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THE WIDER HOPE
' Life's mystery — deep, restless, as the ocean —
Hath surged and wailed for ages to and fro ;
Earth's generations watch is ceaseless motion
As in and out its hollow meanings flow.
Shivering and yearning by that unknown sea,
Let my. soul calm itself, Christ, in Thee !
Life's sorrows, with inexorable power.
Sweep desolation o'er this mortal plain ;
And human loves and hopes fly as the chaff
Borne by the whirlwind fiom the ripened grain.
Ah ! when before that blast my hopes all flee,
Let my soul calm itself, Christ, in Thee !
Between the mysteries of death and life
Thou standf st, loving, guiding, not explaining ;
We ask, and Thou art silent ; yet we gaze,
And our charmei hearts forget their drear complaining.
No crushing fate, no stony destiny,
Lamb that hast been slain, we find in Thee I
The many waves of thought, the mighty tides,
The ground-swell that rolls up from other lands,
From far-off" worlds, from dim, eternal shores.
Whose echo dashes on life's wave-worn stiands,—
This vague, dark tumult of the inner sea
Grows calm, grows bright, risen Lord, in Thee.
Thy pierced hand guides the mysterious wheels ;
Thy thorn-crowned brow now wears the crown of power ;
And, when the dread enigma presseth sore.
Thy patient voice saith, ' Watch with Me one hour.'
As sinks the moaning river in the sea
In silver peace, so sinks my soul in Thee ! "
Harriet Bebcher Stowe.
THE WIDER HOPE
Essays anb S tinctures
ON
THE DOCTRINE AND LITERATURE OF
FUTURE PUNISHMENT
BY
NUMEROUS WRITERS, LAY AND CLERICAL
INCLUDING
Archdeacon FARRAR ; The Very Rev. E. H. PLUMPTRE, D.D.;
The late Principal TULLOCH ; Rev. WILLIAM ARTHUR;
Rev. henry ALLON, D.D. ; Rev. JAMES H. RIGG, D.D.;
The late Rev. J. BALDWIN BROWN,
etc.
"Cmitb a ipapec
" ON THE SUPPOSED SCRIPTURAL EXPRESSION FOR
ETERNITY "
BY
THOMAS DE QUINCEY
AND A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX OF RECENT WORKS ON ESCHATOLOGY
AS CONTAINED IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM
NEW YORK
E. P. BUTTON & CO.
31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET
1890
/
! 572518 A
"There is one question which combines with the interest of specula-
tion and curiosity an interest incomparably greater, nearer, more affect-
ing, more solemn. It is the simple question — ' What shall we be ? '
How soon it is spoken ! but who shall reply ? Think how profoundly
this question, this mystery, concerns us — and, in comparison with this,
what are to us all questions of all sciences ? What to us all researches
into the constitution and laws of material nature ? What — all investi-
gations into the history of past ages ? What to us — the future career
of events in the progress of states and empires ? What to us — what
shall become of this globe itself, or all the mundane system ? What
WE shall be, we ourselves, is the matter of surpassing interest."
John Foster.
CONTENTS.
PREFATORY NOTE
PAGE
xi
ON THE SUPPOSED SCRIPTURAL EXPRESSION
FOR ETERNITY—
I. Thomas de Quixcet • • • •
FUTUHE PUNISHMENT-
XL The late Professor J. H. Jei.lett .
(Provost of Trinity College, Dublin.)
III. The late Principal Tulloch
IV. Rev. William Arthur . ,
y. The late Rev.- J. Baldwin Brown
VI. Rev. John Hunt, D.D. .
VIL The late Rev. R. F. Littledale, D.C.L.
VIII. Rev. Edward White
IX. Rev. Professor Salmon, D.D.
(Provost of Trinity College, Dublin.)
X. The Very Rev. E. H. Plumptre, D.D.
(Dean of Wells.)
XI. Rev. Henry Allox, D.D.
XIL Rev. James H. Rigg, D.D.
XIIL The late Canon BiRKS
XIV. The Rev. Professor Gracey
XV. The late A. J. B. Bere.sford Hope
XVI. A Layman ....
(The late W. B. Rands, Author of "Lilliput Levee," etc
XVII. The Rev. Professor Mayor
43
55
67
77
89
105
115
129
149
175
197
213
231
245
265
Vlll CONTENTS.
PACE
ETERNAL HOPE—
XVIII. {Reply) Archdeacon Farrae . • .295
IONIAN METEMPSYCHOSIS—
XIX. {Sequel) Francis Peek . , . 3i5
MERCY AND JUDGMENT -
XX. " Prefatory and Personal " Opening to
" Mercy and Judgment." Archdeacon
Faiirar ..... 377
XXI. The " Conclusion" of " Mercy and Judg-
ment." Archdeacon Farrar . . 399
appendix-
Recent Works on Eschatology contained in tue
Library of the British Museum . 409
* * FEEFATORY NOTE Bl' THE ED I TOR.- J AMEU HOGO.
*'The wish, that of the living whole
No life may fail beyond the grave,
Derives it not from what we have
The likest God within the soul?
I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope.
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope."
*' Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood.
That nothing walks with aimless feet ;
That not one life shall be destroy'd,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete.
Behold, we know not anything ;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last — far off — at last, to all.
And every winter change to spring.
So runs my dream, but what am I ?
An infant crying in the night :
An infant crying for the light :
And with no language but a cry."
Teknyson.
" There's a wideness in God's mercy.
Like the wideness of the sea ;
There's a kindness in His justice,
Which is more than liberty.
There is nO place where earth's sorrows
Are more felt than up in heaven ;
There is no place where earth's failings
Have such kindly judgment given.
There is welcome for the sinner,
And more graces for the good ;
There is mercy with the Saviour ;
There is healing in His blood.
• • • • • >
For the love of God is broader
Than the measures of man's mind :
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.
But we make His love too narrow
By false limits of our own ;
And we magnify His strictness
With a zeal He will not own.
There is plentiful redemption
In the blood that has been shed ;
There is joy for all the members
In the sorrows of the Head."
From " Souls of men, why will ye scatter f'
By F. W. Faber, D.D.
PREFATOEY NOTE.
A SHORT explanation is necessary to enable
the reader to understand how this book has
grown.
Thirty-seven years ago, while engaged in
the Editorship of the new series of The
Instructor (my Father's Weekly Magazine), I
had frequent conversations with Thomas de
QuiNCEY on matters relating to the Future
State.
He reviewed, amidst other problems of the
soul, our dim knowledge of that momentous
question — the duration of future punishment,
to which the yearning human spirit ever turns
with awe. He dwelt on the great mysteries
surrounding us, which the children of men
must be content now to " see through a glass,
darkly ; " and the lights and shadows of
belief, which, age by age, perplex and agitate
anxious, storm-tossed minds — in their honest
Xll PREFATORY NOTE.
endeavour to arrive at the true teaching of
Scripture.
Again and again, during the discussion of
these solemn and moving subjects, he recurred
to the interpretation of the expression for
Eter7iity, until at length, one day in the
autumn of 1852. he said to me, '' If I write
this, dare you print it f " With a full sense of
the far-reaching responsibility, I replied, " I
dare." Accordingly, the essay which opens
this volume was written, and soon afterwards
published, viz. — in the number for the
first week of 1853. It attracted much atten-
tion throughout the English-speaking world,
and provoked criticism of a very mixed
nature, privately, and in the Press. Thirty-
seven years ago, it will be remembered, the
rigour of theological opinion, particularly in
the Modern Athens, operated with a severity
differing greatly from what now prevails. I
will only remark, that I have always felt
satisfied at having done what lay in my
power to promote a clear understanding of
these Greek words, by enabling the dis-
tino:uished author to ofi*er to thoughtful men
PREFATORY NOTE. Xlll
a contribution so deserving of their attentive
consideration.
This remarkable essay — a legacy of De
Quincey's keen intellect and scholarly power —
has been, perhaps, in some respects, even more
fully appreciated in the recent literature of
Eschatology than on its first appearance. I
refer especially to its influence on the American
mind, — it having been for a long time widely
disseminated throughout the United States.
• •••••
In November and December 1877, Canon
Farrar preached in Westminster Abbey ^.ve
striking sermons which appeared in February
1878, under the title. Eternal Hope, — a
volume which excited universal attention in
theological circles, and amongst thinkers of all
branches of the Christian Church. The book
has now passed through fourteen editions, of
which eight appeared in the first year of
publication.
Amidst the mass of comment w^hich saw the
light touching the Canon's work and its subject,
the most noteworthy gathering was a group of
Essays and Strictures, contributed by a number
XIV PREFATORY NOTE.
of eminent writers, clerical and lay, of various
Schools, to the pages of The Contemporary
Review,
By the kind assent of these Authors I am
able to present, in a convenient form, this
collection of papers — one which, I trust, will
prove permanently valuable to students of
Scripture truth and devout speculation. In
the case of the seven Writers who have now
passed " within the vail," I have received from
their representatives the concurrence which
allows me to include the comments in question.
To Archdeacon Farrar I owe the additional
kindness of permission to attach from his later
volume — Mercy and Judgment — those sections
which show the result of his careful historical
researches and mature conclusions affecting the
subject. It is right to state that he has in no
way interfered either with the arrangement or
revision of this matter or his original " Eeply."
For the Bibliographical Appendix, I am
chiefly indebted to Mr. Gr. W. Fortescue, the
Superintendent of the British Museum Eeading
Koom. In addition to what has issued from
the British Press, the department of Eschato-
PREFATORY NOTE. • XV
logy has been well kept up at the Museum
by the judicious purchase of American and
Continental Works in recent years. Mr.
Fortescue's Subject Catalogue (1880-1885),
published by authority of the Trustees, is a
valuable labour-saving apparatus, and by his
courtesy I include the unpublished " Continua-
tions" on this subject to the present date. The
"Press Marks" attached will facilitate reference
to the works at our National Library.
The section of the Appendix drawn from the
last Edition, and Supplement to Poole's Index
to Penodical Literature (a work which affords
evidence of the ability in this field of our
American cousins), gives a ready key to many
valuable articles strewn about in fugitive
literature.
Proof sheets of the various papers (II. to
XVII.) have been revised by the Authors or their
representatives, and, in some cases, emenda-
tions made to elucidate the text or the writer's
position. Keferences in the present tense to
writers now deceased have not been altered.
Changes of personal title incident to Ecclesi-
astical preferment are noted once.
XVI • PREFATORY NOTE.
I have to tHank the Editor and Proprietors
of The Contemporary Review for their primary
assent, which encouraged me to pursue the
combination now happily effected by the
junction of so many copyright interests.
The cordial expressions of sympathy with
my purpose, and the co-operation afforded
by the able and. distinguished men who have
promoted this object, are extremely gratifying.
They have sustained me in this somewhat
arduous attempt to consolidate and preserve
these varying shades of opinion, entertained by
serious students of Life and Scripture, on that
solemn question in which every human being
is so profoundly concerned.
JAMES HOGG.
Easter Day, 1890.
ON THE SUPPOSED SCRIPTURAL
EXPRESSION FOR ETERNITY
I.
ON THE SUPPOSED SCRIPTURAL EXPRESSION FOR
ETERNITY,
By THOMAS DE QUINCEY.
Forty years ago^ (or, in all probability, a
good deal more, for we have already completed
thirty-seven years from Waterloo, and my
remembrances upon this subject go back to a
period lying much behind that great era), I
used to be annoyed and irritated by the false
interpretation given to the Greek word aibn,
and given necessarily, therefore, to the adjective
aionios as its immediate derivative. It was not
so much the falsehood of this interpretation, as
the narrowness of that falsehood, wdiich dis-
turbed me. There w^as a glimmer of truth in
it ; and precisely that glimmer it was which
led the way to a general and obstinate
misconception of the meaning. The word is
remarkably situated. It is a Scriptural word,
and it is also a Greek word ; from wdiich the
inevitable inference is, that we must look for
1 Written about the close of 1852.— if.
4 THE WIDER HOPE.
it only in the New Testament. Upon any
question arising of deep, aboriginal, doctrinal
truth, we have nothing to do with translations.
Those are but secondary questions, archaeolo-
gical and critical, upon which w^e have a
riorht to consult the Greek translation of the
Hebrew Scriptures known by the name of the
Septuagint.
Suffer me to pause at this point for the sake
of premising an explanation needful to the un-
learned reader. As the reading public and
the *hinking public is every year outgrowing
more and more notoriously the mere learned
public, it becomes every year more and more
the right of the former public to give the law
preferably to the latter public, upon all points
which concern its own separate interests. In
past generations, no pains were taken to make
explanations that w^re not called for by the
learned public. All other readers wT>re ignored.
They formed a mob, for whom no ^^rovision-
was made. And that many difficulties should
be left entirely unexplained for them, was
superciliously assumed to be no fault at all.
And yet any sensible man, let him be as
supercilious as he may, must on consideration
allows that amongst the crowd of unlearned or
half-learned readers, who have had neither
THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 5
time nor opportunities for what is called " eru-
dition " or learned studies, there must always
lurk a proportion of men that, by constitution
of mind, and by the bounty of nature, are
much better fitted for thinking, originally
more philosophic, and are more capaciously
endowed, than those who are, by accident of
position, more learned. Such a natural superi-
ority certainly takes precedency of a merely
artificial superiority ; and, therefore, it entitles
those who possess it to a special consideration.
Let there be an audience gathered about any
book of 10,100 readers : it might be fair in these
days to assume that 10,000 w^ould be in a
partial sense illiterate, and the remaining 100
what would be rigorously classed as "learned."
Now, on such a distribution of the readers, it
w^ould be a matter of certainty that the most
powerful intellects would lie amongst the
illiterate 10,000, counting, probably, to 15 to 1
as against those in the learned minority. The
inference, therefore, would be, that, in all
equity, the interest of the unlearned section
claimed a priority of attention, not merely as
the more numerous section, but also as, by a
high probability, the more philosophic. And in
proportion as this unlearned section widens
and expands, which every year it does, in that
6 THE WIDER HOPE.
proportion the obligation and cogency of this
equity strengthens. An attention to the un-
learned part of an audience, which fifteen years
ago might have rested upon pure courtesy,
nov) rests upon a basis of absolute justice. 1
make this preliminary explanation, in order to
take away the appearance of caprice from such
occasional pauses as I may make for the pur-
pose of clearing up obscurities or difficulties.
Formerly, in a case of that nature, the learned
reader would have told me that I was not
entitled to delay him by elucidations that in
his case must be supposed to be superfluous :
and in such a remonstrance there would once
have been some equity. The illiterate section
of the readers might then be fairly assumed as
present only by accident ; as no abiding part
of the audience ; but, like the general public
in the gallery of the House of Commons, as
present only by sufl'erance ; and officially in
any records of the House whatever, utterly
ignored as existences. At present, half-way
on our pilgrimage through the nineteenth
century, I reply to such a learned remonstrant
— that it gives me pain to annoy him by
superfluous explanations, but that, unhappily,
this infliction of tedium upon him is inseparable
from what has now become a duty to others.
THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 7
This being said, I now go on to inform the
illiterate reader, that the earliest translation of
the Hebrew Scriptures ever made was into
Greek. It w^as undertaken on the encourage-
ment of a learned prince, Ptolemy Philadelphus,
by an Association of Jewish emigrants in
Alexandria. It was, as the event has shown
in very many instances, an advantage of a
rank rising to providential, that such a
cosmopolitan version of the Hebrew sacred
Writings should have been made at a moment
when a rare concurrence of circumstances
happened to make it possible ; such as, for
example, a king both learned in his tastes and
liberal in his principles of religious toleration ;
a language, viz., the Greek, which had already
become, what for many centuries it continued
to be, a common lanQ-uas^e of communication
for the learned of the whole oiKovixkvri {i.e. in
effect of the civilised world, viz. Greece, the
shores of the Euxine, the whole of Asia Minor,
Syria, Egypt, Carthage, and all the dependencies
of Carthage, finally, and above all, Eome, then
beginning to loom upon the Western horizon),
together with all the dependencies of Eome,
and, briefly, every state and city that adorned
the imperial islands of the Mediterranean, or
that glittered like gems in that vast belt of land,
8 THE WIDER HOPE.
roundly speaking, 1000 miles inaverage breadth,
and in circuit running up to 5000 miles. One
thousand multiplied into five times 1000, or,
otherwise expressed, a thousand thousand five
times repeated, or, otherwise, a million five times
repeated, briefly, a territory measuring 5, 000, 000
of square miles, or forty-five times the surface of
our two British islands, — such was the boundless
domain which this extraordinary act of
Ptolemy suddenly threw open to the literature
and spiritual revelation of a little obscure race,
nestling in a little angle of Asia, scarcely
visible as a fraction of Syria, buried in the
broad shadows thrown out on one side by the
great and ancient settlements on the Nile, and
on the other by the vast empire that for thou-
sands of years occupied the Tigris and the Euph-
rates. In the twinkling of an eye, at a sudden
summons, as it were from the sounding of a
trumpet, or the Oriental call by a chipping of
hands, gates are thrown open, which have an
effect corresponding in grandeur to the efl'ect
that would arise from the opening of a ship
canal across the Isthmus of Darien, viz. the
introduction to each other — ^face to face — of
two separate infinities. Such a canal would
suddenly lay open to each other the two great
oceans of our planet, the Atlantic and the
THOMAS DE QUIXCEY. 9
Pacific ; whilst the act of translating into Greek
and /*ro??2 Hebrew, that is, transferring out of a
mysterious cipher as little accessible as Sanscrit,
and w^hich never luould be more accessible
through any worldly attractions of alliance
with power and civic grandeur or commerce,
out of this darkness i7ito the golden light of
a language the most beautiful, the most
honoured amongst men, and the most widely
diffused through a thousand years to come,
had the immeasurable effect of throwinef into
the great crucible of human speculation, even
then beginning to ferment, to boil, to overflow
— that miohtiest of all elements for exaltins;
the chemistry of philosophy — grand and, for the
first time, adequate conceptions of the Deity.
For, although it is true that, until Elias should
come — that is, until Christianity should have
applied its final revelation to the completion of
this great idea — we could not possess it in its
total effidgence, it is, however, certain that
an immense advance was made, a prodigious
usurpation across the realms of chaos, by the
grand illuminations of the Hebrew discoveries.
Too terrifically austere we must presume the
Hebrew idea to have been ; too undeniably it
had not withdrawn the veil entirely which
still rested upon the Divine countenance ; so
10 THE WIDER HOPE.
mucli is involved in the subsequent revela-
tions of Christianity. But still the advance
made in reading aright the Divine linea-
ments had been enormous. God was now a
Holy Spirit that could not tolerate impurity.
He was the Fountain of justice, and no
longer disfigured by any mode of sympathy
with human caprice or infirmit}^. And, if a
frown too awful still rested upon His face,
making the approach to Him too fearful for
harmonising with that perfect freedom and
that childlike love which God seeks in His
worshippers, it was yet made evident that no
step for conciliating His favour did or could lie
through any but moral graces.
Three centuries after this great epoch of the
2)uhlication (for such it was), secured so pro-
videntially to the Hebrew theology, two learned
Jews — viz. Josephus and Philo Judseus — had
occasion to seek a cosmopolitan utterance for
that burden of truth (or what they regarded
as truth) which oppressed the S23irit within
them.
Once again they found a deliverance from
the very same freezing imprisonment in an
unknown language, through the very same
magical key, viz. the all-pervading language
of Greece, which carried their communications
THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 11
to the four winds of heaven, and earned tliem
precisely amongst the class of men — viz., the
enlightened and educated class — which pre-
eminently, if not exclusively, their wish was to
reach. About one generation after Christ it
was, when the utter prostration and, politically
speaking, the destruction of Jerusalem and the
Jewish nation, threw these two learned Jews
upon this recourse to the Greek language as
their final resource, in a condition otherwise of
absolute hopelessness. Pretty nearly three cen-
turies before Christ it was (284 years, according
to the common reckoning), when the first act of
communication took place between the sealed-
up literature of Palestine and the Greek
catholic interpretation. Altogether, we may
say that 320 years, or somewhere about ten
generations of men, divided these two memor-
able acts of intercommunication. Such a
space of time allows a large range of influence
and of silent, unconscious operation to the
vast and potent ideas that brooded over this
awful Hebrew literature. Too little weight has
been allowed to the probable contagiousness,
and to the preternatural shock, of such a
new and strange philosophy, acting upon the
jaded and exhausted intellect of the Grecian
race
12 THE WIDER HOPE.
We must remember, that precisely this
j)articular range of time was that in which
the Greek systems of philosophy, having
thoroughly completed their evolution, had
suffered something of a collapse ; and, having
exhausted their creative energies, began to
gratify the cravings for novelty by remodellings
of old forms. It is remarkable, indeed, that
this very city of Alexandria founded and
matured this new principle of remodelling
applied to poetry not less than to philosophy
and criticism. And, considering the activity of
this great commercial city and port, which w^as
meant to act, and did act, as a centre of com-
munication between the East and the West, it
is probable that a far greater effect was pro-
duced by the Greek translation of the Jewish
Scriptures, in the w^ay of preparing the mind
of nations for the apprehension of Christianity,
than has ever been distinctly recognised.
The silent destruction of books in those cen-
turies has robbed us of all means for tracing
innumerable revolutions, that nevertheless, by
the evidence of results, must have existed.
Taken, however, with or without this addi-
tional result, the translation of the Hebrew
Scriptures in their most important portions
must be ranked amongst what are called
THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 13
" Providential " events. Such a king — a king
whose father had been a personal friend of
Alexander, the mighty civilising conqueror,
and had shared in the liberalisation connected
with his vast revolutionary projects for ex-
tending a higher civilisation over the globe, —
such a king, conversing with such a language,
having advantages so absolutely unrivalled ;
and again, this king and this language con-
curring with a treasure so supernatural ol
spiritual wisdom as the subject of their minis-
trations, and all three concurring with political
events so auspicious — the founding of a new
and mighty metropolis in Egypt, and the
silent advance to supreme power amongst men
of a new empire, martial beyond all precedent
as regarded means, but not as regarded ends
— working in all things towards the unity of
civilisation and the unity of law, so that any
new impulse, as, for instance, impulse of a new
religion, was destined to find new facilities for
its own propagation, resembling electric con-
ductors, under the unity of government and
of law, — concurrences like these, so many and
so strange, justly impress upon this translation,
the most memorable, because the most in-
fiuential of ail that have ever been accom-
plished, a character of grandeur that place it
14 THE WIDER HOPE.
on the same level of interest as the building
of the first or second temple at Jerusalem.
There is a Greek legend which openly ascribes
to this translation all the characters of a miracle.
But, as usually happens, this vulgarising form
of the miraculous is far less impressive than
the plain history itself, unfolding its stages
with the most unpretending historical fidelity.
Even the Greek language, on which, as the
natural language of the new Greek dynasty in
Egypt, the duty of the translation devolved,
enjoyed a double advantage : First, as being the
only language then spoken upon earth that
could diffuse a book over every part of the
civilised earth ; secondly, as being a language of
unparalleled power and compass for expressing
and reproducing effectually all ideas, however
alien and novel. Even the city, again, in
which this translation was accomplished, had
a double dowry of advantages towards such a
labour, not only as enjoying a large literary
society, and, in particular, a large Jewish
society, together with unusual provision in the
shape of libraries, on a scale probably at that
time unprecedented, but also as having the
most extensive machinery then known to
human experience for publishing, that is, for
transmitting to foreign capitals all books in
THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 15
the readiest and the cheapest fashion, by means
of its prodigious shipping.
Having thus indicated to the unleaimed
reader the particular nature of that interest
which invests this earliest translation of the
Hebrew Scriptures, viz. that, in fact, this
translation was the earliest publication to the
human race of a revelation which had previ-
ously been locked up in a language destined,
as surely as the Welsh language or the Gaelic,
to eternal obscurity amongst men, I go on to
mention that the learned Jews selected for
this weighty labour happened to be in number
seventy-two; but, as the Jews systematically
reject fractions in such cases (whence it is that
always, in order to express the period of six
weeks, they sa.j forty clays, and not, as strictly
they should, for^ty-two days), popularly, the
translators were called "The Seventy," for
which the Latin word is septuaginta. And
thus in after ages the translators were usually
indicated as " The LXX," or, if the work and
not the workmen should be noticed, it was
cited as The Septvxigint. In fact, this earliest
of Scriptural versions, viz. into Greek, is by
much the most famous ; or, if any other
approaches it in notoriety, it is the Latin
translation by St. Jerome, which, in this one
16 THE WIDER HOPE.
point, enjoys even a superior importance, that
in the Church of Rome it is the authorised
translation. Evidently, in every Church, it
must be a matter of primary importance to
assign the particular version to which that
Church appeals, and by which, in any contro-
versy arising, that Church consents to be
governed. Now, the Jerome version fulfils
this function for the Romish Church ; and
accordingly, in the sense of being published
(vulgata), or publicly authorised by that Church,
it is commonly called TJie Vulgate.
But, in a large polemic question, unless, like
the Romish Church, we uphold a secondary
inspiration as having secured a special privi-
leged translation from the possibility of error,
we cannot refuse an appeal to the Hebrew
text for the Old Testament, or to the Greek
text for the New. The word aionios (aiwvtos),
as purely Grecian, could not connect itself
with the Old Testament, unless it were through
the Septuagint translation into Greek. Now,
with that version, in any case of controversy,
none of us, Protestants alike or Roman Catho-
lics, have anything whatever to do. Contro-
versially, we can be concerned only with the
original language of the Scriptures, with its
actual verbal expressions tcxtually produced.
THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 17
To be liable, therefore, to such a textual
citation, any Greek word must belong to the
New Testament. Because, though the word
might happen to occur in the Septuagint, yet,
since that is merely a translation, for any of
us who occupy a controversial pLace, that is,
who are bound by the responsibilities, or who
claim the strict privileges of controversy, the
Septuagint has no virtual existence. We
should not be at liberty to allege the Septua-
gint as any authority, if it happened to
countenance our own views ; and, consequently,
we could not be called on to recognise the
Septuagint in any case where it should happen
to be against us. I make this preliminary
caveat, as not caring whether the word aeonios
does or does not occur in the Septuagint.
Either way, the reader understands that I
disown the authority of that version as in any
degree affecting myself. The word which, forty
years ago, moved my disgust by its servile
misinterpretation, was a word proper to the
Neyj Testament ; and any sense which it may
have received from an Alexandrian Jew in the
third century before Christ, is no more relevant
to any criticism that I am now going to sug-
gest, than is the classical use of the word aeon
B
18 THE WIDER HOPE.
(aiiov) familiar to the learned in Sophocles or
Euripides.
The reason which gives to this word aeonian
what I do not scruple to call a dreadful
importance, is the same reason, and no other,
which prompted the dishonesty concerned in
the ordinary interpretation of this word. The
W'ord happened to connect itself — but that was
no practical concern of mine ; me it had not
biassed in the one direction, nor should it have
biassed any just critic in the counter direction
— happened, I say, to connect itself with the
ancient dispute upon the ditration. of future
punishments. What was meant by the aeonian
punishments in the next world ? Was the
proper sense of the word eternal, or was it
not ? I, for my part, meddled not, nor upon
any consideration could have been tempted to
meddle, w-ith a speculation repellent alike by
the horror and by the hopeless mystery which
invest it. Secrets of the prison-house, so
afflicting to contemplate steadily, and so hope-
less of solution, there could be no proper
motive for investigating, unless the investi-
gation promised a great deal more than it
coidd ever accomplish ; and my own feeling as
to all such problems is, that they vulgarise
what, left to itself ^vould take its natural
THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 19
station amono-st the freezino; horrors that Shaks-
peare dismisses with so potent an expression
of awe, in a well-known scene of Measure for
Measure. I reiterate my protest against being
in any way decoyed into the controversy.
Perhaps I may have a strong opinion upon
the subject. But, anticipating the coarse
discussions into which the slightest entertain-
ment of such a question would be every
moment approaching, once for all, out of
reverential regard for the dignity of human
nature, I beg permission to decline the con-
troversy altogether.
But does this declinature involve any coun-
tenance to a certain argument which I began
])y rejecting as abominable ? Most certainly
not. That argument runs thus — that the
ordinary construction of the term aeonian, as
equivalent to everlasting, could not possibly
be given up when associated with penal misery
because in that case, and by the very same
act, the idea of eternity must be abandoned as
applicable to the counter-bliss of Paradise.
Torment and blessedness, it was argued, punish-
ment and beatification, stood upon the same
level ; the same word it was, the word aeonian,
which qualified the duration of either; and,
if eternity in the most rigorous acceptation
20 THE WIDER HOPE.
fell away from the one idea, it must equally
fall away from the other. Well ; be it so.
But that would not settle the question. It
might be very painful to renounce a long-
cherished anticipation ; but the necessity of
doing so could not be le^dv^ed as a sufficient
reason for adhering to the old unconditional
use of the word aeonian. The argument is —
that we must retain the old sense of eternal,
because else we lose upon one scale what we
had gained upon the other. But what then ?
would be the reasonable man's retort. We are
not to accept or to reject a new construction
(if otherwise the more colourable) of the word
aeonian, simply because the consequences might
seem such as upon the whole to displease us.
We may gain nothing ; for by the new inter-
pretation our loss may balance our gain ; and
we may prefer the old arrangement. But
how monstrous is all this ! We are not sum-
moned as to a choice of two different arrange-
ments that may suit different tastes, but to a
grave question as to what is the sense and
operation of the word aeonian. Let the
limitation of the word disturb our previous
estimate of Paradise, grant that it so disturbs
that estimate, not the less all such consequences
leave the dispute exactly where it was ; and
THOMAS DE QUIKCEY. 21
if a balance of reason can be found for limiting
tlie extent of the word aeonian, it will not be
the less true because it may happen to disturb
a crotchet of our own.
Meantime, all this speculation, first and
last, is pure nonsense. Aeonian does not
mean eternal; neither does it mean of limited
duration ; nor would the unsettling of aeonian
in its old use, as applied to punishment, to
torment, to misery, etc., carry with it any
necessary unsettling of the idea in its applica-
tion to the beatitudes of Paradise. Pause,
reader ; and thou, my favoured and privileged
reader, that boastest thyself to be unlearned,
pause doubly w^hilst I communicate my views
as to this remarkal)le word.
What is an aeon ? In the use and accepta-
tion of the Apocalypse, it is evidently this,
viz., the duration or cycle of existence wdiich
belongs to any object, not individually for
itself, but universally in right of its genus.
Kant, for instance, in a little paper which I
once translated, proposed and debated the
question as to the age of our planet the Earth.
What did he mean ? Was he to be under-
stood as asking wdi ether the Earth were half
a million, tw^o millions, or three millions of
years old ? Not at all. The probabilities
22 THE WIDER HOPE.
certainly lean, one and all, to the assignment
of an antiquity greater by many thousands of
times than that which we have most idly
supposed ourselves to extract from Scripture,
which assuredly never meant to approach a
question so profoundly irrelevant to the great
purposes of Scripture as any geological specu-
lation whatsoever. But this was not within
the field of Kant's inquiry. What he washed
to know was simply the exact stage in the
wdiole course of her development which the
Earth at present occupies. Is she still in her
infancy, for example, or in a stage correspond-
ing to middle age, or in a stage approaching
to superannuation ? The idea of Kant pre-
supposed a certain average duration as belonging
to a j)hanet of our particular system ; and
supposing this known, or discoverable, and
that a certain assignable development belonged
to a planet so circumstanced as ours, then in
what particular stage of that development may
we, the tenants of this respectable little planet
Tellus, reasonably be conceived to stand ?
Man, again, has a certain aeonian life ;
possibly ranging somewhere about the period
of seventy years assigned in the Psalms. That
is, in a state as highly improved as human
infirmity and the errors of the earth herself.
THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 23
together with the diseases incident to our
atmosphere, etc., could be supposed to allow,
possibly the human race might average seventy
years for each individual. This period would
in that case represent the " aeon " of the mdi-
vidual Tellurian ; but the " aeon " of the
Tellurian race would probably amount to
many millions of our earthly years ; and it
would remain an unfiithomable mystery, de-
riving no light at all from the septuagenarian
*' aeon " of the individual ; though between the
two aeons I have no doubt that some secret
link of connection does and must subsist,
however undiscoverable by human sagacity.
The crow, the deer, the eagle, etc., are all
supposed to be long-lived. Some people have
fancied that in their normal state they tended
to a period of two ^ centuries. I myself know
1 I have lieard the same normal duration ascribed to the
tortoise, and one case became imperfectly known to myself
personally. Somewhere I may have mentioned the case in
print. These, at any rate, are the facts of the case : A lady
(Ijy biitli a Cowper, of the Whig family, and cousin to tlie
poet Cowper ; and, equally with him, related to Dr. Madan,
Bishop of Peterborough), in the early pait of this century,
mentioned to me that, in the palace at Peterborough, she had
for years known as a pet of tlie household a venerable tortoise,
who bore some inscription on his shell indicating that, from
1638 to 1643, he had belonged to Archbishop Laud, who (if
I am not mistaken) held the bishopric of Peterborough before
he was translated to London, and finally to Canterbury.
24 THE WIDER HOPE.
iiotliing certain for or against tliis belief; but,
supposing the case to be as it is represented,
then this would be the aeonian period of
these animals, considered as individuals.
Among trees, in like manner, the oak, the
cedar, the yew, are notoriously of very slow
growth, and their aeonian period is unusually
long as regards the individual. What may
be the aeon of the whole species is utterly
unknown. Amongst birds, one species at
least has become extinct in our own genera-
tion ; its cieon was accomplished. So of all the
fossil species in zoology, wdiich Palaeontology
has revealed. Nothing, in short, thioughout
universal nature, can for a moment be conceived
to have been resigned to accident for its normal
aeon. All periods and dates of this order
belong to the certainties of nature, but also,
at the same time, to the mysteries of Provi-
dence. Throughout the Prophets, we are
uniformly taught that nothing is more below
the grandeur of Heaven than to assign earthly
dates in fixins^ either the revolutions or the
duration of great events such as prophecy
would condescend to notice. A day has a
proplietic meaning, but what sort of day ? A
mysterious expression for a time which has no
resemblance to a natural day — sometimes
THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 25
comprehenclmg long successions of centuries,
and altering its meaning according to the
object concerned. " A time," and " times," or
** half a time " — " an aeon," or " aeons of aeons"
— and othervariationsof this prophetic language
(so full of dreadful meaning, but also of doubt
and perplexity), are all significant. The
peculiar grandeur of such expressions lies partly
in the dimness of the approximation to any
attempt at settling their limits, and still more
in this, that the conventional character, and
consequent meanness of ordinary human dates,
are abandoned in the celestial chronolog:ies.
Hours and days, or lunations and months,
have* no true or philosophic relation to the
origin, or duration, or periods of return belong-
ing to great events, or revolutionary agencies,
or vast national crimes ; but the normal period
and duration of all acts whatever, the time of
their emergence, of their agency, or their
reagency, fall into harmony with the secret
proportions of a heavenly scale, when they
belong by mere necessity of their own internal
constitution to the vital though hidden motions
that are at work in their own life and manifes-
tation. Under the old and ordinary view of
the apocalyptic aeon, which supposed it always
to mean the same period of time — mysterious,
26 THE WIDER HOPE.
indeed, and uncertain, as regards our know-
ledge, but fixed and rigorously certain in the
secret counsels of God — it was presumed that
this period, if it lost its character of infinity
when applied to evil, to criminality, or to
punishment, must lose it by a corresponding
necessity equally when applied to happiness
and the golden aspects of hope. But, on the
contrary, every object whatsoever, every mode
of existence, has its own separate and indepen-
dent aeon. The most thoughtless person must
be satisfied, on reflection, even apart from the
express commentary upon this idea furnished
by the Apocalypse, that every life and mode
of being must have hidden within itself the
secret why of its duration. It is impossible to
believe of any duration whatever that it is
determined capriciously. Always it rests upon
some ground, ancient as light and darkness,
though undiscoverable by man. This only is
discoverable, as a general tendency, that the
aeon, or generic period of evil, is constantly
towards a fugitive duration. The aeon, it is
alleged, must always express the same idea,
whatever that may be ; if it is less than eternity
for the evil cases, then it must be less for the
good ones. Doubtless the idea of an aeon is
in one sense always uniform, always the same,
THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 27
viz. , as a tenth or a twelfth is always the same.
Arithmetic could not exist if any caprice or
variation affected these ideas — a tenth is
always more than an eleventh, always less
than a ninth. But this uniformity of ratio
and proportion does not hinder but that a
tenth may now represent a guinea, and next
moment represent a thousand guineas. The
exact amount of the duration expressed by an
aeon depends altogether upon the particular
subject which yields the aeon. It is, as I
have said, a radix ; and, like an algebraic square
root or cube-root, though governed by the
most rigorous laws of limitation, it must vary
in obedience to the nature of the particular
subject whose radix it forms.
Eeader, I take my leave. I have been too
loitering. I know it, and will make such
efforts in future to cultivate the sternest
brevity as nervous distress will allow. Mean-
time, as the upshot of my speculation, accept
these three propositions : —
A. That man (which is in effect every man
hitherto), who allows himself to infer the
eternity of evil from the counter eternity of
good, builds upon the mistake of assigning
a stationary and mechanic value to the idea
of an aeon ; w^hereas the very purpose of
28 THE WIDER HOPE.
Scripture in using this word was to evade
such a value. The word is alwavs varying;,
for the very purpose of keeping it faithful to
a spiritual identity. The period or duration
of every object would be an essentially variable
quantity, were it not mysteriously commen-
surate to the inner nature of that object as
laid open to the eyes of God. And thus it
happens, that everything in this world, possibly
without a solitary exception, has its own
separate aeon: how many entities, so many
aeons.
B. But if it be an excess of blindness which
can overlook the aeonian diiferences amongst
even neutral entities, much deeper is that
blindness which overlooks the separate tenden-
cies of things evil and things good. Naturally,
all evil is fugitive and allied to death.
