
centuries is necessarily fallacious, when it is forgotten
that they use the word ceonian in the same indeterminate
sense that it has in the Greek Scriptures. When we
consider the elastic and variable use of aon and aonian
in the LXX. Bible of the Apostles (see p. 4), and the
evident imitation of that phraseology in the Gospels and
Epistles, nothing is more probable than that the early
Greek theologians, applying the same rules of interpre-
tation to both Testaments, should themselves use these
words in the same biblical way, when speaking of the
tuture state. From oversight of this important consider-
ation, and forgetting that " aeonian punishment " proba-
bly means no more on the pages of Justin Martyr and

I

72 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

Irenaeus than it means in Matthew, advocates of the
traditional view have laid an easily contestable claim to
the authority of the primitive church-teachers/ Professor
Bartlett, particularly, in his review of Mr. Constable's
theory of the extinction of the wicked (" New Englander,"
October, 187 1), speaking of "the cool assurance of ap*
pealing to the apostolic fathers " as witnesses against the
traditional view, trips over this very fallacy of " coolly "
assuming that, in their writings, the frequently recurring
word cBonian always means endless.

A comparison of the Nicene Creed with the Apostles'
Creed shows that ceonian had the same force in ecclesi-
astical as in the inspired writings. The Apostles' Creed
(at least as early as a. d. 200) confesses belief in " the
aeonian life " (English, " life everlasting "). The Niceno-
Constantinopolitan Creed (a. d. 381) gives as the equiv-
alent of this, "the life of the future aeon" (English,
" world to come "). Precisely thus the old Syriac Ver-
sion (a. D. 100-150) rendered Matt. xxv. 46: "These
shall go away to the pain of the ^olaniy and these to the
life of the ^olam " (or aon).

If, now, the testimony of the Greek church-teachers of
the first centuries be taken upon the whole subject, they
by no means unite in the view that future punishments
are endless.

Justin Martyr (died about a. d. 166), the first of the
church-teachers who was eminent for learning, although,
as Dr. Schaff (" History of the Christian Church," i. 484)
has observed, " wanting in critical discernment," can be

JUSTIN MARTYR'S TESTIMONY. 73

quoted on more than one side. For the most part, he
uses only the scriptural word aidntos (aeonian) in his allu-
sions to futurity. In one passage, however (Apol. i. ch.
28), he uses the words " punished for the boundless aeon "
{eis ton aperanton aiond)^ giving cRon an epithet which the
Scripture never gives it. It is noticeable, however, that
this word " boundless " (aperantos), in the single passage
where it occurs in the New Testament, " endless genealo-
gies " (i Tim. i. 4), signifies indefinitely long, rather than
endless. It is possible, that no more than an extremely
or indefinitely long period is intimated, where Justin says
(Apol. i. ch. 8), that the wicked " are to undergo aeonian
punishment, and not only, as Plato said, for a period of
a thousand years." Whether this is his real meaning, as
it seems to us, the reader can better judge by comparing
what he says, in his " Dialogue with Tr}'pho," ch. v., on
the immortality of the soul.

" But I do not say, indeed, that all souls die ; for that
were certainly a piece of good fortune for the wicked.
What then ? The souls of the pious remain in a better
place, while those of the unjust and wicked are in a worse,
waiting for the time of judgment. Thus some who have
appeared worthy of God never die ; but others are pun-
ished so long as God wills them to exist and be punished, ^^

In ch. vi., after saying that the soul exists because
. God wills, and no longer than He wills, he says, " when-
ever it is necessary that the soul should cease to exist,
the spirit of life is removed from it, and there is no more
)ouij but it goes back to the place from whence it was
taken " (Edinburgh translation, pp. 93-95).

74 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

Advocates of opposing views have generally quoted
Justin only so far as he seems to agree with them. The
above quotations fairly represent all that Justin has said
upon the subject. If these quotations are combined, and
allowed to qualify each other, it seems most likely that
Justin regarded the seonian punishment as indefinitely ^
rather than infinitely long, and, in some cases, at least,
designed to terminate, by the will of God, in loss of ex-
istence.

It is clear that Justin Martyr did not hold the notion
of Dr. Hodge, which we have already referred to (p. 7),
that the soul " is in its own nature imperishable " ; — a
notion which is the corner-stone of the doctrine that fu-
ture punishment is endless, and, at the same time, is not
capable of being demonstrated from the Scriptures.

About the same time that Justin suffered martyrdom,
Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, a pupil, in early life, of the
Apostle John, became a martyr. A letter from the church
of Smyrna describing his martyrdom is extant, but of un-
known authorship. It is noticeable that we find in this
letter the same addition to the text Mark ix. 43, that has
already been commented on (p. 19), viz, " never " for
"not" — <f. ^., "They [the martyrs] had before their
eyes the fire that is eternal and never extinguished." As
this letter was doubtless prepared under the care of the
officers of the church, it is most natural to infer that that
gloss upon the text was in accord with Polycarp's teach-
ing. Whether the " never " was understood to mean ab-
solutely endless duration, or whether it meant never until

IRENiEUS'S TESTIMONY. 75

the existence of the wicked ends, is still a question.
Some light may be thrown on it by Polycarp's pupil,
Irenaeus.

The view of Justin as to the possibility of the " seonian
punishment" terminating in loss of existence seems to be
shared by Irenaeus {died about 202), His relation, through
his teacher Polycarp, to Polycarp's teacher, the Apostle
John, is justly considered to give importance to his views. "
He says (Contra Haer. ii. xxxiv. 3), with reference to
the saying of the Psalmist, that God gives life (Ps. xxi. 4),
that " it is the Father of all who imparts continuance for-
ever and ever to those who are saved. For life does not
arise fron\ us, nor from our own nature; but it is be-
stowed according to the grace of God. And therefore he
who shall preserve the life bestowed on him, and give
thanks to Him who imparted it, shall receive also length
of days forever and ever. But he who shall reject it, and
prove himself ungrateful to his Maker, inasmuch as he
has been created and has not recognized Him who be-
stowed [the gift upon him], deprives himself of continuance
forever and ever. And for this reason the Lord declared
[Luke xvi. 1 1] to those who showed themselves ungrate-
ful towards Him : * If ye have not been faithful in that
which is little, who will give you that which is great ? ' —
indicating, that those who in this brief temporal life have
shown themselves ungrateful to Him who bestowed it,
shall justly not receive from Him length of days forever and
sver,** (See Edinburgh translation of Irenaeus, vol. i. pp.
252, 253.) The most natural inference to be drawn from

^6 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

the expressions which we have italicized is, that Irenaeus
and Justin Martyr anticipated that the wicked would, «/-
timately, cease to exist.

The Alexandrian school of theology, as repres^ted by
its two great teachers, Clement and Origen, — the latter
of whom {died about A. D. 253) was by far the greatest
light of the first three centuries, — was, as is too well
known to need proof, thoroughly imbued with restora-
tionism. (See Neander's "Church History," i. 656.)
The same is true of the theological school of Antioch, a
century and a half later, as represented by Diodorus of
Tarsus, and especially by "the Master of the East,"
Theodore of Mopsuestia {died a. d. 427), whom Dr.
Dorner calls the first oriental theologian of his time.
The views of the most illustrious disciple of Diodorus,
Chrysostom {died a. d. 407), are represented by Neander
as somewhat, uncertain (Hist. ii. 676). Contemporary
with Diodorus, Gregory of Nyssa {died about a. d. 395),
" one of the most eminent theologians of the time," as
Dr. Schaff observes in his "History of the Christian
Church " (iii. 906), expounded and maintained the doc-
trine of a universal restoration " with the greatest logical
ability and acuteness, in works written expressly for the
purpose" (Neander's "Church History," ii. 677). The
peculiar views of Augustine {died a. d. 430), the great-
est of the teachers of the Latin, or Western Church, have
already been stated. (See p. 69, note.) The quotation
given on p. 20, note, exhibits Augustine as teaching that
some who suffer for their sins after death are ultimately

NE ANDER'S TESTIMONY. ^y

saved. (See references in Hodge's Syst Theol. iii.