C. I separately, speaking for myself only,
profoundly believe that the Scrij^tures ascribe
absolute and metaphysical eternity to one
sole Being, viz., to God; and derivatively to
all others according to the interest which they
can plead in God's favour. Having anchorage
in God, innumerable entities may possibly be
admitted to a participation in divine aeon.
But what interest in the favour of God can
belong to falsehood, to malignity, to impurity?
THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 29
To invest them with aeonian privileges, is ia
effect, and by its results, to distrust and to
insult the Deity. Evil would not be evil, ii*
it had that power of self- subsistence which is
imputed to it in supposing its aeonian life to
be co-eternal with that which crowns and
glorifies the good.
FUTURE PUNISHMENT
11.
FUTURE PUNISHMENT,
By the late Professor J. H. JELLETT
(Provost of Trinity College, Dublin).
The success of a book is often an important
phenomenon of the age or generation in which
it appears. Due in part to causes peculiar to no
place or time, in part, perhaps, to causes which
may be called accidental, the success of a book
is often truly indicative of the generation
which has welcomed it. It is successful,
partly for its literary merit, partly too for its
truth ; but these causes combined are often
insufficient to account for the phenomenon.
It is successful because it discusses some
question which is just then of surpassing
interest, or because it gives vivid expression
to a conception or a belief which is at that
time present to the minds of men with a more
than ordinary force. The successful books of
a generation furnish, therefore, to the histo-
rian of thought, evidence of the highest value.
S3 ^ c
34 THE WIDER HOPE.
When he has assigned to the genius, the
learning, and the truthfuhiess of the author,
all that is justly due to them, and when he
has found, as he will often find, that all
together w^ere insufficient to produce the
effect, he will look for the conspiring causes,
not to the author but to his readers, and may
thus obtain precious materials for the intellect-
ual or moral history of the time.
It is not too soon to speak of Canon Farrar's
Eternal Hope as a successful book. Short
as the time is which has elapsed since its
publication, it has been long enough to leave
no doubt of the feeling with which the public
have received it. It is not too soon to call a
book successful, which ran through its first
edition in three weeks.
In seeking the causes of this success, we
naturally look, in the first place, to the
intrinsic merits of the book. Among these,
that which is perhaps most conspicuous is the
absolute truthfulness of the author. These
sermons are stamped throughout w^ith that
kind of eloquence which is inspired by earnest
conviction, and by that only. They are
thoroughly Christian in spirit, and it would be
unjust to call them violent; but they are
certainly impassioned. The author believes a
THE LATE PROFESSOR J. H. JELLETT. 35
certain doctrine, against which a large part of
his book is directed, to be a blot on popular
Christianity ; and this doctrine meets no
tenderness at his hands. He repudiates
controversy (p. 99) ; yet if this word be
understood in its ordinary sense, it seems hard
to give any other name to a book whose main
object is to teach men to reject and even
detest a very common article of belief. But
his controversial writing, although impas-
sioned, and sometimes even bitter, is honest
and truthful.
Another cause which has contributed in no
small degree to the popularity of these sermons,
is the harmony of their central principle with
a feeling, which is every day gaining a stronger
hold over the minds of men. Ever}^ day
which passes over religious controversy sees
increased weight given to the verdict of the
moral sense upon any doctrine which is pro-
posed for man's acceptance. The right of this
faculty to pronounce, if not decisively, yet
with very great authority, upon the moral
character of any asserted truth, and the
influence which this sentence ought to have
upon man's belief, are every day more fully
acknowledged. Every day sees an increase in
the number of those who will not consent to
36 THE WIDER HOPE.
receive a cloclrlne on external evidence only,
without examination of its moral character.
Many would give to the moral faculty the
absolute right to reject as untrue any doctrine
appearing to it immoral, whatever amount of
(apparent) Scriptural evidence may be adduced
in its favour. Indeed, the well-known canon
of Bishop Butler — that " if in revelation there
be found any passages the seeming meaning of
which is contrary to natural religion, we may
most certainly conclude such seeming meaning
not to be the real one " ^ — can hardly mean less.
But, even from many who stop short of this
conclusion, a controversialist would scarcely
obtain a hearing who should deny to the
human mind the right to judge of the intrinsic
morality of any doctrine which it is asked
to believe.
This principle is indeed no new one ; we
have seen that it is at least as old as Bishop
Butler; but it was probably never so fully and
generally admitted as it is now. Had it been
always so, certain theories, which are the
disgrace of theology, might never have seen
the light. It is the earnest advocacy of this
principle which places Canon Farrar's book in
1 Analogy, Part 2, chap. i.
THE LATE PROFESSOR J. H. JELLETT. 87
harmony with a great mass of religious
thought in the present day. It may fairly be
called the central principle of his Sermons.
The popular doctrine of eternal punishment —
the doctrine that "when we think of the future
of the human race, we must conceive of a vast
and burning prison, in wdiich the lost souls of
millions and millions writhe and shriek for
ever, tormented in a flame that never will be
quenched" (p. 55) — is condemned because it
is repugnant to the moral sense. It is indeed
true that his most bitter denunciations, clothed
in language as strong as he can make it, are
reserved, not for the doctrine itself, but for
the additions which theologians — those especi-
ally of the Calvinistic school — have engrafted
upon it. Yet if these additions to the popular
belief be examined, it will be found that they
are in reality no more than two, — namely, the
dogma of reprobation, and the notion that the
happiness of the blest is intensified by witness-
ing the sufi'ering of the damned. All the rest
which he denounces with such scathincr
eloquence — the frightful pictures drawn by
Dante and Milton, by Tertullian and Jeremy
Taylor — do but give definiteness to the
common creed. Any one who believes that,
for the great majority of mankind, the future
38 THE WIDER HOPE.
life will be one of endless torture, must, if he
would realise his l^elief to himself, draw a
picture of a like horrible kind. Men's belief is
not indeed usually so definite, but, if it mean
anything, it must mean this or something
like it.
It w^ould be impossible to reproduce here
the author's discussion of the supposed Scrip-
tural proofs of the doctrine of endless punish-
ment. It must suffice to mention one of these
supposed proofs which turns upon the meaning
of the word atwvto? in such passages as Matt.
XXV. 46. It has been contended that, if this
word, when applied to the punishment of the
wicked, is to be understood of a limited time,
tlie same word, when applied to the happiness
of the righteous, must be understood with a
similar limitation. In reply to this argument,
Canon Farrar remarks, as Mr. Barlow had
remarked before,^ that if every passage in the
New Testament in which the word occurs were
struck out, there would remain ample Scrip-
tural proof of the immortality of the righteous.
But the question may be considered in a
more general way. Even if it be conceded
that, according to the most probable interpre-
1 Eternal PLuiisliment and Eternal Death, pp. 89, 90.
THE LATE PROFESSOR J. H. JELLETT. 30
tation of the texts which are supposed to
contain the doctrine of endless punishment,
they do contain this doctrine, it may still be
asked — Does this decide the question ? There
is no infallibility attached to the process of
interpretation. The reasoning by which the
inspiration of Scripture itself is ascertained is
not infallible. Probability is all that we can
attain to. When, therefore, we find the
testimony of Scripture, as interpreted by us,
to be opposed to a moral intuition, the logical
dilemma is this : 1. Scripture may be wrong.
2. Our interpretation of it may be wrong.
3. The moral intuition may be wrong. The
canon of Bishop Butler would lead us to prefer
the second alternative. Popular theology
invariably prefers the third. The truth seems
to be, that no absolutely general rule can be
laid down, although much may be said in
support of the canon of Bishop Butler. But
the canon of popular theology is wholly
indefensible. No faculty of the human mind
is infallible, and the moral faculty may err like
the rest. But no faculty is less likely to err.
A canon which rejects, generally, its decision
in favour of the decision of the exeoetical
faculty, cannot therefore be justified.
It remains to inquire what judgment Canon
40 THE WIDER HOPE.
Farrar has himself formed on this great ques-
tion. Here, it may be observed that his
classification of the "main views of eschatology"
is open to a slight logical objection. As no
question is made of the final* destiny of '' the
good," the views of eschatology which he
considers can differ only in the position which
they assign to those who, at the close of their
earthly life, are not among "the good." These
views he classes as follows : 1. Universalism,
or the belief that all men will ultimately be
saved ; Annihilationism (also called Conditional
Immortality), or the belief that after a finite
amount of retributive punishment the wicked
will be destroyed ; 3. Purgatory, or the belief
in an intermediate state of purification ; 4. The
endless punishment of the wicked. This
classification is founded on the answer given,
not to a single question, but to two, one only
of which is properly eschatological. These
questions are : 1. What is man's ultimate
destiny ? 2. Is that destiny decided at the
close of this life ? The third of Canon Farrar's
classes depends on the answer given to the
second or non-eschatological question, and, as
might be expected, this view is not absolutely
inconsistent with any of the others. The
supposition of an intermediate state may
THE LATE PROFESSOR J. H. JELLETT. 41
co-exist with a belief in either universal
redemption, annihilation, or endless punish-
ment. The true division Avould seem to be
threefold, as the ultimate fate of all men must
be either happiness, misery, or annihilation.
Of these alternatives. Canon Farrar rejects the
third altogether. He rejects the second, if it
take the form of inflicted punishment, but not
if it take the form of the sufl'ering which vice
brino;s with it. In this sense he thinks that
the punishment of sin may be endless. But
it is never hopeless. The path of repentance
is never barred. There is no proof that man's
probation ends with this life ; and therefore,
although the second alternative may be true,
m Ms sense, yet the first is not impossible;
nay, there are some indications of its truth.
It is thus plain that Canon Farrar is not
dogmatic in his positive teaching; and for this
no cautious thinker will blame him. His main
purpose is the repudiation of the popular
notion of hell. The part of his book which is
inspired by this purpose, although not contain-
ing many new thoughts, is marked by a strain
of indignant eloquence, and will well repay
perusal.
III.
By the late Principal TULLOCH.
The question raised in Canon Farrar's volume,
Eternal Hope, is an intensely interesting one.
There will always be a peculiar fascination in
questions pertaining to the future, especially
in so far as they touch the issues of the great
mystery of good and evil. The more pro-
foundly this mystery is felt by thoughtful
minds, the more in certain moods will they
crave to penetrate " behind the veil," and to
lay hold of something definite on which to
rest their hopes or fears. The more at the
same time will all sober minds feel how really
impenetrable the veil is, and that no light of
real knoivledge can be carried beyond that
sphere of time and space which now conditions
all our powers of knowing.
If theology had admitted long ago the
limitations of its knowledge, it would have
been well for its progress. A true principle of
Agnosticism, reverently admitted and applied,
43
44 THE WIDER HOPE.
iniglit Lave saved it, if not from tlie assaults
of the modern principle wliich passes under
this name, yet from some of its excesses. A
more reticent theology might have been spared
some of the humiliations of a time like ours,
in which not only the higher but the common
intelligence passes so reluctantly beyond the
bounds of experience, and is quietly dropping,
even from the skirts of its thought, many
notions once universally received and acknow-
ledged. The definiteness which mediaeval,
and, hardly less, Protestant theology sought
to carry into questions which, by their professed
nature, allowed of no adequate definition, has
recoiled upon it disastrously, till its right to be
a branch of knowledge at all has been disputed;
and the spiritual sphere within which alone it
finds its function has been denied any reality.
So extreme a recoil as this will in the end brino-
its own redress ; but there may be "a bad
time " before the balance of thouQ-ht swino's
round again ; and theology is glad to be content,
like other sciences, with its oum sphere of facts,
and its own order of generalizations. The new
"experience theology" of Holland, with all its
deficiencies, may mark the meeting-ground of
the modern mind with such a sphere at least as
real in human experience as any physical or
THE LATE PRINCIPAL TULLOCH. 45
mental series of facts, and claiming no less
recognition and scientific explanation. This
theology in the meantime is seeking rest in a
mere moral idealism ; but if the spiritual is
admitted at all as fact, it will carry with it in
the long run, as its necessary implicates, the
old realities, however purified, of Divine
revelation.
The good to be got out of all this tendency
is the deeper appreciation of facts, the closer
and wider study of all the phenomena of the
spiritual life, as exhibited in the whole course
of man's spiritual history. Keligious thought
must keep near to religious experience, and
only with great caution stretch its wings
beyond. Whatever transcends all contact
with the farthest reaches of this experience
must be beyond dogmatic affirmation, with
whatever plausibility or authority it may be
commended to us.
It is one of the great excellences of these
Sermons, and of the interesting letter appended
to them by Professor Plumptre, to whom they
are dedicated, that they bring into view the
principle of experience in dealing with the
subject. Here, as in other cases, the profound
though obscure genius of Butler anticipated
the true order of procedure, viz., that of
46 THE WIDER HOPE.
working onward from the operation of moral
law in the present life towards any possible
idea of the future. Seizing clearly the facts of
good and evil here as verified in the moral
consciousness, the conclusion seems inevitable
that these facts will run out in the future as
they have here begun. Every man will receive
according to the things which he hath done,
whether they be good or evil — "in exact
proportions^ " Every one," in other words,
" shall be equitably dealt with." This is an
assured principle, Butler maintains, of the
Divine administration which is by no means to
be explained away " after it is acknowledged in
words." And he adds, " All shadow of
injustice, and indeed all harsh appearances, in
the various economy of Providence, would be
lost, if we would keep in mind that every
merciful allowance shall he made, and no more
required of any one than what might have been
equitably expected of him from the circum-
stances in which he was placed ^^
The clear hold of this law of moral sequence,
as embedded in life and building up its
structure every day in ourselves or in others,
must prevent all wise and cautious minds no
^ Analogy, Part 2, chap. vi.
THE LATE PRINCIPAL TULLOCH. 47
less than Butler s from affirming that the doom
of sin may not be irreversil^le. As no one may
dare to limit the mercy of Grod, so no one can
tell to what awful depths the wickedness of
man may reach, or what irremediableness of
punishment may cleave to it " in the way of
natural consequence." In its own character
wickedness possesses no element of cure, nor
even of exhaustion. It grows by what it feeds
on, and shows sometimes a portentous power
of self-development. It may make a hell upon
earth ; and that therefore it may make a hell
in the future everlasting as itself, he must be a
rash man who would deny. This the essential
tendency of evil, when left to itself, — to
intensify, to accumulate, and perpetuate its
own misery, — is what makes the weak point in
all schemes of Universalism or Eestorationism.
like so many optimist theories, the idea that
aU men shall become good and be saved at last is
opposed by the course of experience here. The
hard facts of the present life are all against it,
and how are we to judge of the future but by
the present? Su]3posing even that new
influences of good were brought to bear upon
the human will, who can " estimate the
hardening effect of obstinate persistence in evil,
and the power of the human will to resist the
48 THE WIDER HOPE.
law and repel the love of God ?" Out of the
very excess of love there sometimes comes a
greater bitterness of hatred ; out of the very
light of good, a deeper darkness of evil. To
assert, therefore, in the face of Scripture and
experience, that " all men will be saved," is to
make a very hardy assertion. About all such
optimism there is a tinge of unreality. It
may please the benevolent, but it can hardly
satisfy the really thoughtful mind.
The theory of Conditional Immortality is
vitiated by the same absence of supporting
facts. It hangs in the air like so many of the
older theories of theology — an imaginary
hypothesis invented to explain difficulties, and
not an induction resting on any basis of
experience. It may or may not be true as a
mere speculation. There can be no means of
verifying, or even approximating to the verifica-
tion of such an hypothesis, and the attempt to
rest it on the letter of Scripture argues a
misunderstanding of the idea of Revelation,
more fatal because less excusable than the old
literalism from which theology has suffered so
much. " Rigid literalism," as Canon Farrar
says, "is absolutely fatal to any true knowledge
of Scripture." And one of the most eloquent
passages of the third Sermon is devoted to a
THE LATE PRINCIPAL TULLOCH. 49
denunciation of the abuses which have sprung
from a mere mechanical manipulation of Scrip-
tural texts.
It is mainly by a higher and broader inter-
pretation of the usual texts which have been
employed on the subject that the author
attempts to set aside what he calls the
'* common" or "popular" view of Future
Punishment, not in favour of any new theory
— this he distinctly repudiates — but in favour
of an indefinite trust in the Divine mercy
springing out of our ignorance of the future.
" Those," he says, " whose faith must have a broader basis
than the halting reconciliation of ambiguous and opposing
texts; they who grieve at the dark shadows flung by human
theologians athwart God's light ; they who believe that reason,
and conscience, and experience, as well as Scripture, are books
of God which must have a direct voice in those great decisions;
they will not be so ready to snatch God's thunder into their
own wretched and feeble hands ; they will lay their mouths
in the dust rather than make sad Ihe hearts which God hath
not made sad ; they will take into account the grand principles
which dominate through Scripture no less than its isolated
expressions ; and, undeterred by the base and feeble notion that
virtue would be impossible without the horrors of an endless
hell, they will declare theii- hope and trust — if it be not jjer-
mitted us to go so far into this matter as belief and confidence —
that even after death, through the infinite mercy of the loving
Father, many of the dead shall be alive again, and the lost be
found."
We quote this single passage for two reasons
— because it gives the reader as clear a state-
50 THE WIDER HOPE.
ment as we can find of Canon Farrar's own
views on the subject of his volume, and because
it indicates the tone of his treatment of the
subject throughout. We do not venture to
discuss either the one or the other. We have
only said so much from a very general point of
view, because it is the general line of thought
raised by such discussions, rather than any
specdal conclusion on one side or another, that
interests us. Theories of one sort or another
have done their work in theology — they have
deepened thought ; they have awakened con-
science ; they have led men to " search the
Scriptures," if after a too narrow fashion. But
they have also been fruitful in mischief, as the
frecpent product of false philosophy or a t6o
ingenious logic- They have aimed at a wisdom
above Revelation, a gnosis higher than that
which maketh wise unto salvation. In so far
as Canon Farrar's volume points to "a more
excellent way," in reference to the great subject
of future retribution, it is worthy of all praise.
Its careful and enlightened discussion of the
Scriptural terms associated with the subject,
and which have played so sad and undue a part
in its history, must convince all intelligent
readers what need there is for caution and
modesty of affirmation. No virtue is so
THE LATE PRINCIPAL TULLOCH. 51
constantly needed in theology as modesty —
none, unhappily, is so constantly wanting. To
a certain class of minds, theological modesty is
supposed to indicate unfaithfulness, paltering
with a double purpose. It is strange but true
that, when the way is dark and the issues truly
awful, most men will rather make a bold leap
in the dark than a cautious and reticent
advance. They must hnoiv something positive,
even if they fill their mind with emptiness, —
with notions which will often no more bear
analysis than the terms of a contradictory pro-
position.
Canon Farrar's earnestness will do good if it
make many only try to realise what they
mean when they use glibly phrases of awful
import. To make religious thought more real
cannot be anything but a blessing to a time
like ours, or to any time. He would have
done even more good in this way, in our
opinion, if he had not emphasised with so many
dark strokes of rhetoric what he means by the
" popular view." He should have remembered
that the creed of no Church is responsible for
the extravagances with which this view has
been somehow set forth, from the frightful
picture in the close of Tertullian's treatise
De Spectaculis to the choice horrors which
52 THE WIDER HOPE.
he quotes from Mr. Spurgeon. The spheres of
theology and of popular rhetoric — the rhetoric
even of an Augustine or a Jeremy Taylor — are
quite apart. The caution which should always
guide the induction of the one cannot be
looked for in the other. The preacher has his
own great function ; he must rouse and pene-
trate, — at times he must startle and appal.
But Christian theology must not be made
responsible for the pictures of the pulpit, and
still less of the devotional manual, whether it
be Jesuitical or Evangelical.
This might form Canon Farrar's excuse for
the too vehement sway of his own rhetoric, and
the excess of his colour here and there. The
volume is a volume of Sermons ; but the
vehement tone is not confined to the Sermons.
It runs over into Preface and Excursus. A
calmer and even a fairer tone towards what
has hitherto been the " popular view," would
have been more satisfactory. For, after all,
the word " endless," of which it made f o much,
was not designed to cover more tl an the
original Scriptural expression, whatever may
be its true meaning. It was a mistranslation
more than a " lie ; " and the idea of Divine
authority, rather than any love for "crude
and glaring travesty," exj^lains its place in
THE LATE PRINCIPAL TULLOCH. 53
past theology. Vehemence is a mighty
weapon in the hands of the preacher ; but it
Aveakens the analysis of the critic, and blunts
the genuine insight and tolerance of judgment
which even the extravagances of Christian
thought may claim frein us.
IV.
By the Rev. WILLIAM ARTHUR.
Canon Farrar rightly condemns the practice
of building doctrines on *' isolated texts torn
from the context," and not "on the whole
scope and tenor of revelation." Few practices
are more blameworthy, but of these, one is that
of setting up doctrines without any texts to
found them upon. The negative design of
Canon Farrar's volume is to do away w-ith the
doctrine of eternal punishment; but its one
positive design is to set up a Purgatory that
is not Romish. And we believe that his only
serious attempt to show that, according to
Holy Scripture, any such Purgatory has an
existence, rests upon the isolated text touch-
ing the spirits in prison, reinforced by the
text from the Creed touching the descent into
hell.
First invoking general principles. Canon
Farrar strongly invokes also history and ex-
perience. What, then, according to him, are
56 THE WIDER HOPE.
the general principles recognised in the Bible
as those on which our Creator governs nil
things ? He does not tell us. What, again,
according to him, are the general principles on
which it is shown by history and experience
that our own world is governed? He does
not tell us. He makes no assertion that
history and experience teach that our world is
governed on what we may call the painless
principle, — that is, on the principle that the
Creator, being perfectly benevolent, will never
inflict pain on the creature; nor any assertion
that Holy Scripture declares such to be the
principle whereon He does govern. Neither
does Canon Farrar assert that history and ex-
perience have shown that among men benevo-
lent government requires that all penalties, for
whatever offence, should be terminable; or
that Holy Scripture declares that to be a
guiding principle of the government of God
over both men and angels. But much of
Canon Farrar's book will have to be recast
should the day ever come when he recognises,
wdth full consciousness, the fact, and the con-
sequences of the fact, that these principles are
not recorded in experience, not enunciated in
Holy Scripture, but are contrary to the whole
scope and tenor of one and the other.
THE REV. WILLIAM ARTHUR. 57
Canon Farrar over and over ao'ain uncon-
scions! v assumes that the Universe onoht to
have been governed on the principle that the
Kuler would never inflict pain on the subject.
To Canon Farrar there may be something in a
distinction between inflictino- and causino^ to
be inflicted, or in modern jargon, between
inflicting by " interference " and inflicting as
"a natural consequence." To us these are
dialectic distinctions, not moral; distinctions
of mode, not of intent ; of contrivance, not
of polity. So, while to Canon Farrar the dis-
tinction between inflicting physical pain and
other pain seems to have much to do with the
cruelty involved, to us when pain has to be
inflicted, whether from ill-will or good-will, if
cruel at all, the cruelty of inflicting an equal
amount of pain, by physical rather than by
other means, is not greater as compared with
less, but is simply grosser cruelty as compared
with more refined.
Canon Farrar never, indeed, says that it is
an established fact in historical science that
causing pain implies a delight in suffering ; but
he declaims as if nobody could doubt it. He
never says plainly that inflicting punishment
implies cruelty, but he declaims as if that were
an accepted certainty. Numerous expressions,
58 THE WIDER HOPE.
even explicit ones, occur in direct contra-
diction to the assum23tions here indicated.
Nevertheless, the assumptions underlie the
current of thought.
That province in the government of God on .
which Dr. Farrar fixes his attention, is the rule
maintained over men beyond the grave. In
judging of what that must be, he seldom seeks
guidance in the rule maintained amongst us
on this side of the grave. He has to assume
that the latter does proceed on the principle
of rewards and punishments ; but, on the
other hand, he would sometimes appear to
assume that a perfectly benevolent govern-
ment would not resort to either of these
expedients, against both of which objections
can be raised. He does not for guidance turn
at all to the palmary instance of Holy Writ —
the procedure in the case of angels ; nor to
the cardinal fact there revealed that a younger
race and an elder, the first inhabiting only
this world though destined for another, the
second inhabiting another world though con-
versant with this, the one consisting of spirits
housed in flesh, the other of spirits not so
housed, act and react one upon the other, and
are, as to government, dealt with on common
principles by a common Ruler.
THE REV. WILLIAM ARTHUR. 59
Canon Farrar does not deny the existence of
punishment. He is not at all times uncon-
scious of the fact that it may be merciful,
though, perhaps, he means merciful only to
the offender, not in the wider sense in which
punishment, without mercy to the doer of a
wrong, may be saving mercy to the sufferer of
the wrong, and protecting mercy to the com-
munity. Canon Farrar thinks he relieves the
character of the Ruler from charges of cruelty
by intimating that He does not inflict the
tortures — say those of delirium tremens —
" attached" — by whom ? — to certain acts, but
that w^e ourselves inflict them. ThouQ-h Canon
Farrar vehemently denies that all who die im-
penitent suffer eternal punishment, he does
not deny, he only washes he could absolutely
deny, that any do. But this admission, and it
seems to be a real admission, reduces to — w^e
know not what — pages and pages of hot
epithets. He does not believe that the
doctrine of the final salvation of all the wicked
is firmly established. He treats the doctrine
of the annihilation of spirits as incapable of
proof. In the language of his own Church, he
calls the Romish doctrine of Puro-atorv "a
D
'y
fond thing vainly invented." But he holds
that not the substantive " Purgatory," but
60 THE WIDER HOPE.
the adjective " Romish," expresses all that was
invented. He enthusiastically preaches, as a
gTand amelioration of the universe and adorn-
ment of the faith, a Purgatory that is not
Eomish — a place or state after death of discip-
line somewhat penal, perhaps, but essentially
purifying, whence all who under the discipline
repent, pass to Heaven. This Purgatory not
Romish is, so far as we can make out, substan-
tially Greek, much resembling that taught by
Plato in the "Gorgias" and the " Phsedo."
As to sin being put away by j)ain, and not by
the grace and spirit of God, the doctrine of
Canon Farrar holds closer to the Greek one
than to the Romish corruption of it. Plato
held that only by suffering could sin be
separated from the soul. Rome holds that
it is partly by suffering, and partly by the
suffrao'es of survivors. Canon Farrar deliber-
ately teaches that men who " pray, love,
agonize, and strive to creep ever nearer to the
light," may nevertheless so die that they will
" have to be purified in that Gehenna of
seonian fire." Here he is more Romish than
Greek. Plato would have counted these
among the better souls, bound for the Isles of
the Blessed ; though not among the rare ones,
answering to the " saints " of Canon Farrar,
THE REV. WILLIAM ARTHUR. 61
whom Plato carries to still brighter abodes.
Canon Farrar, however, joins Rome in follow-
ing; the Greeks in dividinsj men at death into
the good, the bad, and the mixed, rather than,
as Moses and the Prophets, as Christ and the
Apostles divide them, all being in one sense
mixed, ultimately into the wicked and the
just.
Canon Farrar almost invariably couples with
the doctrine of eternal punishment that of
reprobation. Some may take the impression
that he fancies that the two doctrines were
first united in the Reformed Churches. The
opening sentence in Calmet's Dissertation on
Predestination tells a very different tale. But
multitudes of Protestants who believe that the
Lord Jesus, the most loving, but by far the
most alarming, of all the Teachers in the
Bible, taught in many forms, negative and
positive, that they who will not repent will
suffer an endless penalty, do not believe in
reprobation, in necessity, in a judgment of
any man by a light he never had, or in the
final ruin of the majority of our race. They
dare not say that any soul that prays, loves,
and turns towards the light, will have to pass
through a Gehenna of seonian fire. They
proclaim for all such mercy unstinted and
62 THE WIDER HOPE.
without reserve. For purification tliey look
not at all to torture, but onl}^ to the blood
shed by the Lord Jesus, and to the Spirit of
God. For them human pains after death
exist not, except for the finally impenitent,
and only as punishment.
One of Canon Farrar's general principles is
" God's severity is all love." If so, the con-
verse follows, that the love of God is some-
times severity. What, then, becomes of all
the notions that punishment implies cruelty ?
Suppose a monster in power wishing to fill
London with horrors ; how could he more
speedily efi*ect his purpose than if, professing
fatherly love for all, he issued an edict simply
enacting, '* Punishment is abolished; and no one
shall in person, goods, or repute sufi'er for any
deed done." Canon Farrar, however uninten-
tionally, has so employed learning and
eloquence as to confound in the popular
apprehension the malignant part played by
personal cruelty and private revenge with the
beneficent office of public punishment. He
overlooks the fact that correction and revenge,
both personal afi'airs, may be fully enacted
between two persons alone. A father govern-
ing one child may rule on principles impossible
to a father governing two, still more to one
THE REV. WILLIAM ARTHUR. 63
governing ten, and still more to one governing
a tribe. A father might resolve that as to
Cain all that was wrong should come right,
but how as to Abel already killed ? how as to
all others who had lives to lose ? Canon
Farrar overlooks the fact that punishment
proper is not a personal matter, but one of
public obligation and interest. "Not," said
St. Paul, speaking of his solemn act of judgment,
"for his cause that did the wrong, nor for his
cause that suffered the wrong," but for the
cause of the common weal.
When what is called punishment is merely
correction, it carries with it demonstration
that pain may be inflicted even from personal
goodwill. But w^henever it aims at rectifying
dangerous dispositions in others besides the
one "corrected," then the goodwill is not
primarily personal, but public; and the degree
of the pain inflicted is no measure of cruelty,
but of care for the general good. So also when
punishment is deterrent. But the great end
of punishment is protection, and at this end
Canon Farrar hardly glances. Among mortals
punishment is not only the fence of all rights
and happiness, but of existence itself. Abolish
punishment, and you spill out life by a thou-
sand gurgling sluices. So greatly is the
64 THE WIDER HOPE.
protective end of punishment the paramount
one, that in grave cases it becomes the only
one. In the "Crito" the sense of this truth
felt by Socrates is displayed with almost
Biblical grandeur. His penalty was not just ;
it was not terminable ; it was not capable of
being repaired to him, his friends, or his chil-
dren. But he would not flee; no, sooner perish
Socrates than perish law, was, in effect, the
w^ord of the wise man.
Canon Farrar does not seem to be very
cautious in invoking history and experience
in support of government by terminable
penalties exclusively. What government has
ever given a guarantee beforehand to all
offenders that after a time all consequences of
their offence shall cease, and that they shall
not on account of it have anything more to
suffer? Does past experience point to the
conclusion that the effect of such a guarantee
would be beneficent ? Would it not be
malignant ? Among mortals, however, the
uncertainty of life, the fear of death, the awe
of a higher judge, would in part restrain the
evil effect of prospective impunity. But how
if both immortality and prospective impunity
were assured ? Might not a system of
terminable penalties lead to an interminable
THE REV. WILLIAM ARTHUR. 65
re^^etition of offences, necessitating ever new
punishments for fresh transgressors ? May
not Plato, in firmly fixing on the '' incurable "
as monuments of terrible suffering for ever, no
longer for their own correction, but as an
example, a warning to others, have better
interpreted the plans of a benevolence that
covers all ages and all worlds than do they
who insist that every offender must have
eventual impunity ? The latter supposition,
pushed to its consequences, requires that
wrong should never be allowed ; for if only
forgiven, the reparation is, we repeat, to Cain,
not to Abel. Here we come in face of the
problem of problems, the origin of evil, tlie
permission of wrong, the toleration of the
wicked, what Butler calls '' the mystery of
God, the great mystery of His suffering vice
and confusion to prevail" In all his impetuous
flights Canon Farrar l)arely grazes the surface
of that mystery, like a bird skimming over a
still but unfathomable deep.
V.
Br THE Late Rev. J. BALDWIN BROWN.
Those w^lio have taken any fair measure of the
wrong which the Kingdom of Heaven has suf-
fered in all ages at the hands of its scribes
and priests, will not wonder at the fervid, and
indeed passionate, eloquence with which Canon
Farrar pleads against the most terrible of all
the dogmas by which they have distorted the
righteousness of the Divine government, and
clouded the glory of the Divine love. Such
a book as Canon Farrar's Eternal Hojje is
deeply significant. Some of us have been for
years witnessing against the doctrine of ever-
lasting torment, as horrible in itself, even
according to Calvin's confession, and stainino-
with deep dishonour the justice as well as the
love of God. But we have been as "voices
crying in the wilderness," compared with the
testimony which is uplifted by one who speaks
with the weight of ecclesiastical dignity, and
from the high places of the Anglican Church,
68 THE WIDER HOPE.
When a man of Canon Farrar's position and
influence feels himself so pressed in spirit to
preach the Eternal Hope that he can no longer
forbear, and gives forth a work so charged with
intense conviction as this, the controversy
enters on a new phase, and is manifestly
nearer to its end.
I do not attempt to criticise Canon Farrar's
book in detail, for this simple reason. I have
myself been led, under the pressure of the
same influences, to very much the same con-
clusions, which I published three years ago,
in an examination of The Doctrine of Anni-
hilation in the Light of the Gospel of Love,
and I could but repeat what I then expressed.
I can only rejoice at finding that the conclu-
sions to which I was then led, after much
anxious thought, and under a very painful
sense of responsibility, are sustained hj the
high authority and the ample learning of the
eminent writer who has pleaded so eloquently
for the Eternal Hope. Like Canon Farrar,
I am unable to accept the dogma of the Uni-
versalists, after full consideration of the learned
and impressive arguments which I have read
upon the subject. I believe too deeply in the
sacredness of human freedom to accept a
doctrine which seems to me to set an im-
THE LATE REV. J. BALDWIN BROWN. 69
perative bound to its decisions ; nor can I find
it set forth, in any clear, developed form, in the
vision of the future which is revealed in the
Word of God. But I hold, and each year I
seem to hold more firmly, that the love of God
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord cannot be
the one Divine power in the universe which,
for man at any rate, is paralyzed by the hand
of Death. Justice, holiness, fidelity to truth,
wrath against sin, — these, we are told, and we
joyfully believe, live on and rule through all
eternity ; but one thing, if this awful dogma be
true. Death paralyzes — the hand of the Divine
love. And this, wdien it is once fairly looked
at in the light of Scripture and of reason, is
blankly incredible. Whatever else may or may
not work on through eternity, we are bound
to believe that the love which moved the
Father to redeem the world at such infinite
cost, must work on, while there is one pang in
the universe, born of sin, which can touch the
Divine pity, or one wretched prodigal in rags
and hunger far from the home and the heart
of God. And while we know the wrath of God
against evil, which is a dread reality, though
always within the sphere of His love, and see
that sin can only be purged through terrible
pain, we have the right to clasp to our hearts
70 THE WIDER HOPE.
all the hojDe that can grow out of the assurance,
that so long; as the God who is Love lives and
reigns, the mercy which redeemed the world
must be the regnant power through all the
ages and in all the spheres. This surely must
be the meaning of the vision of '' the Lamb
in the midst of the throne," bearing visibly
the symbols of the Cross and Passion. All that
the Cross symbolizes is there represented as
exalted to the throne of universal dominion,
the vital centre of the Divine order of the
universe, "for ever and for ever."
Eternal Hope ! It expresses, in brief, the
words with which I closed the treatise to which
I have referred : " I plead for the hope of the
destruction of the work of the devil in the
universe, by the salvation of all that bears the
trace of the touch of the hand of God. Sin
withered under the curse of the souls that were
once its victims ; the devil spoiled of his dark
dominion, not by the fiat of omnipotent will,
but by the hand of omnipotent love. Hell
destroyed ; Christ triumphant ; gathering the
spoils of His Cross and Passion here and in all
the worlds." This is the Eternal Hope. The
term is happily chosen, and the book will be
as "glad tidings of great joy" to many a sad
and burdened heart ; justifying as it does the
THE LATE REV. J. BALDWIN BROWN. 71
soul's deepest convictions and most passionate
longings, by the best thoughts of the world's
wisest teachers in all generations ; by the
valuable light which it sheds on the ideas and
the beliefs of the generation to which the
Gospel was first preached; and by the true
meaning of the Word of God, which it ably
expounds. The textual criticism is of great
value ; it forms, too, an important feature of a
work of great interest, which should be read in
connection with this — Salvator Mundi, by
the Rev. Samuel Cox.
And now that we are emerging from the
terrible shadow of this doctrine, we look back
with a shudder, and ask ourselves, How was it
possible that Christian men should believe it,
and should connect such unutterable horrors
with the administration of a Beiug who has
given to us, in Calvary, the measure of His
love ? How could it ever be preached as a
leading feature of the Gosj^el of the Kingdom
to mankind ? And there is another and
darker question behind. The Christian world
having believed and preached it all these ages,
dare we wonder that Christendom is so little
like a Kingdom of Heaven ? In order to get
light on these questions, it is needful to
remember that the doctrine grew pari passu
72 THE WIDER HOPE.
with sacerdotal ideas. It is emphatically tlie
dogma of the priest, which he has wielded, and
mainly with no base purpose, as a means of
influence over men. It gave to him a ready
and powerful means of terrorising a rough
and brutal generation, and with what awful
force he used it the students of mediaeval
literature wdll very well understand. But it
would have defeated its own end, and become
powerless through excess of horror, but for
the priestly " powder of the keys." There were
always the sacraments, the priest's absolution,
and the great purgatorial discipline between
the human soul and the naked terror during
the mediseval period ; and so men were not
afraid to paint out in the most loathsome and
harrowing forms the physical torments of the
damned, because they had a ready refuge to
ofier in the very mild condition of submission
to the direction of the Church, which is the
Christian attitude of soul in the judgment of
Rome. And I venture to think that the same
sacerdotal leaven in the Anglican Church has
exercised the same influence, and has in some
measure mitigated the sharp pressure of the
doctrine on the hearts and consciences of its
members ; while we of the Evangelical Non-
conformist Churches have felt it in its full
THE LATE REV. J. BALDWIN BROWN. 73
force. We retain the Augiistinian doctrine in
its most explicit form, and we preach that the
doom of the impenitent sinner* is "everlasting
burning." No priestly word or act is recog-
nised in our Churches which can mitigate for
a moment " the horrible decree ;" and the only
" way of escape," as we are fond of phrasing
it, is by what is constantly represented as a
terribly narrow and difficult path. It is here,
in the Churches which inherit the Puritan
traditions, that the grisly form of the terror
is to be seen. Canon Farrar has quoted some
truly awful passages from President Edwards.