877-)

In general, the following remark of Neander (" Church

History," ii. 676) certainly does not exceed the truth, if
indeed it comes up to it. " The doctrine of eternal pun-
ishment continued, as in the preceding period, to be dom-
inant in the creed of the church. Yet, in the Orientsil
Church, in which, with the exception of those subjects
immediately connected with the doctrinal controversies,
there was greater freedom and latitude of development
[and in which, also, we are to remember, the original
language of the New Testament was the tongue in which
every church-teacher taught and wrote], many respectable
church-teachers still stood forth, without injuring their
reputation for orthodoxy, as advocates of the opposite
doctrine, until the time when the Origenistic disputes
caused the agreement with Origen in respect to this point
also to be considered as something decidedly heretical."
So far, then, as the historical objection to the conclu-
sions of this Essay rests on the authority of the primitive
church-teachers, especially of those to whom the Greek
of the New Testament, and of the LXX. Old Testa-
ment, was their common tongue, it must give way. The
unlearned reader, so far from needing to explore the
dustiest alcoves of great libraries in search of patristic
lore concealed under a dead language, will find all the
information desirable on this point in those standard
^orks of church history which are everywhere accessible.
And the statements of these are too explicit for any can-

7S IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

did reader to entertain further doubt. Diuring the first
five centuries, it was not inconsistent with a reputation
for orthodoxy to believe and teach that the "aeonian
punishment " would some time terminate, either by the
restoration or by the extinction of the sufferers. The
endlessness of that punishment was first authoritatively an-
nounced as an article of the orthodox creed in the year
544, at the instance of the Emperor Justinian I., an au-
thority in theological matters of equal respectability with
King Henry VIII. of England.

From this source of authority the current of orthodox
belief flowed to the ages of mediaeval barbarism, — ages
qualified neither by ethical character, nor biblical learn-
ing, to investigate the grounds of their received belief.
It was on other issues that the Reformers joined battle
with the Papal Church. The energies of the Reformed
churches were long absorbed by questions vital to their
very existence. In breaking with the Papacy, moreover,
these churches could not divest themselves at once and
wholly of those habits of thinking and believing which a
thousand vears of dominant tradition had made invet-
erate. And so it has not been until a comparatively
recent time that the conditions favorable for a scientific
reinvestigation of the traditional view have existed. And
there can be no question, except among those who have
made up their minds and shut their eyes, but that we
shall do most wisely, in our historical retrospect, to look
past the intervening ages of darkness, of strife, of un-
veflecting subjection to ecclesiastical authority, — it mat-

DODERLEIN'S TESTIMONY. 79

ters not how many such ages there are, — to the freer life
of the primitive church, and to the statements of those
who, by their oriental origin, their Greek tongue, and
their nearness to the inspired fountain-head, may be re- .
garded as better qualified than even a modern theologi-
cal professor to understand the testimony delivered to
them by the evangelists and Apostles.

The Lutheran Dr. J. C. Doderlein states the historical
point as follows : " As to public teaching, the most ancient
testimony against the end of future punishments is extant
in a canon of Justinian's tractate to Mennas against Ori-
gen (ap. Harduin. vol. iii. Concil. p. 279), can. 9 : * If
any one says or holds that the punishment of demons and
impious men is temporary, and that it will have an end at
some time, that is to say, that there is a restoration of
demons or of impious men, he is accursed.' It is also ev-
ident that very many doctors held the same view

But that was not the confession of all, and the more
highly distinguished in Christian antiquity any one was
for learning, so much the more did he cherish and defend
the hope of future torments some time ending." After
mentioning some distinguished names, Dr. D. goes on to
say : " This, however, was not the view of a few persons,
and one privately entertained, but general, and main-
tained by many advocates. Augustine, at least (" Enchir-
idion," c. 112), testifies, that * some, nay very many, pity
with human feeling the everlasting punishment of the
damned, and do not believe that it is to be so.' ... .
The following age, although a belief in perpetual torments

8o IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

prevailed by authority, yet clearly did not lack milder
views." (Instit. Theol. Chr. ii. pp. 199-202.)

After this showing how variously the Greek Testament
was understood on this subject by these early church-
teachers to whom Greek was a vernacular tongue, it is of
less consequence to inquire how the Jews probably under-
stood what the Gospels report Christ as having said
about the " aeonian punishment." The same varieties of
belief as to the duration of future punishments prevailed
before Christ, as after. The language of the Old Tes-
tament — the Jewish Bible — is sufficiently indecisive.
Philo, nearly contemporary with the Apostles, and, out-
side of their circle, the most masterly Jewish intellect of
that period, seems to have believed in the annihilation of
the wicked, as the result of future punishment. His idea
was, that the material world was to be destroyed, and the
wicked " involved in its destruction." The testimony of
Josephus as to the opinions of the body of the Pharisees
is not as lucid as could be desired. It is impossible to
know with certainty what views were held by Christ's
Pharisee hearers (to which sect Philo himself belonged).
Conceding the utmost, however, viz : that the Pharisees
generally taught a strictly endless punishment, and that
the mass of the people did not dissent, we are by no
means obliged to regard Christ as indorsing such views
by using language on which He knew they would put an
extreme interpretation.

The point is illustrated by the reserve He used on

CHRIST'S RESERVE. 8 1

the subject of the resurrection. What He said about
that, He knew was interpreted by His hearers in a
gross materializing way, but, for good reasons, He let
it go so ; He took no pains even to introduce the dis-
tinction, afterward made by Paul, between the " natural
body" and the "spiritual body." So, also, when His
disciples asked Him Qohn ix. 2), " Master, who did sin,
this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?" —
implying, on the questioner's part, at least a readiness to
believe in the preexistence of the soul, — Christ uttered
no protest against that suggestion, as a modern theologian
in like case would have **felt called upon" 'to do, but
contented Himself with giving a simple negative to the
direct question of personal responsibility.

Whatever were the views of the Pharisees as to the du-
ration of future punishment, the point is wholly immate-
rial to the position we have taken. TAe advocate of a fu-
ture restoration might indeed be called on to explain
why Christ should speak as He did to hearers under-
standing as they did. But those who find no hope re-
vealed in the aeonian future for him who dies impenitent,
can receive Christ's language on the whole subject as
equally intelligible and consistent, whether the punished
soul finally ceases to exist, or remains under punishment
forever.

Dismissing, then, the appeal to the Jews as of no ac-
count at all, the historical objection finally appears, when
evaporated, to leave, if anything, some residuum of evi-
dence in our favor, by showing what varieties of opinion

6

82 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

prevailed on this subject within the limits of acknowl-
edged orthodoxy, while as yet the Greek of the New
Testament was a living tongue, and while the free Chris-
tian life of the martjrr period had not run out into the
dreary swamp of the subsequent polemic and formal or-
thodoxy. These varieties of opinion, so freely tolerated,
seem to indicate the correctness of our view, as exhibited
in the first and second chapters of this Essay, viz, t?iat
no decisive voice can be recognized in the utterances of the
New Testament as dsserting plainly the endlessness of the
** ceonian punishment.*

CHAPTER V.

RESTORATIONISM.