I have quoted others in the work to which I
have referred. But it is only fair to remember
the anguish of mind which these doctrines
inflicted on those who felt bound to preach
them. They agonized in spirit until they felt
sure that, if God's glory and the good of man
demanded it, they were ready themselves to
endure to the utmost what they believed that
God was purposed to inflict on the great mass
of mankind.
But the idea could only hold a hardly-dis-
puted sway while the conception of the Divine
order of the universe, which Augustine deve-
lopes in the De Civitate Dei, was supreme —
the two great households of light and of
74 THE WIDER HOPE.
darkness in dire, constant, and hopeless
antagonism. Calvinism is essentially a fight-
ing creed ; grand in its affirmations for all
time, but in its neg;ations and anathemas
possible only in an age of stern strife between
hopelessly irreconcilable antagonists, in which
the sufferings of the beaten stir grim satisfac-
tion, like the pains of traitors overthrown in
w^ar. Moreover, in ag^es wdien hio-h-handed
despotism was the normal form of government,
men w^ere more able, without a revulsion of
horror, to connect stern, tyrannous methods
with the rule of God.
But wdien the idea of the one great family
of man, in Vvliich the saints w^ere to be the
ministers to the sinners, began to steal into
human hearts largely through that great
uprising of the human which is knowm as the
Eevolution, and which had deeper roots than is
commonly suspected in the Word of God, men
began to feel more sharply the incompatibility
of this terrible dogma wdth the very first
principles of the Gospel. New and benign
ideas of the duty of a ruler, and his relation to
the ruled, have been winning their w^ay during
these last generations, and are now accepted
throughout the civilised world. Looking
from earthly to heavenly things, men are
THE LATE REV. J. BALDWIN BROWN. 75
forced to ask themselves, What rule is this
which the Church through all these ages has
been setting before Christendom as Divine ?
Great searchings of heart and stirrings of
conscience are inevitable under such con-
ditions. Let us thank God that they are
breaking forth benignly in such works as
these. How terribly Europe has been brutal-
ised by the pictures of torture with which,
from Bseda down to Orcagna, mediae wal his-
torians, preachers, painters, and poets made it
familiar, one hardly dares to estimate. How
many generations will pass before the hold on
man's nobler nature, which has been lost by
the Gospel of Terror, will be regained by the
Gospel of Love !
VL
By the Rev. JOHN HUNT, D.D.
If there be any doctrine ever taught in the
name of Christianity which can claim to be
really Catholic, it is the doctrine of never-
ending punishment. This has been believed
by the majority of Christians in all ages, in
all Churches, and, with very insignificant
exceptions, of all sects. Fathers, Schoolmen,
and Reformers, zealous Eoman Catholics and
ardent Protestants, have agreed that this is
an undeniable portion of the Catholic faith.
We cannot deny that it is a Catholic doctrine,
but is it Christian ? Dr. Farrar says that the
Scriptures, interpreted in the light of " modern
criticism," are " absolutely silent " as to " end-
less torture." Like transubstantiation and
many other Catholic doctrines, it is founded
on taking literally words which were never
intended to have a literal meaning.
It is a vast triumph for " modern criticism,"
if it has overthrown the interpretation which
78 THE WIDER HOPE.
tlie great body of Christians in all ages have
put on certain passages of Scripture. This,
however, is but one symptom of the revolution
which is overtaking the theology which has
Ions sheltered itself under the name of Catholic
or orthodox. It comes finally to the long-
disputed question of authority or reason —
whether we are to believe doctrines because of
the Catholic consent of ages and generations,
or if our belief is to be regulated by the results
of investigation ?
The party of progress in the Church of
England, to which Dr. Farrar belongs, receives
as a certain truth the axiom of Bishop Butler,
that " reason is the only faculty whereby we
have to judge of anything, even of revelation
itself." If, then, any doctrine taught in the
name of Christianity is not reasonable, there
is so far a presumption that it is not really a
doctrine of revelation. Moreover, as the doc-
trines of Christianity are, on Butler's principle,
part of the evidence of its being a Divine
revelation, the existence in Christianity of the
doctrine of endless punishment would go a
long way to invalidate its claim to be of
Divine origin. The argument is, reason tells
us that the doctrine of endless punishment is
incompatible with the justice and mercy of
THE REV. DR. HUNT. 79
God, and therefore cannot be Divine. At-
tempts have been made to answer this argu-
ment by considerations drawn from the
existence of evil, from present suflfering, from
the incapacity of human reason to judge of
God's doings, and from our ignorance of the
whole scheme of the Divine government. But
the capacity of man to judge of God's justice
is everywhere assumed in the Bible ; the faith
that He will do rig;ht in the end is a neces-
sary part of our belief in God at all ; and the
case of present evil and suffering is alto-
gether different from that of evil and suffering
which shall never end. All present irregu-
larities may be put right ; God has before
Him a whole eternity in which He can rectify
the wrongs of this present life, but the very
terms " endless evil and suffering " preclude
the possibility of their ever being so rectified
as to be compatible with the Divine attributes
of justice and mercy. In this case the subject
is within the competence of man to judge, for
he is told that endless suffering is to depend
on his actions in this present life, and reason
declares that nothing which the worst of men
could possibly do within the compass of his
threescore and ten years could possibly de-
80 THE WIDER BOPE.
serve such a punishment as the endless tor-
ment of Catholic or orthodox theology.
We lay an emphasis on the word Catholic,
for some of those who claim this appellation as
the antithesis of Protestant have of late been
trying to charge the awful hell on those who,
at the Eeformation, are said to have departed
from the Catholic faith. Dr. Farrar seems
partly to have admitted their plea; but the
whole argument rests on the clumsy invention
of purgatory, which is to purify by physical
torments, not the lost, but the souls that are
not sufficiently pure to enter into Paradise.
There still exists the awful hell for the lost,
which is as conspicuous in the Eomish Church
as it ever was in any Protestant community.
To take' the Eoman Catholic books that first
come to our hands, here is a passage from
Bouhour's Meditations, translated in a book of
devotion for English Eoman Catholics : —
"What misery can be equal to that of being miserable so
long as God shall be God ? . . . These unhappy children
of wrath not only suffer during eternity, but they suffer
eternity during each moment of their existence. Eternity is
engraven on the flames which torment them ; it makes a part
of all their sufferings ; it is ever present to their minds. O
tormenting thought ! miserable condition ! To burn for
ever ! to weep for ever ! to rage for ever !"
Here is another passage from the Meditations
THE REV. DE. HUNT. 81
of St. Francis de Sales, which are printed in
the Garden of the Soul : —
"Represent to yourself a dark city all burning and stink-
ing with fire and Lrimstone. . . . The damned are in the
depth of hell within this woeful city, where they suffer un-
speakalile torments in all their senses and members. . .
Consider above all the eternity of their pains, which above all
things makes hell intolerable."
To those who are really lost the Church of
Rome, no more than orthodox Protestants,
allows the possibility of ariiendment after this
present life.
To reject endless punishment is to overturn
the foundation of the whole system of theo-
logy which is known as Catholic, but it is also
to remove what to many is an insuperable
difficulty in the way of believing Christianity.
The great question then is. Can it be done
fairly, or can modern criticism really prove
that the Scriptures are silent concerning never-
ending punishment ? The remark is made by
old Thomas Hobbes, that though hell fire may
be everlasting, those cast into it may not
remain in it everlastingly. This is an ingeni-
ous solution of a pressing difficulty, but when
ingenuity is necessary there is always ground
for suspicion. Some have supposed that the
wicked will be annihilated, or, in other words,
that immortality will be granted only to them
82 THE WIDER HOPE.
that repent and amend. Bat this is a siipr
position which has no foundation in Scripture,
and, like the other, is ingeniously invented to
meet a difficulty. Kestitution, or the ultimate
salvation of all men, is the most reasonable
hypothesis, and the one which could appeal to
most passages of Scripture in the way of in-
direct intimation, but it cannot be said to be
clearly taught in the New Testament.
To the English - reader of the Bible the
plainest and most obvious doctrine concerning
the future punishment of the wicked is that it
shall be endless, in a place called hell, and
wdth fire and brimstone ; and the strongest
words are those of Christ Himself, where He
says of the wicked, that " their worm dieth
not, and their fire is not quenched." Awful
words to our ears when coming w^ith the full
meaning which they now convey to us. But
had they this meaning when Christ spoke
them ? Did they conv^ey this meaning to
those who first heard them ? This is surely a
legitimate inquiry, and the meaning which
Christ intended must be the proper meaning.
Can a w^orm that never dies mean anything
else but a worm that never dies ? Can fire
that is never to be quenched mean anything
but fire that is never to be quenched ? Cer-
THE EEV. DR. HUNT. 83
tainly not, if we must take them literally, but
does the discourse admit of this ? A worm
and a fire are material. It may be said that
though they are only emblematic, yet they
must mean that w^hatever the suffering is, it
must be never-ending. And this would have
been, so far as we can see, a fair inference ;
but it happens that Christ took the words
from the last verse of Isaiah, where the refer-
ence is to material bodies and to a temporal
punishment — in which case the worm cannot
be literally never-dying, nor the fire unquench-
able. Why should they be taken literally
when spoken by Christ, if they are not to be
taken literally, as obviously they cannot be,
so far as duration is concerned, when used by
Isaiah ?
Dr. Farrar maintains that "hell" and
'* damnation " had not, when the Bible was
translated, the terrible meaning which they
have now. This may be partly true, but it
cannot be doubted that the idea of a place of
endless torment was familiar to the translators.
Damnation has evidently changed its meaning
for the worse. But the really important word
is " eternal." The Greek atwi/ios may or may
not be translated " everlasting." It is used
in many places in the Bible where it cannot
84 THE WIDER HOPE.
mean endless, and its etymological meaning is
the opposite of everlasting. The Master of
Trinity College, Cambridga. in his notes to
Archer Butler's Lectures (vol. ii. 182), points
out a passage in Plato which no critic before
had noticed, in which auovto^ is used as the
antithesis of eternal. The word, however, was
also used by the later philosophers, as Philo,
Plotinus, and other Neo-Platonists, to mean
eternal, not in the sense of having anything
to do with duration, but as expressing the
plenitude of being, in agreement with Spinoza's
definition of eternity, ^^ per CEternitatem in-
telligo ipsam existentiam" If we could
suppose that Christ spoke the language of
philosophy, and that the discourses in the
fourth Gospel are reported literally, we might
fairly conclude that by "eternal life" He
meant absolute existence. The opposite of
this — eternal death — would then be a mere
negation, not sufi'ering marked by any degree
of duration, but the deprivation of absolute or
real existence.
Etymology, metaph^^sics, and we may say,
for the convenience of the argument, the fourth
Gospel, may all be left out of the controvei-sy;
and the sole question to be settled is what
Christ meant to say when He spoke of the
THE REV, DR. HUNT. 85
future punishment of the wicked. The proper
answer seems to be that He did not intend to
convey any idea, either of the real nature or of
the duration of the punishment. It was some-
thing so awful that the strongest metaphors
wdth which the minds of His hearers were
familiar were used to describe it ; but still
they were metaphors, and all taken from things
temporal and material. The Bible, in f^ict,
never introduces us to heaven or hell but
under material figures, just as it rarely speaks
of God except under the likeness of man, or-
with attributes which are in part common to
God and man. And the reason of this pro-
bably is, that the multitude of men have no
capacity for anything beyond this. Christ's
language addressed to the multitude was
metaphorical, and not literal. The judgment
of God against sin is terrible, but the details of
that judgment may not be definitely revealed,
and we may not have capacities for under-
standing such a revehation if it were made.
We are thus, in the end, left to reason as to
the duration of punishment, and reason has
ever rebelled against the Catholic faith in
never-ending suffering. In unbelievers, in
rational apologists, and in Catholic saints and
theologians, there has been in some form an
86 THE WIDER HOPE.
objection to this belief, or a mitigation which
went a long way to neutralize it. To all it is
manifest that there is no such difference
between the very best and the very w^orst of
men, as that one should have a never-ending
felicity, and the other be trampled under the
feet of devils in never-ending torment. The
distinction of baptized or unbaptized. Christian
or heathen. Catholic or heretic, elect or
reprobate, are all insufficient to make a
difference so vast as that between heaven and
hell, as commonly understood. And when we
look at men as they actually are, the chief
differences between them have depended on
the circumstances of their birth, education,
companions, and natural temperament ; and
when they die, the multitude, as Mr. Wilson,
of Great Staughton, somewhere says, are "ger-
minal souls." They are too bad for heaven,
and too good for hell. Some may deserve
many stripes, but others only a few. And
that this is admitted by those who tenaciously
cling to never-ending suffering is proved by
the general reception of the doctrine of
different degrees of rewards and punishments
in a future life. Professor Plumptre, in a
letter to Dr. Farrar, quotes remarkable passages
on this subject from Butler and Paley; but he
THE REV. DR. HUNT. 87
will also find the same doctrine as exactly
stated- in John Wesley's sermons. The idea
that great revivalist preachers have owed their
success to preaching the terrors of hell is
exploded. They preached terror much less
than is generally believed, and their success
was not owing to this, but to their awakening
the moral sense which found a hell wherever
there was sin.
VIL
Br THE LATE Rev. RICHARD F. LITTLEDALE, D.C.L.
Canon Farrar's volume of Sermons is one
of four noticeable books which have recently
appeared, in conjunction with many pamph-
lets, wherein the popular theology, as well
of the Eoman and Anglican Churches as of
most Protestant communions, in respect of
the condition of souls beyond the grave, is
challenged or disputed. The three others are
the Kev. Andrew Jukes's Restitution of All
Things, the Eev. Samuel Cox's Salvator
Miindi, and Mr. Edward White's Life in
Christ.
I think that all dispassionate readers of these
four w^orks must come to agreement on one
point, if no more — namely, that in the last
three they are brought face to face with trained
theologians, with men from whose conclusions
they may indeed be constrained to differ
widely, yet wdiose method and matter they
must recognise as belonging to the sphere
90 THE WIDER HOPE.
of scientific divinity. But in Canon Farrar's
Sermons the amateur and neophj^te is visible
throughout ; and the discourses themselves,
while always cultured, often — perhaps too
often — ornate, and sometimes impassioned,
yet seldom rise to the dignity of sustained
argument, or even of accurate thouo^ht, and
never attain the level of matured theological
knowledge. They are, to borrow a simile from
forensic practice, declamatory appeals to a jury
rather than reasoned pleadings before a judge ;
and although the preface and appendices are
somewhat more chastened in style and more
exact in method, yet they, too, exhibit a
fragmentary and tentative character which is
eminent^ unsatisfying, but which, it must in
justice be said, the author apologetically
confesses.
Nevertheless, these very defects have their
value in the present state of the controversy
with which the Sermons deal ; for they supply
ample proof that it has passed out of the
domain of dead scholastic dialectics, and has
entered into that of ]:)urning questions, to which
the intellect and conscience of all thinking
Christian men are imperatively demanding
some prompt and unfaltering answer; and
further, make it sufficiently plain that the
THE LATE REV. DR. LITTLEDALE. 91
answer which the popular theology has been
tendering for centuries past will not be
accepted much longer.
I disclaim any desire to uphold that
theology (which I have never aided in pro-
pagating) when pointing out what seem to me
certain flaws in Canon Farrar's method and
statements ; since, were 1 obliged to choose, I
should prefer ranging myself at his side, rathei
than with Pinamonti, or even with Mr. E.
H. Bickersteth, whose comparatively softened
view appears in his remarkable poem, " Yester-
day, To-day, and For Ever."
The most salient defect, then, in these
Sermons is that they do little more than })ull
down. That is often a most necessary process,
and all dwellers in crowded cities know full
well how great is the gain in the mere sweej)-
ing away of noisome fever-dens, even if their
sites be left bare and desolate, with no whole-
some dwellings nor pleasant gardens to occupy
them. And there is no question in my mind,
at any rate, as to the imperative necessity of
demolishing, and that speedily, the hyper-
Augustinianism which still lingers amongst
us. But we cannot wisely leave huge vacant
spaces, like the wastes within the walls of
Eome and of Constantinople, in men's minds,
92 THE WIDER HOPE.
where once were some definite notions as to
one of the most momentous topics which can
exercise thought ; and this is what Canon
Farrar has practically, albeit undesignedly,
done. There is much force in Mr. Cox's plea
that the very limitations of our knowledge,
and that ambiguity of the Scriptural in-
dications which is admitted by all impartial
scholars, must act in restraint of our construct-
ing a complete and consistent theory which
may be proffered as a full answer to inquiry, a
convincins: substitute for the discredited
hypothesis ; but Mr. Cox himself, not less
than Mr. Jukes and Mr. White, does endeavour
to set some positive teaching in the place of
that which he seeks to displace. I can scarcely
avoid the conclusion that the majority of those
who heard Canon Farrar' s sermons must have
gone away with a much clearer notion as to
what he denied than as to what he asserted
and wished them to believe. And if so, he
discharo;ed no more than one-half of a teacher's
function. It admits of no reasonable doubt
that the popular theology is a very ineffective
deterrent from sin, and that for exactly the
same reason as caused the practical failure
of the English penal code before Eomilly
softened it — namely, that as judges and juries
THE LATE REV. DR. LITTLEDALE. 93
often then combined ag;ainst the evidence to
acquit culprits, rather than inflict the dis-
proportionate penalty of death for minor
oS'ences, an element of great uncertainty was
introduced into the law, and almost perfect
impunity attended many serious crimes, so
that they were actually encouraged — a risk
obviated by the juster incidence of the present
code, which is more certain, though milder.
So, too, when men are taught that God has
only one penalty in His code — that of ever-
lasting damnation — they cannot believe that
He will invariably inflict it, and each hopes to
get ofl" altogether, not realising that every sin
must be chastised. Canon Farrar has scarcely
given this latter notion adequate prominence,
though subordinately mentioning it, and so
far has not supplied a clear deterrent for lower
natures — an error from which Mr. Jukes is
quite free. To my mind, further, even his
destructive argument is not put on the
soundest basis. There is not sufticient stress
laid anywhere on the cardinal fact that the
Scriptures of the New Testament contain two
parallel, and often seemingly contradictory,
sets of statements as to the Last Things ; one
of which, even after being sifted jealously by
hostile criticism, does make for the popular
94 TilE WIDER HOPE.
theology, and another which more than implies
a full restoration, and the final victory of good
over evil. It is as difficult to do justice to the
inquiry if the evidence for the first half of
these conflicting declarations be minimised, as
it has proved to be when the second half is
wholly disregarded ; and on Canon Farrar s
hypothesis, it seems almost impossible to
account for the origin and spread of the
popular theology at all. Unless it had a great
deal more to go on than he is willing to allow,
it could scarcely have arisen and maintained
its position so long within the Christian
Church.
The second point which is insufficiently
illustrated, being indeed quite absent from the
Sermons, and merely relegated to a casual note
in one of the appendices, is the absence of any
formulated decree of the Church Catholic in
favour of everlasting punishment. That the
question was raised and debated we know ;
that an attempt was made to procure a formal
condemnation of Origen's doctrine on this head
w^e know also ; but the efibrt failed, and the
question remains an open one to this day.
There is a great significance in the fact that in
the simplest of our symbols, the Apostles'
Creed, and in the most universal of them, the
THE LATE REV. DR. LITTLEDALE. 95
Nicseno-Constaiitinopolitan, we are called on
to express our belief in the life, but not in the
death, to come. And although the Athanasian
Hymn may obviously be quoted adversely, it
is to be noticed that it restricts itself in its
closing verses to the citation of the exact
words of Scripture, and does not undertake to
gloss them for us, so that it can hardly be
alleged as an interpretation. Dr. Farrar
might very fitly have pointed out, in reply to
the argument from the long prevalence of the
popular theology in the Church, that an equal
or greater prescription exists in favour of the
tenet of Verbal Inspiration, which no Biblical
scholar of repute now holds, since even those
who declare that if we had the authentic text
of every passage before us, each tittle of it
would be infallibly and divinely true, do not
assert that such a text exists for any one book
of Scripture. But this tenet, like that of end-
less punishment, has never been formulated by
the Church, and makes no part of any
Conciliar decree or any Christian creed. This
important fact ought to have been' given
prominence in connection with the proof
tendered that St. Gregory Nyssen, and other
eminent Fathers of an earlier date, followed
the milder view, because it establishes that
96 THE WIDER HOPE.
their opinion is still, to say the least of it,
tenable, and has not been excluded, like some
ante-Nicene phraseology on other points, by
subsequent authoritative explanations or rul-
ings. Dr. Farrar, while most usefully drawing
attention to the unfamiliar fact that the Jewish
Church has no tradition whatever in favour of
endless punishment, has failed to group visibly
with it that other fact, that Prayers for the
Dead passed without break from Judaism
into Christianity ; so that, when once the
true historical position of Christianity, as a
continuous development of Judaism, is fully
realised, the milder view seems antecedently
more likely to be a part of the original deposit
of the Gospel than the harsher one.
Another point where Dr. Farrar has under-
stated his case, at the same time that he seems
to lay almost undue stress on it, is his discus-
sion, at pp. xxxiv, XXXV, 11 , 78, and 80, 81, of
the true meaning of the crucial word atwi/tos,
where he appears to exclude that meaning of
infinity which it unquestionably often has, e.g.
Exod. iii. 15; Job xxxiii. 12; Isa. xl. 28, Ix.
19, etc. It is not enough to say that this
term is confessedly ambiguous, without also
saying that there are several Greek words per-
fectly free from any ambiguity, whose meaning
THE LATE REV. DR. LITTLEDALE. 97
of "endless" cannot be disputed, and which not
only might, but almost certainly would, have
been used had the Apostles and Evangelists
designed to enforce that idea. Such are
dreAevratoS;, aTrepavTOS, dOdvaroSj dTravcrros, devaos, aTTCi/oo?,
perhaps Str/veKvys, all of which are noticeably
absent from the New Testament in this con-
nection, as also are h dei and dvev t^Xovs — a cir-
cumstance which does not seem to have been
adequately pressed hitherto.
Beyond the negative statements of Dr.
Farrar, there is, as already implied, a lack of
positive ones. He does, indeed, in one place
(p. xvi) just shrink from asserting Universal-
ism, but he seems to accept it fully at p. 89 ;
while his argument, if it may be so called,
against Conditional Immortality, or Annihila-
tionism, amounts to little more than that he
does not like it. The real difficulties of
Universalism — the metaphysical objection that
it militates against the existence of free-will,
and the consequent possibility of a volition
of evil through eternity (especially in the case
of evil spirits), and the moral objection that it
fails to realise the true nature and effects of
sin — he scarcely touches ; and the chief objec-
tion to Annihilationism — its assertion of re-
trograde action on God's part, as reversing the
G
98 *THE WIDER HOPE.
process .of creation — he does not touch at all.
In fact, his mind, untrained in theology, and
indeed in logic, as yet has reached only the
stao-e of revolt; and even his pleas against the^
popular teaching, corroborative as they may
be of sounder arguments, do not get beyond
the a priori stage, and are open to the
rejoinder that they avoid rather than solve
difficulties. He has not, for example, more
than distantly glanced at two cogent pleas
severally urged by Mr. Jukes (who, by-ihe-
bye, is an Anglican clergyman, not a Noncon-
formist, as Dr. Farrar reckons him), and by
Mr. White — namely, that if the popular
theolooy be true, then Christ has been com-
pletely defeated by Satan in the contest for
the souls of men, since incomparably the
laro-er spoils of battle rest with the latter ;
and the Incarnation has not affected the ulti-
mate Lature and destinies of mankind in
o-eneral. So, again, while justly blaming the
Reformers for tampering with the deposit of
primitive Christianity, and for darkening the
counsel of God by discontinuing prayers for
the dead, he has quite' failed to note the reason
why Protestant teaching has for the most part,
till the rise of Universalism, been so much
harsher than Roman Catholic theology. The
THE LATE REV. DR. LITTLEDALE. 99
answer lies not in the mere denial of a purga-
tory, but in the abandonment by both Luther
and Calvin of the ancient Christian doctrine of
the Fall, and their substitution of a new
theory for it. Catholics teach that the Fall
deprived man of a certain supernatural grace
which insured the due balance of his complex
nature, and that he thereupon became wholly
disorganized, and liable to find his higher
will dominated by the lower, but was still the
same creature, having good freely mixed with
his evil. Luther and Calvin, on the other
hand, fundamentally at one in their teaching,
despite their marked surface differences, main-
tained that man by falling became a mere mass
of absolute evil, without the smallest admixture
of good, and even with no capacity for being
developed into something better, so that he
could be saved only by the legal fiction of the
imputed righteousness of another, or else by
the arbitrary favour of an autocratic decree, in
each case quite irrespective of any personal
equation, since even his virtues are only
splendid sins. Once grant so much, and all
mankind necessarily falls into the category of
those whom all but the most extreme Univer-
salis ts recognise as possible subjects of ever-
lasting punishment — namely, such as have so
572518 A
100 THE WIDER HOPE.
wallowed in deliberate and wanton evil, that
they have left nothing upon which, so to speak,
even Omnipotence itself can work, so that
there is no injustice in sentencing them to
reap as they have sown.
But this monstrous teaching is false to the
Bible, and also to all our moral sense and
practical experience. We know that there is
good as well as evil in man, and we may not
call good evil to support a theory. And when
once we recognise the germ of good in even
the most wicked men, we are faced by this
difficulty in the popular theology, that it
assumes God to permit, if not to force, this
good to be overpowered and assimilated by
the evil in contact with it, and thereby con-
tradicts the frequent analogy in the Old
Testament borrowed from the smelting of ores.
The metallurgist does not throw away nor
destroy even " reprobate silver " (Jer. vi. 30),
but purges it from its dross in his fiery fur-
nace, drawing the purified metal thence to be
wrought into costly fabrics (Isa. i. 25 ; Ezek.
xxii. 18-23; Zech. xiii. 31 ; MaL iii. 3); but
God is, on this hypothesis, a less capable
workman.
Another fruitful source of error which Canon
Farrar has failed to point out is the popular
THE LATE REV. DR. LITTLEDALE. 101
teaching as to this life being a state of ^'^^^o-
hoMon, a solitary chance, failure in which in-
volves destruction, just as with us gun-barrels
which cannot pass the test in the proof-house
are invariably condemned, broken up, and
cast into the fire — but only to be forged
anew. There is no w^arrant in Scripture for
this current opinion, which in truth necessitates
a denial of God's foreknowledge, as not being
able to trust His own work, nor to predict how
it will turn out till He has tested it. He does
indeed try and prove, but it is in the way of
education and imrgation, not of inquiry.
*' When He hath tried me, I shall come forth
as gold" (Job xxiii. 10). "Behold, I will
melt them, and try them " (Jer. ix. 7). Once
grasp the notion that we have only one life
given us to live, and that death is a mere
episode in it, so that this world is but a
lower class in God's school, and another stage
of education in our unbroken personality
and life beyond the grave awaits us in the
intermediate state, whether that stage be
downwards or upwards, according as w^e have
used our opportunities here, and the whole
scheme of redemption shows clearer.
Once more, Canon Farrar is not happy in
his rejoinder to the argument urged even by
102 THE WIDER HOPE.
Mr. Keble, and repeat<^d only a few days ago
by Canon Eyle,^ that to cast a doubt on the
endlessness of punishment is to invalidate the
argument for the endlessness of bliss, since
both rest on exactly the same Biblical sanc-
tions. There are three replies, cumulatively
exhaustive, which he has failed to adduce.
First, assuming the fact to be really so, there
is all the difference caused by the rejoicing-
trust and confidence of the redeemed in the
living protection of God in that City from
which evil is for ever banished, and into
which, consequently, temptation cannot make
its way. Next, the fact is not, as alleged, that
they do rest on the same Biblical sanctions,
because though there is very much in Scrip-
ture which implies the termination of evil and
the universal prevalence of good, there is very
little to show for the everlasting duration of
death, sin, and misery, and nothing whatever
which can be made to hint at the possibility
of another revolution, and the return of evil
to power. Thirdly, the difference of the two
eternities, hell and heaven, consists in the
presence or absence of God. Let us put «
1 Now Bisliop of Liverpool. This was first published in
1878.
THE LATE REV. DR. LITTLEDALE. 103
for each of these eternities or aeons, and to
denote Him. The assertion of the eqnality
of the two, then, is that a + 6 = a—0, which
can stand only if ^ - 0, the postulate of
atheism.
Lastly, albeit Canon Farrar's forte is illus-
tration, and argument his weak point, he has
missed the opportunity of bringing a powerful
sidelight to bear on that part of the popular
theology which teaches that man's doom is
irreversibly fixed at the moment of death, and
that, if he be unrepentant at that particular
instant of time, he is lost for ever. It is, that
this view puts God on a moral level with the
devisers of the most savagely malignant re-
venge known to history — the deed known in
Italy as la gran vendetta. This differs from
ordinary assassinations, in that the murderer
does not strike his victim down at any time
feasible, but dogs his steps till he finds him
fresh from the committal of some sin accounted
mortal in Eoman Catholic theology, and then
slays him before he has had a moment for
repentance or confession, so as to insure his
damnation as well as his death. When a hired
bravo executes this vengeance, he exacts a
much higher price than the ordinary tariff for
his services. The horror with w^hich we read of
104 THE WIDER HOPE.
sucli a crime ought to make us all careful lest
we should give our assent to the teaching
which predicates it, only on an infinitely
vaster scale, of the just and merciful God.
via
By the Rev. EDWARD WHITE
(Author of Life in Christ — A Study of the Scripture Doctrine on the
Nature of Man, the Object of the Divine Incarnation, and the
Conditions of Human Immortality).
Canon Farrar's Sermons, as the Spectator
truly affirmed, are highly rhetorical ; but I
do not assent to the additional criticism that
this quality diminishes their theological value.
When, as in the j^resent case, the rhetoric
blazes up from a great depth of spiritual
emotion, a zeal for God as the intelligibly just
Judge of mankind — whether in its details of
belief this zeal be less or more accordinof to
knowledge — the tremendous force of the
language employed seems more helpful to wdse
and reverent thought on such a subject than
w^ould be the cold-blooded style of ordinary
theological discussion. At all events, it is
refreshing, just for once, to listen to a preacher
who almost shook Westminster Abbey with
the volcanic storm of his indignation in attack-
ing what he holds to be the mendacium men-
daciorum of Protestant divinity.
106 THE WIDER HOPE.
With Canon Farrar's earnest protest against
confounding the good and evil principles in
the universe I inwardly agree ; believing,
further, that the final, if indirect, result of this
unconventional explosion of moral passion will
be to awaken more serious thought on the
present quality and future results of human
conduct than has been known in our generation.
Nevertheless, looking at the question here
treated from the standpoint of the belief that
redemption regards mans eternal being, as
well as his blessedness, Canon Farrar's argu-
ment seems to me neither to rest on a quite
solid basis, nor to reach a safe conclusion. All
arguments respecting the future destinies of
men which are restricted to the question of
personal retribution, or to speculations on the
Divine Character as involved in that retribution,
must fail in solidity, and fail in reaching or
overmastering the deep-seated scepticism of
this generation, because failing in breadth of
justice towards both biological and biblical
science. Man's destin}^ in the future cannot
be satisfactorily determined, on the ground
either of reason or revelation, apart from
previous study of man's nature as a whole ;
and the Divine communications on that destiny
cannot be rightly apj)rehended apart from
THE REV. EDWARD WHITE. 107
an understanding of tlieir psycliological and
physical bases. Canon Farrar seems to start
on his quest after truth in eschatology, as do
both the more pronounced Universalists and
the believers in endless suffering, from the
assumption of the immortality of the soul ; not
simply from belief in its conceivable tempo-
rary survival, as the butterfly survives the
chrysalis without being immortal, but in its
absolute eternity in all cases, under the in-
tention of God. Now, this natural eternity
of souls appears to me to be confounded with
a possible temporary survival, and, as a posi-
tive dogfma, to be destitute of all evidence
from nature or revelation. It is, in fact, the
TrpMTov xJyevSos wliicli coufuses all qucstious per-
taining to the relations of God and man ; it
hinders men from rightly understanding the
meaning and end of the Divine Incarnation,
thereby concealing the glory of the Son of God
as the "Life-giving Spirit;" and, finally, it
tempts to the assertion of the doctrines either
of universal salvation or of eternal suffering,
both of which contradict, at least, the more
obvious signification of ordinary Biblical lan-
2fuao[e on the everlasting^ destruction of men
who refuse to submit to the moral government
of God.
108 THE WIDER HOPE.
I know that this denial of absolute immor-
tality in mankind threatens an enormous
revolution in popular thought, especially in
England, where the belief in the immortal soul
stands on a level of certitude with that of the
existence of God. In France the alarm, from
the prevalence of materialism, is not so great.
Yet even in England the measure of the shock
depends on the persons who cause it. This
denial is listened to, indeed, with anger when
it proceeds from Christian theologians. But
when it comes, even in its most extreme form,
from scientific biologists of the first rank,
who, after careful study of the phenomena of
brain -production and mind-evolution through-
out living nature, and of the phenomena of
waste and destruction in unfinished organisms,
declare it to be the height of absurdity to
maintain that the vital princij^le of every single
human germ, born or unborn, w^iich reaches
some undefined point of development, 7iiust
live as long as the Creator Himself, — why,
even the theological public listens in placid
or respectful silence. A similar opinion is
received almost with reverent sympathy, wdien
it is represented, by Mr. Ehys-Davids, in the
Contemporarij, as the faith of four hundred
and eighty millions of Buddhists, all piously
THE REV. EDWARD WHITE. 109
and sorrowfully toiling towards Nirvana, or
extinction of individual being, on the other
side of the continent of Asia. It is only when
the mortality of the "soul" is maintained as a
Christian dogma that it is dismissed, even by
Canon Farrar, with indignation, as an opinion
too debasing even to be considered with atten-
tion. Nevertheless, I must declare my stead-
fast consent to this conclusion, holding it
not only for truth in ontology and biology,
but also to be the basis on which Redemption
proceeds from first to last. Tripartite man,
we are taught, was created "in God's image ;"
he never was "a beast of the field ;" he was
formed in sublime relations with the Infinite.
But his ascent from the lower plane of ter-
restrial mortality into assured immortal life de-
pended on continued spiritual union with God,
on voluntary subjection of the created to the
Uncreated Will. That original purj3ose having
been defeated by the action of infernal powers,
and the prospect of life eternal vanishing
through sin, restoration to " eternal hope" was
possible only through a supernatural action of
grace above law, involving a union of the
Divine and Human natures in the person of
Christ, and an inward and outward transfor-
mative change in the individual man, bestow-
110 THE WIDER HOPE.
ing a " second birth " of both soul and body,
in spiritual renewal and physical resurrection.
So that unless men are born twice they will
die twice. They must be "born again" or
die the "second death." This, briefly stated,
I take to be the drift of the Christian Eeve-
lation ; and to describe this, as Canon Farrar
does, as a " doctrine of Annihilationism," is
as unreasonable as it would be so to describe
some curative system introduced in order to
save men's lives, if they ivill receive it, in a
land where all w^ere dying of fever or confluent
small-pox.
It will be seen at once that all questions of
human salvation, and of the future punishment
of the "second death,'*' assume wdiolly new
aspects under such connected biological and
theological views. What comes into promin-
ence now, as the ground of hope for the end-
less future, is not the deathless nature of man,
but the gift of God in the deathless nature of
the Eternal Son, the Incarnate Life and Love;
wdiose Person as Divine, and whose work in
immortalising men, form the two subjects of
that Fourth Gospel wdiich is the chief glory of
the Scriptures. What comes into prominence
noAv is the action of that " Life-giving Spirit"
(1 Cor. XV. 45), which operates on men under
THE REV. EDWARD WHITE. Ill
all various degrees of knowledge, in uniting
them to Christ, " the Life of the world," and
extends in some specified cases its gracious
energy beyond the grave.
Under such views, wholly rejected by Dr.
Farrar, yet strangely harmonising with the
results of science in all departments, one is led
to protest urgently against that old Origenist
misapplication of the words " the letter killeth'*
(used by St. Paul to describe the destructive
action of law) to which Canon Farrar lends
his distinct approval, — a misapplication which
makes a special virtue of non-natural interpre-
tation, leadino; to the demand for some fiirura-
tive sense to be imposed on the three most
important series of terms in the records of
Revelation : firstly, on all those which attri-
bute man's eternal life to the Divine Incarna-
tion, and restrict such endless life to the
twice-born sons of God ; secondly, on those
which denounce death, destruction of hodjj
and soul, and extermination, to wicked men ;
and lastly, on those which declare that doom
to be final and eternal. Thus it comes to
pass, as has been shown at leugth elsewhere,
that the very terms employed by Plato in
the Pluedon, and used for four hundred years
before the Gospel, through the Greek-speaking
i 1 2 THE WIDER HOPE.
world, to denote the extinction of life, are in
the New Testament wrested from their obvious
and historical meaning, in obedience to some
imagined requirement of the sacred dialect, or
some still more stringent requirement of a
metaphysic resolved on maintaining the abso-
lute eternity of one part of man's mortal
nature.
Canon Farrar supports the popular allega-
tion that, under this scheme of more literal
interpretation, the wicked would be raised
from the dead " only that they may be tor-
mented and destroyed." But, indeed, this is
to lose sight of the truth that the primary
object of the Resurrection, in all cases, is
represented in Scripture not simply as retri-
bution, but, as Professor Stokes of Cambridge
observes, as the visible vindication of the
Divine Justice, in the historical "manifesta-
tion " of every individual human character, so
that what God does with every man will satisfy
the conscience of the universe. And the doc-
trine of the final destruction of the unrepenting
remnant of God-rejecting men resolves itself
into an awe-striking example of the survival
of the fittest ; the death of those who are
" unworthy of eternal life," after the exhaus-
tion of all redemptive processes on earth, and
THE REV. EDWARD WHITE. 113
in some cases in Hades, being the result of the
ojDeration of the law of their nature, and not,
as Mr. Erskine supposes, an act of arbitrary
power on the part of the Almighty. And I
am compelled unwillingly to express the per-
suasion that a line ^f religious instruction,
which takes for its leading principle the notion
that the principal aim of the Divine Revela-
tion is to give to the generality of defiant men
a cheerful and hopeful view of their ultimate
destiny, differs toto ccelo, and even toto inferno,
from the fearful doctrine of Christ and His
Apostles, in its tone towards such persons,
and will be attended practically, as experience
shows, by widely different results.
IX.
By the Rev. Professor SALMON, D.D.
The question with which Canon Farrar's Ser-
mons are mainly concerned is a difficulty of
natural as much as of revealed religion. If
we consider that we have sufficient reason,
independently of Christianity, to believe in
a future life, we have to form a theory as
to what will be the future of those whose
present life has been a moral failure. There
certainly have been at least some whose
earthly life has been quite the reverse of
a season of discipline and moral improve-
ment : they have spent it in learning new
vices, and getting more hardened in old ones ;
they have died to all appearance irreformably
wicked, and if they then enter on a life which
can be described as anything like a natural
continuation of the present one, they must do
so under conditions infinitely less fovouraijle
than those under which they started here.
Convinced that vice and misery must go to-
1 I 6 THE WIDFR HOPE.
gether, we need not inquire about tlie happi-
ness hereafter of such persons ; it is enough to
inquire about their goodness. Four theories
may be started as to their future. First, it
may be supposed that those Avhose reformation
is hopeless, after death cease to exist. This
hypothesis is difficult to reconcile with teach-
ing the immortality of the soul as a doctrine
of natural religion. Great moral depravity is
known to be compatible with high physical
vitality, so that we cannot well think of death
^s terminating the existence of very bad men,
and of such only, without introducing a Divine
miraculous intervention either for the destruc-
tion of those who perish, or for the bestowal
of a new life on those who survive. In either
case we travel out of the domain of natural
religion. Secondly, it may be supposed that
the existence of the wicked is temporarily
continued beyond the grave, whether for the
infliction of retributive punishment or for
further probation, but that after unsuccessful
trial their ultimate fate is annihilation. These
two h3q3otheses agree in ascribing immortality
to some men, not to others — thus really
dividing the human race into two essentially
different species ; and the second is open to
the further objection urged by Cicero against a
THE EEV. PROFESSOR SALMON. 117
similar theory of the Stoics, that it concedes
the most difficult point — namely, that the soul
can survive the dissolution of the body — and
refuses to grant what is most natural to think
— namely, that what has survived so great a
shock must be immortal. The third supposi-
tion is, that all who leave this life pass into
other scenes of discipline, so devised that all,
without exception, are ultimately brought to
virtue and happiness. There is nothing in
natural religion, as Butler has remarked, which
forbids us to think that human creatures, after
leaving this world, may pass through different
states of life and being. We may well believe
that the constitution of all these states will be
such as to " make for righteousness," and we
cannot pronounce it incredible that, by the
discipline of such states, virtue, here but in-
choate, may hereafter be strengthened and
perfected. But to say that such a process
shall be absolutel}' without possibility of failure
in any case, is to make an assertion opposed
to the whole analogy of our present experi-
ence ; and it is the more hazardous to attribute
to future discipline this certainty of uniform
success, inasmuch as many of the subjects
of it enter upon it, as has been already re-
marked, in a condition far less favourable than
118 THE WIDER HOPE.
that in which they started here. This third
hypothesis, then, cannot be asserted on scien-
tific grounds — that is to say, not because there
is any present evidence that the constitution
of nature is such as we think it ought to be ;
but solely on moral grounds, because our faith
in the goodness of God induces us to believe
that He will hereafter make it so, however
little present signs of it there may be. Such
an argument can at most inspire but a hope
— it is far from yielding an assurance. We
must have faith in the goodness of God, if we
deserve to be called Theists at all ; but we
cannot, without extreme rashness, say that God
will certainly justify His goodness in exactly
the way we may pronounce most befitting
Him. If we could have attained our present
belief in His omnipotence and goodness with-
out experience of the existing constitution of
things, we should most certainly have declared
it to be absolutely incredible that evil could
find the place in it which it actually does.
How the existence of evil can be reconciled
with the Divine attributes is a problem which
never has been solved. Such considerations
as that by physical evil man's faculties are
drawn out, that without the possibility of
moral evil there w^ould be no room for the
THE REY. PROFESSOR SALMON. 119
highest kinds of virtue, etc., are not so much
solutions as encouragements to hold fast our
faith in God, and believe that He can hereafter
justify His ways. Still, these considerations
give us all the light we have, and we lose all
explanation why God should have made us
exposed to temptation here if we think it pos-
sible that He can hereafter, without annihilat-
ing virtue as well as vice, ordain a constitution
of things in which the inducements to well-
doing shall be so overpowering that WTono--
doing shall be impossible.
It is credible that there are other worlds
like ours, and equally credible that at any
given period of time hereafter there may
be one or more worlds in the same state of
development as ours is now, and therefore not
unlikely to present the same phenomena as
those we have experience of. It is not de-
fined in this third h3'pothesis how long a
period of trial and discipline may be necessary
for the reformation of a vicious person : the
framers of the hypothesis feel no difficulty in
conceding that it may be as long as you
please, provided only it be not infinite.
What, therefore, this third hypothesis requii-es
us to assert is, that it is reconcilable with the
Divine attributes that evil may exist in the
120 THE WIDER HOPE.
universe to all eternity, and in any given
individual for an indefinite time, but abso-
lutely irreconcilable with them that its exist-
ence in the same individual should be eternal.
To assert this requires more knowledge than I
can pretend to possess concerning the Divine
attributes — concerning infinity and eternity,
and the relation of time to the absolute Being.
If we have not evidence for any of the three
suppositions enumerated, w^e must fall back on
the only remaining fourth ; and it appears to
follow that the assertion of the immortality of
the human soul involves, as a consequence,
the admission of the possibility that there may
be some from whom evil will never be eradi-
cated.
It remains to examine how far these con-
clusions are modified by the acceptance of the
Bible as a Divine revelation. It cannot be
doubted that that book teaches the doctrine
of the future life, and the only question is
whether any of the hypotheses, which on the
grounds of natural religion we have rejected
as unproved, become credible as forming part
of Christ's teaching. The first hypothesis
may be set aside at once. It not only re-
ceives no countenance from, but is directly
contradicted by a book which speaks as dis-
THE REV. PROFESSOR SALMON. 121
tinctly of future punishment for the wicked as
of future rewards for the good, and of a resur-
rection not only for the just but for the unjust.
The second hypothesis has no countenance
from Scripture, and, when combined with the
other doctrines of the Christian scheme, has
nothing attractive to recommend it, leaving us
as it does (to use Canon Farrar's words) with
"the ghastly conclusion that God will raise
the wicked from the dead only that they may
be tormented, and at last destroyed." Con-
cerning the third hypothesis, the question is
not whether such hopes as natural religion
may have permitted us to form are confirmed
by Scripture, but whether they can be re-
tained without contradiction of the teaching
of Christ and His apostles. I have not
courage to discuss the meaning of Greek and
Hebrew words, because I ought to know
English better than either of these two lan-
guages, and I am very likely to go astray
about the meaning of the word aiwvtos if I do
not rightly understand the meaning of the
word " eternal." I must own that I should
have been in danger of translating Canon
Farrar's title "Eternal Hope" as "a hope
destined never to be realised ;" and I have not
a much clearer idea of the meaning of the
122 THE WIDER HOPE.
word '^ eternal," according to his nse of it,
than that it is an intensitive adjective which
does not include the idea of endless duration.
But there is no necessity for minute discus-
sion, because the history of the religion proves
summarily that if Christ revealed any doctrine
of universal restitution, He did it so indis-
tinctly that His followers failed to apprehend
it. From the earliest times the popular and
prevalent view among them was that which
may be described as the popular view among
Christians still. The doctrine of universal
restitution, if ever taught at all among Chris-
tians, was but the private idea of speculative
men, struggling for a bare toleration, and
ultimately struggling in vain. Not to quote
passages from the Book of Revelation, or any
other canonical book, when Justin Martyr
sa3's that Christians held that the future
punishment of the wdcked would not be, as
Plato imagined, for a thousand years only,
but at'wvios, we certainly receive the impression
that he attached the same meaning to that
Greek word which uninstructed persons do to
the English word "eternal." Canon Farrar
speaks of the hope of heaven as the feeling
which " inspired the martyrs as they bathed
their hands in the torturing flame." But
THE REV. PROFESSOR SALMON. 123
the most superficial acquaintance with early
martyrdoms makes it plain that this is not a
complete account of the feelings which kept
the confessors steclfast. One has only to
think of one of the martyrs of Lyons who cast
away her fears when "reminded by the tem-
poral punishment of the eternal fire in hell,"
or of Poly carp's answer to his judge, " You
threaten me with fire that lasteth but for a
season, and after a little is extinguished, and
know not the fire of the future judgment and
eternal punishment reserved for the ungodly."
The martyrs could pray for their persecutors,
whom they looked on as but the blinded in-
struments of Satan, but they did not include
in their charity him whom they looked on as
their real adversary, the crooked serpent
whose condemnation they were making more
sure. The most " merciful " of those against
whom Augustine contends did not believe in
any such complete triumph of good as would
include the Devil and his angels. Even
Origen, whose charit}^ alone went so far, came
short of teaching a complete expulsion of
evil ; for he cast doubts as well on the perpet-
uity of the goodness of the saved as of the
evil of the lost. And it is needless to say
how generally his views were repudiated by
124 THE WIDER HOPE.
Christians as transgressing the limits of per-
missible speculation. On the whole, if we
investigate as a historical question what
Christ's religion taught, unbiassed by our
natural liking to think that it taught the
things which we wish to believe to be true,
w^e find no grounds to assert that Christianity
has added anything to the strength of the
hopes of universal restitution that natural
religion may have led us to form.
When I ask myself how far the opinions
here expressed agree with those of Canon
Farrar, I am reminded of Brown's saying with
regard to Keid's polemic against Hume : that
both said the same things ; only that wdiat the
one said in a loud voice, the other said in a wdiis-
per. Canon Farrar's Sermons were not intended
for publication, and it would therefore not be
fair to find fault with characteristics which no
doubt made them more attractive to many of
the hearers ; and even one who does not find
so florid a rhetoric to his taste, cannot with-
out ingratitude complain that the perusal of
the volume w^as made easy by its containing
so many pages which might be skipped or
skimmed. It is probably due to the hasty and
essentially popular composition of these dis-
courses that some things are wdiispered in
THE REV. PROFESSOR SALMON. Iz5
tliem which I should have uttered more loudly,
and some things shouted which I should have
been content to say more quietly. And the
doctrine which most of the hearers would
carry away differs as much from that which is
stated as the author's deliberate opinion in the
preface, as the popular theology in the Eomish
Church often differs from what is defended in
her schools. Nine hearers out of ten would
have imagined that the preacher intended to
teach Universalism ; but we are told in the
preface that he cannot venture to assert it,
" partly because it is not clearly revealed to
us, and partly because it is impossible for us
to estimate the hardening; effect of obstinate
persistence in evil, and the power of the
human will to resist the law and reject the
love of God." Yet the vehemence with which
he asserts that Christianity does not absolutely
exclude hope for the future of the very worst
of men, must have led many a careless hearer
to think that he was asserting that there are
good grounds for entertaining such a hope.
On the other hand, I have no wish to defend
against Canon Farrar the unwarranted addi-
tions which theologians of different schools
have made to what Scripture has revealed on
this subject. In his reaction, indeed, against
126 THE WIDER HOPE.
the appalling descriptions of physical torment
which some of these writers have given, Canon
Farrar uses language which might easily have
led his hearers to su23pose that he thought any
future physical suffering incredible. There
have been some who have maintained that the
dread of the agony of future remorse is no
sufficient deterrent from sin ; that this kind of
mental pain is scarcely felt by those grosser
natures which need most to be kept in check
by fear of future retribution ; and that even
in those who are constituted so as to feel it
most acutely, remorse for irremediable injury
done to others by our misdoing can be banished
from the mind l^y an effort of will in a way
that the pain of a bad toothache cannot.
Those w^ho hold these views will be confirmed
in them by observing the different ways in
which mental and physical pain impress Canon
Farrar's imagination. He can contemplate
with moderate uneasiness the sinner suffering
from the agonies of remorse and from the pain
of loss ; but that he should endure any pain
of sense is a thou oh t too dreadful for him to
entertain. Again, I heartily join in Canon
Farrar's protest against the prominence which
certain have given to hell-fire in their preach-
ing. I do so without disbelieving in the
THE REV. PROFESSOR SALMON. 127
doctrine, which I prefer to keep in the back-
gronnd, because I but follow the method of
the sacred writers. They do not teach that
the wicked shall cease to exist, nor do they
teach that they who reject the means which
God has here provided for their restoration to
virtue and happiness may rely on some means
provided hereafter which they cannot resist.
Yet they appeal most sparingly to the motives
of hope and fear ; and their statements as to
the sanctions of God's law in rewards and
punishments hereafter are addressed exclusively
to the reascm of their disciples, never to their
imagination. As we do not commonly find
that to paralyse a man's mind with terror at a
danger is the best way of enabling liim to avoid
it, we have no reason to think that drawingr
fearful pictures (»f hell is the best way of
keeping men from falling into it. We have
no New Testament warrant for throwing any
one's mind off its balance in such a way as to
unfit him for discharging those ordinary duties
of life by which he has been called to glorify
God, and for yielding that obedience of love
which is so much more noble than any that
can be extorted by terror.
X.1
Br THE Very Rev. E. H. PLUMPTIiE, D.T).
(Dean of Wells.)
I DO not feel called on to review a book with
which my own name has, through the kind
feeling of the author, been very closely con-
nected, nor to restate the views which I have
expressed in the volume itself as to the great
question of which he treats. I purpose accord-
ingly confining myself in the present paper to
some of the collateral issues which are involved
in it, and shall be content if, by such side-
lights as I am able to throw on them, I can
help those who are, each of them, seekers after
truth and eager to " vindicate the ways of God
to man," if not to a formula concordice, — I
do not profess to believe in the possibility
of a " short and easy " Theodikcea, — yet at least
to a tolerant understanding.
' Reprinted, by permission, from The Spirits in Prison, and
other Studies on the Life after Death, by E. H. Plumptre, D.D.,
Dean of Wells. London : Isbister.
129 1
130 THE WIDER HOPE.
I. It will be felt, I imagine, that the most
telling argument on the side of the popular
belief that there is no room for an extension
after death of the long-suffering of God, which
we acknowledge as leading men, during this
life, to repentance through the discipline of
suffering,— that then all punishment, however
equitable, must be simply retributive and not
reformatory, — is found in the thought that in
so doing you weaken the assurance of the
penitent and the righteous that their trials are
over when they sleep the sleep of death. As
Kel3le has put it, in words which embody a
widely spread conviction —
" But with the siunei-'s fear their hope departs,
Fast linked as Thy great Name to Thee, O Lord."
{Christian Year : Second Sunday in Lent.)
As bearing on this question, I purpose lay-
ing before the readers of this paper some
private letters which passed between myself
and a Eoman Catholic priest, to whom I was
led to send the sermon on the " Spirits in
Prison," which I preached at St. Paul's, and
published in 1871. It will be admitted, I
think, that the objection is stated by him with
a force and subtlety to which my own style of
thought and writing can make but distant
approaches, and that, if my answers carry
THE DEAN OF WELLS. 131
conviction with tliem to any thoughtful mind,
as I venture to hope they may do, it is rather
through their intrinsic force tlian through any
skill in the advocate.
Omitting portions of the letter which are
strictly personal, my friend begins thus : —
" My Dear Sir, — You will wish me, I think, to say how
your sermon has struck me, and therefore, at the risk of being
officious, I will venture to do so. It seems to me that you do
not deny eternal punishment ; but you aim at withd^a^ving
from so awful a doom vast multitudes who have popularly
been considered to fall under it, and to substitute for it in their
case a purgatorial punishment, extending (as in the case of the
antediluvians) through long ages ; at the same time, avoiding
the word * purgatory ' on account of its associations.
" There is nothing, I think, in this view incompatible with
the faith of Catholics.
"What we cannot accept (any more than the mass of Pro-
testants and of Divine^ of the Ancient Church) is one of your
incidental statements, that man's probation for his eternal
destiny, as well as his purification, continues after this life.
" Nor does this doctrine seem necessary for your main
point ; for Catholics are able to hold purgatory without
accepting it, merely by holding that there are innumerable
degrees of grace and sanctity among the saved, and that those
who go to purgatory, however many, die one and all vvitli the
presence of God's grace and the earnest of eternal life, how-
ever invisible to man, already in their hearts, — an assumption
not greater than yours, for it is quite as great an assumption
to believe, as you do, in the future hajypiness of those who die
and make no sign, as to believe, as I may do, in the present
faith and repentance of those who die and make no sign.
" And further still, I almost think that you yourself hold
132 THE WIDER HOPE. •
as well as we this connection of grace with glory ; for you say
the 'Spirits in Prison' 'had not hardened themselves in the
one irremediable antagonism to good which has never forgive-
ness ' (p. 20); 'had not hardened themselves against His
righteousness and love, and therefore were not shutout utterly
from hope ' (p. 7).
*' Excuse the freedom of these remarks, and believe me to be,
" Yours very truly,
"/i'i?/26, 1871. ."
I have not kept a copy of the whole of my
answer to this letter, but I dwelt in it, as I
have done in my letter to Dr. Farrar, on the
fact that for a large number of human souls,
whom the great mass of Christians recognise
as heirs of immortality, there has been absol-
utely no possibility of any action that could
test or develop character : —
" As yet I am compelled to believe that where there has
been no adequate probation, or none at all, there must be
some extension of the possibility of development or change
beyond the limits of this present life. Tcike the case of un-
baptized children. Shall we close the gates of Paradise
against them, and satisfy ourselves with the levissivia damnatio
which gained for Augustine the repute of the durus pater
infantum ? And if we are forced in such a case to admit the
law of progress, is it not legitimate to infer that it extends
beyond them to those whose state is more or less analogous V
II.
''Aug. 1, 1871.
" My Dear Sir, — Thank you for your very kind answer to
my letter. My apology for writing to you again lies in the
importance of the question which is opened m your sermon.
THE DEAN OF WELLS. 133
" Let me ask, then, will it be possible to extend the
period of probation of any man beyond this life without ex-
tending it to all ? and is not this a cruel prospect for all of
those who are trying to live a good life with the hoi)e of hav-
ing done with sin and spiritual peril once for all, as the gain
of dying ? Also, is it not a suggestion cruel to all of us, who
lose dear and virtuous friends, if we cannot rest in the security
that they are beyond harm and reverse ?
" And next, the barrier being once broken down between
our present state and our future, are we not at once forced on
to the further conclusion, to which the present day so much
inclines already, that our future state is only a continuation
(that is, so long as the soul endures) of the same sort of world
as that in which we are now, to the disavowal of that series of
catastrophes (Resurrection, general Judgment, Heaven, and
Hell) which in physical mattei'S is so contrary to the ideas of
some of the most eminent physical philosophers of the day, who
refer everything to the action of gradually operating laws ? But
if supernatural agency has no place in the future world, who
will believe that it exists, or has existed, in this ? And so
Cliristianity ceases to be a direct Divine revelation.
" 1 know you will pardon my pertinacity for the motive
which causes it.
" Very truly yours.
IIL
''Aug. 5, 1871.
" My Dear , — You urge as against the hypothesis
that there may be, on the other side of the grave, a trial time
ot some kind for those who have had no adequate probation, or
none at all, here, that if there is a probation for any, it must ex-
tend to all, and that this is 'cruel' to those who have rejoiced for
others, and who find hope for themselves, in the thought that
death frees them from all the conflict and the danger which
they have had to encounter during life. The logical Ibrce of
this objection is, I apprehend, this, that it is improbable, what-
134 THE WIDER HOPE.
ever seeming evidence or counter probabilities tliere may be
oil the other side, that a theory involving such 'cruelty ' ffs its
consequence can be a true one.
" I will be bold to ask (1) whether, on the assumption that
this consequence were involved in the view which I have
maintained, the balance of 'cruelty' would be altogether on
its side. If it were given to one of the blessed to elect between
having the possession of eternal life in fee, on the one hand,
or accepting it on the other, as the saints of God accept His
favour now, w^ith the feeling that nothing but their own sin
can separate them from it, but that they need to watch and
pray lest sin should separate them, with the condition attached
to the latter alternative, that those who have failed to attain
hnliness here should not be shut out from hope, and to the
former, that the door should be closed on them for ever, which
choice would be most in the spirit of St. Paul (Rom. ix. 3)^
most after the mind of Christ (Gal. iii. IS)? Would not the
decision, ' Let me be safe, safe fur ever, and let them perish,'
.'-eem to us as a concentrated egoism raised to its highest power ?
Would not the word ' cruel ' rise to our lips as applicable to
the temper that could make such a choice ? And if this be
so, — if the natural instincts which fill us with a glow of
admiration as we hear of some heroic self-sacrifice wrought
by one who loves his neighbour better than himself, echo that
judgment,— then may we not ask whether the charge of
' cruelty ' Ci>n legitimately lie against a theory because it
involves as a 'possible consequence that what we admire, rather
than what w^e loathe, is the law of God's dealings with the
spirits of the righteous 1
" 2. But I cj^uestion whether the inference is a necessary
one. It assumes that there can be no probation but under
conditions identical with those under which we now live, the
presence of temptations from witlunit and from within to
which all men are equally exposed. But that assumption is
surely arlutrary. In the range of God's kingdom there may
well be conditions, other than those which we now experience
(such, lor example, as the manner in which ]Minishment is
THE DEAN OF WELLS. 105
accepted), wlricli may yet test wliellier the will is loyal, loving,
obetlient, or self-centied and rebellious. And if we were to
reason from the analogy of our own experience, and the law
of tendencies which is already partially developed, would it
not seem natural to infer that, as we see here, in the e^ts
as distinct from the evepyeca, an ever-increasing fixity of
character, so that with many a falling-away from grace is a
moral impossibility, so, when death brings them nearer to the
presence of God, that fixity may become absolutely irreversible,
with no more fear of change than is felt by the spirits around
the throne ? And if, after the law of our nature, the habit
reproduces itself in the energy, may we not, must we not,
think of that character, which has been formed on earth by
labours of love as well as by prayer and j3raise, as neither
sleeping nor otiose while it waits for the Resuirection, but
finding there also, in that other world, some scope for a like
action ?
" 3. But the argument from continuity, you urge further,
tends to subvert the Christian's faith in events which are not
continuous, but catastrophic, in their character, such as the
Resurrection and the Lnst Judgment. The answer, however,
is not far to seek, and it is (1) that our faith in those events,
as such, rests on grounds altogether distinct from any argu-
ment drawn from analogy or experience, and that, if the
grounds warrant our belief in them, the faith remains un-
shaken, whatever conclusions we may draw from analogy as .
to the intermediate state of souls ; and (2) tliat the theory
which I am now defending gives a significance to the Final
Judgment, of which the popular belief, in great measure,
deprives it. Protestants and Catliolics alike, for the most
part, think of that judgment as passed, irrevocably passed, at
the monif^nt of deati). The soul knows its eternal doom then,
passes to heaven or hell or purgatory, has no real scrutiny to
expect when the Judge shall sit Ujion the Throne ; while, on
this view, the righteous award will then be bestowed on each
according to the tenor of his life during the icliole period of his
existence, and not only during the short yeais or months or
136 THE WIDER HOPE.
days of his earthly being. This gives, I venture to think, not
a less, but a more, worthy comception of that to which we look
forward as the great completion of God's dealings with our
race ,
"Yours very faithfully,
« E. H. Plumptre."
IV.
''Ang. 9, 1811.
"My Dear Sir, — I feel the force of your answer to my
objections, viewing both the objections and the answer in a
strictly logical view, though in one respect I have misled you
by omitting to state, as I had fully intended, what 1 meant by
their logical issue.
" I meant to have stated it before concluding, and then for-
got to do so, my letter having run to a greater length than I
wished ; and now, if I state it, or otherwise attempt to clear
my meaning, I am sure you will not think I do so in a con-
troversial spirit.
" Let me observe, then, that your argument in behalf of
what I ventured to call the'cru^Hy' of teaching that the
probation (to stand or fall) of good men does not end with
this life, may avail, in my opinion, with men of subtle intel-
lects or of heroic natures (such as St. Paul, whom you instance),
but will not serve for the run of men, or support them in their
struggle here with evil. What's the good of my striving so
hard to keep from sin and temptation, if I am not safe when
I die, and my neighbour who gives himself to the world, the
flesh, and the devil, and so dies, may, for aught I know, after
this life get to heaven and I fail of it ? Is it not best to go
my own way here and chance the life to come ? Men in
general take broad piactical views, and are moved by imagina-
tion rather than by speculation. Arguments after Butler's
manner of what is unrevealed but possible, used by way of
explanation of the great balk which the doctrine in question
would be to them, will not meet their needs. It is hard
enough to bear the view, as at present, of virtue suffering,
evil triumphant. Would it not be a second trial, quite as
THE DEAN OF WELLS. 137
great, nay, greater because unexpected, to have to believe that,
this weary life passed, the end does not come after all ? Such
a teaching I have called cruel, unsettling as it is both to faith
and to hope. Of course I cannot prove all this, but 1 submit
it to your judgment.
" I grant, indeed, that if your view be revealed truth, then
my argument about cruelty and unsettlement goes for nothing ;
and this is the very point to which I omitted to proceed in
my letter to you. I meant the logical drift of w^hat I urged
to be this. Is this novel doctrine new, or is it apostolic?
There are many truths which may be startling and even dan-
gerous in places where they have been long forgotten ; but if
apostolic, we must return to them, and preach them at what-
ever cost. Is this one of them? Must it be preached? Cer-
tainly it has a heavy onus prohandi on.it, both as ' cruel ' and
as novel, and requires good evidence in order to be allowed.
I had intended to have said with what interest I looked out
for the testimonies of approved early writers in its behalf,
which I understood you to promise in your advertisement, an
interest founded on doubts whether you can fulfil your
intention. Of course I was aware that several of the Fathers
are in favour of a restoration of all things ; but such a restora-
tion does not imply probation to stand or fall continuing
beyond this life, and this is the point which I doubt of your
finding in the Fathers. I trust 1 have said nothing out of
character with the sincere respect and goodwill with which I
subscribe myself,
" Sincerely yours,
I left my courteous antagonist in possession
of the last word, and contented myself with
thanking him for his letter. Nor do I wish
now to enlarge on that special point of the
" cruelty" which it is alleged is involved in
138 THE WIDER HOPE.
the idea of the extension, in some instances,
of the probation or discipline, which in this
life has been inadequate, beyond the limits of
the grave. It is, however, I think, worthy of
note (l) how wide a hope, extending to those
who " die and make no sign," as well as to
the unbaptized and the heathen, the Catholic
Priest holds to be compatible with Catholic
theology; and (2) that he admits, what some
divines of his Church have denied, that the
doctrine of a restoration of all things was held
not by Origen oiily, but by " several of the
Fathers." It is, I submit, obvious that
although this theory of a restitution of all
thino's is not identical with that which I have
maintained, it is, at least, as compatible with
the idea of probation after death as it is with
the acknowledged fact that the present life is
a time of trial and probation. Not the most
fervent advocate of Universalism dreams of an
absolute equality of blessedness. He is con-
tent to hope for a victory over sin, for the
acceptance by each created spirit of the will of
the Father as absolutely righteous, for the
cessation, or at least the mitigation, of the
sufferings of body and of mind which sin has
caused. But if so, then the thought of an
universal restoration is compatible with the
THE DEAN OF WELLS. 139
belief in infinite grades of capacity for knowing
God, yet more so with infinite variations in
the efi'ect produced on each separate conscious-
ness by the memory of its own past ; and
thus, as this fife is a probation for the next
stage of our being, that, in its turn, may be a
trial-time also, and the " lowest place " will
differ from the highest, as the result of the
total aggregate of the past ; and so, strange as
the paradox may seem, the belief in an univer-
sal restoration is compatible with a belief also
in the eternity of punishment.
II. I would fain, had the limits of my space
allowed me, have discussed the theory which
has been called by some the gospel of Annihi-
lation, but which its author prefers to proclaim
as the doctrine of Conditional Immorcality. I
endorse, wdth hardly any reserve, what Dr.
Littledale has said as to the merits of Mr.
White's treatise on Life in Christ, in which
that theory is developed. It is the work of a
trained thinker. It is elaborate, exhaustive,
systematic, — I would venture to add, almost
too complete in its logical coherence. But it,
too, has its vulnerable points. It is admitted
by Mr. White and those who think with him,
that it has never formed part of the accepted
140 THE WIDER HOPE.
Creed of Christendom, that in this respect it
falls short of the authority which may be
claimed, not only for popular eschatology, but
for the extension of the hope of a discipline of
purification after death, or for the ultimate
restoration of every member of the great
human family. He holds, of course, that he
is reviving a lost article of a creed earlier than
the Apostles' or the Nicene, of that which was
held and taught by Christ and His Apostles,
and he rests this belief on a lexical analysis,
not, as others have done, of the adjective
*' eternal" or " everlasting" as attached to the
retribution that falls on the ultimately im-
penitent, but of the verbs and substantives
which are used in the New Testament to
express that retribution itself. " To destroy,"
'' to perish," " destruction," " perdition," " the
lost," these bring to his mind the connotation,
not of continued existence, in actual suffering,
of body or of spirit ; or of the privation of a
blessedness which might otherwise have been
attained, but of annihilation, — or, if he objects
to that word as invidious and unphilosophical,
of the cessation of conscious being. But is this
true, we may ask, either of the verb aTroAAv/At,
or of the noun aTrwAeta ? When the shepherd
brought back the sheep which was lost (to
THE DEAN OF WELLS. 141
aTToAwAo^), when the father of the prodigal said
that he had been lost (dTroAwAw? rjy) and was
found, when the woman that searched the
house found the piece of money which she had
lost (7)1/ aTTwAeo-a), whcn the Son of Man de-
clared that He came to seek and to save that
which was lost {to aTroAwAos-), is it possible to
connect the word with the idea of the cessation
of existence which Mr. White attaches to it as
its usual or dominant signification ? Is not
the root-idea here, and indeed, for the most
part, elsewhere, that of existence which does
not reach its goal, which fcills short of the end
which God or man had designed for it ? And
this thought, as our translators have felt,
attaches also to the noun for " destruction."
Judas complained of the "waste" (aTrwAem) of
the ointment which had been poured on his
Master's feet. Peter, in his indignant repudia-
tion of the sorcerer's proffered bribe, prayed that
" his money might go with him to destruction,"
might fail to bring him any of the advantages
which he counted on obtainino; throuoh it.
The fact is that all systems built wholly or
chiefly on the philological analysis of single
words are, through the inevitable elasticity of
human language, more or less precarious. As
this is true of " destruction " and " perdition,"
142 THE WIDER HOPE.
SO is it true also, in a yet greater measure, of
the word "eternal" [amvios)^ in which some
have seen the pivot of the whole controversy.
It cannot possibly exclude, as Mr. Maurice was
led to think (Theological Essays, p. 436), the
idea of duration, and connote only a state of
being transcending that which is measured by
the motion of the heavens, for the idea of
duration is of the very essence of the noun,
and men do not commonly use adjectives to
deny that which is implied in the substantive
from which they are derived.^ It cannot
necessarily involve the thought of endless
duration, for it is used of thino;s that were
essentially temporary in their nature, — of the
possession of Canaan by the seed of Abraham
(Gen. xvii. 8), of the covenant which gave the
throne of Israel to the house of David (2
Chron. xiii. 5). It cannot necessarily import
1 It may be worth while noting that the Latin cefernus is
not only a translation of auovtos, but absolutely a cognate
form from the sauie root. yEtenius is contracted from
cei'iternuSy and that is formed from cEvum, and (cvum is identical
with aLMV.
2 The language of patristic theology in speaking of the
"Eternal GuJiieration" of the Son may, I admit, be urged in
favour of Mr. Maurice's view. That phrase, however, is not a
Scriptural one, and therefore can throw little or no light on
the New Testament use of the word "eternal."
THE DEAN OF WELLS. 143
a merely finite duration, for it is used also of
the nnclianging attributes of God (1 Tim.
vi. 16) If we cannot hope that the word
" CBonian" will be naturalised in our English
speech as its only true representative, we must
yet remember as w^e use it, that it carries with
it, as a word, the sense of undefined, and not
of infinite, duration, and that there is nothing
self-contradictory in language like that of
Gregory of Nyssa, when he expresses the
hope that " after an eternal interval " (/xera
aiwi/tov TL Stda-TTjfia'j the discords of the earth may
be harmonised in a Divine concord.^
In yet another point, Mr. White's argu-
ment seems to me to break down. He admits ^
that the belief in the perpetuity of man's
existence was part of the creed of the
Pharisees, and that creed, so far as it
was not formally set aside, passed into
the belief of Christendom and formed the
substratum of the thought of the Apostles.
When St. Paul cried out, in one great crisis of
his life, " T am a Pharisee, the son of a
Pharisee !" he deliberately identified himself
with them in this belief of theirs, and so it
entered into the first elements of Christian
1 De Anima, 0pp. ii. p. 689. ^ ]^{fg {^^ Christ, p, 20L
144 THE WIDER HOPE.
theology, as prayers for the dead entered, from
the first, into the rudiments of Christian
worship.
I recognise, with thankfulness, what many of
those who oppose Mr. White's teaching as the
Gospel of Annihilation seem to ignore, that he
too admits agencies leading to repentance and
reformation, extending beyond the limits of
the present life, a gospel preached to the
spirits in prison, a work of conversion, and
therefore of probation, as carried on in Hades. ^
But I do not see — though, in this respect, I
may be in error, through an incomplete study
of his book — that he attaches sufficient weight
to the words which appear in Matt. xxv. 46, as
the " everlasting lounishment " reserved for the
doers of evil. There were two words which
the Evangelist might have used, Kokaa-cs and
TtiJMpm. Of these the first carries with it, by
the definition of the greatest of Greek ethical
wTiters, the idea of a reformatory process. It
is inflicted "for the sake of him who suffers
it."^ The second, on the other hand, describes
a penalty purely vindictive or retributive. St.
Matthew chose — if we believe that our Lord
1 Life in Christ, p. 344.
2 Aristotle, KheL, i. 10.
THE DEAN OF WELLS. 145
spoke Greek, He Himself chose — the former
word and not the latter.
We need, I will ventm^e to add in
conclusion, in discussing this momentous
question, compared with which all other
controversies within the Churdi that are now
raging round us sink into the category of
the "infinitely little," the temper of
calmness and moderation. AYe see but
a little way into the great mystery
of permitted evil and of the ultimate victory
of good, and our words should be wary and
few. We need to remember that each of
our little systems has commended itself to men
of truest faith in God, and deepest love, and
holiest lives ; that each has drawn souls from
darkness to light, and from the power of Satan
unto God. H we are tempted to speak of those
who preach the popular eschatology as placing
a Moloch in the place of God, the names of
Dante and St. Francis de Sales and Archbishop
Leiohton should rebuke the rash and ill-advised
utterance. If we condemn those who proclaim
the wider hope as subverting the sanctions of
personal and social morality, and leading men
to an antinomian indifference, the names of
Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, of Maurice and
of Erskine, should bid us hold our peace,
146 THE WIDER HOPE.
we condemn the righteous whom God has not
condemned. The want of formuLated system
on which second-rate critics have dwelt as the
characteristic defect of Dr. Farrar's Sermons
is to me their chief charm, the witness to a
calmness and sobriety of thought underlying
all his passionate and glowing eloquence. He
has given utterance to a protest against
human exaggerations or distortions of a Divine
truth, and such a protest on behalf of our
instinctive convictions in the righteousness
and love of God, can, for the most part, only
express itself in the language of indignant
horror. So it is, indeed, with other truths and
other human inferences from them. We
follow the sacramental teaching; of Auo-ustine
and the mediaeval Church until we find our-
selves lodged in the conclusion that unbaptized
infants are excluded from salvation. We
accept the truth that eternal life depends on
our knowino; God as He is, until we stand
face to face with the dogma that " all who do
not ]ceep the Catholic faith," as man has for-
mulated it, shall ''perish everlastingly." We
receive the thoughts of grace, election, predes-
tination, until they land us in the horribile
decretum. We believe that man is justified
by faith in Christ, until men press the
THE DEAN OF WELLS. 147
conclusion, on the one hand, that we may
continue in sin that grace may abound, and
on the other that the millions of the heathen
world are shut out from hope. We welcome the
thought of a purifying discipline after death
till it finds its practical outcome in the
induls^ences of Tetzel. Against these con-
elusions we feel that argument is at once
needless and useless. The reason and
conscience of mankind, in proportion as
they are enlightened, protest against them.
The teacher of a theology that shuns the
falsehoods of extremes may well be content,
in the question before us, to take refuge in
that protest, and to echo St. Paul's cry — if
you will, St. Paul's scream — of horror. " God
forbid!" M/J ya'otro ! may w^ell be with us, as
wdth him, the end of controversy ! Com-
mending what w^e have been led to think
ourselves to the calm thought of others, we
may rest, as the patriarch rested of old, in
the question, "Shall not the Judge of all the
earth do right ? "
XL
By Rev. HENRY ALLON, D.D.