THE objective point of this whole discussion has
been this: That the Scriptures really leave the
duration of the " aeonian punishment " an open question.
This question, if indeed we do not deem it wiser to remain
ignorant where God has remained silent, we are left at
liberty, so far as any clear utterance of the Scriptures is
regarded, to decide according to our own reason, in view
of the nature and the tendencies of sin. This view now
confronts a further question as to the reasonableness of
the hope that the " seonian punishment," if, indeed, not
endless, may issue in restoration rather than in extinction.

It may seem obviously consistent with what has been
said of the tendencies of sin (pp. 52, 53), that if any
go into the seon to come, impenitent, but not incor-
rigible, not too far gone for recovery^ then there is nothing
in the nature of things to preclude their restoration.
Whatever probability may appear to any in this direction,
has, however, to be qualified by two considerations : —

I. By our utter ignorance of the decisive fact^ whether any
particular soul be too far gone for recovery, or not. We
begin existence with different capacities, which are so •

84 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

variously modified by individual courses and experiences,
that only God can tell what is possible for unpromising
cases there, or even for cases that we here might call
promising. No one can feel reasonably sure, that he who
has rejected the Gospel of Christ in this life will prove
corrigible amid such chastisements as may surround him
there. The probability of restoration there for any that
failed here can be indulged, at most, only upon conjectural
grounds. For

2. The Scriptures contain nothing whatever that positively
guarantees the hopeful view. There are some passages in
the Epistles of Paul that at first seem to contain a hope
for all. But this hope, when examined, is soon overcast
with serious doubts.

For instance, he tells us that, " as in Adam all die, even
so in Christ shall all be made alive" (i Cor. xv. 22).
This looks to some like the restoration in Christ of all who
fell in Adam. Others, however, understand it, that, as in
Adam all who \i^on^ physically to Adam die, so in Christ
those who belong spiritually to Christ shall be made alive ;
and they refer to the explicit statement of the next verse
about " those who are Christ's." Others, again, think
that all will be made alive in Christ, but not all alike^ the
wicked being raised up " by the office of the Judge, the
righteous by the goodness of the Mediator." So that
there is no possibility of all agreeing what this text really
means.

Again, the prediction " that at the name of Jesus every
knee should bow" (Phil. ii. 10 ; compare i Cor. xv. 28),

HOPEFUL TEXTS DOUBTFUL. 85

is interpreted by one class of commentators to promise
the final yielding of every revolted spirit to the universal
Redeemer. But others hold that it is not implied that all
shall bow to Christ in tfu same way'y and that that must
not be taken for granted. But all things shall be subject
to Him according to their different natures^ — the holy,
subject loyally — the irrational creatures, instinctively
— the lost, compulsorily. Here also there seems no
possible agreement of interpreters.

So where we read (Col. i. 19, 20),^ " It pleased the
Father .... by Him to reconcile all things to Himself
.... whether they be things in earth, or things in
heaven " ^ (compare Eph. i. 10) ; the less hopeful inter-
preters note that nothing is said of those that may have
been cast out from earth and heaven into hell, and they
moreover question whether " all things " is not used gen-
ericaily, without reference to what may become of indi-
viduals, just like Paul's prophecy that " all Israel shall
be saved" (Romans xi. 26), and James's greeting "to
the twelve tribes" (James i. i). Others, however, think
they here see intimations of an universal restoration not
conflicting with the doctrine of the "aeonian punish-

1 ** This passage tortures the interpreters, and in turn is tortured by
them." — Davenant,

^ ** Shall we then mistake, if we imagine that, even* in the extra-
mundane sphere, there are also fallen beings yet capable of salvation,
and that into this sphere, whence came temptation and ruin into our
I'ace, there shall in return go forth blessed agencies of deliverance
from this very race ? " etc. (Dr. C. F. Kling, in Lange*s Commentary
on I Cor, vi. 2, p. 126.

86 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

ment" as given in the Gospels. The pure and lofty
Christian spirit of Neander, taking this view, recognizes
" the guidance of Divine wisdom that no more light has
been communicated upon this subject." (See his " His-
tory of the Planting and Training of the Christian
Church," revised translation, pp. 486, 487.

There is a celebrated battle-field of commentators in
the first epistle of Peter (iii. 19, 20), where scholars of
equal fame are found on opposite sides. The one part
affirm that the translation should be, " He went and
preached to the spirits [now] in prison when once they
disobeyed*^ etc., and that this preaching, contemporaneous
with the disobedience^ was done by the Spirit of Christ in
Noah, who is called by Peter (2 Pet. ii. 5) "a preacher of
righteousness." The other part contend that our version
is correct, and that the preaching was done by Christ
Himself^ in Hades, during the interval between His death
and His resurrection, to those who had been there "in
prison" for their disobedience since the Flood. What
is said in the next chapter, about " the gospel preached
also to them that are dead," favors the latter view, since
ch. iv. 6, most obviously refers to iii. 19. It might be
supposed to make for the restorationist view of this pas-
sage, that this preaching, if the latter interpretation be
favored, took place at the end of the ceon, or aeons, that
began with the repeopling of the world by Noah, and
ended with Christ. But even upon the latter interpreta-
tion of this dubious text, we get no assurance that that
preaching was effectual for the restoration of those that

PROFESSOR HADLEY'S CRITICISM. 8/

listened to it, any more than it had been for tue con-
version of the larger part of Christ's Jewish hearers. So
that if this text seems at first a single star of hope break-
ing forth from an inky sky, it is but a short, uncertain
gleam, and all is dark again. But, further, supposing
that we had positive assurance that those antediluvian
sinners, or some of them, were restored, at the end of
their aeon of imprisonment, through the preaching of
Christ, what valid ground would that afford for hoping
in the future restoration of any who have hardened them-
selves against that very preaching of Christ amid all the
redeeming influences of Gospel times ? " ^

^ The late Professor James Hadley, LL.D., of Yale College, whose
eminence as a Greek scholar was equaled both by his candor as a
critic and by his piety, gave his views of the text as follows, in a pri-
vate letter to the author : —

"The natural unforced interpretation of the text is this, — that
Christ preached (/'. ^., made the announcements and offers of the gos-
pel) to departed spirits who were in confinement as a consequence of
their disbelief and abuse of the Divine forbearance during the da3rs
of Noah. This meaning I should not dare to discard, — to say that
the writer did hot mean what his words, taken in their connection,
naturally imply, — only on account of a supposed inconsistency be-
tween that meaning and the apparent meaning of other passages or
writers in the Bible. I do not see that the Universalist can make
out very much from the text as thus interpreted ; for it does not
state, or with ar clearness imply, that the gospel was preached to
any departed s^ rits other than those who perished in the Flood, or
that even to those the preaching of the gospel actually resulted in
their pardon and salvation. To infer that a person now living under
the preaching of the gospel would have its offers continued to him

88 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

In general, it will be found that, whatever texts are
supposed to harmonize with the hope of a restoration for
some, or for all, the same texts harmonize at least quite
as well with the unhopeful view. The result of the most
careful searching of the Scriptures for some clear word
on this question is fairly expressed by the following utter-
ance of the American Unitarian Association : " It is our
firm conviction that the final restoration of all men is not
revealed in the Scriptures, but that the ultimate fate of
the impenitent wicked is left shrouded in impenetrable
mystery, so far as the total declaration of the sacred
writers is concerned."*

after he has died unbelieving and impenitent, would be a prodigious
non sequitur*'* (November 30, 1868.)

An article learnedly controverting this view of the text appeared
from the pen of Professor S. C. Bartlett, D. D., in the New Englander^
October, 1872.