It is not easy exactly to define the place of
oratorical rhetoric in the discussion of philo-
sophical or theological questions. One shrinks
somewhat from applications of it to questions
such as that now under discussion. Pulpit
declamation concerning Eternal Punishment,
and vehement denunciations of opinions, on
either side of the controversy, make one
shudder ; inasmuch as the very subject is one
to be approached with only subdued feeling
and measured words. Moreover, in popular
address, neither can evidence be fully adduced
nor judicial faculty maintained.
In all departments of thought indeed, —
philosophical, scientific, and political, as well
as theological, — there are topics, the deter-
mination of which depends upon exact exegesis
or testimony, and fine discrimination of argu-
ment or of principles ; and one instinctively
feels that such should be withheld from
150 THE WIDER HOPE.
oratorical treatment. I must therefore say
that I have recoiled with something like pain
from the discussion of this question in popular
sermons. And this is the preliminary diffi-
culty that I feel in dealing with Canon Farrar s
book — as with other like publications. The
preacher and the critic necessarily proceed by
different methods. It is not easy to apply
formulae of exact thought to strong explosive
declamation. Those wdio differ from me may
deserve my oratorical denunciation, but the
denunciation does not prove that they do.
Nor in this particular matter can the impulses
of moral sentiment be accepted as of them-
selves sufficient criteria of truth. So long as
a question demands the processes of the
wdtness-box and the function of the judge, it
is difficult to conceive the good wdiich rhetoric
can effect. On all hands it will be admitted
that this question has not yet advanced into
such clear unencumbered view, as that there is
room only for oratorical denunciation of the
obstinately blind.
The use of rhetoric in controversy is to
explode assumptions, and to give expression to
moral instincts. So far, sermons in relation
to theology, like popular lectures in relation
to physical science, and speeches in relation
THE EEV. DR. ALLON. 151
to politics, have tiieir use, and under certain
conditions a great use. Both in social and in
religious history oratory has done much to
further the settlement of thought. It has
assailed traditional assumptions, it has created
a favourable atmosphere, and favourable
sympathies, in which evidential and argumen-
tative treatment has become living and
practical. It has sometimes been like the
destruction of old fortifications, by explosive
power, clearing the ground for new foundations.
If the treatment in the pulpit of the question
of the eternal issues of sin could be restricted
to this, it would be unobjectionable. But the
question is hardly in a state for this process ;
the first essential requisite for its settlement
seems to me to be a patient and comprehensive
examination of evidence. Who are competent
witnesses, and what is their testimony ? In
one sense evidence is always being taken
concerning every great question ; but there
come crises — and this seems to be one — when
the case is specially brought into court for a
rehearing.
AVhatever may be the authority of the
verifying faculty of our moral nature, clearly
the question under consideration, — viz., the
nature and duration of the punitive conse-
152 THE WIDER HOPE.
quences of sin in the life to come, cannot be
determined by the subjective consciousness
alone ; although this may and must pass a
verdict upon the external evidence adduced.
It is primarily a question of fact, and not of
mere moral feeling.
Some theories of the nature and condition
of the future punishment of sin may be so
incongruous and gross, — they may so contradict
moral processes, and revolt the moral nature,
— that we may be justified in saying a priori
they cannot be true. Such theories may,
therefore, justify vigorous denunciation like
Canon Farrar's. Accretions of imagination
and circumstance may gather round a root-
idea, — not in ignorant and vulgar conception
only, but in the constructions of religious
faith by highly intelligent men, — which to the
unsophisticated moral sense may make it
repulsive and impossible. Such, for instance,
are some of the accretions which in the Church
of Eome, and in other sacerdotal Churches,
have orathered round the root-idea of sacrifice ;
and have been accepted by the religious faith
of men so transcendently able as those whose
names are almost representative of their
systems.
But it does not follow, because th§ accretions
THE RF.V. DR. ALLON. 153
are illicit, that the root-idea is false. It is at
any rate conceivable that the entire structure
of sacerdotalism may be overthrown, and the
fundamental doctrine of sacrifice remain not
only unimpaired by the process, but more
firmly established. It is possible that the
repulsive sequences of logical Calvinism, may
be traversed, and the supreme idea of God's
immanence in human life and salvation be
held fast, as indeed they are in many Churches.
In both instances the accretions may fitly be
denounced in popular oratory.
In like manner, the accretions which ignorant
literalism, poets, and painters, and, above all,
perhaps, priestcraft, have clustered round the
root-idea of the retribution of sin in the future
life, may be pulverised by a more spiritual
conception ; and yet it may remain true that
the retributive sequences of sin are irreversible,
and even unending. The argument which is
to decide the question must deal not so much
with the ignorant and popular perversion, nor
with the imaginativ e forms of the painter,
the poet, and the rhetor, nor with the meta-
phorical forms of Scripture representation even,
but with the root-idea of retribution ; and with
the exact evidence that revelation, the moral
sense, philosophy, and experience may furnish.
154 THE WIDER HOPE.
Thus reduced, it will hardly be maintained
that the subjective consciousness of a man,
however elevated and refined by pure religious
feeling, is competent to demonstrate — (1)
Whether the sequences of sin will in the future
life be reversible ? (2) Whether, if they are
not, they are terminable ? For all our informa-
tion concerninor the facts and the characteristics
of the life hereafter, w^hether affecting the
saved or the lost, we are necessarily dependent
upon the testimony of revelation, whatever
the verifying functions of our own reason and
moral faculty. Naturally, therefore, our first
inquiry is concerning the testimony of Christ,
who hath " brought life and immortality to
light." _
Distinctively, and transcendently. He reveals
to us our highest, and indeed all our certain
knowledge concerning the life hereafter. It is
His special mission to reveal these things.
Necessarily, therefore. He has much to say
concerning them ; although it may be admitted
that much of His teaching was not fully
understood until the lioht of His own death
and resurrection was thrown upon it.
It is in harmony with an obvious moral law,
that the most terrible of all judgments con-
cerning sin come from the lips of Him who, in
THE REV. DR. ALLON. 155
infinite compassion, came to save us from our
sin ; and the most unqualified and appalling
words concerning the retribution of sin come
from Him who " opened the Kingdom of
Heaven to all believers." The measure of love
is the power of hate, the measure of holiness
is antao'onism to sin.
It is not possible to attempt here any
examination of our liOrd's testimony concern-
ing the future condition of unrepentant sinners.
And nothing could be more misleading or
unsatisfactory than to adduce any portion of
His aftirmations without an exhaustive exam-
ination of the whole. Our Lord's testimony
is very ample, and it is very strong. It
demands minute exegesis, not of words only,
but of aims and circumstances. What in each
instance was the relation of His assertion to its
immediate occasion and purpose ? What was
the relation of the phrases which He employed,
and of the ideas which He propounded to
those of the Old Testament Scriptures, and
to contemporary Jewish thought ? How far
did He conform in His expressions to the
ignorances or prejudices of His time ? These
are questions which demand a full critical
examination ; which should be conducted, in
the first instance, without any assumption of
156 THE WIDER HOPE.
His supernatural knowledge or infallible
authority. They are questions purely of
interpretation, and are solely of literary and
historical determination.
I cannot think that our Lord's teachings on
such a subject can be ruled by the possible
exegesis of a single word, however crucial, or of
a single phrase. Questions of popular meaning
can scarcely be determined by the ingenuities
of philology. Both the philological meaning
of words and their usus loquendi must, of course,
have due consideration ; but we are surely
justified in concluding that the substantial
meanings which our Lord's words actually con-
veyed were the meanings which He intended ;
making-, of course, due allowance for shades of
meaning in the words chosen, and for imperfect
understanding in His auditors. It would do
violence to common sense, to intellectual
respect, and to moral feeling, to suppose that
His words conveyed a meaning diametrically
opposite to that which He intended — that when
He meant to say that retribution was termin-
able, He was understood to mean that it was
unending. He would surely have corrected a
misapprehension so false on such a subject.
Undeveloped meanings there necessarily were,
but these are vastly different from contra-
THE REV. DR. ALLON. 157
dictory meanings. For example, He strove to
instruct His disciples concerning the true
character of His kingdom and of His death.
The antagonistic conceptions which He failed
to remove were due, not to purposed reserve
on His part, nor to the use of ambiguous words
and phrases, but wholly to their own strong
prepossessions. No such conditions are found
in connection wdtli His teachings concerning
the sequences of sin.
Perhaps it is unjustifiable to affirm a general
conclusion without adducing in detail the
evidence ; which, of course, is here impracticable.
Such affirmation must therefore be taken for
w^hat it is worth. Looking: at our Lord's
sayings broadly and popularly, and with such
a degree of deference to possible meanings of
words as popular teaching may admit, I cannot
resist the conclusion that in the most absolute
manner He affirmed and intended to affirm the
finality of religious conditions after death. I
purposely put it thus, because there seems to
be ground for the further question whether the
metaphors, phrases, and w^ords which He
employed do, or w^re intended to, convey the
meaning of absolute unendingness. If, as
collocated in phrases, words have any meaning ;
if, as related to ideas, metaphors have any
158 THE WIDER HOPE.
relevancy, it seems to be indubitable that our
Lord intended to teach that the moral issues
of this life are not to be reversed in the life to
come.
At any rate, this is the apparent meaning of
most of His assertions ; and if any can be found
of a contrary purport, it is not enough to
adduce the seeming exception ; it is imperative
that a satisfactory harmony of it with the
general teaching shall be established. If this
be our Lord's teaching, then, either (l) Our
Lord consciously conformed His representations
to certain popular ideas of His own day,
knowing them to be erroneous — a supposition
in relation to such a subject that I think would
go far to overthrow His moral authority : or
(2) His own knowledge was limited, and, like
Plato, He only formulated the highest thought
of His times, raising it by His own genius to
greater heights ; but not teaching indubitable
fact, only moral probability — a supposition
that in relation to such a subject w^ould go far
to invalidate His claim to be in any super-
natural sense a teacher sent from God : or (3)
He knew what was true concerning the sequence
of sin in the future life, and meant His affirma-
tions to be accepted as authoritative truth.
The first and second of these suppositions so
THE REV. DR. ALLON. 159
fatally undermine the authority of Christ as a
teacher, they represent Him as so seriously
compromising what must be regarded as most
important truth, or so hopelessly failing to
attain to it, that all claim of authoritative
teaching in any supernatural sense, or in any
other than a moral sense, must be denied to
Him. And this, it must be borne in mind, is
primarily a question of fact, not of moral idea.
Theories of Universalism and of the reversibil-
ity of condition after death are no novelties in
Christian speculation — they have been pro-
pounded in every Christian age, and were not
unknown to pre-Christian Judaism. But if it
has been left for this nineteenth century to
establish them as the true theory of the future
life, we are, I think, compelled to the conclu-
sion that Christ did not attain to the highest
truth concerning it ; for such ideas are in no
sense a development of His germinal meanings;
they seem to me to be a contradiction to His
direct assertions, and to involve a radical
change in our conceptions of Him as an
authoritative teacher. The theory that His
teaching was not absolute may be the true
one ; but it is well clearly to understand how
distinctly it is raised in these inquiries. A
primary question here unquestionably is, What
160 THE WIDER HOPE.
is the authority of Christ as a teacher concern-
ing eschatology ? If He be really the authori-
tative and infallible teacher that He has been
supposed to be, what are His words, and what
are their meanings ?
Coming to the Apostolic writings, and plac-
ing them on the very lowest grounds of
authority, they undoubtedly testify concern-
ing early Christian opinion. Ever3rwhere they
avow implicit deference to the authority of
Christ, and render Him Divine homage. They
must, therefore, on the assumption of their
genuineness, be accepted as faithfully and
reverently setting forth — so far as the writers
understood them — the doctrines which the
early Christians had received from Christ.
Most Christian men, however, regard the New
Testament writers as guided and aided by a
supernatural inspiration, which although not
necessarily excluding individualities of jDcr-
ception and impression, and imperfections of
knowledge, yet did secure, substantially, a
faithful deposit of the great facts and doc-
trines of Christianity. According to this view,
the unequivocal affirmations of Christian
apostles concerning a matter so important
as that now under discussion are also author-
itative.
THE REV. DR. ALLOX. IGl
Here, ao^iin, detailed and exact exeo-esis is
imperative, althongh it is impracticable in this
paper. It is an obvious canon that meanings
are to be determined not by passages excep-
tional and obscure, but by passages normal and
exjDlicit. Both must, of course, be adduced and
examined, and their harmony must be estab-
lished. But in no case is it legitimate that the
explicit meanings of lucid passages shall be over-
ruled by possible interpretations of passages that
are obscure. For example, to rule the unequi-
vocal meaning of such a j)assage as Rom. ii. by
an ingenious and barely possible interpretation
of such an obscure passage as 1 Pet. iii. 18-20,
is to violate first principles of interpretation,
and to adopt the methods of the polemic rather
than those of the inflexible exegete. If either
is to rule, the unknown should be ruled by
the known, not the reverse.
In the Apostolic writings obscure passages
occur relating to many subjects. There are in
them " things hard to be understood," such as
Peter found in Paul's Epistles. We are not
forbidden to scrutinise these to the utmost ;
but with some, the issue will be such, that
wise men will be contented to leave them
without dogmatic afiirmation, lest they should
incur the issue which Peter deprecates.
162 THE WIDER HOPE.
There are also rhetorical passages concerning
the work and kingdom of Christ, inspired by
the great hope wliich was filling Christian
hearts with the rapture of a new revelation,
which are conceived in the lofty poetic form
and largeness of Isaiah's prophecies. In such
passages as Rom. viii. and Ephes. i. the writer
does not demonstrate so much as he triumphs.
It is prophetic song ; and according to famihar
rhetorical usage he puts universals for generals ;
not logically so as to admit of no exceptions,
but rhetorically so as to affirm general charac-
teristics. To take rhetorical passages of this
order, and subject them to severe scientific
tests, is just as illogical as to test Milton's
Paradise by geographical and botanical science,
or his representations of Satan by historic evi-
dence. No one thinks of interpreting the later
chapters of Isaiah by the canons of an exact
theological treatise. Equally illegitimate is
it so to construe the rhetoric of Paul's
Epistles, or the sublime dramatic symbolism
of the Apocalypse. Every composition claims
to be construed according to the laws of its own
structure.
Is it too much to afiirm that, due allowance
being made for rhetoric and poetry in certain
passages, no authority can be drawn from
THE REV. DR. ALLON. 163
Apostolic writings for any theory of Universal-
ism or of a second probation ? To construe
the great prophetic expressions of glorious hope
which the predictions of the issues of Christ's
mediatorial w^ork elicit as exact and literal
affirmations, and to explain these and passages
of another character in their relations to each
other as an unequivocal and insoluble anti-
nomy, is to destroy the moral authority of
the writers, and to represent them as making
contradictory affirmations concerning a vital
element of Christian teaching. Whatever
difficulties certain statements may present,
even though we can find no solution of them,
it is surely scarcely allowable to make them
neutralise each other. If a true and satisfying
harmony cannot be found, the obvious course
is to accept the statements that are unequivocal,
and to be contented without affirmations con-
cerning such as are obscure. Whether the
Apostolic writings be inspired or not, their
intellectual power and elevation demands that
we do them this literary, not to say moral,
justice. Their statements certainly produce
the impression of finalit}^, and seem intended
to produce it. There is a kind of immorality
even in the supposition that a great religious
teacher, professing to speak authoritatively
164 THE WIDER HOPE.
on such a theme, should use words so cun-
ningly or dubiously, that, by an ingenious
philology, he can be shown not necessarily to
affirm what he apparently means. For those
who regard the Christian apostles as having
no supernatural authority, this line of argu-
ment may be legitimate enough, but it can
scarcely be adopted by those who believe in
any form of their Divine inspiration. If it
really be that the moral sense refuses their
apparent doctrine, the solution is not to be
found in a philological manipulation of the
latter ; the true issue to be joined is their
authority as teachers in relation to the moral
sense. Any dogma of the New Testament — a
book of popular religious teaching and not of
scientific theology — which depends upon philo-
logical possibilities of texts, is of very pre-
carious authority. Generally speaking, broad
and apparent meanings must be accepted as
the purposed meanings. Undeveloped mean-
ings there are, and advancing theological
science and spiritual life will more and more
develop them — as, for instance, in the doctrine
of the Atonement ; but, again, it must be said,
development is one thing, categorical contra-
diction another.
It appears to me that the explicit teaching
THE REV. DR. ALLON. 165
of the Apostolic writers is of finality in the
awards and conditions of the life after death.
If not, to say the least, their statements are
unaccountably ambiguous, if not culpably
misleading.
The Apocalypse — a book dramatic in its
structure, and of the boldest symbolical char-
acter — admits of endless interpretations and
controversies in the details of its meaning^s and
references ; but it may fairly be adduced in
respect of its general representations of moral
issues. Avowedly a prediction of the future
of Christ's kingdom, it is vindicated by its
profound spiritual ideas, and by its marvellous
harmonies in the cycle of redemptive thought.
Its place, as a general presentation of the issues
of redemption and the final fortunes of Christ's
kingdom, is imperative, if the cycle of revela-
tion is to be completed. Nothing can be more
unequivocal than its representations of the
finality of all the moral and religious conflicts
that it surveys. Whatever the false idea or
power with which Christ comes into conflict,
He is represented as finally and utterly de-
stroying both it and its votaries. Make every
reasonable allowance for the laws of dramatic
art, and for the absoluteness of prophetic
symbolism, yet if, as an indication of the future,
IGQ THE WIDER HOPE.
the book hcas any prophetic or religious value
at all, it cannot be construed as representing
the direct opposite of eventual fact. Its one
dominant note, concerning good and evil, is
finality.
So far therefore as the testimony of the New
Testament goes — which is the only external
authority to which we can appeal at all — I see
no way of evading its assertions of finality,
save by exegetical processes, the ingenuity of
which excites suspicion when applied as a
solvent to the meanings of a popular religious
book.
The question next arises. What is the rela-
tion of Scripture to the moral sense, and what
verdict upon this great issue does the latter
pronounce ? I may be permitted to quote
words printed some years ago, and with ao
entirely different reference : —
" To a man's own moral consciousness all teacliings of
religion must appeal. I do not hesitate to say- that no word
of God in the Bible, no element of the religious system of
Jesus Christ, can achieve any practical religious hold upon us,
unless it carries the assent of our own moral conscience. We
might submit to it as to a supreme authority, we might accept
it as a metaphysical theology, but unless it entered our con-
gcience and possessed our religious convictions, it could not
possibly excite our religious feeling, or rule our religious
conduct. Do not let us be afraid of saying that our conscience,
our moral sense, must in this sense be to us the ultimate test
THE PvEV. DR. ALLON. 1G7
of all God's teachings. If the teachings do not justify them-
selves to our conscience when it is earnestly excited and we
are sincerely solicitous to know the truth, they are, to say the
least, utterly unsuited to us, and the probability is that we
have misconceived them, and that they are not God's truths
at alV—llie Life Eternal, p. 66.
To the moral sense, therefore, the eschatol-
ogy of the New Testament must appeal. Any
doctrine concerning the issues of sin, that is
morally contradictory to the conception of
God as a holy and loving Father, as Jesus
Christ has revealed Him to us, can scarcely be
a true one. Our conception of God may itself
be imperfect, and due allowance for its imper-
fection must be made. But when we are
exercising our holiest thoughts about God, we
may safely say that whatever broadly contra-
dicts them, and compels us to qualify our
ideas of God's holiness and love, must be
untrue.
That the conception of God as an Almighty
being, inflicting eternal torment upon His
creatures by acts of material punishment,
such as the mediaeval Church represented,
contradicts such elementary feelings, is fully
conceded. Good men have had forcibly to
subdue this feeling, to reason it down by logic,
or to determine to believe in spite of it,
because they deemed it authoritatively taught
168 THE WIDER HOPE.
— just as men avow other incredible ecclesias-
tical or theological dogmas — "they .believe
because it is impossible ; " but this is both a
wrong to the moral nature, and a spurious
homaixe to revelation.
Almost by common consent, therefore, men
are renouncing; traditional beliefs in the
material interpretations put upon the Scrip-
ture symbolism of retribution, and are inquiring
concerning the moral ideas and processes
which these represent.
Is there, then, in our moral nature, when
purest and most devout, anything to which
the idea of iinality, as we have suggested it, is
in moral contradiction.
So far as equity goes, accepting the law of
retribution as graduated by the Apostle in
Kom. ii., — viz., that men's responsibility, and
therefore their culpability, is limited by their
light and their personal ability, their oppor-
tunity and their circumstances, — the moral
sense cannot object. It is a rule of equity
universally applicable.
But further, does our conception of the
Divine love demand that all men shall ultim-
ately be saved ? This is very strongly affirmed ;
and so far as it is a mere feeling, there can be
no reply to it. But in the light of reason and
THE REV. DR. ALLON. 169
analogy it seems a very (laring affirmation.
May not the Divine love be as seriously called
in question in connection with the very exist-
ence of moral evil ? The real problem iies
here ; duration is only a secondary idea. It
does not touch the principle of the Divine
government and character, whether moral evil
exists in this life or in the next. It may
affect sentiment, and our ideal of the apotheosis
of things, but it does not affect the principle.
The problem of moral evil cannot, of course,
be argued here, nor perhaps anywhere else,
but the crux of the entire moral difficulty
about this great question of retribution lies
here. Probably we shall never get beyond
Tertullian's position, that moral freedom and
endowment are a prerogative so great, that for
it, the possibility, and even certainty, of sin
may be well incurred. The demand for the
Divine love, therefore, that, if it be really love,
it must restore and save at the last all sinful
moral beings, *' the puir deil " included,
resolves itself into a mere optimist sentiment,
for which there seems to be no authority either
in the statements of Scripture or in the necess-
ities of our own moral consciousness.
The feeling that insists upon this seems to
come perilously near to that which prompted
170 THE WIDER HOPE.
John Stuart Mill to denounce creation as it is
as a blunder, and the present moral condition
of men as something like a crime. ^ If, that is,
God's love do not hereafter what, according to
John Stuart Mill, it ought to have done here,
it will, as now, be amenable to the reproach of
defectiveness, unless extenuated by inability.
These are perilous lengths to go on the ground
of mere sentiment. Are we not continually
discovering how little we know concerning the
ways and possibilities of God's love ? And do
not the discoveries, when made, command the
fullest assent of our moral consciousness ?
Could we have sat in judgment when moral
evil first arose in God's creation, and have
ventured to apply it as the test and measure
of God's love, w^e should surely have been
impelled to almost blasphemous conclusions ;
unless indeed our piety had made us dumb
in utterest perplexity. A ])riori reasonings
about the ways of Divine love, uncontrolled by
essential moral j^^inciple, are both illicit and
perilous.
Can we get any light from psycholog}^ ?
Is there any principle more portentous than
that of the permanency of moral character, the
Mill's Three Essays on Religion, pp. 36-38, 192.
THE REV. DR. ALLON. 171
accumulating power of evil, and the irrever-
sibility of moral sequences ? Is there any
rational presumption in human nature, as we
know it, that a renewed moral probation after
death, necessarily commencing with consider-
able induration of feeling, will result in holier
issues ? Is there any moral probability, in the
light of human history, that in the exercise of
moral freedom every human being will repent
of sin and accept the salvation of God ? It
would be unwarrantable to affirm this to be
impossible. But he is a bold man who affirms
it to be the probable issue ; and he is bolder
still who builds upon it a dogma, and preaches
that as a gospel. The moral processes that
go on in men — many of them most favourably
circumstanced in relation to the influences ot
Christ's Gospel, children of pious homes, for
instance — orive no encourao;ement to such a
theory. The suff'ering of penal consequences
does not often produce a genuine moral re-
pentance and reformation. Punishment as a
reformatory influence appeals to a very low
class of motives, and is very weak. The pre-
sumptions seem to be terribly adverse to the
speculation. The conception of a literally
universal repentance and holiness, considered
in the light of actual exercises of human free-
172 THE WIDER HOPE.
clom, seems well-nio'h incredible. It contra-
diets both experience and philosophy, and
seems to resolve the strong love of God into
something; like a weak sentiment. It is a
possibility, but scarcely a probability. It is
not a basis upon which a doctrine can be con-
structed. It cannot be predicated in the light
of any evidence that we possess. Every argu-
ment adduced to prove that Divine love must
cause evil to cease is valid to prove that it
should not have permitted it to begin.
There is to our consciousness nothing that is
more certain and imperative than the inviola-
bility of moral sequence. Nothing is more
terrible than the self-propagating power of
evil, and nothins^ is more certain than that
God will not interfere with it, save by moral
appeal. His love provides possibilities of sal-
A'^ation, but we have no reason for further
imposing upon it the moral certainty of saU^a-
tion. To say the least, the odds against the
moral renovation hereafter of a man who here
has sinned away his moral sensitiveness,
almost his moral capability, are overwhelming
and terrible.
Notwithstanding, therefore, the strongest
predisposition to optimist views concerning
this great and fearful problem, I feel com-
THE REV. DR. ALLON. 173
pellecl to the conclusion that the testimony
both of Scripture and of the moral judgment
is in favour of the finality of moral condition
after death. From neither does the theory of
a second probation in another life under other
and more favourable conditions derive any
support. Against the theory that the ultimate
issue in the conflict between good and evil will
be the necessary salvation of every individual
moral being, the presumptions seem immense.
It is contrary to all experience, and to all
analogy ; it puts unauthorised limits upon
human freedom, and it restricts unwarrant-
ably the w\ays and issues of God's holy love.
It does not follow, however, that finality of
moral condition implies unending being, or
unending consciousness of retribution. There
is no moral necessity, either in the law of
righteousness or in the correlative life of the
saved, to suppose this ; w^hile both the philo-
logy and the symbolism are such as would
probably find their adequate interpretation in
the simple idea of finality, — the ending of sin
and of sinful being : w^hether by the natural
cessation of the latter, — which seems the most
plausible, — or by other processes, we are not
told ; and in the entire absence of intelligent
presumption we cannot speculate.
174 THE WIDER HOPE.
I am contented to leave this appalling ques-
tion here ; that is, with such contentment as
alone is possible in the presence of the great
and insoluble problems of moral evil. In my
ignorance of what certainly will be, I can rest
in the assurance that there is no creature of
God that is not the object of His loving and
holy solicitude ; that He whose love is infin-
itely more tender and yearning than ours, and
who gave His only begotten Son to save men,
will do nothing from which any humane feel-
ing; of ours would shrink ; and that He will
leave unemployed no possible means of bring-
ing His sinful creatures to Himself. What-
ever can be done to redeem men from evil and
to counteract its issues, the loving Father in
heaven will do. It is not for me to prescribe
or restrict His methods. I can trust His wise
and holy love, even when most ignorant con-
cerning its ways. I am sure that He will
fully vindicate it, and that at last, without
any qualification, all holy men will join in the
ascription, "Just and true are Thy ways. Thou
King of saints." And justice and truth are
the highest ways of love.
XII.
By Kev, JAMES H. RIGG, D.D.
Canon Farrar disclaims Universalism in his
preface ; but his hearers felt that he was
preaching something not to be practically dis-
tinguished from Universalism ; and how fine
is the shade of colour which discriminates
between his view and Universalism, may be
understood from the last sentence but one in
his volume (in the Appendix on Texts). " It
may be asked," he says, " why, then, am I
unable to adopt the Universalist opinion ?
The answer is simple. It is because one or
two passages [of Scripture] — though far more
than their due significance seems to have been
attributed to them — seem to make it unwise
to speak dogmatically on a matter which God
has not clearly revealed." What is this but to
say that he holds the opinion to be probable,
but that he cannot venture dogmatically to
affirm it, because it is " not clearly re-
vealed " ?
17 G THE WIDER HOPE.
Now Universalis m is a view to which all
men, I should think, would naturally incline.
I am conscious of havino^ the strong;est natural
prepossessions in its favour. My human com-
passion, my own consciousness of sin, and some
of the keenest promptings of my Christian
sympathy, would combine to make me a Uni-
versalist, if, this world being what it is, and
men being what they are, other feelings, more
solemnly authoritative, and the deepest and
most sacred reasons on the other side, did not
forbid me to rest in such a conclusion, however
pleasing and attractive. I wish accordingly,
first of all, to touch upon the question of
Universalism. In so doing, we shall in fact
go down to the deepest ground of controversy
with Canon Farrar.
The question of eternal punishment is essen-
tially the question of individual responsibility,
the question of self-determination as against
fatalism, the question of moral character and
agency. Does man, in an}^ true moral sense,
shape his own character and determine his own
destiny? Is he, or is he not, merely the
creature of cinuimstances ? If man does not,
in any true sense, shape his own character and
determine his own course and destiny, it is
evident that it cannot be just to hold him
THE REV. DR. RIGG. 177
accountable, that it must be unjust to punish
him, for being whatever he may be, however
apparently evil, or for having done whatever
he may have done, however malignant, or vile,
or injurious it may have been, according to
any moral standard. But then this conclusion
must be just as true for this world as for any
other, for time as for eternity.
It is further evident that, if we are all
merely creatures of circumstance, not only
must it be unjust to attribute guilt to us under
any circumstances, or to inflict any punish-
ment, but it might even be conceivable that
if any man, however depraved and terrible a
being he may seem to be, were to be placed,
for a succession of years or of seons, in circum-
stances adapted to induce reformation and
transformation of character, such reformation
and transformation might be the result. This
is, in fact, the principle which underlies Uni-
versalism. Universalists hold that by a
course of salutary discipline and beneficent
influence hereafter, continued sufliciently long,
the worst of human beings may be and will
be reclaimed and saved.
Universalism accordingly implies the doc-
trines of fatalism ; it involves, though this has
not always been seen, the denial of man'
178 THE WIDER HOPE.
proper morality. It assumes that man is
altogether moulded and made what he is by
circumstances. It is incompatible, accordingly,
with any admission of guilt ; it makes sin to
be nothino; else but inconvenience or misfor-
tune; it gives the lie to conscience, and
declares the unrighteousness of all punishment
whether by divine or human law. It is a
doctrine entirely congenial with pantheism,
if pantheism could be reconciled with the
doctrine of a future life, of conscious and
personal immortality. As, however, pantheism
proper — which can be nothing more than
atheism disguised under fio-urative forms of
quasi-theistic speech — is not compatible with
the hope of life after death, this Universalism,
being thus placed between pantheism and the-
ism, being pantheistic in its fatalism and in its
antagonism to morality, whilst it is theistic
in its faith in God and human immortality, is
apt to ally itself with some sort of pantheizing
theism. It is thus allied commonly in America,
where Universalism was formerly very preva-
lent, especially in New England, but where,
during the last forty years, it has quite lost
its hold of the leading Churches, whether
called evangelical or orthodox, has greatly
declined in extent and influence, and has, for
THE REV. DR. PJGG. 179
the most part, become identified with wild
speculations hovering between theism and
pantheism, and with undisguised laxity of
morals. The same Universalists who speak
great words about the universal fatherhood of
God not seldom also hold the doctrines of free
love. It has been my lot to meet with some
of these Universalists in my visits to the
States who, in extraordinary rhapsodies, mixed
up all these things, and whose practice corre-
sponded to their principles. These theistic
pantheizers exhibit in their extreme results
the tendencies of which I have been speaking,
and which, in other instances of Universalism,
are, for the most part, latent.
But there are also forms of theological
doctrine, such as are and have been in different
ages held by eminent, and indeed by
excellent men, which approach somewhat
towards the character of a pantheizing theism,
and which tend distinctly towards Universal-
ism. Most forms of Platonizing; theological
mysticism have been of this character. Many
expressions and not a few passages are found
in Mr. Maurice's writings which so identify
God the universal Father with the j)ersonality
of all men as to imply the necessary salvation
of all men. Nor can it be doubted that Mr.
180 THE WIDER HOPE.
Maurice was a Universalist. Nevertheless,
whether consistently or not, Mr. Maurice most
strongly insists on the personal responsibility,
the individual moral agency, of all men, on the
necessity of retributory righteousness in the
government of the world, and on the doctrine,
accordingly, of punishment for sin, both in this
world and in the world to come. What he
refused to believe, what he rejected as incom-
patible with his own faith as to the necessary
Divine sonship of every human being, was the
thought of eternal separation from Christ for
any human being. Christ, according to his
view, is the Divine Son, with whom all men
are so personally identified and united, that
this identification and union constitutes them
men, makes them responsible persons, defines
their humanity. Being men, they must in
Christ the Son themselves be sons, children of
God, and *' if children, then heirs, heirs of
God, and joint-heirs with Christ." Christ, the
Word, the Logos, is the Universal Eeason,
which " lighteth every man coming into the
world." All sinners, accordingly, are, at
the worst, no other than prodigals who must
some day be brought home, although, in the
meantime, they may have wandered very far
away, have indulged in much riotous living.
THE REV. DR. RIGG. 181
served very bad and hard masters, eaten many
bitter husks, endured much suffering, and
brought deep disgrace on themselves and
shameful reproach on the name of their God
and Father. To this school of thought it is
evident that Canon Farrar strongly inclines.
To this theological school my late honoured
friend, Canon Kingsley, confessedly belonged.
Kingsley, however, found that this phase of
his theology was not exactly adapted to the
condition of his Eversley parishioners. It
does not appear that he preached this side of
his creed much to them. Indeed, an ordinary
reader would conclude from his Village
Sermons that he taught no other doctrine
to sinners than that of eternal, of everlasting,
punishment and retribution, and that he
preached this doctrine with no ordinary
plainness and energy.^ Moreover, whilst
always consistently and vehemently repudiat-
ing the Gehenna doctrine of all material
cruelties and horrors which is painted in some
extracts given by Canon Farrar, it is well
known that in his later years ^ he became a
1 See Village Sermom, pp. 31, 172, 206, 207, 212, 244.
2 Canon Farrar would seem to dispute tlie statements which
I make in the text. But Canon Kingsley himself is a higher
authority as to his own views than even Canon Farrar.
182 THE WIDER HOPE.
Stout upholder of the Athanasian Creed,
which in his early manhood he repudiated
with intense dislike. The considerations that
led him so far to modify his earlier opinion,
that counteracted so powerfully that tend-
ency to Universalism which he shared
with his master, Mr. Maurice, and which
comes out so strongly in all his novels
and in not a few of his sermons, were such
as I have already indicated as arising out
of the moral individuality and respon-
sibility of man. No writer, no preacher,
has ever insisted more strongly than Canon
Kingsley, perhaps no one has dilated so
eloquently, on the fearful and wonderful
prerogatives and responsibilities involved in
man's personality. No one could have a
larger, deeper, keener sense of the awful
royalty belonging to the personal conscious-
ness of the fully awakened and responsible
human being, standing up "in the image of
God," choosing the right and refusing the
wrono-, invested with the amazing; attribute
of moral autonomy, making or marring his
own fortunes, determining his own future,
moulding his own destiny, both in this world
and the world to come. Hence he wrote to
the Guardian newspaper, in a letter explain-
THE REV, DR. RIGG. 183
ing his later views as to the Athanasian
Creed, the following pregnant sentence : —
" It is as well here to say that I do not deny endless punish-
mpnL On the contrary, I believe it possible Tor me and other
Chixstian men, by loss of God's grace, to commit acts of
araa-OakLa, sins against light and knowledge, which would
plunge us into endless abysses of probably increasing sin, and
therefore of probably increasing and endless punishment," i
Canon Farrar himself, indeed, though he
looks with a prevalent hope, however vague,
toward final issues hardly to be distinguished
from Universal ism, does in effect condemn
Universalism in his preface, on the same
ground as Canon Kingsley, when he admits
that "it is impossible for us to estimate the
hardening effect of obstinate persistence in
evil, and the power of the human will to resist
the law and reject the love of God." After
all, therefore. Canon Farrar dare not deny,
and, when it conies to a sharp point, does not
deny, the doctrine of endless punishment.
He makes much capital — makes, as I venture
to think, an unfair use — of coarse materialistic
descriptions of hell-torments, and he brings
into view the possible disciplinary character of
the intermediate state ; but, though he would
fain deny, and wishes to put out of view, if it
^ Letters and Memories, vol. ii, p, 396.
184 THE WIDER HOPE.
were possible, the judicial threatening and the
final issue of fixed and eternal separation from
Christ's heaven and His Father's house, and of
abiding punishment and doom, for self-har-
dened and impenitent sinners, he does not
really venture to go this length. He has not,
after all, completely purged himself of the
taint of the " popular " doctrine. An enemy
might turn some of his own artillery against
himself. Consistency might require him
either to go further, or to unsay some of the
things which he has written.
In his sermon, for example, on the " Con-
sequences of Sin," he gives a powerful
description of the consequences, not only
moral, but physical, of indulgence in evil
passions, in the course of which he speaks of
*' an executioner of justice told off to wait
upon drunkenness,'' and paints in terrible
language the results, from generation to
generation, of sins of uncleanness. He makes
a vain attempt, it is true, to evade the natural
inference as to the retributive justice of God —
not only moral, but also, it may be, physical ;
and not only in this world, but in that to
come. He seeks to salve the obvious incon-
sistency with some of his own appeals and
assumptions foregoing, by affirming that God
THE REV. DR. RIGG. 185
does not inflict the horrors he describes on the
drunkard, but the drunkard on himself — the
God who loves us having attached this law of
retribution to drunkenness, " to save us from
handling fire." But here, in fact, he is only
using the very argument of orthodoxy in
defence of penal retribution — of future and
eternal punishment for sin. Nor does he at
all help his own argument, or embarrass the
position of those who uphold the ancient and
Catholic doctrine, by laying it down that " the
punishment of men is not an arbitrary inter-
ference, but a necessary law." So say those
whose views he misrepresents and opposes.
He himself, indeed, is compelled to add — thus
making the tribute and testimony to the truth,
wrung from his inner truthfulness, the more
decisive — " I do not mean that God never
directly interferes. He does. We see it daily
in the history of crime."
Canon Farrar would seem to have only
known the doctrine of Divine retribution and
eternal punishment as taught in its most
violent and lurid forms. He speaks of himself
as having been brought up to believe the
doctrine in a form of extreme horror (p. 47).
He evidently has been altogether unaware of
the manner in which great Nonconformist
186 THE WIDER HOPE.
divines have held and taught it. He may
perhaps be surprised to learn that in the form
(No. 4) in which he describes the doctrine in
his preface, it has never been held by the
highest class of theologians outside of the
Church of England. Such a work as that by
the late Dr. K. W. Hamilton, on Future
Rewards and Punishments — one of the series
of Congregatioual Lectures — he probably
never heard of. If he had read it, he could
not have written on the subject as he has
done. Such want of reading and information
can hardly, however, be admitted as a defence
of the manner in which he has written.
Much less can he be excused for taking such
monstrous travesties of the doctrine as those
branded by Dr. Guthrie as in any sort
quotable representations of the orthodox
doctrine held by such men as Dr. Guthrie
himself.
As to the question of the intermediate state,
there is much in Professor Plumptre's letter to
Canon Farrar, printed in the Appendix, as
there is much also in Professor Birks' writings
on the same subject, which cannot but enter
deeply into the minds of earnest Christian
thinkers. Much which has been for many
years floating in the thoughts of those who
THE REV. DR. RIGG. 187
have patiently pondered over the painful
depths of this awful and mysterious subject,
and studied the various hints and intimations
in relation thereto contained in the Scripture,
has found expression in what these eminent
clergymen have thus written. But though
such considerations as are therein suggested
must enter into the thoughts of those
whose burden it is to study the speculative
theology relating to the doctrine of the
future state, they hardly bear upon the
practical teaching and preaching necessary in
dealinor with men and women who come under
the public ministry of the Word. The case of
infants has always been held a case exempt.
Where infancy ends, again — where, when, and
how full moral responsibility begins — are
questions which cannot be definitely answered.
The case of heathens, furthermore, is a case to
be judged apart. It must come under the
same general principles of moral responsibility
as that of Christians ; yet must the heathen,
as St. Paul teaches, be differently judged.
That they, no less than the men of Christian
nations, are to be judged by the Son of Man,
and sent away to eternal punishment or eter-
nal life, is clearly taught by our Lord Himself
in the parable of the sheep and the goats
188 THE WIDER HOPE.
(Matt. XXV.), where, indeed, the main scope
of the parable seems to relate to the Gentile
world — the great world of all nations, including
those who might never have heard of Chris-
tianity. But in the case of heathens the
thought of possibilities connected with the
intermediate state cannot but come in. Doubt-
less, also, there would seem to be some in this
country, and in other Christian countries,
whose case and condition resembles rather that
of infants, on the one hand, or men heathen-
born and bred, on the other, than of those who
have had Christian privileges and opportunities,
or who underlie Christian responsibilities.
AVhat can we do but leave all such cases in
the hands of the " Judge of all the earth," who
must "doridit"? It is of such classes that
Professor Plumptre speaks, when he sums up to-
gether "infants, idiots, and the vast multitudes
who have lived and died in the times of ignor-
ance," as having had here "no real probation."
Surely it is our wisdom to trust these matters
of mystery to our Father in heaven.^ There
1 Oar Lord's prayer for the men who crucified Him, " Father,
forgive them, they know not what they do," cannot be lost sight
of, when thinking of such cases as these. Deep lessons also
are to be learned from His words of comfort ami mercy to the
penitent brigand, whose case, however, demands protbunder
study than has often been given to it.
THE REV. DR. RIGG. 189
could not but be vast unillumined spaces,
vast questions left in impenetrable mystery,
when our dim and feeble intelligences look out
upon the infinite depth and height and compass
of God's moral government of the universe.
The practical question for us is as to our own
responsibilities.
And here the clear teaching of Scripture
seems to be that, for those to whom Christ is
preached, this life is the one appointed period
of probation. The text in the Epistle to the
Hebrews represents the apostolic doctrine, " It
is appointed unto men once for all (aTra^) to die,
and after death the judgment." The very
point of that text would seem to be that there
is to be no second probation ; after death — not
probation, but judgment ; no second death, no
second life in another body, no probation
beyond the grave. But, leaving that, I refer
to our Lord's own words to the wicked self-
hardened Jews, " Ye shall die in your sins ;
whither I go, ye cannot come" (John viii. 21).
This was to be their doom. Take away the
probationary character of this life on earth,
and that sentence of the Lord is emptied of its
meaning. The whole teaching of our Lord is
consistent with this central thought. What
is the meaning of the urgent exhortations to
190 THE WIDER HOPE.
men now — at this present time — "to pluck
out the right eye," to "cut off the right hand,"
that so they might " enter into life," — of the
solemn warnings to them of their peril, the
peril of " hell-fire " ? That this last phrase is
a strong figure, like those other and cognate
figures of " outer darkness," and " weeping
and gnashing of teeth," I do not at all dispute.
But of what are all these phrases the figures,
— what is the reality which they represent,
unless it involve judicial punishment for those
who in this life have proved themselves im-
penitent and disobedient, — unless for such it
involves such banishment and doom, such
abiding exclusion, and such bitter penalty, as
cannot but cause irremediable sorrow and
remorse ? This doom, or submission and re-
pentance — such is the alternative, the sharp
and urgent alternative. Failing repentance,
there was to be no entrance into life. Bearing
in mind, also, all that exegesis teaches us as
to the original and figurative nature of the
expressions, it can be neither a light nor a
reversible penalty for the rejection of Christ's
truth and grace, as offered by Himself on earth,
the nature of which is indicated by the figures
of the undying worm and the unquenchable
fire.
THE REV. DK. RIGG. 191
Apart, accordingly, altogether from the
controversy as to the meaning of the word
ceonian, I can imagine no other conclusion
possible as to our Lord's teaching but that it
sets forth, by the most impressive figures, the
doctrine of everlasting punishment for those
who wilfully choose to pursue their own will
and pleasure in this world rather than "seek
first the kingdom of God and His righteous-
ness." In this world is the period of probation,
and the doom of sin and self-seeking is eternal.
" Whoso seeketh his life shall lose it ; but
whoso loseth his life for My sake, shall find it
unto life eternal." Judged by the whole tenor
of our Lord's doctrine, this sentence pronounces
for the rejecters of Christ an irreversible
judgment.
Indeed, it does, I confess, appear to me to
be an unreasonable and presumptuous thing
to imagine that more powerful and afi'ecting
motives to repentance, and faith, and right-
eousness may be exhibited and applied in
another world than are offered to the hearers
of Christ's gospel, by the revelation of God's
holiness and love, God's righteousness and
mercy, in the incarnation and revelation of
His Son. Yet such is the assumption which
seems to underlie Canon Farrar's aro^uments
192 THE WIDER HOPE.
and appeals. " If under the present state of
things," sa3^s Canon Kingsley in his Village
Sermons, " we cannot be holy, we shall never
be holy." To the same effect I may quote
Canon Farrar himself : ' * Do not think that
repentance is an easy thing ; and be quite
sure of this, that the longer it is delayed, the
less easy does it become, and the more terrible
are the consequences, both here and hereafter,
which the delay involves" (p. 152). But if
this indeed be so, how little reason does there
appear to be in assuming that those who have
rejected in this life the Gospel of Christ, with
all its motives to repentance, will certainly be
brought to repentance, sooner or later, in the
intermediate state ! If Canon Farrar's words
now quoted be well considered, they will be
found to contain an admission fatal to any
doctrine of Universalism or Eestorationism, in
whatever form.
The law of retribution is one to which
universal conscience bears witness, which is
inwoven through all the web of life, and forms
the basis of all law and government, w^hether
human or Divine. Let them be disguised
ever so subtly, let them be employed ever so
wisely, it will still be found that the motives
of reward and punishment are, and cannot l)ut
THE REV. DR. RIGG. 193
be, employed in influencing and training human
beings from the cradle to the grave. In the
governments of this world, it need not be said,
rewards and punishments are the weights and
impulses systematically brought to bear on
the community. But in society also, in civil
and political life, the same class of motives,
though often they may not be distinctly
recognised, are always operating, and without
them all things would either languish and stag-
nate into dreary immobility, or fall asunder
into chaos. So, then, if God is indeed to
influence and govern us for Himself and for
the future, how else is even He to deal with
us except on the same principles ? He must
deal with us as we are. It matters not
whether the future for which we are to act
and live lie in this world or another — we are
still the same.
Canon Farrar's pleadings and appeals assume
throughout that Divine punishment is meant
to be merely corrective, and never strictly
and personally penal. But if so, what is to
be done with the finally impenitent sinner ?
What this principle amounts to — unless, going
the whole length of Universalism, Canon
Farrar should hold that there can be no such
thing as final impenitence — is that the more
N
194 THE WIDER HOPE.
wicked and hardened a man becomes, tlie
more hopeless and irreclaimable, the less right
and reason will there be in punishing him ;
that a perfectly hardened and impenetrable
sinner will have purchased his impunity by
his impiety, and may roam the universe at
large, enfranchised from law, from fear, from
obedience to God.
My last word will be in reference to the hy-
pothesis of Mr. White and his fellows respecting
Conditional Immortality. I have a high respect
for Mr. White and for some of his brethren
whom I know. I esteem them highly as
Christian men, and I know them to be able
men. But yet I can only refer to them here
as witnesses to the great doctrine of retribution
and final judgment. If any doctrine of Uni-
versalism or of intermediate discipline could
have been regarded by them as satisfactory,
they would not have yielded themselves up to
the influence of an hypothesis so violent and
so diflicult — they would not, as an alternative,
have betaken themselves to a position so
untenable — as that which they actually hold.
Their compromise is " contrived a double debt
to pay" — to uphold the Scripture doctrines of
eternal judgment and inevitable retribution,
and yet to escape from the doctrine of endless
THE REV. DR. RIGG. 195
conscious j^unishment and suffering as hitherto
taught by Catholic orthodoxy. As a matter
of fact, their doctrine is open to equivalent
objections to those which are urged against
the "popular" theology, and to other objec-
tions of an exceedingly serious character, alike
from the ground of philosophy and of theology.
But it IS at least a testimony against such a
theology as tends to do away altogether with
the doctrine of a final and universal judgment,
and with any foreboding of "the wrath to
come." It is true that both the teaching of
Canon Farrar and that of Mr. White concur
in antagonism to the hitherto received ortho-
doxy. But it is no less true that, in opposing
that orthodoxy, they neutralise and negative
each other.
XIII.
By the late Canon BIRKS.
Eternal judgment, the real subject of Canon
Farrar's work, is the most solemn and mys-
terious in the whole compass of the Word of
God. My own thoughts were deej^ly exercised
with it, in more than a year of Scriptural
study, more than forty years ago. I longed
to gain, and thought I did gain, so much
increase of light as might lighten the pressure
of a load felt almost insupportable, without
incurring the guilt of impairing in the least
the force of God's revealed warnings of wrath
to come upon persevering and impenitent sin.
Every attempt to throw fresh light on this
solemn mystery demands not only reverence
and humility, but caution, and patience of
thought, and an exclusion of loose and hasty
speech, even more than the most exact re-
searches in natural science.
Such were my convictions when I published
thoughts bearing indirectly on this subject
197
198 THE WIDER HOPE.
twenty -three years ago, and more directly still
later. Experience and observation of all that
has since been passing in the Church and the
world has only deepened and confirmed them.
Utter unbelief of God's warnings of judgment
to come is one of the darkest features of the
times in which we live. Some of the forms
in which it has lately shown itself are por-
tentous and alarming. Human additions,
encrusting those warnings, and designed to
increase their deterrent powder over guilty
consciences, have had just the opposite effect.
They have concurred with other causes, fatal-
istic theories, the worship of majorities, and
boasts of human progress, to produce wide-
spread and ostentatious unbelief of the great
and solemn truth : " God will bring every
work into judgment, and every secret thing,
whether it be good or evil." The warnings of
Scripture are cast aside with contempt, as too
terrible to be true.
No cure for this evil can be found, though
sometimes sought, as I have had painful ex-
perience, by bringing loud charges of unsound-
ness in the faith against any w^ho maintain the
great truth itself, but refuse to accept current
and popular opinions about hell, damnation,
and the misery of the lost, as the sufficient
THE LATE CANON BIKKS. 199
test and standard of Christian orthodoxy. But
as little can be gained, on the other hand, by
veheroent invectives and gushes of indignant
declamation against those simple believers in
the Bible who dare not give up any part of
the creed of their childhood and of most Chris-
tians in past ages about " wrath to come," till
they see surer grounds for rejecting it than
the unwillingness of sinful hearts to believe
anything so alarming, and an offered choice
in its stead of three or four contradictory
alternatives which exclude each other. It is
not dealing reverently with God's warnings
to say practically to a mixed audience, *' Put
on them almost any meaning you please, only
do not accept the common view of them, since
it is too terrible to be true."
Eternal Hope, the title Canon Farrar has
chosen for his work, like eternal torture, is a
phrase unknown to Scripture, though there
is a close approach to both in 1 Cor. xiii. 13,
Kev. xiv. 11, XX. 10. The sermons themselves,
from their declamatory and illogical style,
seem to me likely to aggravate the evil against
which they are aimed, and to hinder, not help,
the firm maintenance of the great truth itself
of " eternal judgment," and its extrication
from spurious human disguises or additions.
200 THE WIDER HOPE.
The Preface and the Appendix are in a calmer
tone, and one better suited to the real require-
ments of the solemn subject they seek to
unfold.
The sermons are followed by a list of
authorities, whom Canon Farrar quotes in his
favour, of those who have this one point of
agreement with him, that they do not fully
accept what he calls " the common view."
Besides a rather vague allusion to twelve
Fathers and one Schoolman, fifty divines or
laymen of modern times are named, beginning
with " the great and saintly Bengel," including
nine bishops of our own Church, and ending
with Pere Eevignan, " the most eloquent
French preacher of recent days." Such a loose
massing of authorities who differ widely from
each other is unfair to the writers themselves.
It has the worse fault of tending to confuse
the whole question. It replaces the Divine
counsel, " Prove all things, and hold fast that
which is good," by repeating one of the worst
faults of the loose, popular orthodoxy assailed
in a negative form. It offers us the alterna-
tive, to " receive the fatal grist unsifted, husks
and all," or else to be huddled up in a medley
of opinions which have nothing in common,
except that they all differ from some point
THE LATE CANON BIRKS. 201
or other of what is vaguely called " the com-
mon view." Most of the writers Cjuoted hold
either " Conditional Immortality " or " Uni-
versalism " — two views inconsistent with each
other, and both of which the Canon disclaims
and rejects. Such a heaping up of names
may be a convenient missile in an assault on
implicit faith and traditional orthodoxy, but
its only natural tendency is to substitute a
greater evil — a theological chaos of utter
uncertainty and confusion of thought, and an
utter shipwreck of all practical faith in the
warnings of God.
The Preface begins with a startling remark :
" Of the truths here projDounded I have never
since my early youth had the slightest doubt ;
but had I intended a controversial defence of
them, it would have been far fuller and more
impregnable than I can now make it." The
claim may perhaps refer only to this one pro-
position, that there is some element or other
in that complex total called " the commorw
view," which is not according to the mind of
the Holy Spirit and the true teaching of
Scripture, and must be pruned away before we
can attain to the full and perfect truth. But
the words, in their natural sense, assert much
more. These short and easy cuts to un-
202 THE WIDER HOPE
doubtiDg conf]clence in the perfect truth of
one's own opinions are always suspicious,
especially when claimed for a complex whole,
professedly at variance with the usual judg-
ment of Christian men. If the Canon, since
his early youth, has never had the slightest
doubt of the truth of any of the critical deci-
sions on the sacred text and its proper version,
and the theological dogmas which form the
main substance of the work when it has been
pruned of its redundant metaj^hors and poet-
ical quotations, such a confidence on such a
subject, so early aud cheaply gained, seems to
me the very mark of a guide whom it is wholly
unsafe to follow.
The Canon notices four main opinions, and
then defines his own : —
1. Universalism — the opinion that all men
will ultimately be saved. Every man, he
says, must long, with all his heart, that this
w^ere true. Yet he does not lay down any
such dogma, partly because it is not clearly
revealed, and partly because it is impossible
for us to estimate the power of the human
wdll to resist the law and reject the love of
God.
There is here no sign of clear insight and a
full and assured conviction, but rather of a
THE LATE CANON BIRKS. 203
still unsolved problem, in the Canon's mind,
which leaves his heart and judgment at utter
variance. He could wish the present world to
be very different from what, in our experience,
we find it to be. Still more, he could wish
that the world to come should be very different
from what Scripture seems to him to say that
it will be. He is too honest to shut his eyes
to present facts, such as he amplifies in the
fifth sermon. He is honest enough to own
that Scripture does not seem to say that all
alike will be saved in the life to come. He is
not honest enough to admit that it seems to
affirm, in the strongest and clearest words, the
exact reverse. His wishes, then, determine
nine-tenths, or ninety-nine hundredths, of his
creed. His honesty is satisfied by his holding
that Scripture speaks truly of a broad way
that leads to death, and that perhaps one in a
hundred of very hardened criminals do walk
therein. But such a compromise between the
heart and the conscience, in my opinion, satis-
fies the claims neither of truth nor love.
2. Conditional Immortality, or Annihilation-
ism, is the second main theory on the life to
come. Canon Farrar " cannot at all accept it.
It seems to rest too entirely on the supposed
invariable meaning of a few words, and to
204 THE WIDER HOPE.
press tliat meaning too far. It rejects tlie
instinctive belief in immortality which has
been found in almost every age and race of
man. And while it relieves the soul from the
crushing horror involved in the conception of
endless torment, it leaves us with the ghastly
conclusion, that God will raise the wicked
from the dead, only that they may be tor-
mented and at last destroyed." The Canon,
then, rejects along with 'Hhe common view"
the two alternatives espoused by far the
greater part of the authorities he quotes in his
favour ; and his own creed, by his own admis-
sion, is a compromise which fully satisfies
neither his judgment nor his heart.
3. The third view is that of Purgatory.
This he adopts as his own, but not in its
Eomish form, which our article calls " a fond
thing, vainly invented, and grounded on no
warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant
to the Word of God." Canon Farrar thinks
the Eeformers " rejected it in the rough,
because it had been made too compact, specific,
matured, and systematic to be capable of exact
Scripture proof, and connected with too many
deplorable abuses." He takes it as the master-
key to the solemn message of God concerning
the wrath to come. I do not see how the
THE LATE CANON BIRKS. 205
abuses and secondary accidents of the doctrine
can explain the entire contrast between the
statement in the article and his own view.
The Eeformers left too much out of view,
though they never denied, the wide distinction
in Scripture between the state of souls after
death and after the resurrection and final
judgment. Canon Farrar, with less excuse,
repeats the same faults. He speaks of his
own view, that " souls who die in a state unfit
for heaven may have perfected in them till the
day of Christ the good work in this world
begun." But this plainly does not touch the
deeper question, Are there, or are there not,
two classes in the great day itself, to whom
the Judge then announces a difi'erent and
opposite doom ?
4. The Canon comes at last to the fourth
alterDative, which he calls " the common and
popular view in our own Church." He has
never dreamt, he says, of denying the great,
awful, but neither unjust nor unmerciful doc-
trine of future retribution. " That there is a
terrible retribution on impenitent sin, here and
hereafter, that ^ without holiness no man shall
see the Lord,' that sin cannot be forgiven till
forsaken and repented of, and that the doom
on sin is both merciful and just, we are all
206 THE WIDER HOPE.
agreed." These are large and important
admissions.
What, then, are the supposed accretions of
the true doctrine which he repudiates and
condemns ? They are mainly four — ( 1 ) The
physical torments and material agonies ; (2)
its endless duration; (3) that* it is incurred
by the vast mass of mankind ; (4) that it
is a doom passed irreversibly at the moment
of death on all who die in a state of sin.
" How frightful are the facts which they must
face who hold these opinions is obvious to all,
and I have given some proof in their own
words ! How a man with a heart of pity . . .
can enjoy in this world one moment of happi-
ness, however deeply he may be assured of his
own individual salvation, is more than I can
ever understand."
I own the force of this earnest appeal ;
but if relief came to my own mind at last,
it was certainly not in the way in which Canon
Farrar seems to look for it. I cannot, in the
few pages here open to me, enter on so wide a
subject. My views may be seen in the Ways
of God ^ and Difficulties of Belief^ and I hope
soon to add some further remarks on it in a
1 Seeleys. 1863.
2 Second Edition. MacniilLan & Co. 1876.
THE LATE CANON BIRKS. 207
second edition of my Commentary on Isaiah,
now in the press. On the Canon's four points
I would make one or two brief remarks.
First, the vehement dislike of any element
of sensible pain in future punishment, when
the doctrine itself is received, and also that of
the resurrection both of the just and unjust,
has no warrant either of Scripture or reason.
To believe that in the life to come some will
suffer intense mental anguish and agony
through former sin, and that they will so suffer
in the body after they have been raised from
the dead, and still to conceive that a painless
and unsuffering body will be the clothing or
vessel of a spirit enduring intensest anguish
and mental torment, is an opinion as plainly
unreasonable as it is opposed to the natural
meanino; of the sacred text.
The Canon says with truth, '* It is only
when these topics fall into vulgar handling
that we see them in all their intolerable ffhast-
liness. Many true and loving Christians have
held these views, and mourned with achinof
heart over what seemed to them the fatal
necessity for believing them. Good men may
and do hold this doctrine with pity and fear
and trembling and awful submission ; but let
those suspect their own hearts to whom so
208 THE WIDER HOPE.
terrible a dogma is so clear and precious and
comforting, that they are quite distressed at
the thought of losing it." The rebuke is
deeply true. Nothing can be more hateful
than such a temper, or more opposed to the
lesson taught by the tears of the Lord over
Jerusalem.
With regard to frightful pictures of future
misery, like those of Tertullian in the Preface,
of Henry Smith, and Jeremy Taylor, I would
remind the Canon of his own picture in these
sermons of the horrors of delirium tremens to
the unhappy drunkard (p. 1 4 2). If one drunkard
more can be reclaimed by such dark colouring,
there may be a full warrant for the preacher.
But the principle in both cases is the same.
I fear that in both the indulgence in drawing
pictures of intense horrors is more likely to
revolt some and deaden the feelings of others
than effectually to reclaim. The Scriptures,
at least, give us no pattern of such " ghastly "
modes of impressing their warnings deeper on
the consciences of men. Their warnings, those
of Christ Himself, are the more impressive
because the words are few and simple, severe
in their calm grandeur of earnest caution —
outer darkness, weeping, mourning, and gnash-
ing of teeth.
THE LATE CANON BIRKS. 209
Next, tliat in the present age the Church
of the saved has been, from the time of Abel
downward, a minority of the race, seems one
of the clearest and plainest elements of the
solemn truth revealed. We read nowhere of
a broad way which leads to life, and a narrow
which leads to death. No true relief from the
pressure of a solemn truth can be found by
reversing one of its most prominent and essen-
tial features. That relief is to be found, first,
in a further truth, that besides the Church of
the First-born, saved out of the trials of this
world, and heirs of a special dignity, there will
be countless and growing myriads of redeemed
men in the generations of the world to come.
And if farther relief be still desired, it may be
partly found in the thought, half accepted by
the Canon himself, and by which he recedes
further from Universalism than by the excep-
tion of a handful of hardened and stubborn
criminals from the general gaol delivery of the
universe, that, " as the very w^ord damnation
once implied, the poena damni, the loss — it
may he for ever — of the beatific vision, is, far
more than physical torture, the essence of the
sufferings of the lost."
The worst corruption of the Divine message
of judgment to come is not that which in-
210 THE WIDER HOPE.
eludes in it the conception of penal fire and
corporal suffering, which is an integral though
secondary part of the revealed truth. It is
that which shuts out from it, without any
warrant in the letter or spirit of Scripture, any
concurrent manifestation of the Divine mercy,
not only towards others, but towards the very
objects of the judgment itself. The most
essential feature of it, implied in the words of
Christ, is the conception of an irreparable,
irreversible loss of a privilege now attainable,
and, when the door has been shut, never after
to be attained.
Canon Farrar, in this work, seems to himself
to be uttering a bold and earnest protest
against popular and current notions of the
judgment to come, which dishonour God, are
a hindrance and stumbling-block in the way of
Christianity, and lay a sore burden on the
hearts of Christian men. But the real risk
and evil of his work is that its real character
is to reinforce and strengthen a view already
popular and widely current, not perhaps in
creeds and Church formularies, but in the
actual life and thoughts of men, and which
almost wholly abrogates the Divine warnings.
The practical creed of millions, who have
any faith at all in this Protestant land, is
THE LATE CANON BIRKS. 211
Universalism, thinly disguised, with a few rare
exceptions of atrocious and hardened criminals.
It is the doctrine repeated in churchyards and
at death-beds, drunk in by sorrowing friends,
under the name of the consolations of religion,
that each one, a few prodigious wretches ex-
cepted, when he dies, goes at once to heaven,
and, w^ithout passing before any judgment-seat,
enters into perfect bliss and j)erfect glory.
This unlimited and prompt self-canonisation is
the practical creed of millions in whom some
remains of Christian faith are left. The creed
which Canon Farrar enforces in these sermons
is not quite so wide of the Scriptural truth.
But in its classification of men into three
classes — the saintly good, the neutral, and the
hopelessly bad — and the proclamation to the
middle class, tenfold and a hundredfold more
numerous than both the others, of an endlessly
renewed probation after death and the judg-
ment, it adopts and gives fresh currency to
some of the worst elements of a widespread
jDopular delusion, w^hich robs the Word of
God of its warning power, and sets the con-
sciences of men free from any real expectation
of a judgment to come.
XIV.i
By the Rev Professor GRACEY.
These Five Discourses already belong to the
rapidly accumulating literature of the Future
Life, and will probably hold rank hereafter
among the curiosities of that literature. They
present an instructive specimen of rationalistic
theology, addressed, not to the rational, but
to the sentimental. At almost every sentence
the feelings are goaded into excitement, at
times into painful agitation. Every sensibility
is skilfully touched by one who has at com-
mand, through his elegance of style, his force
of passion, his vividness of imagery, the whole
gamut of sensationalism ; and there is no pause
given for a clear conception or a calm judg-
ment of the multifarious matters hurriedly
brought forward for acceptance.
The object of the volume has previously
1 The Article is simply a reprint, as I have neither deemed it
advisable to recast it, nor needful to make any reply to Dr.
Farrar's brief notice. — D. G.
213
214 THE WIDER HOPE.
been discussed. The matters which chiefly
interest us are Canon Farrars processes of
investigation and his conclusions. Many-
surprising antitheses are brought about in the
course of the development of the theme, but
none more surprising than that Canon Farrar
has provided a common meeting-j^lace for High
Churchmen and Broad Churchmen, and that
that meeting-place is Purgatory — the High
Churchman's only complaint of the Canon
being that he does not go deep enough and
far enough. Towards the goal of his reason-
ings, however, Canon Farrar manfully clears
his way, plying his axe against every obstruc-
tion with all the vigour of a backwoodsman.
He is impetuously frank. He thinks aloud
in his premises ; but it must be owned that
he sometimes seems to whisper his conclusions.
Yet it is in these same whispered conclusions
the value of the production must be sought.
None can doubt Dr. Farrar's transparent
sincerity and straightforwardness of purpose.
This is the most charming quality in the
volume ; it is also the most e'lementary in
Christian service, and it may become widely
pernicious unless associated with other
essential qualifications of a ''master in Israel."
The Church and the world expect more from
EEV. PEOFESSOR GRACEY. 215
Canon Farrar than the eruptive zeal of a
youthful evangelist. His previous services,
the solemn import of his present undertaking,
demand at his hands severest accuracy of
reasoning, of critical exposition, teachings
consistent with themselves and with Scripture.
On scanning Canon Farrar's paragraphs, the
higher the reader's expectations may have
been in these respects, the keener will be his
disappointment. There is discernible a vast
underplay of subsidiary critical appliances,
subordinate theological tenets, kept diligently
mo vino- and floatino; forward the main thesis.
Of these a complete analysis is here im-
possible — at any time it would be tedious
— but a cursory notice is imperative. These
siihsidia critica form by no means a pellucid
stream, but rather a turbid inundation of
disintegrated theologies. The word "theo-
logy" may be taken as a sample : at the very
sound of its S3dlables Canon Farrar seems
to grow irate, and continually fastens it with
a degree of contempt upon the opinions of
those who differ from him, forgetful all the
time that when he is doing anything to the
purpose, he is setting up a theology of his
own. Smiting theology with theology. Dr.
Farrar rehearses the part of Diogenes treading
216 THE WIDER HOPE.
on the pride of Plato, as Plato retorted, with
equal pride.
Dr. Farrar discredits the poetry, the
metaphors, and the parables of Scripture as
having a potent voice in this debate, and thus
thins away the deep shadows divinely thrown
across the subject ; and yet who so abundant
in edging his statements with the surmises of
modern poets, as if they were authentic, and
should be listened to, singing of hope where
Scripture sighs of despair ? Canon Farrar
arraigns the impenetrable prejudices of his
opponents, and yet brings forward his own
early boyish predilections as subordinate
proofs of his theories. He inveighs against the
ignorance of Scripture which stands in the way
of his views, and is obliged himself to appeal
to tradition. He denounces abiding by the
hard literalness of isolated texts, but who
more eagerly calls to his aid the verbal tink-
lings of Scriptural words wTenched from their
contextual meaning, if they but chime with the
sound of his declamation ? He denounces
Phariseeism, and yet he stands forth as the
champion possessed of a " noble and trembling
pity, so fearfully unlike the language of divines
and schoolmen."
Even when Canon Farrar avowedly ceases
REV. PROFESSOR GRACEY. 217
to speak with " natural passion," and observes
"most accurate theological precision," his
"most accurate theological precision" takes
the shape first of vapid generalities, and then
opens out into a mass of conflicting theological
incongruities. What can be the meaning of
Canon Farrar in setting Christian experience
against the Word of Cod, as if bitter and sweet
could issue from the same primal fount ?
Where is the consistency of Canon Farrar in
bringing down the " old, sensible, admitted
rule, ' Theologia symbolica non est demonstra-
tiva,' — in other words, that phrases which
belong to metaphor, to imagery, to poetry, to
emotion, are not to be formulated into neces-
sary dogma, or crystallized into rigid creed,"
and, after the brief pause of a single sentence,
laying himself open to the censure of this
" old sensible canon," by using such crude
emotional ejaculations as the following : "In
the name of Christian light and Christian
liberty; once more in the name of Christ's pro-
mised Spirit ; once more in the name of the
broadened dawn and the day-star which has
arisen in our hearts," — intending them as
arguments against what he calls the " ignorant
tyranny of isolated texts" ? When we inquire
after the possible meaning, if meaning there
218 THE AVIDER HOPE.
be, in this remarkable triplet of invocations,
the Canon vouchsafes it in the very last sen-
tence of the volume. " The broadened dawn
and daystar," of which he seems here to have
a monopoly, there shrink into the attenuated
form of the " candle of the Lord," which he
will not deny to be the common heritage of the
meanest of those who hold the " popular views."
The consistency of Canon Farrar is still
more seriously compromised in his use of this
*'old, sensible, and admitted rule." He seems
fond of the axiom, and it is in his hands a
two-edged sword. In his article on Hell,
in Dr. W. Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, — a
critical composition addressed to critics, — Dr.
Farrar introduces this wise saw to check the
modern speculations of Dr. Trench and others,
w^ho said they saw something like purgatory in
the parable of Lazarus. But now, when Dr.
Farrar in these discourses is no longer writing
Condones ad clerum, but striking " sparks
from the anvil of a busy life," which neverthe-
less are struck off " after years of thought," he
can make this theological adage face the
opposite way, and help the opinions he
formerly smote : adding to the involutions of
this consistency, he yet appeals to the article
on Hell as of unimpaired authority.
REV. PROFESSOR GRACEY. 219
I do not propose to follow Canon Farrar
through the minutiae of his criticism of the
words " damnation," " hell," and '' everlasting."
I intend merely to point out what seems to me
a fatal error of his style of treatment, which
thwarts all efforts to get nearer a truthful
solution of the subject by a single hairs-
breadth. Both in the Sermons and in the
critical elucidations by which they are flanked,
Dr. Farrar first steeps the words in prejudice
and then begins to examine them. When,
with the accessories of much hysterical invoca-
tion of Unseen Powers, Dr. Farrar puts the
question, *' Where would be these popular
teachings about hell ... if we calmly
and deliberately, by substituting the true
translations, erased from our English Bibles,
as being inadequate or erroneous or disputed
renderings, the three words ' damnation,' * hell,'
and ' everlasting ' ? " — it is very easy to reply,
The popular teachings would remain where
they were before. We complain that the
most literal rendering is not in all cases
extant in the English version. This defect
has not helped, but damaged our cause. It has
furnished the excuse of a necessity of appeal
to " the original," which has been sedulously
worked as a most potent lever to move all those
220 THE WIDER HOPE.
who, being themselves destitute of scholarship,
are yet open to the delicate flattery of holding
scholarly opinions. Perhaps no single feature
of the recent advocacy of the various theories
of Annihilation, etc., has caused them to
loom with such portentous bulk before the
public eye, as the appeal to "the original." We
fear not the labours of the Eevisers ; we have
therefore no need to utter admonitions ; we
expect their impartiality will strip many
current speculations of much of their adventi-
tious importance.
One can hardly conceive why the word
** damnation " should have been investigated
with such painful minuteness, its precarious
position in our version being well known, and
having for a long time deprived it of all
decisive weight in this controversy. Why
slaughter the slain by producing the Bishop of
Chester's recent Charge, when in the very earliest
"pleas for revision" — and the earliest emanated,
I believe, from the Evangelicals — this word has
been again and again stigmatised ? Why bring
it up as if a fresh discovery had been made,
throwing all the odium of its harsh grating
dissonance upon men who have for years
repudiated it !
In a similar way Canon Farrar's treatment
EEV. PROFESSOR GRACEY. 221
of the word " hell " is misleading and defective.
Is it indeed so universal a fact in our language
as Dr. Farrar assumes that the English word
"hell," — cognate with the German "Holle," and
akin in meaning to the Hebrew "Sheol" and
the Greek " Hades," — has been so much warped
from its native signification as to be an utterly
false name for the state and place of lost souls ?
Dr. Farrar's own usage proves the contrary.
He retains the word. He tells us " liell is a
temper " — so far adopting the " popular teach-
ing" — without the remotest fear of being
suspected of saying, " Hell is an eternal
temper." To press the matter no further, this
one instance is sufficiently cogent to show that
it is at least fairly open to debate whether the
notion of duration — of eternal duration — is
embedded in the popular conception of the
word " hell." Need it be urged in these days
that as a translation is not made for scholars,
but for readers of the ''vulgar tongue," it is a
fairer method in so momentous a matter to use
a word which will convey the most approximate
meanino: of the oris^inal, rather than to transfer
terms that are not English and can convey no
definite meaning whatever, or a meaning only
apprecialjle by those skilled in Eabbinical
and classical lore ? The deficiencies of the
222 THE WIDER HOPE.
word in a critical point of view, as an exact
equivalent of Hades in some passages, have
been long ago detected and pointed out. The
language of Dr. Farrar on this head conveys
the impression that those of his way of thinking
were the only persons or the first Protestants
to find fault with the vagueness of the
rendering of Hades, Grehenna, and Tartarus by
one word only. So far from this being the
case, as far back as two centuries ago — to probe
the matter no further — we find John Howe,
certainly one of the Masters of English
Theology, appending a remarkable note to his
treatise of The Redeemer s Dominion over the
Li visible World, and uttering^ an indicrnant
protest against " Hell " being confused in all
instances with " Hades," the invisible world,
and Christ consequently "represented as the
Jailor of Devils." Let every refinement be
employed about " Hades," there, are yet three
undoubted passages, according to Dr. Farrar's
enumeration, in which " Hades is used for a
place of torment," and why not in these use
the appropriate English word ?
Equally successful is Canon Farrar in
obscuring the position of atwi/ios in the argu-
ment. His main strength is spent in proving
what no intelligent exponent of " the popular
REV. PROFESSOR GRACEY. 223
view" denies, that al^v and its derivative
alojvLos are used again and a^'ain of limited
periods. But Canon Farrar fails to add that in
many of those cases — as with our own w^ords
ever and never — it is also undeniable that no
idea of limitation is at the time present to the
mind of the speaker or w^riter. While the
words do not necessarily express, they do not
necessarily exclude, unlimited duration. Such
instances prepare aUovcos for its higher applica-
tions, in which Canon Farrar admits that it is
used of what is essentially endless, though not
of itself connoting endlessness. Without
insisting upon the strong presumption in this
admission, it is enough for conviction that it is
beyond dispute that the word is employed when
no end is in view. The whole burden of proof
that there is an end ever attainable in the
duration of the misery of lost souls, therefore,
falls upon the Canon, and he must make his
case good without this word, seeing it reveals
no end.
Canon Farrar therefore must show, for
instance, that at the final scene in the last act
of Earth's tearful tragedy, — when, according to
his own statement, the Angel shall with
uplifted hand have sworn that time shall have
ceased to be, and the wicked shall from the
224 TBE WIDER HOPE.
face of the Judge of All go away into banish-
ment from bliss, the duration of which is
unmarked by time's pauses, — that then anovtos,
which is applied to that banishment beyond
the cycles of time, most necessarily contain a
hope of release and of return. Until this be
done, and the tremendous doubt lifted from
that scene, does not every instinct of tender-
ness, of philanthropy, demand that men should
be warned of the overwhelming peril of an
irreversible exclusion from the " face of God
and of the Lamb " ?
That Canon Farrar has not, even to his
own satisfaction, mastered every doubt is very
broadly written upon his volume. Pie is timid
about putting his views into the articles of his
Creed, contenting himself with calling them
allowable " opinions." It is true something
more is intended by the glittering legend —
Eternal Hope — being inscribed on every leaf
of the book. Yet I must confess that, as I
perceive too on almost every page surmises,
guesses, questionable postulates, " most lame
and impotent conclusions," and ever and anon
glance up at the firm and stable superscription,
it seems to me that a certain subtle irony runs
through the production and awakens in the soul
something more of the nature of chagrin than
PtEV. PROFESSOR GRACEY. 225
of " eternal hope." Surely if there be an
"eternal hope," it must have a better basis.