1 They go on to say : " Some of our number reject entirely the
doctrine of final restoration, and hold that the Scriptures teach that
a final judgment awaits the soul immediately after this life, and give
little or no encouragement to the idea that the soul will have oppor-
tunity for repentance and reformation in a future state of existence.
Those of us who believe (as the large majority of us do) in the final
recovery of all souls, therefore cannot emphasize it in the foreground
of their preaching as a sure part of Christianity, but only elevate it
in the background of their system as a glorious hope, which seems to
them a warranted inference from the cardinal principles of Christian-
ity as well as from the great verities of moral science." (Quarterly
Journal of the A. U. A. pp. 48, 49, vol. i. 1854. A revised reprint
of a Declaration of Opinion in the 28M Annual Report^ A. U. A.)

When we find the Scriptures maintaining strict reserve upon a

OMINOUS SILENCE. 89

If, however, any should insist that Scripture seems to
have left the point indeterminate between restoration and
no restoration, and therefore they may allow their moral
instincts to fix it, just as in the other alternative between
extinction and endless suffering, — if it be pleaded that,
albeit we can get no decisive oracle, we still may

" — gather dust and chaff, and call

To what we feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope,"

we are still constrained to insist that a solemn emphasis
be laid upon the ^^faintlyj^ Faint such a trust must be
(so far as it is a rational^ and not a willful trust), in face
of the solemn silence of that Testament of " grace and
truth " which came to us through Jesus Christ (John i.
17) ; faint, when reflecting on the ominous contrast to
this silence, which the elder and austerer Testament
presents, continually holding up, at the close of most
woeful burdens of prophecy, the promise of a happy res-
toration of the punished nation to all the blessings of
the broken covenant (Isa. xl. i, 2). Such consoling
hopes, attached even to denunciations of the penalties
of Moses' law, certainly make the silence of Christ's
Gospel all the more forbidding and full of despair (Heb.
X. 28, 29). And fainter still must all trust in a happy
solution of the awful mystery become before the adverse

doctrine which modern preachers attempt to put on such high
ground as " the cardinal principles of Christianity and the great
verities of moral science," that reserve appears to us as significant
as it is stem.

90 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

probabilities that arise from the scriptural view of the
self-propagating^ unnatural^ disorganizing^ destroying ten-
dencies of sin. To overbear and quell the fear that these
inspire, nothing less than the clear revelation of a supemcU-
ural hope will suffice^ and such a revelcUion we have not
received. The utmost that we can reasonably say is,
" With men it is impossible, but not with God j for
with God all things are possible" (Mark x. 27). If
there be any hope for any, it has been concealed, per-
haps as the day of death has been concealed, to check
presumptuous sinners by the fear of falling unawares into
irretrievable ruin. It must be admitted that, on the most
hopeful view that can be ventured^ the darkness resting
on the seonian future of him who goes out of this world
of grace an unbelieving Gospel-hearer, an impenitent
sinner, alienated from his God, is sufficiently dense and
appalling to rouse the living to work out their salvation
"with fear and trembling" (Phil. ii. 12), fearing, as
Christ has bidden (Matt. x. 28), Him "a/^ is able to
destroy both soul and body in heUP

CHAPTER VI.

ADJUSTMENTS AND READJUSTMENTS.

A FEW things deserve to be said in conclusion upon
(i) the relation of the views here advanced to
other parts of the evangelical system of doctrine, and
(2) with respect to the present attitude of the churches
which hold that system to the doctrine of endless punish-
ment.

I. The views of this Essay are quite as consistent
with a Trinitarian theology as with any other, and are
held by a large number of persons — both of the clergy
and the laity — who hold firmly to the Moral Govern-
ment of God, the Deity, Mediatorship, and Atonement
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Universal Sinfulness of
mankind by nature. Justification by Grace through Faith,
the Regenerating Office of the Holy Ghost, the Divine
Authority of the Holy Scriptures, and a Future State
of Rewards and Punishments, in which " whatsoever a
man soweth, that shall he also reap." These are the
fundamentals of orthodoxy. But a cardinal mistake of
Christians in all ages has been to put non-essentials
among the fundamentals. Once it was baptism ; again
it was the manner of Christ's presence in the Lord's

92 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

Supper ; now it is the duration of the sufferings of the
lost.

The doctrine of this Essay, so far from being a diver-
gence from orthodoxy, is presented as being more or-
thodox in a biblical point of view than the traditional
doctrine. It is presented as a restatement of the original
doctrine of the Word of God, in place of a traditional
belief that has no better support than an inveterate mis-
understanding of the Scriptures.

Whether the duration of the "aeonian punishment"
be definitely announced or not, the reality, so far as
made known, seems to present a fully adequate ground
for the intervention of our Redeemer. His redeeming
work has precisely the same relation to the necessities
of sinners, whatever the duration of the punishment to
which they lie exposed. Moreover, the reality of that
punishment, so far as foretold, even though one should
adopt the hope that it may some time terminate, is fully
adequate to awaken the most active s)anpathy for those
who are in danger of it, and to stimulate the most earn-
est efforts to rouse them to escape it by repentance and
conversion.

People sometimes talk as though belief in an endless
punishment were the necessary mainspring of missionary
labors for the heathen. One glance at John Howard,
and the noble army who have given life and fortune to
redeem fellow-creatures merely from earthly wretched-
ness, refutes the idea. It is true that belief in the end-
lessness of hell has actually been a mighty impulse to

THE LAW NOT WEAKENED. 93

missionary labors for the heathen, but is not the love of
one's God, and one's brother man in Christ, as mighty,
and, perhaps, even more pure ?

But it may be doubted by some, whether the sanctions
of the Divine law will not be weakened, if we admit the
least possibility that the future sufferings of the wicked
may prove to be less than absolutely endless. It is felt
by some that this doctrine of endlessness puts a salutary
pressure on the wicked, and that if this pressure be light-
ened, the law will be weakened. In regard to this it
must be admitted that, if the practical tendencies of the
conclusion reached by this Essay are really evil, then
that conclusion, however plausible, is invalidated.

But experience testifies that it by no means follows,
that lessening the penalty weakens the deterring power of
the law. Suppose that penalties are excessive, as when
theft and many minor offenses were punished with death
under the English laws. When these blood-thirsty stat-
utes were moderated to humane limits, it was not found
that crime increased. Crime was even more rampant
under the old-time rigor, than under the merciful admin-
istration of the present day. Or suppose that the punish-
ment is not anticipated by the wrong-doer as certain.
We have heard the admissions even of those who believe
in the rightfulness of capital punishment, that an inflic-
tion lighter than the death-penalty, if certain and speedy^
vould more effectively deter from crime than an uncer-
tain and remote gallows. It is not the distant evil, how-
ever great, but the immediate evil, though comparatively

94 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

less, that most affects men's minds. It is not because
men are not sufficiently threatened, but " because sen-
tence against an evil work is not executed speedily^^ that,
as Ecclesiastes observed long ago, *' the heart of the sons
of men is fully set in them to do evil " (viii. 1 1). A single
"aeon " of suffering, when viewed as a presently impend-
ing certainty, is likely to be more efficacious to rouse a
slothful soul from supineness in its sins, than an endless
punishment which is viewed as far-off and problematical.
Against the fear that the law will lose an essential ele-
ment of coercive power, if the endlessness of future pun-
ishment should cease to be insisted on, we may place the
noteworthy fact, that Moses, in legislating for the He-
brews, retrenched the doctrine of future retribution to the
extent of ignoring it altogether. Future rewards and
punishments were a prominent article in the religious
belief of the Egyptians who were his contemporaries.
And it is a most singular fact, a fruitful theme of specu-
lation ^ as to the reasons of it, that this divinely guided
legislator, instead of purifying the familiar doctrine of
future retribution from all the fables and fancies of
Egypt, should have entirely suppressed that doctrine, and
have secured his divinely dictated enactments by the sole
sanction of temporal blessings for obedience, and tempo-
ral calamities for disobedience. In view of such a fact,
it seems extravagant to intimate as many do, that a defi-
nitely announced endlessness of future suffering is essen-

1 See Froude (Short Studies, ii. 25-28, 278) ; also, F. B. Zincke's
Egypt of the Pharaohs and of the Khedive^ chapter xjnr.