Some grains of consolation are scattered to
" willing " and " wilful " sinners by Canon
Farrar's eloquent scorn of the dogma that
probation is bounded by the grave, but who
dare venture to pick up these grains while he
is at the same time told that it may "be awfully
true that our millenniums depend upon our
moments" ? A fitful gleam is thrown across
the dread apprehensions of present rejecters of
God by the assurance that "the path of
repentance may never be closed to us;" but in
what a " horror of darkness " does it die away
when there is set upon every sinner's track a
" Sacred Nemesis," " with leaden footstep, and
gathering form, and towering over you," wdiich
" smites you at last with the iron hand of its
own revenge" ! Timorous souls may perchance
heave a sigh of relief as Canon Farrar buries
beneath the heavy adjectives of his scathing
invectives the whole imagery of the " terrible
and the awful," as orthodox divines were wont
to set it in array against impenitent sinners ;
but in a moment he himself fills to the brim
the cup of trembling by his own "terrible
and awful " picture of " the heavy wrath
of God." " It is," says he, " but as if 1 plucked
226 THE WIDER HOPE.
one leaf and showed it you as a specimen of
the boundless forest ; it is but as if I showed
you one little wave and told you that a whole
ocean was behind." In vain Canon Farrar
practises metaphysical refinements and asserts
that the Lawgiver is all mercy and love, while
His just Law utters the apocalyptic cry, " Woe
to the inhabitants of the earth 1" The con-
science of mankind will evermore apprehend
the Lawgiver in His Law. When at last Canon
Farrar conducts us to his haven of " Eternal
Hope," — the limho upon which he has happened
on the worm-eaten charts which some of the
early Fathers drew of the unseen world, — his
words of cheer are by no means those of Dante's
guide : —
"'Fear not,' my master cried,
' Assured we are at happy point. Thy strength.
Shrink not, but rise dilated. Thou art come
To purgatory now.'"
" Shrinking " considerably on arriving at
purgatory instead of *' dilating," as Canon
Farrar elsewhere in many passages does, uj)on
the seonian fire of God's love into which sinners
shall be plunged at death, he is obliged to
confess, *' I see nothing to prove the distinctive
belief attached to the word Purgatory; I cannot
accept the spreading doctrine of Conditional
Immortality ; I cannot preach the certainty of
EEV. PROFESSOR GRACEY. 227
Uni versalism. " Even the fond dream of Purga-
tory, then, with its hither side of seonian iire,
its yonder side of refined purity, here joined to
earth, there bordering upon heaven and issuing
in its bliss, must pass away as the baseless
fabric of a vision. The one dread certainty
remains, which the honesty of Canon Farrar
will not dissemble, from which his quick
tenderness of soul recoils, w^hich his faithful-
ness yet obliges him to shadow forth as a hell
so dark, so deep, that from thence the miserable
inmates never catch a glimpse of the golden
pinions of hope even fitfully fluttering over the
abyss.
Thus, while Canon Farrar casts down the
theological structure of his opponents, he re-
erects their scaff'olding. While pleading with
men to keep in the middle way of piety, he
shows that the avenues of virtue are all fenced
by an endless contiguity of shade. -Is his
"Eternal Hope" but the changing of the
names of unchangeable certainties ? What
avails it that "damnation," "hell," and "ever-
lasting " are expunged from the Bible, if while
these umhrce nomimim are gone the dire
realities remain ? What boots it that where
once I read " Hell," I am now to read Gehenna,
Tartarus, or Hades, if there still may lurk
228 THE WIDER HOPE.
darkling under any of these terms, in the
working out of sin's bitter course, a deep, a
still lower deep, a fire that never may be
quenched, and a condition never amended ?
And is it with this messag^e that ministers of
consolation are to be furnished in repairing to
the home of the bereaved, or to the bedside of
the dying, as a balm for every wound, and a
cordial for every fear, of sin ? The very
question lays bare to every thoughtful man
the keen mockery of such a ministry to "a
mind diseased " with sin's hot fever, the
ghastly travesty and revolting burlesque so
enacted of the glad tidings of salvation through
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. More conso-
nant by far, surely, with the whole consensus of
the Gospel, is the message of those who hold
the "popular teachings," which tones not
down the *' terrors of the Lord," nor abridges
nor postpones His mercies, but, with the tender
pity of the Word of God, puts the question,
*' How can we escape if we neglect so great
a salvation ?" yet affirms, that ere we leave
this world, '* the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses
us from all sin," that " he that believeth is not
condemned," and cries even to the would-be
suicide and murderer, " Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Here is
REV. PROFESSOR GRACEY. 229
" strong consolation." But the hope whose
flickering rays dimly fall upon us from the
incalculable distance of millenniums, which can
be realised only after passing through seons of
agonizing fire, is not of a nature to support
a life of chequered sufi'ering, or to soothe a
dying pillow.
XV.
By the late A. J. B. BERESFORD HOPE.
It is without doubt laudable to be angry in
the cause of that which appears to be truth
and mercy; but the preacher who engages in
a voluntary controversy, and who elects to
conduct it with the weapons of invective, is
bound to regulate his most impassioned flights
by the spirit of forethought and moderation.
I cannot quite allow that Canon Farrar's
Eternal Hojye complies with this counsel of
prudence. The Canon, it seems, had for all
his thinking life borne the burden of a fierce
indignation against the " coarse terrorism " of
the ''popular" view of man's hereafter, especi-
ally on the punitive side ; and at last, having
the opportunity of a commanding position, he
flashed his protest upon the world in a course
of sermons cast in his characteristic style of
torrent- like eloquence. This w^as a mistake
when the subject-matter of his polemics w^as a
question at once so momentous and so mvster-
232 THE WIDER HOPE.
ious. The politician must deal with the
changeful vicissitudes of the day, however
pregnant of permanent results, by way of
speeches, and the preacher who is called upon
to draw the passing lesson from the tempest
of events will naturally seek his pulpit ; but
when he is the originator of his own question,
that being a question of speculative thought —
with eternity for its subject-matter — he wdll
most wisely consult not only for being immed-
iately understood, but for the ultimate success of
his views — supposing them to have vital energy
— by thinking his theory out in all its extent,
and under all its aspects, and then embodying
his conclusions in the calm and logical language
of a scientific treatise. When he has done this,
he has qualified himself as the champion of a
principle, and he may then without fear ofi'er
battle for his conclusions in the pulpit or the
rostrum, with a perpetual appeal to the endur-
ing record of his formalised system. Canon
Farrar has chosen th?^. less excellent way of
marshalling his rhetoric in the foreground, while
he slowly and, as I shall attempt to show, im-
perfectly brings up his reserves of reasoning.
The result is a failure on his part to deal with
one element of the question which must, under
any theory of the Christian dispensation which
THE LATE A. J. B. BERESFOED HOFE. 233
recognises its historical presentment, be of
transcendent importance. I take Canon
Farrar's own definition of his intentions. The
main scope of his sermons is to array the
religious sympathies of his countrymen against
what he terms the " common " idea (l) that the
future of the soul is immediately and irrevers-
ibly settled at the moment of death, and (2)
that for the majority of souls this future will be
one of endless torment. I must in passing
observe that it seems a little arbitrary on his
part to couple the beliefs in the immediateness
and irreversibility of the doom with the statis-
tics, so to speak, of salvation, as if there were a
necessary connection between the two opinions,
although no doubt they are, practically speak-
ing, very much held together. Canon Farrar
is not so precise in explaining what he does as
what he does not hold. However, we have
some statements of a positive character. In
the first rank is his confession — which might
with advantage have been somewhat amplified
— " I am not a Universalist." It is beyond
controversy, that while the debates over the
comparative numbers of the saved and of the
lost, and over the lowest limits of eternal
happiness or eternal pain, are such as do not
necessarily appeal to first jjrinciples, ihe
234 THE WIDER HOPE.
distinction between Universalist and non-
Universalist is fundamental. Eacli appellation
respectively excludes the other. When,
therefore, Canon Farrar, in a very solemn
treatise, makes the unequivocal statement, " I
am not a Universalist," I am bound to take
him as meaning what he says, and thereby
ranking himself — however idiosyncratic he may
be upon special points — among the believers
in the older and more generally accepted system
of the hereafter. The phrase in the mouth of
a less self-respecting man might mean, " I do
not know whether I am a Universalist or not ;"
but it is impossible to suppose Canon Farrar
can have put his pen to paper in the contro-
versy until he had ascertained his own mind
on a question which lies at its threshold. On
the other hand, he repudiates the fancy of
" Conditional Immortality," and, in distinctly
rejecting the Eoman doctrine of Purgatory, he
makes the progressive discipline of the soul in
the after-life the pivot upon which he bids his
only half-developed theor}^ to revolve. I pass
over the vehement pages in wliich he argues
that the pains of " Gehenna " must be moral
and not material, for in spite of the stress
which he lays upon the consideration, it is
surely but a detail by the side of what he
THE LATE A. J. B. BERESFORD HOPE. 235
unaccountably overlooks. How often would
any of us choose the most racking toothache
as a merciful substitute for some abiding
heartache !
The great omission of the whole book, which
I attribute to the rhetorical fervour with
which it was thrown off, is that from one end
to the other of this system of eschatology,
no attempt is made to give its place to that
unique break in the flow of time — that " one
supreme Divine event to which creation
moves " — upon which Scripture is so precise
and so emphatic, and to wdiich in its various
phases it so eagerly reverts, the principal
amono: them beino- the Second Advent, the
Co '
Eesurrection of the body, and the General
Judgment. Inferentially Canon Farrar recog-
nises it, as elsewiiere, so in the passage which
refers approvingly to Martensen's expression,
" a realm of progressive development in w^hich
souls are prepared and matured for the flnal
judgment." But it never seems to have
occurred to him, not only that neglecting to
face the consideration deprives his treatise of
its claim to philosophical completeness, but
that some of the strongest arguments for the
positions which he most dearly prizes are to be
found in its acceptance. When he desired to
236 THE WIDER HOPE.
arraign the idea of the " doom passed irrevers-
ibly at the moment of death on all who die
in a state of sin," he might have pleaded that
this theory in its naked completeness reduced
the General Judgment in the case of all those
lost ones to a ghastly but em^Dty "march -past,"
and in the case of the redeemed to a "march-
past" as truly unreal — though joyful and
triumphant. Let us, however, hold the
faith of Scripture and the Universal Church,
that at some totally uncertain — and as I
believe still indefinitely far-off — day, the
whole human race will recommence existence
under new conditions of endlessness, and of
"spiritual" embodiment, and that this will be
the date at which the doom will be recorded ;
then the mode and the time of that gradual
discipline of the sin-stained soul on which
Canon Farrar so eagerly dwells assumes a
definite and intelligible place in the economy
of the Divine order. Among the fallacies of
the popular theology which are intimately
connected with those which he denounces,
although unnoticed by him, is the crassness
which refuses to see that the conditions of the
disembodied soul before the Eesurrection, and
of the soul reunited to the " spiritual body "
after that event, must be generically different.
THE LATE A. J. B. BERESFORD HOPE. 237
Whatever the cliaracteristics either of "Para-
dise " or Heaven may be — whatever may be
those of the ' prison " or of the " lake of fire"
— it is clear that the respective differ(!nces
between the members of either pair must be
as substantive as their resemblance can be, or
else the "Eesurrection" as a fact is eliminated.
Canon Farrar himself gives unconscious
evidence of a similar confusion by the way
in which he distributes the after-death proba-
tion by reserving that of the intermediate
state to the " imperfect souls who die in a
state unfit for heaven/' while he co-ordinates
more punitive sufi"erings with his idea of hell.
Sufiicient attention has hardly been directed
to the circumstance that the mutual operation
of the hard materialistic doctrine of Purgatory
which has obtained in the Roman Church, and
of its theory of canonization, combine to pro-
duce a confusion between the intermediate
state of the disembodied soul and the Heaven
of the risen "spiritual" man, similar to that
which has been engendered amongst ourselves
by the savage theology of the Calvinist terror-
ist. By the Roman system the "Saint" —
the being callable of invocation and the causei
of miracles — is, in the pre-resurrection atwv, in
"Heaven," enjoying the Beatific Vision— that
238 THE WIDER HOPE.
is, he occupies the position which Scripture
assigns in virtue of the Eesurrection to the
risen denizen of that Heavenly Jerusalem
which has yet to be revealed. A familiar and
recent illustration of this confusion is afforded
by a hymn written by a most determined
Eomanist, but widely popular among religion-
ists of ver}^ different schools — Faber's " Par-
adise." Nothing can be more evident than
that the holy enjoyment which the poet yearns
after in "Paradise" is in truth the consum-
mated " rapture " of the " New Jerusalem."
I may be allowed to deviate for a few
moments from the direct discussion to sugg-est
that in any exhaustive treatise on the subject
the relation of scientific discovery and of the
revealed deposit of doctrine must be faced.
In itself I welcome science, for — as I am unable
to conceive two antagonistic systems of truths
— I believe that scientific discovery and revel-
ation must be identical, and that the apparent
discrepancy proceeds from the pride or the
stupidity of those who strive to make a
quarrel where God intended harmony. In
this particular relation of the intermediate
state it is undoubted that a long term before
the Judgment-day makes the TralBeva-is of the
better, and the punitive anguish of the worse,
THE LATE A. J. B. BERESFORD HOPE. 23S
soul more easy of comprehension than it would
be in the opinion of those who sum up the
history of the human race in an arbitrary
four thousand years before the Incarnation
and of perhaps an almost exhausted two
thousand years afterwards. It may be urged
against this suggestion that, after all, the period
before the Judgment must resemble a termin-
able annuity, and end in a vanishing value.
But if we are to believe the intimations given
of the condition of the latter times, virtue
then will be so heroic in its sufferings, and
vice so flagrant in its enormities, that a very
short period, materially considered, will be
sufficient to sum up far-reaching results. I
may be pardoned for referring to one fact
strongly insisted upon by anthropologists on
considerations which, to an outsider, seem
irrefragable, and which, I venture to think,
comes to the succour of revelation where the
popular chronology aj^pears least able to help.
Arguments seem wanting to establish any
theological value attaching to the physical
length of the " days " of the Creation, however
long or however short might be the space of
time which that word indicated. But the
received doctrine of Adam's fall and Christ's
redemption, as revealed to us in Scripture,
240 THE WIDER HOPE.
involves an hereditary and not a tribal con-
nection of the human race with the first man.
Now no candid student can deny that it is at
least very difficult to reconcile the descent of
all mankind, as past history and contempor-
aneous ethnology reveal it, from one couple,
according to the Ussherian chronology. But
once the " antiquity " of the human race is
granted, this difficulty vanishes. Again, to
recur to the resurrection. The popular pre-
scientific idea of the world's history is, roughly,
that a chaos retrospectively infinite was fol-
lowed by a short-lived " kosmos, " in which no
great changes have occurred, or will occur,
until it shall come to an abrupt end, and be
succeeded by a very different "new creation."
The appeal to mankind to believe the latter
fact rested, according to this hypothesis, on no
scientific analogy, and the sceptic could
plausibly urge that the burden of proof lay
against it. This he can no longer do in the
lioiit of modern science, which has revealed
the mysterious working through bewilderingly
protracted ages of physical and chemical
mysteries to which the ostensible " face of
nature" gives hardly any clue. The ajDpear-
ance — according to some law which is not less
natural because fore-ordained and predicted —
THE LATE A. J. B. BERESFORD HOPE. 241
at some indefinitely future period of cosmic*
life of " spiritual " bodies, which shall bear
to actual man an analogy which St. Paul
explained by the figure of grain and of the
mature w^heat plant, can no longer be scouted
as d priori unscientific. The worst which any
votary of " evolution," who may at the same
time be a freethinker, can, if he be consistent,
say of it, is that it is unproven.
I must conclude these remarks, which are,
it will be seen, in the nature of a demurrer.
It is impossible now for Canon Farrar to with-
draw his eloquent but incomplete and emo-
tional ex230sition of an arbitrarily chosen
fragment of a complex mystery. But it is
equally impossible that he can, in the hours
of analytical retrospect, be content to leave
the question of man's eternal hereafter in a
condition in w^hich, so far as he has made it
his own, so much has been unsettled in pro-
portion to that which has been settled. Dis-
cussion must follow, nay, it has already begun,
and among the various topics which will force
themselves upon public attention, a foremost
place will certainly be given to the contrast of
the intermediate state as the abode of the
disembodied soul, and of the "heaven" and
tte "hell" which will be the lot of the
Q
242 THE WIDER HOPE.
" spiritual " man. This is a truth very plainly
stamped upon Scripture, and signified in the
Creeds, although most strangely neglected in
the narrow systems of modern popular religion-
ism. The Church of England, I believe, from
the prudent moderation of its dogmatic state-
ments, enjoys an advantage in reconciling
ancient formularies and modern thought which
other communities have let slip by the harsh
rigour of their traditionary pronouncements.
When holy and humble men of heart have
appreciated in reality, and not as a mere
phrase of decorous formalism, that the world,
both seen and unseen, is together God's one
perfect creation, and that all reason, all experi-
ence, all Scripture, unite in the teaching that
the Divine work of discipline goes on behind as
well as before the veil, they will then be able
to accept, not as the vindictive menace of
intolerant cruelty, but as the yearning moni-
tion of solicitous love, that voice of our fathers
in the faith which comes to us across the
centuries, realising Christ " with " us " upon
all the days, even to the completion of this
finite term," sympathising with the soul's con-
tinuous training in life and in the after-life,
clinging to the judgment-seat, coupling, in the
THE LATE A. J. B. BERESFORD HOPE. 243
name of God, good faith and good works as the
way of life : —
" Quicunque vult salvus esse, ante omnia opus est ut teneat
Catholicam Fidem : quam nisi quisque integram inviolatam-
que servaverit, absque dubio in oeternum peribit.
"Ad Cujus adventum omnes homines resurgere habent cum
corporibus suis ; et reddituri sunt de (actis propriis lationem.
Et qui bona egerunt, ibunt iu vitam seternam : qui vero
mala in ignem Eeternum.'*
XVI.
Bt a Layman (the late W. B. RANDS, Author of " Lilliput
Levee," etc.)
Up to this point the subject of the discussion
has been, I think, exclusively in the hands of
clergymen. But the everlasting condition of
half the men, women, and children that have
been born since Adam, and that will be born
till the stars fall like untimely figs — a few hun-
dreds of millions or so every generation — can
hardly be an ecclesiastical preserve. There is
even a point of view from which a problem so
tremendous, so appalling, may make a simple
man rather impatient of the sight of a learned
professor setting himself to grind the solution
out of a revised text, with Liddell and Scott at
his elbow, and Tillotson and Tertullian some-
where handy. It is not a topic to be handled
irreverently ; but if ever there was a question
on which every possible window of criticism,
from natural religion, from the deeper humour
of the heart, and even its despised "senti-
ment," should be frankly — and fearlessly —
245
246 THE WIDER HOPE.
opened, this is such a question. I will attempt
to open one or two of such windows.
One of the things which we must make up
our minds upon is this — namely, that the diffi-
culties about the " Infinite," the *' Absolute,"
the relativity or non-relativity of all human
knowledge — all difficulties, indeed, which refer
themselves to metaphysical Ultimates — are
to be cancelled on both sides of the question,
if cancelled on either. We must not, for
example, having laid it down that God is just
and good, ride off from a moral difficulty on
the back of the remark that we do not know
what forms justice and goodness might take in
an Infinite Being. Many a time have I heard
from the pulpit, or read in tracts, the remark
that " sin, being commited against an infinitely
holy Being, hath in it a kind of infinity." It
is not rude to say that the man who is capable
of that hath in him a kind of stupidity. But
it is very rare indeed to see a discussion of this
subject in which difficulties of the order above
specified are not called in or turned out at
random, just as the case may seem to require.
This is forbidden. Let us clearly understand
that we have to deal with this question " in
terms of the moral system" (to use Mr
Mansel's phrase) ; and, having said that, let
THE LATE W. B. RANDS. 247
US stick to it. This alone will, I am bold to
say, erase three-fourths of our trouble, and of
the writing on the subject. Are we to speak
of a Governor, a Father, who can be displeased,
who can change the front He shows to us, whom
we can obey or disobey, to whom we are
related as living in time and space, and so
on and on ? Be it so — let us remember it.
Upon this footing we may legitimately say
(for one instance) that the child or the subject
must not at all times think he is completely
able to judge of the procedure of the Father
or the Kuler ; but we are shut up from drag-
ging in " the Infinite " to help us out of a
difficulty.
We must take care, also, not to use moral
terms fetichistically. Now this is constantly
done. I think there is many a reader of these
lines who will find, upon iDtrospection, that he
uses such terms as '' the Divine holiness," the
"Divine justice," with a haze around them
which is purely fetichistic. But, when all is
done, we can say no more, we can mean no
more, we want no more than this — that God
is wholly good. To the nature of the Divine
disapprobation of wrong we have no clue but
what we find in our own bosoms when we are
at our best. A good man's disapprobation of
248 THE WIDER HOPE.
wrong varies in height, depth, and otherwise ;
but if complete, it would be the disapprobation
felt by holiness. When I think of the milky
way, or the stormy sea, or am thrilled by love
or grief, any feeling of mine may become
more lofty or more intense — may touch what
we call "the bounds of the Infinite" — but it
does not change its nature. Nor can the
addition of the word " Infinite " change its
nature — or its function either.
The word '' sin " too often is used as if there
were something fetich about it. Now sin is
wrong-doing considered or felt by me as
between me and God — that is to say, as
interfering with the love, trust, and reverence
which are normal as between my Father and
Ruler and myself. Yet there is, I think, in
most minds, a sort of feeling connected with
the word " sin" wdiich it is difiicult to describe
except by some such phrase as academic
superstition. I have, indeed, hesitated to
use the title Ruler by the side of Father,
because there seems to be a kind of super-
stition hanging about its ordinary use in
theology. As if God, considered from our
moral relations, were our governor in some
(what shall I say?) occult, iron, adamantine,
or inflexible sense. All these superstitions
THE LATE W. B. RANDS. 249
must be removed from the mind, if we would
see our way clearly through this subject.
There is nothing (as all historic observation
proves, and as introspection will confirm)
which the Academic Mind, especially if
Theological also, is not equal to. " Enter Ens,
the father of the ten Predicaments, whereof
the eldest stands for Substance, with his
canons; the next, Quantity and Quality;
then Relation is called by his name." Let
your seraphic doctor once get his tools about
him ; he will then oppose Justice and Mercy
and Sin and Holiness in purely academic
"predicaments" which can have no counter-
parts in morals; and though he would not in
his own person iairt a fly, he will in his
commentaries proceed to roast the universe in
the Phalaris' bull of his own intellectual
consistency without a halfpennyworth of
compunction.
Difficulties connected with " the Infinite "
and "the Absolute" — difficulties which refer
themselves to metaphysical Ultimates — creep
into our arguments unawares, unless we keep
our eyes very wide open indeed. The origin
of evil, for example. Now, we have no
business with this matter here. It is a form
of the problem of the One and the Many, and
250 THE WIDER HOPE.
take it up by which handle we please, it cuts
all ways — may be used equally against any
theory. We must shut it out then, and
adhere strenuously to those terms of the
moral system in which alone we can discuss
the subject. We are told that the real
difficulty is the existence of evil, and that we
must solve that problem before we deny its
"right" to continue. But I deny this — it is
plainly wrong. In " terms of the moral
system," we can only conceive of evil as a
thinor which is willed to cease. So longr as we
continue withinside of our " terms of the
moral system," we are shut up to the Evanes-
cence of Evil ; and it is a mere juggle to tell
us that the case is just the same whether pain
and wrong last in such and such instances of
conscious being, for suppose, ten aeons, or
whether the}^ last for ever in the same
instances. We are in time and space, and are
dealing with things that have " limits," and
no others — for we must conceive God Himself
as " limited," if we conceive Him as a Father or
Governor, we ourselves having free-will. Uepl
8e Tiov d'Chloyv ovSeis /SovXeverai, oTov Trepl tov Koo-fj-ov, rj
rrjs StafjiiTpov Kal rr)S Trkevpas, on aa-vixjXiTpoL a Well-
known sentence of the third book of the
Nicomachean Ethics, which might have been
THE LATE W. B. RANDS. 251
written for the occasion. We start with no
theory at all — with no abstractions of Good
and Evil. We simply take things as they are,
and proceed to deal with cases. Where is
Man ? I never saw him. John I know, and
Thomas I know. John and Thomas both do
wrong. Will John and Thomas suffer such
and such things at the hands of their Maker —
or in consequence of any arrangement of their
Maker — for ever and ever? That is the
question.
Upon the only hypothesis admissible "in
terms of the moral system," we cannot, I say,
conceive of good except as that which is to
supersede evil. In other words, evil cannot
last for ever. But if we push the matter
further, — if we cross the boundaries which
have been systematically crossed on all sides
in these discussions, — we are still, and equally,
shut up from believing in sharp lines between
"heaven" and "hell." We can then only
conceive of the relation of good and evil in a
never-ending series of pulsations or moments,
in which good conquers evil. On the one
hand, we perceive that finites may be added
together (we have now, it will be understood,
passed the boundary) to all eternity without
coming any nearer to infinity ; and that moral
252 THE WIDER HOPE.
quality without resistance presupposed is
impossible in a finite creature ; on the other,
that, even apart from that, we could not avoid
the difficulty by ])utting heaven on one side
and hell on the other (for the sake of an
absolute ideal substratum) ; because the
question we started with was the question of
the separate ledger account of each separate
creature with the Creator.
There is, to my* mind, something almost
grotesque in one of the arguments of the
" Catholic priest," quoted by Mr. Plumptre —
but it is, after all, only one shape or side of
an argument which has been used by some of
the disputants. Question put — If death does
not close the era of moral uncertainty or
effort, what are we to preach to saints or to
sinners concerninof the life to come ? would it
be fair to the much-tried saint, whom we now
teach that in death his trial is over, at least so
far as this, that his condition is finally settled, —
would it be fair to him to let the sinner have
a chance too ? And if wx take this view of
the matter, what becomes of pulpit edifica-
tion ? How are we to preach to the stupid or
the impudent ? These are questions indeed !
I hardly know^ how to feel serious about them.
(See Matt. xx. 15.)
THE LATE W. B. RANDS. 253
We cannot help thinking and speaking of
death as the gate of rest ; and we know not
but that it is actually so. The more serious
and pathetic poetry of all peoples has made it
so. But poetry has had another word to say
upon this subject. Mr. Tennyson sings of
Virtue —
"She desires no isles of the blest, no quiet seats of the just,
To rest in a golden grove, or to bask in a summer sky :
Give her the wages of going on, and not to die ;"
and a definitely Christian poet —
" . . . . that Joy is never higher
Than -svhen love worships its Desire
Far off After all
Hope's mere reversal may befall
The partners of his glories who
Daily is crucified anew :
Splendid privations, martyrdoms.
To which no weak remission comes,
Perpetual passion for the good
Of them that feel no gratitude,
Far circlings, as of planets' fires,
Round never-to-be-reached desires,
Whatever rapturously sighs
That life is love, love sacrifice ;
All I am sure of heaven is this,
Howe'er the mode, I shall not miss
One true delight which I have known."
And when we closely catechise our own hearts
at their best — in the moods which make this
reconciliation of the calm and rest of the
254 THE WIDER HOPE.
beatific vision with effort and self-sacrifice a
possible thing — in these moods what do onr
hearts tell us ? Why, the moment we lose
the view — from the heights of poor human
love — of the shepherd seeking the lost with
the will to save them, that moment we have
parted with the vision or the " faith," without
which no bright hope for ourselves is fairly
possible to us. Looking at this from the
other side, we find (and the fact can easily be
verified) that when a given soul has started
with a traditionary belief in final heaven and
hell, with sharp lines between them, excluding
progress from below, then, in proportion as
that soul scales now and again the heights of
love and trust, in that proportion it, under
Divine compulsion, as it were, widens the
" continent marge " of what it calls " charity "
till heaven and hell melt into each other on
the map. Such a soul may, and often does,
put of what it calls " reverence," retain the
traditional formula ; but if you watch it, take
the human cases one by one, you will find that
the spirit of sacred love cannot, and does not,
face the thought of endless banishment from
God in any one of such cases. The mind may
say, " I believe it," may believe it even, but,
in doing so, it has declined into a colder and
THE LATE W. B. RAN^DS. 255
cloudier region, and scarcely holds the hem of
the Divine garment.
In vain will you claim that this is mere
sentiment. When the heart pronounces con-
cerning an act of ingratitude or treachery, the
emotion is not " mere sentiment " (so long as
there is no error in the facts) ; it is a moral
judgment delivered in emotive form. And so
is the verdict in the other case. Let us test
this matter. You are satisfied, we will assume,
of the perfect goodness of Christ. Now, how
do you get at that rationally ? You cannot.
You must first be infallible as a moral judge,
and you must then have absolutely infallible
knowledge of every word, deed, and thought of
Christ. You will, in fact, easily find, upon self-
examination, that your verdict is of the nature
of what you coolly exclude as " sentiment "
when it suits your purpose. And so all round
these and similar fields of inquiry.
Here is the question " in terms of the moral
system:" Is any man, the basest woi^m that
ever crawled, to he punished by endless suffer-
ing immediately inflicted by the hand of my
Father and Ruler f Now, my answer is that
the moral presumption against the affirmative
is immeasurably too great to be overcome by
any amount of *' evidence " for it.
256 THE WIDER HOPE.
But let us take one step more. You object
to what you politely call the '' coarser forms "
of the doctrine. You tell me, in elegant and
reserved language, that my heavenl}^ Father
simply leaves the man to the natural conse-
quences of his own sin, for ever — having given
him a probation of thirty, fifty, seventy years.
To this I answer, you w^ould have improved
your position dialectically if religion, in any
high or living sense, were reconcilable ^itli
the conception of a God who could, so to
speak, abstract Himself from the moral life of
any creature of His own making, so as to be
and continue wholly outside of it. But the
hio^iest and most livin^: religion is not recon-
cilable with that su23position. Suppose a
creature, whose birth in this w^orld was for
the time hypothetical, were called into one
moment of ante-natal existence, shown the
" orthodox " conditions of the future life, and
then asked whether he w^ould choose to pass
on to post-natal life, or to be at once recalled
into the unconscious abyss, — there is not,
never was, never could be, a soul capable of
understanding the problem (and what other
could be morally responsible *?) who would not
at once shrink back, appalled, into nihility.
If we pass beyond the limits set by " terms
THE LATE W. B. RANDS. 257
of the moral system," we too easily dash
against questions of another order. But some
very important points are hybrid, — you may
take them on one side or the other of the line.
For instance, — is not every possible form of
moral quality in finite natures fluxional by
necessity, — evil containing possibilities of
ascent towards good ; good, possibilities of
declination upon evil ? In other words, —
whether we presuppose a " scheme of redemp-
tion " or not, and whatever we may in the one
case affirm of "faith" or "free grace," — is
it abstractly conceivable that the qualitative
and the quantitative should not run into each
other indefinitely all the way up and down
the scale ? I have always failed, year after
year, to find this any more thinkable than a
triangle of which one side should be as long
as the two others. But if this be so, how
is a sharp line possible between the most
eminent saint and the vilest sinner? And
again : Can an Infinite Moral Being, abso-
lutely Supreme, " upholding all things by
the word of His power," — as He must for
ever, if " things " are to be at all, — can such
a Being exist without incessant moral rela-
tions with all His moral creatures ; such
relations involving moral fluxion ? This also.
258 THE WIDER HOPE.
year after year, I have found unthinkable, on
abstract grounds.
There would not be room to debate these
matters with such persons as fancy they are
got rid of by any doctrines concerning a Fall,
or concerning Grace or Faith, or Redemption.
Nor is it necessary. Such persons, if any,
may be left to find out for themselves that
the introduction of these terms cannot alter
the problem. A very little reflection will
make that plain. Hence, the introduction — a
" scheme of Redemption " being supposed — of
any doctrine of *' latent faith," or the like,
throws the whole case into irretrievable fluxion.
The confusion becomes endless. As I read
the letters of the " Catholic priest" (pp. 131
to 137), I had (who could escape it?) this
thought among others — Is the condition of
those who are adjudged to have had saving
faith to exclude moral progress or not ? If
not (which is likely to be the answer), of
course there must be free-will. And if there
is free-will, why should there not be the pos-
sibility of declension, even to the uttermost ?
If you say that the Lord has so set the con-
ditions as to make this impossible, I have two
more questions — first. What then becomes of
the free-will ? and, second, If the Lord, as it
THE LATE W. B. RANDS. 259
appears, can so set the conditions, what awful
thing shall we have to say of His goodness
when we turn our eyes towards the pit ?
In all that goes before, it will be seen that
I have assumed (what the majority of thinking
men admit as even axiomatic), namely, that
no " revelation " can be established upon such
evidence that it shall not be afterwards open
to fatal attack upon intrinsic grounds. Holding
this to be axiomatic, I do not argue it, but
will put the case — a part of it, rather — upon
lower grounds : —
You, the anti-Universalists, have been
arguing, page after page, about the rendering
of a Greek adjective, and the reading of
certain sentences in certain ancient writiiiofs.
Now, I will ask you, not as commentators or
as clergymen, but simply as honest men, who
would not cheat me in a bargain, or tell me
an untruth, — do you really dare to look me in
the face and tell me that you think the evi-
dence for the claims of those documents to
decide the question wdll bear that strain ? Do
you? Will you maintain this — to men who
have thought for themselves, after Lessing
and Baur and Keim, and the greater French
and English critics on the negative side ?
Never mind whether they are right or wrong,
260 THE WIDER HOPE.
my question is, whether evidence which can
be so " shaken in cross-examination" will bear
that strain ? Pick out of the foulest kennel of
history the most malodorous wretch ; lift up
Caesar Borgia, with all his stench about him ;
strip him, poor worm 1 of his illusions ; con-
ceive his soul naked to the heavenly glory,
and quick with sense of doom. How many
thousand years of writhing in remorse would
you allow to pass before 3'ou would be ready
to die to help him ? You do not know. Did
you ever have an hour's real rem.orse yourself?
Nay, did you ever see a dog crushed by a cart-
wheel ? Oh, wait 1 wait 1 till your next hour
of agony for sin, and then pause in your pain
to recall what it is you ask me, upon such
evidence, to believe of that awful Being who
made mother's milk and mother's love as well
as the bands of Orion.
But as you may not unfairly ask me what I
think is to be found in the New Testament
upon this topic, I will venture upon some
hints in that direction. I take it, then, for as
nearly demonstrable as anything in that kind
can be, that there is no doctrine clearly deliv-
ered in the New Testament upon the ultimate
fate of ail souls ; nor anything in any way bear-
ing upon final moral classification which must
THE LATE W. B. RANDS. 261
not be read with large allowance for differences
of moral and intellectual dialect, differences
between the psychology of the first century
and that of this, differences between the
Semitic and the Aryan usage in matters of
symbol, — and otherwise. A great deal both
in the Gospels and Epistles which refers purely
to the Messianic hypothesis of the time and
the next or Messianic " aeon " only (see, e.g.,
Matt. xii. 31, 32) has been read as if it referred
to questions which were not present to the
minds of the speakers or writers at all. I
think, however, that the largely prevailing
symbolic suggestion is that of the destruction
of '' the wicked." There are occasional gleams
of universal immortality ; but these are few
and doubtful. So far, I hold Mr White to
have the truth. But I am careful to say, so
far, and there I stop with regard to the textual
question. And I ought to add that I have
read no book specially addressed to the sub-
ject for twenty years past. Two "practical"
remarks remain. First, the number of those
who even profess to believe in any form of
everlasting hell is small. Hell alwa3^s has
been, and still is, the standing joke of the
multitude. Second, I have been a little (not
much) surprised to note the hold which the
262 THE WIDER HOPE.
" first fallacy " of Protestantism still lias upon
people's minds. You will find, among educated
and thoughtful persons, a few here and there
who cannot at once see, or will not admit,
that the idea of an infallible Book is as absurd
as that of an infallible Pope ; but, as a general
rule, an educated man does see, when it is once
put to him, that he can get no more authority-
out of a book than he has put into it ; and
then all you have to do is to remind him that
he is himself fallible. I did once, indeed,
meet an educated man — a clergyman and a
graduate — who, when I had driven him into
a corner, said, contentedly, " You may arrive
at a reasonable belief of the infallibility of a
book," and then, when I laughed and said,
*' You have thrown up your brief, the Court
will enter a nonsuit," was very angry, not
understanding the meaning of his own lan-
guage. But able men and women usually see
their way at once. The difficulty is to break
down the conspiracy of silence on this subject
■ — under cover of which the less able preachers
and teachers do what they like with the
multitude by quoting the old texts, and
interpreting them just as if they had been
written yesterday, and were simply to be read
by the rules of modern grammar and psycho-
THE LATE W. B. RANDS. 263
logy in the West. Now, to tliose who help
to keep up this conspiracy of silence, I would
dare to hint that they lose more than they
gain; for perhaps those to whom my first
practical remark applies might be reached by
" the goodness and severity of God " put before
them in terms which were just and frank, how-
ever vague ; whereas now the whole doctrine
of distributive justice hereafter misses any
hold of them.
XVII.
By the Rev. Professor MAYOR.
The question of general interest in the
present discussion is not whether this or that
writer is too rhetorical, but whether any, and
if so what, alteration is needed in the view of
future punishment which is received as ortho-
dox among Protestants ; that view being, that
the present life settles finally and irrevocably
for each human being whether the whole of
the endless existence which follows is to be
spent in sin and misery, or in virtue and
happiness : to which is usually added as a
corollary, that the great majority of the human
race belong to the former category. The
difi'erence between this and the ordinary
Roman Catholic view is that the latter post-
pones the happiness of the saved (except in
cases of pre-eminent holiness) until they have
passed through the torments of purgatory,
which, if we may trust the assertions of
Aquinas and Bellarmine, far exceed in inten-
265
266 THE WIDER HOPE.
sity any pains which can be experienced on
earth.