PRACTICAL RESULTS BALANCED. 95

tial in the present age to enforce the divine command-
ments. Such a fact would seem to indicate, that
although the endlessness of the "aeonian punishment"
should no longer be accepted as an article of the Chris-
tian faith, no jot or tittle of the law of God would fail to
command the same respect as ever.

But, it may be asked, has not the fear of an endless
hell exerted salutary restraints over many minds ? Have
not rude, coarse natures quailed before it, and the profane
been sobered by it ? Admitting this, however, the ques-
tion may be returned. Is it the endlessness of hell that
most affects such minds, or is it not rather the horror and
anguish of the Dantean picture in which their imagina-
tions view the place ? It is probably the simple truth to
say, that the idea of the endlessness of hell, as distinct
from its pains, has tormented saints more than it has
troubled sinners. But so far as minds of finer feeling
have found benefit from the doctrine of endless punish-
ment, they would have derived equal benefit from a doc-
trine pruned to the limits of the Scripture teaching. In
the minds of some devout Christians, the traditional doc-
trine has been the decretutn horribile^ that has taxed all the
strength of their faith in God to prevent it from setting
them adrift on a wild sea of skepticism. And very many
who have accepted the doctrine as a revealed fact, receive
it as a painful mystery, and find relief only in assuming
that stronger reasons for it will be presented hereafter
than any which have as yet been revealed. Many, we
have no means of knowing how many, souls have been

96 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

thrown into a state of permanent antagonism to the moral
government of God, or to what they supposed to be that,
by the requisition which this doctrine has made on them
for an extra-scriptural belief. It is simply true to affirm,
that, in a just balance of moral results, the good alleged
to have come of presenting the dogma of an endless and
infinite punishment as a doctrine of Christ, will be found
mixed with some grievous mischiefs to many sensitive,
thoughtful, or skeptical minds.

If it might, for a single moment, be admitted that the
assertion of an endless punishment goes beyond the truth,
it would immediately be feared that the exaggerated doc-
trine would create heresy and skepticism by its recoil.
Something of this sort seems to have actually resulted.
The older Universalism certainly sprang up contradicting
exaggerations and distortions of the doctrine of future
punishment, that no intelligent orthodox preacher of the
present day would perpetrate.^ Over-statements give rise
to under-statements. The doctrine of an endless punish-
ment, made in the face of the exegetical and scriptural,
the philosophical and historical considerations that lie
against it, provokes a spirit of unbelief that is not content

1 See for instance the following passage from so careful and cult-
ured a pen as that of Jonathan Edwards. " He will crush you under
His feet without mercy ; He will crush out your blood and make it
fly, and it shall be sprinkled on His garments so as to stain all His
raiment," etc. What a revolting image — God treating a sinner like
the insect swollen with loathsome and venomous juices, which in a
moment of disgust and hate a man stamps under foot ! (From Ser-
mon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,)

THE BEST ANTIDOTE TO HERESY. 97

with attacking the single word that challenged it. Before
resorting to denunciation of this opposition, it may be
wise to make sure that we are not gratuitously provok-
ing some of it, by attempting to lay a burden of belief on
men's minds which the Word of God does not lay.

Whenever heresy of any kind stirs up defenders of the
tnith to combat it, there are two questions for such to
ask before entering the conflict, (i) Have we under-stated
any truth which the heresy is trying to do justice to ? (2)
Have we overstated any truth which the heresy is trying to
deny ? A restatement of the truth, complete^ but not redun-
dant, proves then the best of antidotes. Such a restate-
ment of the doctrine of the " seonian punishment," re-
trenching the theological dogma within the true biblical
limits, as defined by a free but reverent scholarship in
the spirit and method of an investigator rather than of an
advocate, would be the most effective way of dealing with
the Universalism, which, no longer restricted within de-
nominational lines, is now diffused more widely than
some suspect.

Many a preacher who would fain " persuade men " like
Paul, in view of " the terror of the Lord " (2 Cor. v. 11),
finds much of his preaching neutralized by a latent Uni-
versalism even within the walls of evangelical churches.
So far as the threatenings of the Bible are suspected to
be pressed for more than their reality, so far there is a
tendency to take them for even less than their reality.
So far as the doctrine of the future is suspected to be ex-
aggerated, so far the doctrine of the present — the im-

98 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

portance of faith in Christ and a consecrated life — is
suspected to be exaggerated. This skepticism which at-
tacks the law behind the Gospel, as represented by many
a preacher, weakens also the Gospel which he preaches
in connection. It should be added here, that it is quite
probable that a mischievous exaggeration of the efficacy
of a " death-bed repentance " grows directly out of the
exaggeration of that condition from which it is hoped by
such means to escape.-

Let us then make a sober estimate of the practical
usefulness of the traditional doctrine of a literally end-
less hell. We must put beside it all the doubts and
difficulties, metaphysical, ethical, and scriptural, that en-
cumber it, and take off its point ar>d edge ; then, all the
resulting uncertainty that attaches to it in a multitude of
minds ; then, also, all the dangerous skepticism that it
generates upon the whole subject of future retribution.
After such an estimate, it requires some confidence to
deny that the doctrine of "aeonian punishment," in all
that terribleness of mystery in which the Scripture half
reveals and half conceals it,, if intelligently accepted, and
earnestly applied as it is capable of being applied, would
accomplish at least all the good that can reasonably be
expected from the other.

The biblical picture of the impenitent sinner's future
covers him with a cloud unrifted by d single ray. Our
last look at him shows a soul in the grasp of an un-
natural, self-propagating, destroying disease, and shows
nothing to hinder that disease from running its course

THE BIBLICAL VIEW OF THE LOST. 99

from worse to worse, through unknown suffering, to an
indescribable " destruction." Instead of words of hope,
as the door of the aeon to come shuts upon him, nothing
is borne back to the living but this solemn admonition
from the lips of the Redeemer himself : " Fear Him,
who, after He hath killed, hath power to* cast into hell ;
yea, I say unto you, fear Him " (Luke xii. 5). The
mystery of such an exit from a world so full of gracious
influences is terrible. This stern refusal of our Saviour
and Judge to speak one word of hope for him who dies
in his sins, involving his destiny in clouds and darkness
from whose inscrutable bosom is heard only the rumbling
of judgment thunders, while it taxes no mind with any
excessive burden of belief, does burden the apprehension
of the living sinner with a mystery as full of disquiet, and
as salutary in moral impression as any more definite dis-
closure seems likely to have been. When the strong
antipathies that were not unreasonably excited by the
monstrous denials of " Ballou Universalists " shall have
subsided, the evangelical churches will perhaps feel more
ready than now to return from their old theological ground
to the original biblical teaching. This remark brings us
to the last point remaining for our present criticism.

2. The present attitude of " orthodox " churches to-
ward the traditional doctrine is extremely inconsistent
and unsatisfactory. The laity, especially the cultured
sort, are to a considerable extent tinctured with the other
views. They know that in England and Germany resto-
rationism and annihilationism prevail to a wide extent

lOO IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

among intelligent an'd influential minds, that earnestly
hold, in other respects, to the old doctrines of the re-
formed churches. And they can see no reason why
divergent views of the duration and result of the " aeonian
punishment*' should not be as compatible with orthodoxy
in America as in Europe, and in the nineteenth century,
as during the first five centuries of Christianity. The
ministry, generally, feel bound to stand by the creed-
article, so long as that stands, or at least not to disturb
it. Many stand by it who are fully persuade^ in their
own minds, and look with antipathy upon the least dis-
sent from extreme views. Many others, feeling the
pressure of doubts, find relief in asserting to themselves
that they believe whatever the Bible says, and still are
not certain that they correctly understand what it says.
Some of these are not willing, and some do not dare,
to reinvestigate the dogma in an impartial, scientific
method, lest they bring themselves into conflict with the
creed which they are expected to defend. And some of
these brethren have affectionately dissuaded the author
of this Essay from provoking that personal reproach ^
which any intermeddling with the traditional belief would
be likely to bring from the ignorant, the uncandid, and
the intolerant, upon any one who ventures, however
reverently, to intimate a doubt whether, upon this mo-
mentous doctrine, we have read the words of our Lord

1 " Our brother man is seldom so bitter against us as when we re-
fuse to adopt at once his notions of the infinite." {Friends in CouH'
cil, Am. ed. p. 24.)

THE DUTY OF REINVESTIGATION. Id

aright Here and there a council of Congregational
churches lets a man into the pastorate — amid murmurs
of diss^t — who confesses a faint private hope of the
salvability hereafter of some who did not appear to get
saved in this life. A prominent doctor of divinity, for-
tunately perhaps for himself no more a candidate for a
pastoral charge, but still in good Congregational fellow-
ship, not long ago occupied " The Christian Union " for
a half year with a presentation of liberal views from an
historical standpoint. Meanwhile the creed-doctrine of
an endless punishment is seldom discussed from the pul-
pit, and never willingly heard by the pews. Occasionally
the denominational weekly undertakes to stretch the
slack chords to concert pitch by a reiteration of the old
arguments. Meanwhile the Restorationists are contin-
ually pointing at our embarrassed, uncertain, divergent,
and apparently transitional views. This state of things
on our side gives them a manifest advantage on the
whole subject They feel sure of their position ; we, as
a body, do not feel equally sure of ours. It is the
duty of the hour for scholarly men among us, holding to
the supreme authority of the written Word of God^ to
reinvestigate the whole subject in a spirit as free
as science herself from bondage to creed-forms, and
animated by a pure desire, whatever may become
of traditional beliefs, to get at the exact objective
truth so far as God has revealed it, and no further
For where the minds of so many earnest Christians
are still in such suspense as now, upon a doctrine

102 IS ETERNAL PUNISHMENT ENDLESS?

heretofore supposed to be so clearly revealed as this, it
becomes altogether probable that, with reference to their
inquiries, a fresh illustration will be given to that undy-
ing maxim of the pastor of our Pilgrim fathers, that " God
hath yet more truth and light to break forth from His
Holy Word."

THE END.

INDEX OF TEXTS REFERRED TO.

Genesis i. 6, 7 .
Genesis i. 26
Genesis ii. 17 .
Genesis vii. 19, 20
Genesis xvii. 8 .
Genesis xxi. 33 .
Exodus xxi. 6 .
Exodus xl. 15 .
Numbers xxv. 13
Deuteronomy xxix
Deuteronomy xxxii
I Samuel i. 22 .
Psafms xxi. 4 .
Psalms Ixxvii. 53
Psalms cxliii.
Psalms cxlv. 13
Proverbs v. 22 .
Proverbs xxii. 28
^cclesiastes i. 3
Ecclesiastes i. 4
Ecclesiastes iii. 15
Ecclesiastes viii. i
Ecclesiastes xi. 3
Isaiah v. 20 . .
I.saiah xxxiv. 10
Isaiah xl. i, 2 .
Isaiah Ixvi. 24 .
Daniel xii. 2 . .
Habakkuk iii. 6
Matthew v. 3-9
Matthew v. 25, 26
Matthew vii. 26, 27
Matthew x. 28 .
Matthew x. 32, 33
Matthew xii. 32

PAGE

29
40

36,

IS

53

VI

38

§7

65

3

3

15
10

4

15
40

6

75

5
10

II

52

4

12

9
31
94
44
53

89
20

41

4

49

43

33
90

34
20

PAGH

Matthew xiii. 39 31

Matthew xvi. 26 36

Matthew xviii. 8 18

Matthew xviii. 23-35 . • • • 42

Matthew xxi. 19 16

Matthew xxii. 13 33

Matthew xxv. 12 33

Matthew xxv, 41 28

Matthew xxv. 46 . i, 31, 46, 47,

64, 72

Matthew xxvi. 24 40

Matthew xxviii. 20 .... 10
Mark iii. 29 .... 18, 20, 35

Mark iv. 19 10

Mark ix. 43 18, 74

Mark ix. 48 19

Mark x. 14 68

Mark x. 27 90

Luke i. 33 10, 14

Luke ix. 25 34, 36

Luke xii. 5 99

Luke xvi. 11 75

Luke xvi. 26 33, 39

Luke xix. 10 36

John i. 17 89

John iii. 36 21, 48

John iv. 14 10

John V. 24 48

John V. 29 38

John vi. 58 13

John viii. 21 34, 37

John viii. 24 . . . . . . .34

John viii. 35 16

John ix. 2 81

John ix. 32 10

104

INDEX OF TEXTS REFERRED TO.

John xii. 34 . . .

16

John xiv. 16 . . .

. 14

John xiv. 18 . . .

14

John xvii. 3 . . .

. 49

Acts iii. 21 . . .

10

Romans i. 18 . .

50

Romans i. 20 . . .

26

Romans v. 12 . . .

.64

Romans xi. 26 . .

.85

Romans xii. 2 . , .

10

Romans xvi. 25
I Corinthians li. 7 .

. s

. 10

I Corinthians iv. 5

63

I Corinthians vi. 2

85

I Corinthians viii. 13

• 15

I Corinthians x. 11

ID

I Corinthians xv. 22

84

I Corinthians xv. 24-

28

14

I Corinthians xv. 28

84

2 Corinthians v. 10

34

2 Corinthians v. 1 1

61

»97

2 Corinthians xi. 31

II

Ephesians i. 10 . .

8S

Ephesians ii. i . .

■ 57

»59

Ephesians ii. 2 . . .

• i

II

Ephesians ii. 7 . . .

II,

12

Ephesians iii. 21 . .

11=

. 14

Philippians ii. 10 .

* • •

84

Philippians ii. 12 . .

• ■

rs

Colossians i. 19, 20 .

• •

2 Thessalonians i. 9 .

18,53

,60

I Timothy i. 4 . .

.8

>73

I Timothy i. 9 . . .

• «

62

I Timothy i. 17 . . ,

* 1

«

•

II

1 Timothy vi. 16

2 IMmothy i. 9 .
Titus i. 2 . . .
Hebrews i. 2
Hebrews v. 6 .
Hebrews vi. 2 .
Hebrews vi. 8 .
Hebrews vii. 1 1, 12
Hebrews vii. 16
Hebrews ix. 26 .
Hebrews x. 25, 26
Hebrews x. 26 .
Hebrews x. 28, 29
Hebrews xi. 3 .
James i. i . .
James ii. 13 . .
I Peter i. 25 . .
I Peter iii. 19, 20

1 Peter iv. 6 . .

2 Peter ii. 5 . .
2 Peter iii. 18 .
I John iii. 14 .
I John V. II, 12
I John V. 16
Jude vi. . . .
Jude vii. . . .
Revelation ii. 11
Revelation iv. 9
Revelation xiv. 1 1
Revelation xix. 3
Revelation xx. 10
Revelation xx. 14
Revelation xxii. 1 1
Revelation xxii. 18

18.

II,

7
5

5
II

13

55
34
10

8

31

34

37
89

II

85
42

15
86

86

86

16

22

48

26, 39
24, 27

58
II

23
23
23
25
44
70

II,

APPENDIX A.

The following synopsis of the various uses of *olam, as the pre*
cursor and mould of the New Testament aon, is taken from Gesenius's
Hebrew-English Lexicon,

A) Properly " hidden," specially A/V/i/if« titne^i, e.^ obscure and long,
of which the beginning or end is uncertain or indefinite, duration^
everlastings eternity ^ spoken :

1. Of time long past, gray antiquity, as Gen. vi. 4, mighty men
which were of old (from Warn).

2. Often also oi future time, ever^ forever, in such a way that the
limitation is to be determined from the nature of the subject. Thus,

a) Specially in the affairs of single persons, *olam is sometimes put
for the whole period of life, as, a servant forever (of ^olam, i, e,, not to
be set free in all his life (Deut. xv. 17). Sometimes put for very long
life ; Ps. xxi. 4, length of days for ever and ever {^olatn va W [like our
for ever and aye] ).

b) As pertaining to a whole race, dynasty, or people, and including
the whole time of their existence until their destruction, i Sam. ii.
30, thy family shall serve me forever (to *olam)t i. e.^ so long as it
endures.

c) Nearer to the metaphysical notion of eternity^ or at least to an
eternity without end, approach those examples in which ^olam is at-
tributed to the earth and to the universe. Eccl. i. 4, the earth abideth
forever (for *olam). So of human things which refer to a period after
death, e. g., sleep of "olam, everlasting sleep, for death, Jer. li. 39, 57 ;
house of ^olam, his everlasting house^ long home, Eccl. xii. 5.

I06 APPENDIX.

d) The true and full idea of eternity is expressed by ''olam in those
passages where it is spoken of the nature and existence of God, who
is called (Gen. xxL 33) the God of ^olam. Of him it is said (Ps. xc. 2),
from ^olam and unto *olam Thou art God.

e) Of a peculiar kind are those passages where the Hebrews by
hyperbole ascribe eternity in the metaphysical sense to human things,
chiefly in the expression of good wishes ; let my lord the king live for"
ei'er (to ^olam\ i Kings i. 31.

Plur. ^olamim^ ages, everlasting ages, like Gr. aiavis [esons], i. e,
a) ages of antiquity. Is. li. 9. b) future ages, the remotest future, Ps.
Ixxvii. 7.

B) The world, like Gr. aXdtv [aon], hence love of worldly things
worldly-mindedness. So Eccl. iii. ii, although He (God) hath set the
hwe of worldly things i^olam) tn their heart, so that man understandeth
not the works of God. [So in the New Testament. " Be not conformed
to this world " (aon — Romans xii. 2) is equivalent to " Love not the
world " (cosmos — i John ii. 15).]

APPENDIX B.

There is a noticeable peculiarity in the language used by
Christ, as compared with the language used by others, in speak-
ing of future duration.

It is true, in general, that the New Testament imitates the
Old Testament, in its view of duration past and future as com-
prehended in an indefinite succession of world-periods (ceons);
c.g.^ Luke i. 33, *'He shall reign over the house of Jacob for
the aions;" i Cor. ii. 7, "which God ordained before the
.-eons; " i Cor. x. 11, **the ends of the aeons;" Eph. ii. 7, *'in
<he icons to come;" i Tim. i. 17, "the King of the aeons."

APPENDIX. 107

But the language of Christ Himself presents a marked excep-
tion to this. Christ never speaks of the ^ONS, but only of the
-«ON. He applies this designation sometimes to the present
world, and sometimes to the future. (See p. 10, Note.) But
His invariable phrase with apparent reference to a permanent
future is the eis ton aiona («t? thv oamvo) discussed on pp. 13-17.
Once He uses it in contrasting the transient relation of a ser-
vant with the permanent relation of a son (John viii. 35), and
once in pronouncing an irrevocable curse upon the fig-tree
(Mark xi. 14) ; but elsewhere mostly in promises to the believer :
"shall live forever;" "shall never see death;" "shall never
perish;" "shall never die;" "that He may abide with jou
forever" (John vi. 51, 58; viii. 51 ; x. 28; xi. 26; xiv. 16) ; once
only He uses it in warning (Mark iii. 29).

How, then, does this peculiarity in Christ's language affect
our interpretation of His teaching? This inquiry divides into
two: —

I. Does "the aeon" which Christ promises the believer
refer to a definite period^ a single aeon among many, or does it
denote an indefinite permanency (see p. 16) ? Considering
the frequency with which the LXX. on the one hand, and the
epistles of Paul on the other, speak of " the seons," is Christ's
invariable use of the singular, "the €^(?»," to be deemed with-
out significance ? Christ knew the LXX. by heart, and Paul
was familiar, we may believe, both with the LXX. and with his
Master's teachings. Is it possible, then, that "the ajon" of
Christ's warnings and promises is simply the seon of His me-
diatorial reign, which began at His resurrection, and shall end
after the last enemy, death, has been destroyed (i Cor. xv.
24-2S) ? Without asserting this to be the correct interpretation,
one may say there is ground for regarding it as reasonable.
Were it to be adopted, , the promise of immortality would be in
no way abridged. That rests upon the most specific assurance :

I08 APPENDIX.

** Because I live, ye shall live also*' (John xiv. 19). To live
with Christ to the end of His mediatorial kingdom surely con-
tains the guaranty of all that may be beyond.

2. If, however, the suggested interpretation be rejected ; if
** the aeon *' that Christ speaks of be held to be simply the per-
manent future state ; we meet a question which starts from the
point established on page 16, viz., that the phrase, **for the
aeon," denotes a permanency which varies from a compara-
tively brief period to endlessness, according to the nature of the
subject. Taking now the single passage in which Christ uses
this phrase in warning, "hath not forgiveness for the aeon"
(Mark iii. 29; see pp. 18, 20, 35), how does the nature of the
subject define the extent of the phrase ? Is the nature of the
subject such, that the doom threatened must be endless punish-
ment? Here we have to consider both the nature of the pun-
ished soul, and the nature of its punishment. Is the soul, then,
possessed of an immortality that cannot be lost or taken away ?
Is its nature such, that it can never, under any circumstances,
cease to exist? Or, as to the punishment threatened, is this of
such a nature that, once begun, it must endlessly continue?
Each of these questions must be affirmatively answered, before
we can derive from the nature of the subject the notion of end-
lessness which does not belong to the indefinite and elastic
phrase, "for the aeon." And the answer, be it observed, is to
be drawn, if it can be, from the Scriptures, not from phi-
losophy.

APPENDIX G.

■ 01

It is possible that the question at issue between the extreme
annihilationists, who hold that every man loses his personal
existence at death, and the eternitarians (if one may coin a

APPENDIX. 1 09

term for convenience), who hold that every man must retain
his personal existence forever, is to receive fresh light from a
reexamination of the Biblical doctrine concerning the soul
('^«'X^) and the spirit (wfvfia) ; a distindlion between which is
made in the New Testament more clearly than it is recognized
in our current thought. Compare i Thess. v. 23; Heb. iv. 12.
The last cited passage is specially significant, as intimating
that an exact discrimination between the soul and the spirit is
difficult, and the dividing line sometimes imperceptible except
to divine intelligence, yet a line by no means imaginary,
but establishing an essential difference between tho two closely
united elements.

In a satisfactory discussion of the subject, Ihe following
points, among others, would probably come up : —

1. Whether iht pneuma (** spirit"), rather than the fsycke
(" soul," often translated ** life"), is the element of our being,
in virtue of which we are, or become, immortal. Compare
John vi. 63, where a general truth seems to be stated. In very
many passages of the Bible the psyche stands for the assem-
blage of the sentient, perceptive, and emotional faculties which
man has in common with the lower animals. Compare Gen.
i. 24, and ii. 7, where "living creature" and "living soul"
stand for the same original (<^xV ^*><^«»', LXX.). Compare also
I Cor. XV. 45 (where the same original recurs again), and 46,
where "natural" stands for the more literal "psychical." So
in verse 47, as compared with verse 46, "earthy" corresponds
with "psychical," and "the Lord from heaven" corresponds
with " spiritual." So further in verses 48 and 49.

2. Whether it is possible for the pneumay as an element of
the human being, to remain unformed, or to be aborted, as
parts of the physical organism sometimes are, — the mammae
in an adult man, for instance. Or, whether the biological doc-
trine of "arrested development," as now held, may have a real

no APPENDIX.

analogue in pneumatologj. If so, it might be that some whole
races of mankind (** pre- Adamite?*') might fail of immortality.
The Bible certainly recognizes a distinction between " the nat-
ural man" (rather, the "psychical," one in whom the ^sycAe
predominates) and the " spiritual" man (in whom the pucuma
predominates. See i Cor. ii. 14, 15; also Jude 19, where ** sen-
sual " stands for " psychical "). The question* is, How far can
this suppression of the pneuma be carried, ^nd with what
result upon future existence ?

3. Whether the human pneuma has inherent and necessary
immortality, or only a capacity for immortality, a receptivity
for the inflow of the Divine pneuma. Compare Rom. 8:11; i
Tim. vi. 13, 16. Whether, then, personal immortality is proba-
ble in the permanent severance of the dependent pneuma from
the One Source of Immortality, and if so, on what grounds.

4. Whether the human pneuma severed from the divine may
be able to maintain its life for a period in privation and suffer-
ing, unable either to perish at once, or to become immortal.

5. Whether, in many points of this whole subject, after
stating the apparent possibilities, we must not be content to
leave much unsettled, untouched by dogmatism, and reserved
to Ilim Who alone is able to discriminate perfectly "between
soul and spirit" (Ileb. iv. 12).

APPENDIX D.

As to the scriptural argument for the view that existence,
whether conscious or personal, or both, ceases at death, it is
mainly drawn from the Old Testament. This is enough to
discredit it, in view of the grand principle that "life and im-

APPENDIX. 1 1 1

mortality" have been "brought to light by the gospeV* (2 Tim.
i. 10). To construct a satisfying, or even a correct do(5lrine
of the future state from the Old Testament is like resorting
to the text-books of fifty years ago for adequate information
in physical science. To say this, is by no means to speak
against the inspiration of the Old Testament as compared with
the New Testament, but merely to do justice to the patent fact
which Biblical study has developed, that the Scriptures are
characterized by 2. progress 0/ doctrine from first to last.

APPENDIX E.

Extracts from Letters to the Author.

From a Presbyterian Clergyman in the Interior,

I do think you have shown the way out of that dire per-
plexity and distress, in which, as it seems to me, every candid,
thoughtful Christian must often have found himself, especially
a Christian minister, endeavoring in presence of acute object-
ors to vindicate the merciful God.

From the Same,

You have done a great service to one at least, who has had
many a struggle with the terrible church-doctrine. I had
begun, however, to struggle into the light. For some years
the opinion, that there must be some awful mistake about the
matter of torments literally endless, had possessed me with the
strength of an all but settled conviction. But still here were
these terrible passages of the New Testament which, I ought
to be ashamed to say, I had not examined in the spirit of a true
scholar, but had indolently allowed the English version to

1 1 2 APPENDIX.

blind me, much as jour note on page 19 shows that even such
a theologian as Dr. Hodge had allowed the same to blind him.

From another Presbyterian Clergyman in the Interior,

I was deeplj impressed by jour book. I do not remember
ever to have read a book that has taken deeper hold of me. I
believe it will modify all mj future thinking and preaching.

From a Congregational Pastor at the West,

I think jou have clearly shown by a most fair and search-
ing scrutiny of the Bible language, worthy of the highest
praise for its conscientious scholarship and completeness, that
the Bible leaves us in a state of nescience with regard to the
continuance of punishment. It becomes more and more ap-
parent from your book, that the old doctrine is only upheld by
forced constructions of Scripture ; — that in their zealous belief
in the dogma the most upright scholars have read into the
words a meaning that never rightly belonged there.

From the Same.

I am exceedingly glad you published this little tractate. It
is courageous, able, original, devout, and cannot fail to make
a decided impression on all thoughtful and scholarly readers.
I have no doubt the old polemics will fight right along in the
old entrenchments, as though there had been no new light;
but this helps to put the matter on a better basis, and a true
one, and you deserve the thanks of the churches.

From a Congregational Pastor in New England,

I have read the work with exceeding satisfaction. Its con-
clusions are essentially those to which I came years ago on
wholly different grounds, and in which I have ever since been at
rest^ although supposing that they seemed at variance with some
verbal statements of the Scriptures. The first two chapters of

APPENDIX. 1 1 3

this little book have removed this last ground of doubt. They
bcem to me unanswerable, decisive, final.

From another New England Pastor ^ also Congregational.

I wish I could let you know how much your book has
helped me.

From a letter "written to a friend^ by a Clergyman connected with a Theo-
logical Seminary of one of the Orthodox denominations,

I have just read the book by Dr. Whiton, which you gave
me. I regard it as the best, the most concise contribution to
the relief of "orthodoxy** from abominations, and to the
rational and Scriptural relief of serious Christians, within my
ken.

I have for many years held the intemperateness of ortho-
doxy — entirely, I had almost said — largely, at any rate,
responsible for the growth of scepticism within and without
the church of God.

I wish every theologian, and every clergyman, who has not
done up all his thinking, would read the book, and always study
Scripture in the spirit of the author thereof, — I mean, of this
little book. I think the result would be many saved from ab-
solute infidelity, many from pronounced and bald Universalism
— some from the mad-house. I purpose having an extra copy
for lending.

[cce Cffilumi or, Parish Astronomy.

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Gray. Vol. 11. of the Long Ago Series. Illustrated. Bq. 16mo
Cloth. $1.26.

SLICES OF IVIOTHER GOOSE. By Auce Park-
man. With exquisitely humorous illustrations by ** Champ."
In envelope, 75 cents; boards $1.25

At all bookstores, or sent postpaid for advertised price.

liOCKWOOD, BROOKS & CO.,

381 TFasl&lngton Street, Boston.

dnlertstmg ^obtU.

I,;

WAYSIDE SERIES.

I. Nimport.

6q. Iftmo. Cloth, flexible $1^.

n. Harry Holbrooke.

By Sir Raitdai. H. Roberts, Bart. Three Dluetratlons
by the Author $1^.

HI. Bourbon Lilies.

By Lizzie W. Champhet.

Student Life at Harvard.

By Qboroe H. Tripp. ISmo. Cloth, $1.75. Paper, illnBtrated
cover $1.00.

The Frau Domina.

From the German of Claire von GlOmer. TranBlated by Emma
F. Ware. 16mo. Cloth, flexible, $1.50. Paper, 60 cents.

^tautiftillg dUustrateir ^nbtnihu.

All Around a Palette.

By Mrs. Lizzie W. Champnet. Children's Art Series. Over
a hundred illustrations, and cover design, by *' Champ." 8m.
4to. Cloth $1.60.

In the Sky-Garden.

By Mrs. Lizzie W. Champnet. Numerous illustrations by
« Champ," printed in blue. New edition. Sm.4to. Cloth. $1.50.

At all bookstores, or sent postpaid on receipt of price.

liOCKWOOD, BROOKS & CO.,

381 W— hiiigtoa Mreet, BostoM*

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