After having been accepted without misgiv-
ing for hundreds of years, this view has of late
come to be felt a terrible burden and difficulty
by many orthodox believers, of whom we may
take Professor Birks as an example, when he
tells us (p. 197) that the thought of the future
lot of mankind caused him months of " almost
intolerable anguish," until he was led to see
that the received doctrine rested upon no
warranty of Scripture, and was not really a
part of revealed truth.
On comparing the positions of the various
writers, I find that all but two, Mr. Arthur
and Professor Gracey, express themselves in
favour of some modification of the traditional
view. Many expressly challenge its authority
either as resting on a wrong interpretation of
isolated texts without regard to the antagon-
istic bearing of other texts, or to the general
tenor of revelation, or as not being authorised
by the Catholic Church, or as condemned by
the voice of reason and conscience, which they
hold to be the ultimate court of appeal in the
matter. One of the strongest assertions of the
authority of conscience comes from Dr. Allon,
who in practice attaches more weight to the
THE REV. PROFESSOR MAYOR. 267
letter of Scripture than many others, as, for
instance, in regard to the probability of a con-
tinuance of probation in the next life. He
says (I quote with slight abbreviations), " To
a man's own moral consciousness all teachings
of religion must appeal.'' '* When we are
exercising our holiest thoughts about God,
we may safely say that whatever broadly con-
tradicts them, and compels us to qualify our
ideas of God's holiness and love, must be
untrue. That the mediaeval conception of
future punishment contradicts such elemen-
tary feelings is fully conceded. Good men
have had forcibly to subdue this feeling, to
reason it down by logic, or to determine to
believe in spite of it, because they deemed it
authoritatively taught ; but this is both a
wrong to the moral nature, and a spurious
homage to revelation"^ (pp. 166, 167).
1 The ?ame view (that it is wrong to stifle doubt) is forcibly
expressed in Mr. David Vaughan's though tfnl volume, The
Present Trial of Faith, where he quotes and comments on
Bishop Callaway's words, "As surely as men stifle doubts
and crush them blindly out, so surely will they rise up again
to haunt them" (p. 295). It is instructive to comj^are the
view of a liberal Churchman of the last generation on the
same point : see Arnold's Life, Letter cvii.: "All speculations
on such points [as the continued existence of moral evil] should
be repressed by the will, and if they continue to haunt us, they
must be prayed against, and silently endured as a trial."
268 THE WIDER HOPE.
The modifications proposed are, as might be
expected, very various, it being always more
easy to see the objections to an existing
system or view than to agree upon one which
should take its place : and if this is found to
be the case in matters of ordinary human
experience, so that it takes many years to
elaborate a satisfactory scheme even for
so comparatively simple a thing as univer-
sity or municipal reform, how much more
in a question which transcends experience in
so many points, while it is at the same
time so intimately bound up with our ex-
perience that we find it impossible to keep
our thoughts from it, or to refrain from en-
deavouring to harmonise the conclusions to
which they naturally lead us ?
If we start with the suggestion already
alluded to, of a probation continued after this
life, we find many different shades of opinion
included under this head, some holding that
such extended probation is only exceptional,
beinsr limited to those who have never had
any real probation on earth ; while others look
forward to an indefinite series of probationary
states, issuing in the final salvation and happi-
ness of all mankind. Dr. Rigg may be named
as a representative of the former view. Pro-
THE REV. rROFESSOR MAYOR. 269
fessor Plumptre of the latter, which we ought
rather to call a hope, as he distinctly refuses to
dogmatise in the matter. While strongly con-
demning Universalism, Dr. Rigg speaks in
high terms of what Professors Plumptre and
Birks have written on the Intermediate State,
and thinks that, though the suggestions made
by them are unsuited for practical teaching,
they may be of great value for removing the
speculative difficulties connected with the
future of infants, heathens, and ignorant per-
sons generally (pp. 187, 188). If we turn to the
papers written by the two Professors, we find
Professor Birks saying (p. 209) that " besides
the Church of the Firstborn, saved out of the
trials of this world, and heirs of a special
dignity, there will be countless and growing
myriads of redeemed men in the generations
of the world to come ; " ^ and Professor
1 On further consideration, I am inclined to think, after
comparing this passage with other writings of Professor Birks,
that he is not here speaking of myriads restored in some
future stage after failure in this stage, but of a new race of
men born under happier conditions in some millennium to
come. Such a hope must commend itself in some form or
other to all who cherish the belief in human progress, but to
my mind the gloom of earth is only deepened by the contrast
with the assured blessedness which is to follow, if the suffering
generations of the present epoch, the forlorn hope of humanity
as we may call them, are destined for the most part to final
270 THE WIDER HOPE.
Plumptre (p. 139) that " as this life is a proba-
tion for the next stage of our being, so that,
in its turn, may be a trial-time also, and the
* lowest place ' will differ from the highest,
as the result of the total aggregate of the
past ; and so the belief in an universal restora-
tion is compatible with a belief also in the
eternity of punishment." Of all the writers.
Dr. Allon is, I think, the only one, except
Mr. Arthur and Professor Gracey, who regards
the suggestion of a continued probation in
any form as inadmissible, " notwithstanding
the strongest predisposition to optimist views."
Passing^ on from the various modifications of
the received doctrine which turn upon this
idea of extended probation, we come to two
ruin. In this world of failure there may be parents who could
find an adequate consolation for the disgrace of a daughter or
the criminality of a son, in the thought that the rest of the
family had turned out respectably ; but it is indeed a strange
conception that the heavenly Father, whose responsibility for
each of His children so infinitely transcends that of earthly
parents, could ever comfort Himself under their loss by fresli
exertions of creative power. It is not the ninety and nine
just persons who need no repentance that are nearest to the
heart of the G(>od Shepherd, but the one lost sheep which He
seeks until He finds it, and brings it home rejoicing.
With regard to the question of continued probation, Pro-
fessor Birks leaves no doubt as to his dislike of Universalis m,
but I cannot find any distinct statement of the position he
would take in reference to a milder form of the doctrine.
THE REV. PROFESSOR MAYOR. 271
others which may be held either apart from
it or in connection with it. The first identi-
fies the second death with annihihition ; the
second, while assenting to the ordinary view,
in so far as it condemns the lost to endless
existence in hell, yet holds such an existence to
be not incompatible with what, judged by the
standard of earth, may be considered a high
degree of virtue and happiness. Mr. White
combines the doctrine of Annihilationism
with that of extended probation, holding that,
*' after the exhaustion of all redemptive pro-
cesses on earth, and in some cases in Hades,"
the "unrepenting remnant of God-rejecting
men" will be finally destroyed by *'the opera-
tion of the law of their nature" (p. 113) ; Dr.
Allon, while he considers that the "finality
of moral condition " is established by the
testimony both of Scripture and of the moral
judgment, says that this need not imply
unending being, and that what " seems the
most plausible suggestion is the ending of sin
and of sinful being by the natural cessation of
the latter." The idea of a softened or virtuous
hell is represented by Professor Birks, but it
is unfortunately only alluded to, without any
clear or full explanation. I believe his view
will be found not to differ materially from
272 THE WIDER HOPE.
that put forward in Mr. E. H. Bickersteth's
poem, Yesterday, To-day, and for Ever,
which was analysed in the Contemporary
Review for May 1876. According to the
summary there given, not only is there no
actual sin in the final state of the lost, but
there is no sinful desire : it is only the germ
of sin which is supposed to be ineradicable,
and liable to break out if restraint is re-
moved. On the other hand, there is resigna-
tion to the Divine will, there is self-con-
demnation and self-distrust, and, instead of
the despairing envy which would seem so
natural under the circumstances, there is posi-
tive delight in the happiness and holiness of
the blessed in heaven, from whom they are
for ever separated. There is something very
noble in this view, and those who will read
Professor Birks' treatise on the subject will be
surprised to find how much there is in the
language of Scripture which accords with it ;
but logically, I confess, it seems to me to lead
up to the doctrine of universal restoration.
Can we suppose a process of reformation
carried so far, only to stop short here ? If by
God's grace these lost souls have been raised
to a pitch of unselfish virtue beyond anything
which has ever been realised by the greatest
THE REV. PROFESSOR MAYOR. 273
saint on earth, must they not still continue to
grow from grace to grace ? Must not the
confirmed habit of virtue be gradually formed
within them as they persevere in the exercise
of virtuous acts and feeling-s ?
o
If I may be allowed, after the fashion of the
ancients, to introduce into our discussion a
nameless umbra, I should like to compare here
the view given by a writer in the Church
Quarterly for April. The extremely conserva-
tive character of that Review, and the some-
what banal and borne tone of the writer, seem
to me to give special importance to the article,
considered as a sig;n of the times. He bcQ-ins
by telling us that the difficulties felt in con-
nection with the doctrine of eternal punish-
ment are owing entirely to the Calvinistic
system ; if viewed from the High Church side,
the doctrine emerges in harmony with the
conscience of mankind and the goodness of
God. The Catholic theor}^ is that the separa-
tion between lost and saved is determined by
the impression produced upon the soul at its
entrance into the intermediate state. If it is
attracted by the light, if it is capable of love,
it is saved ; if repelled, it is lost ; but we may
safely indulge the hope that by far the
majority belong to the former class. Many
274 THE WIDER HOPE.
may have to undergo a long course of discip-
line, but their final happiness is assured. On
the other hand, the damned are those who
have lived so as to be incapable of love ; dam-
nation consists in their being formed into
a society outside the kingdom of Christ,
governed, as human society now is, on the
princi])le of KoXaa-is, not on the principle of love.
After the penalty of past sin has been paid in
the fire, coercive discipline is not resorted to
except in cases of insubordination. *' There
may be penal settlements, so to speak, in which
the wicked are finally fixed in evil, but in the
higher societies we conceive there would be
degrees of the moral state very much as now."
" 80 far as natural appliances are concerned,
the life of hell might be an advance upon the
present. It might have a higher and more
perfect civilisation. " ' ' There is nothing to show
but that God may do for the damned the very
best of which they are susceptible. It is true
they are deprived of supernatural good, but
there is the whole field of natural good which
may be awarded to them in proportion to their
deserts."
So far the writer would seem to agree with
Dr. AUon as regards ''moral finality," but
further on he refers to the Greek Church as
THE REV. PROFESSOR MAi'OR. 275
Laving always maintained that it is just
possible for a soul in the intermediate state to
pass from the lost to the saved ; and he is
himself inclined to put the possibility of such
a change on the same level with that of a
deathbed repentance. It may be worth while
to add that he takes, what Dr. Hunt tells us is
Hobbes' view of the use of the word ahovios, as
referring to the fire itself, not to the sufferings
of those exposed to it. He ends by claiming
for his view, which leaves the lost soul in
peace in hell at last, a superiority in merciful-
ness over " the cruel theory" which supposes it
driven to heaven by a succession of probation-
ary states, each more severe than the preceding.
It is hard to believe that this grotesque
imagination is seriously put forward as a
portion of the sober Anglican Creed ; yet the
writer is professedly urging it upon the
younger clergy as a safeguard against the
growing danger of Universalism. I can only
afford space for one or two remarks upon it.
Hell, it appears, in its final state, is to be very
much a repetition of the present life, with a
higher civilisation and a good average morality
in the best societies : though the inhabitants
are debarred from supernatural good, they will
be rewarded for their orderly conduct with any
276 THE WIDER HOPE.
amount of natural good, and they may look
forward to enjoying this throughout eternity.
In the first place, is this prospect calculated to
be a deterrent to worldly men in this present
life ? In the next place, what is meant by
the opposition of natural to supernatural good,
in a world where all is supernatural ? Thirdly,
how is the high tone of morality to be kept
up ? Here, we know it is by the unceasing
prayers and struggles of the more aspiring
part of humanity, but these have all been
drafted off. Are we to suppose a fresh nucleus
of holy aspiration springing up under the new
circumstances ? But then arises the difficulty
already mentioned in reference to Professor
Birks's theory : How can this be without
supernatural grace, more especially when we
remember that the lost are ex hypothesi
incapable of love ? And then again, if there
is real goodness, how can it fail to grow ; and
what else is heaven but a state of goodness
ever growing under the Divine influence?
But we need not proceed ; the idea of beings
incapable of love, but capable of morality and
happiness, is self-contradictory. Whatever
modification is needed in the ordinary
doctrine, this at least we may pronounce
to be impossible.
THE REV. PROFESSOR MAYOR. 277
To turn now to an examination of some of
the arguments employed in the course of the
discussion : one which is most frequently and
most confidently urged against Universalism
is that which may be stated in the words
of Dr. Eigg (pp. 177, 178): "Universalism
implies fatalism. It makes sin to be nothing
else but inconvenience or misfortune : it o-ives
the lie to conscience, and declares the unright-
eousness of all punishment w^hether by divine
or human law." And so Dr. Littledale (p. 97):
" It militates against the existence of free-will,
and the consequent possibility of a volition of
evil through eternity."
What first occurs to one on readinof such
passages is that they attempt to settle
ohscurmn per ohscurius. It is hard enough
to reconcile our experience here with the
assumption of free-will; to take it as our
starting-point for speculations as to the
unknown future does not seem a very hopeful
proceeding. To refuse to discuss the possibility
of future repentance, because it militates
against some theory of free-w411, is precisely on
a par with the conduct of the Epicureans of
old who denied the law of the Excluded Middle
in logic for fear of committing themselves to
the principle of Necessity. In reality, it seems
278 THE WIDER HOPE.
to me tliat there is just as much, or as little,
infringement of free-will in aftirniing that
"there are some men who will not be saved"
as in affirming its contradictory, " it is untrue
that there are some men who will not be
saved." Further, it is to be noted that, in the
particular case at issue between, say Dr. Rigg
and Canon Farrar or Mr. Baldwin Brown, the
latter affirmation is not put in this positive
form, but merely as a hope, "we hope it ma}'
not be true that there are some who will not
be saved." It is plain that in this case it is
Dr. Rigg, and not his opj)onents, who limits
the action of free-will. Dr. Bigg's assertion,
in fact, comes to this, there is a property in
human nature called free-will, which prevents
men from being similarly actuated by the
same motives, and therefore makes it imposs-
ible to predict any course of action common to
the race. I should say that our experience
proves the contrary : the freer a man's will,
the more we can count on his being sensitive
to riofht motives to action ; so that if a burnt
child does not shrink from the fire, or if a
child trained up in the way he should go does
depart from it when he is old, we have to
account for such an unnatural development
either by discovering fresh counteracting
THE REV. PROFESSOR MAYOR. 279
motives, or by denying the exercise of free-
will, as in cases of insanity. Many orthodox
Christians are of opinion that the future
salvation of all men is declared in our Lord's
words, " I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men
unto Me ;" and in St. Paul's words, " The last
enemy that shall be destroyed is death ;"
** In Christ shall all be made alive." Others,
of course, explain them differently ; but I
cannot see that the former interpretation is
more opposed to any intelligible doctrine of
free-will than is any othei prophecy involving
a reference to action or conduct. Surely it is
conceivably within the power of God to pre-
sent to the mind such constraining motives as
infallibly to engage man's will on the side of
rio^ht. If we do not admit this, I cannot
understanc? what sense we give to the words of
the collect : "0 Almighty Cod, Who alone
canst order the unruly wills of sinful men,
grant unto Thy people that they may love the
tliinor which Thou commandest, and desire that
which Tliou dost promise." If we do admit it,
then the supposition of all men finally choosing
the right is not a priori contrary to free-will.
Whether there is any ground for believing that
such will be the case in fact, is a different
question which will be considered immediately.
280 THE WIDER HOPE.
Again, it is allowed by all, as has been stated
above, that sin cannot be forgiven till it is
repented of; repentance is an exercise of free-
will ; Canon Farrar expresses the hope that
this exercise of free-will may be possible in the
case of every human soul after this life, as well
as during it ; Dr. Rigg denies this. Which of
the two, I ask again, limits free-will ? But, it
may be said, you hold it possible that in the
end the various wills of men may all determine
in one direction. We do, because we know
that the mightiest forces and the permanent
motives are all at work to draw him in that
direction, and to fix him in it when drawn
there, those forces and motives which we
believe to have fixed for ever the wills of the
redeemed in heaven ; and this being the case,
even if we were to look upon man's free-will
as entirely unmoral, a mere chance oscillation
between conflicting motives, which seems to
supply the extreme of unaccountable and
unpredictable action, yet even on this doctrine
of chances each of these human atoms must, in
the endless ages, eventually be caught up and
made to take its place in the universal order.
How much more, if we think of man as a being
made in the image of God, gifted with what
we loosely call the faculties of reason, will, and
THE REV. PROFESSOR MAYOR. 281
conscience, for this very purpose that he may
know and do what is pleasing to God ?
Dr. Ptigg thinks that, if we accept this con-
clusion, we do away with guilt, and punish-
ment becomes unrighteous. Why so ? The
guilt consists in resisting the better motives
and yielding to the worse. The punishment
is the employment, in each successive stage of
probation, of stronger motives where weaker
ones have failed. Since some natures are
more readily susceptible to good influences
than others, the less susceptible have to be
placed under a sterner discipline for their own
sake as much as for the sake of others, both in
this life and in the next life. Where is the
unrighteousness ? As Plato said long ago,
punisliment, corrective discipline, is that wdiich
is really good for the sinner. It is only when
punishment degenerates into a gratifioation
of the desire of vengeance that it becomes
unrighteous.
Passing on from the abstract question of
free-will and moral responsibility, have we any
ground for supposing that the moral condition
of the lost after this life will, as a fact, be such
as to admit of improvement, or that the cir-
cumstances in which they will then be placed
will be more effective in influencing them for
282 THE WIDER HOPE.
good than the circumstances of their life on
earth have been ? '* The essential tendency of
evil," says Principal TuUoch, "is to intensify
its own misery." " The idea that all men shall
become good at last is opposed by the course
of experience here " (p. 47). " There are
some," says Professor Salmon, " who have
died to all appearance irreformably wicked,
and if they then enter on a life which is any-
thing like a continuation of the present one,
they must do so under conditions infinitely
less favourable than those under which they
started here." So Dr. AUon, "The odds
against the moral renovation hereafter of a
man who here has sinned away his moral sen-
sitiveness are overwhelming" (p. 172); and'
Dr. Eigg (p. 191), "It is presumptuous to
imagine that more powerful motives to repent-
ance, may be applied in another world than
are offered (here) to the hearers of Christ's
gospel."
As to all this matter I think there is one
thing which is generally agreed to, and that is,
that the immense majority of grown men and
women, whether called good or bad, whatever
progress they may be making in particular direc-
tions, have certain faults of character which do
not seem to get less under the discipline of this
THE REV. PROFESSOR MAYOR. 283
present life ; and yet we believe that in many
instances, at any rate, these faults of character
will be cured in the next life, which shows
that, however we may talk, we do ascribe to
the next life a greater reforming power than
we find to be at work here. In the next place,
when we speak of " irreformable wickedness,"
we use a very bold phrase. Will any one point
to a single character either in history or in his
own personal experience, of which he would
venture to say that it defied every possible
moral engine which it is in the power even of
man to employ ? We are accustomed to look
upon Judas Iscariot as the worst character
brought before us in the Bible, and yet what a
vast reserve of moral feeling is shown in the
words, " I have sinned in that I have betrayed
innocent blood," and in the desperate act by
which, apparently without waiting for the last
scene on Calvary, he tried to atone for his
crime I If we may venture for a moment to
carry on our thoughts to the meeting in
Hades between the betrayer and the Betrayed ;
if we may presume to imagine the penetrating
yet compassionate gaze — not less compassion-
ate, surely, nor less love-compelling, than that
which melted the heart of another less sorely
wounded by Satan — is it not a moral certainty.
284 THE WIDER HOPE.
from all we know of the laws of human nature,
that out of the midst of that agony of shame
and remorse there must have sprung up the
consciousness of a love inexhaustible and
invincible, which would make even the terrors
of ''his own place" not only endurable but
most welcome to the sufferer when they were
looked upon as the appointed remedy of his
sin, the token of a Father's forgiveness to him
who rightly received them ? And yet, though
we may see reason to believe that the sin of
Judas has been forgiven, we shall not think the
language of Eastern hyperbole overstrained
when it says of one whose name was destined
to be synonymous with traitor till the end of
time, " It were better for him if he had never
been born."
I have slightly digressed, because the history
of Judas is often insisted upon in opposition to
the idea of final restoration. Supposing, how-
ever, that there are cases in which the moral
sensitiveness seems really sinned away, or
supposing there are cases in which we not
only find ourselves practically powerless to
promote any amendment, but in which, as far
as we can see, there has been every advantage
of education and circumstances, so that we
cannot even imagine any improvement in the
THE REV. PROFESSOR MAYOR. 285
external influences which have been brought
to bear ; does it follow, as Professor Salmon
appears to think, that such a life has been
merely wasted, and that the next stage of
being must commence under infinitely worse
conditions than the present ? It appears to me
that not only is such a supposition irreconcil-
able with the Christian idea of God, but that it
is even possible for us to see how the contrary
may be the case. How often has a badly spent
youth been the prelude to a deeply penitent
and earnest manhood ? What ground have we
for assuming that the sin of this infinitesimal
moment of time, which we call life, will remain
necessarily ingrained in the character through
eternity? May not rather the experience here
gained of the weakness of our nature, the
miserable eff'ects of sin, and the contrast pre-
sented by the rewards of righteousness, now
at last appreciated, — may not all this supply
in the second course of probation a stimulus
which was wanting in the first ? And if to us
men reformation appears impossible, does that
prove that the Divine resources also have come
to an end ? What happens to such a man at
death ? Principal TuUoch would seem to say
that we can only suppose a continued process
of hardening. If so, I would say that there
286 THE WIDER HOPE.
must be a special miracle to effect it ; that is,
supposing death is what we believe it to be,
the separation of soul from body, the removal
of the veil between illusion and truth, between
the temporal and the eternal. I will not
repeat what I have said upon a former occasion
as to the altered aspect in which sensual indul-
gence, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye,
and the pride of life, must present itself to the
disembodied spirit ; but may we not fairly
apply our Lord's words here, "Thomas, because
thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed: blessed
are they that have not seen and yet have
believed." Those who in this world of con-
fusion and darkness have believed in the light,
rise, as it were, by a natural selection to
special blessing in the life to come ; those who
have failed to believe here will see and believe
there. The parable of Lazarus may serve to
illustrate the power of the new influences
under which the soul is brought at death. On
opening his eyes in Hades the rich man is
filled with deep anxiety not only for himself
but for others, in place of the easy indifl*erence
which seems to have characterised him before.
The next argument I wdll examine is, that
the endless duration of moral evil is no greater
difiiculty than the palpable fact of its present
THE REV. PROFESSOR MAYOR. 287
existence. We find this urged by Dr. Allon
(p. 169), though his practice is hardly con-
sistent with his theory, as he adopts the
principle of annihilationisra in order to avoid
the eternity of evil. Professor Salmon gives
an ingenious turn to the argument by the
suggestion that at any given time hereafter it
is credible there may be other worlds in the
same state of development as ours is now, so
that even if we suppose evil finite in the
individual it may be endless in the universe
(p. 119). There is a difficulty in meeting the
argument, because, to me and, I should think,
to most people, finite evil and infinite evil,
evil vanquished and evil victorious, are such
totally incommensurate ideas that if any
one says he perceives no difference between
them, one hardly sees what there is left to
appeal to. All that I can do is to draw out
the two hypotheses side by side. According
to the one, it is the Divine plan to raise human-
ity by slow and gradual steps from the level of
the brutes into a moral conformity with the
image of Christ. As a part of the process of
this development, came the struggle between
the higher and lower nature, the possibility
and the consciousness of sin ; but this is
merely a transitional state intended to prepare
288 THE WIDER HOPE.
the way for the reception of the higher divine
life which will in the end be manifested in
every child of man. According to the other,
God, the All-holy and All-good, created man
immortal, knowing that many, if not most, of
the species would, after a moment of doubtful
happiness and chequered goodness here, be
doomed to an eternity of uniform sin and
misery. Nor does the supposition of successive
worlds following the same course of develop-
ment make any difference. To Him who sees
the end from the beginning, who sees the
Christ already formed in hearts which to men
may appear desperately hardened, the passing
shadow of sin is lost in the succeeding blaze of
light ; or rather, for to Him there is no suc-
cession, it is already swallowed up in the glory
of the eternal day. When Professor Sahnon
further says (p. 119), " We lose all explanation
why God should have made us exposed to
temptation here, if we think it possible that
He can hereafter ordain a constitution of
thing's in which the inducements to well-doingr
shall be so overpowering that wrong-doing
shall be impossible," he seems to me just to
reverse the truth. It is the imperfection of
this world, viewed in the light of our own
moral instincts, which makes it necessary
THE REV. PROFESSOR MAYOR. 289
for US to believe in another world where
all is perfect. It is the faith and hope in
that other world which makes this world
endurable, and enables us to retain our belief
in Eighteousness as the supreme law of the
universe.
I should like, in conclusion, to say one word
as to the contrast drawn by Miss Wedgwood,
in her late interesting article on William Law,^
between what she characterises as " the com-
fortable assurance (of our times) that every-
body will come right at last" and Law's
" awe-struck sense of a holiness that would
not be satisfied till it had communicated itself
to every spirit, how lost, guilty, and degraded
soever." No doubt, on this as on most subjects,
there is a vast difference between the pre-
revolutionary and the post-revolutionary modes
of thought. The Ee volution may be said to
have performed for Christianity the same
service which Socrates performed for philo-
sophy — brought it down to earth from heaven.
That God is no respecter of persons, that He is
able of these stones to raise up children to
Abraham, that when He corrects us it is that
we may live, that it is our duty to love our
1 See Contemporary Review for December 1877, p. 98.
290 THE WIDER HOPE.
neighbour as ourselves, that we are all members
one of another, that election, whether of nation,
or class, or individual, is not for the sake of
the chosen seed exclusively or principally, but
to the end that, in and through it, all families
of the earth may be blessed, — these are no
longer mere texts for sermons, but are echoed
back by the vox j^opuli in strange-sounding
phrases of "fraternity" and "solidarity,"
which make the hearts of nations vibrate.
And this inarticulate religion of the vox populi
reacts again on articulate religion, and is
making itself felt everywhere as a vox Dei,
confirming the whispers of reason and con-
science in the individual man. It is impossible
for one who has learned that the end of punish-
ment, when it passes beyond the elementary
stage of self-preservation, is not revenge, but
reformation, to believe that Divine punishment
can be conducted on lower principles than we
men have attained to ; it is impossible for one
who has learned that goodness cannot be happy
in presence of the vice or misery of others,
except in so far as it may hope to convert the
vicious and to comfort the miserable, — it is
impossible for such a one to believe in the
happiness of heaven co-existing with the sin
and misery of hell.
THE REV. PROFESSOR MAYOR. 291
In this sense, then, Miss Wedgwood is right
in contrasting our age with Law's. Law stood
almost alone in upholding a truth which is
rapidly becoming the all but universal belief
among thoughtful Christian men. It required
great faith then to do what requires little faith
now. Yet the change has been brought about
within very few years ; would Miss Wedgwood
deny to him who, more than any one man, was
the cause of it, Frederick Denison Maurice,
" the awestruck sense of a holiness which
would not be satisfied till it had communicated
itself to every spirit " ? On the contrary, it
w^ould be difficult to find words which woukl
more exactly convey to a stranger the impres-
sion left by his memory in the minds of all
who knew him. Is then the converse proposi-
tion true ? Have the recent opposers of the
established doctrine attacked it simply on the
easy Epicurean grounds attributed to them by
Miss Wedgwood ? We are tolerably familidr
with this literature, and cannot call to mind a
single book of which this could be truly stated.
What we do know is that the generation which
has now reached middle age, and which was
brought up on the usual orthodox traditions,
has had to pass through a struggle of the most
painful kind, leading in some cases to insanity,
292 THE WIDER HOPE.
in some cases to atheism, but on the whole
resulting in that truer and higher view of the
Fatherhood of God, which we would desire to
leave as our best heirloom to the generation
which succeeds us.
ETERNAL HOPE
XVIII.
ETERNAL HOPE.
{Reply BY Archdeacon FARRAK.)
My immediate task is to answer the objections
which have been urged by writers in this
Review against my treatment of that solemn
topic which has lately awaked so much eager
controversy in England and America. I would
gladly offer towards the decision of the ques-
tion a contribution far more exhaustive than
the sermons which have been subjected to so
fierce a criticism, and the notes which I threw
together in their support. At present this is
not possible ; but this at least I can say, that
I have read with respectful consideration, and
with a mind entirely open to conviction, a
great deal which has been urged in opposition
to my views, and that I have not met with one
argument to which I was unable to offer what
appeared to me, and to others wiser and more
learned than myself, a perfectly serious and
perfectly conclusive answer. Let me, in the
295
296 THE WIDER HOPE.
fewest words, get rid of all that is personal in
this controversy.
To the larger number of the well-known
writers and theologians who have expressed
their opinions upon the subject treated in my
" Eternal Hope," I owe my grateful thanks for
their candour and courtesy. But some of them
have overlooked, and one of them at least has
ungenerously ignored, the circumstances under
w^iich the book was published. I explained,
as fully as I could, that it could not profess to
be a formal treatise. The main part of it con-
sisted of sermons, written, I may fairly say,
under the difficulty of interrupted leisure and
uninterrupted anxieties ; written a day or two
before they were delivered ; written to be
addressed to large miscellaneous audiences ;
written lastly under the influence of emotions
wdiich had been deeply stirred by circum-
stances, and had taken the strongest possible
hold of my imagination and memory. While
I was musing, the fire burned, and it was only
at the last that I spake w^ith my tongue. It
is not thus that I should have addressed a
small audience of learned theologians. It is
not thus that I should have addressed any
audience but one w^hich for the time being I
could regard as my own. Expressing the same
ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 297
convictions I should have formulated them
with more deliberate completeness. " Every
one/' says Dr Newman, " preaches according
to his frame of mind at the time of preaching." ^
If he have a firm grasp upon the truths which
he is uttering, surely it is neither possible nor
desirable for him so utterly to repress his own
individuality as to exclude his feelings from
waking some echo in the words which he
employs. I have been rebuked, I know not
how often, for my " rhetoric." If by the word
"rhetoric" be meant the natural lano-uaoje of
strong emotion, I do not see why it should
involve a reproach. If by rhetoric be meant
a style art'ificially elaborate, intentionally
vehement, deliberately ornate, I can boldly
plead not guilty. No one, I think, has ever
intended to charge me with that pompous
inflation and sophistical insincerity which is
attached to the ordinary conception of a
rhetorical style. I can only express myself in
such words and images as first present them-
selves, and I have always desired to say what
I have to say in the manner in which it comes
to me most naturally to say it. It may be
that in some instances my very " defects" may
1 Apologia, Appendix, p. 15.
298 THE WIDER HOPE.
have been rendered " effective " for good pur-
poses ; and if so, I am content ; but at any
rate, let the supremely unimportant question
of my style be eliminated from the serious
discussion of the truths which I have endea-
voured, at any rate without any ambiguity,
and I trust without any want of courage, to
express and to defend.-^
But it has been objected that on a subject
which is supposed to belong to the domain of
theology, I ought to have spoken otherwise, or
at any rate ought not to have published my
sermons. I reply that whether the question
of "endless torments " belongs to theology or
not, it is one which possesses a very practical
and a very terrific interest for many myriads
of living men and women. I appeal to any
parochial clergyman who reads these pages,
whether he does not know people, and especi-
ally women, who, though they are not flagrant
' 1 Thus Mr. Beresford Hope will see how far I was from
liaviiig sought an opportunity to give vent to my feelings from
a special vantage-ground. Let me take the opportunity of
saying that Mr. Beresford Hope rightly points out that I was
guilty of an omission in not dwelling more prominently on the
forgotten, though clearly -revealed doctrine of an Intermediate
State — Hades not Gehenna. I was, indeed, dealing witli a
vaster question, but Mr. Beresford Hope has rendered a very
important service hy dwelling on this truth.
ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 299
sinners, are yet conscious of grievous imperfec-
tions, and on whom the popular doctrine rests
with agonising incidence, not as a deterrent
from sin but as an incentive to despair ?
Whether they have not met with men of
intellect, and men of science, who reject all
religion because they hold it to be bound up
with a belief against which their moral sense
revolts ? Whether they have not known hearts
made sad which God had not made sad, by the
awful dread lest those who wxre dearest to
them should have passed, and passed irrevo-
cably, into those blistering flames and diaboli-
cal complications of unending torture, where
the popular Nonconformist preacher tells them
" that the damned for ever jingle the burning
irons of their torment " ? It only needs a
glance at our recent literature to see that
Atheism has made its very stronghold in the
indignant sense of pity which repudiates ^
Gospel which it identifies with images of end-
less despair and hideous torment. I believe
that the faith of Christ will gain an incompar-
able force — I believe that it will reassert its
waning empire over the prevalence of scepti-
cism, when noble and earnest-minded men shall
see that the Judge of all the earth will do right;
and that neither in Scripture nor in the
300 THE WIDER HOPE.
Catholic faith is there anything which excludes
— while alike in Scripture and in the Catholic
faith there is very much that encourages — the
doctrine of Eternal Hope ; the doctrine (that
is) that, even if in the short span of human
life the soul have been not yet weaned from
sin, there may be, for some at any rate, a hope
of recovery, a possibility of amendment, if not
after the Last Judgment, at least in some dis-
embodied condition beyond the grave.
On every ground, therefore, I held it to be
a duty not to refuse to face the solemn question
I had in nowise sought, but which had been
brought before me in the ordinary course of
my ministrations. It was, however, no part
of my duty to publish what I had said. While
utterly despising what " A Layman " calls the
** conspiracy of silence," I have never been
eager to plunge into controversy. During a
ministry of more than twenty years, though I
have never taught what I did not believe, and
though in my published sermons I have
alluded quite distinctly to the hope which I
have ever held, I have been almost invariably
content to dwell on those vast truths respecting
which all Christians are heartily agreed ; and
I would earnestly advise our younger clergy to
do the same. I refused multitudes of requests
ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 301
to publisli these sermons, simply because I had
no wish to subject to the fierce glare of minute
and most hostile criticism opinions which, in
an ordinary sermon, it was impossible to form-
ulate with the rigid and exhaustive accuracy
of a formal treatise, or to defend with a
complete array of authorities and arguments.
But this matter was not left to my own decision.
The sermons had been taken down in shorthand,
and were published against my will and with-
out my knowledge, and wxre being sold by
tens of thousands in unauthorised and incorrect
forms, of which I had never seen a single
copy. I was therefore driven at last to show
what I had said, in order to defend myself
against a deluge of misrepresentations ; and in
the notes and preface I mentioned, at the
shortest possible notice, some of the reasons
on which my views were founded. If these
facts had been borne in mind, my severest
critics would, I think, have been led to write
in a different and a fairer tone.
Once more, then, I would ask, What is it
that I have advocated ? What is it that I
have impugned ?
I have advocated the ancient and Scriptural
doctrine of an interval between death and doom,
during which state — whether it be regarded as
302 THE WIDER HOPE.
purgatorial, as disciplinary, as probational, or
as retributive — whether the seon to which it
belongs be long or short — we see no Scriptural
or other reason to deny the possible continuance
of God's gracious work of redemption and
sanctification for the souls of men ; and I have
added that I can find nothing in Scripture,
or elsewhere, to prove that the ways of
God's salvation necessarily terminate with
earthly life. I have never denied — nay, I have
endeavoured to support and illustrate — the
doctrine of Eetribution both in this life and
the life to come. I have never said — as I am
slanderously reported to have said — that there
is no " Hell," but only (and surely this should
have been regarded as a self-evident proposi-
tion) that " Hell " must mean what those words
mean of which it is the professed translation ;
and that those words — Hades, Gehenna, Tar-
tarus — mean something much less inconceiv-
able, much less horribly hopeless, than what
" Hell " originally meant, and than what it has
come to connote in current religious teaching.
I have not maintained Universalism, in spite
of much apparent sanction for such a hope in
the unlimited language of St. Paul, because I
did not wish to dogmatise respecting things
uncertain, and because I wished to give full
ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 303
weight to every serious consideration which
may be urged against the acceptance of such a
hope. I have earnestly maintained that no
soul can be saved while it continues in sin; or
saved by any means except the efficacy of
Christ's redemption. So far from derogating
from the necessity of that awful sacrifice, — as
has been so often and so strangely asserted, —
I know of literally nothing which is so infinitely
calculated to enhance our sense of its blessed-
ness, or our love to Him who made it, as the
hope that its power will be unexhausted even
beyond the grave. And it is monstrous to
represent this hope as a modern novelty. To
speak of it as a " new theology " is to speak
with complete ignorance. I have shown, — and,
so far as I am aware, no sort of attempt has
been made to set aside my proofs, — that it is
far more primitive and far more catholic than
the darker Creed by which in the last three
centuries it has been superseded ; ^ that it was
held in the very earliest ages of the Church ; ^
that it has been in every age of the Church
demonstrably permissible;^ that it has been
held by some of the Church's greatest teachers
1 Eternal Hope, 9th Ed. pp. 154-169.
2 See the Pastor of Hernias, iii. 278, and p. 155.
3 Ihid. pp. 159-167.
304 THE WIDER HOPE.
and holiest saints ; ^ that, though eagerly debated
and widely prevalent, it was not condemned
by any decree of the four first oecumenical
councils ;^ that it has never been condemned
by any article of any universal Creed or by
any decree of any oecumenical council ; ^ that
in some form or other it enters into the faith
of by far the greatest part of Christendom ; ^
and that even St. Augustine, and St. Jerome,
and Luther himself, — though from them mainly,
in ancient and modern times, the popular teach-
ing is supposed to be derived, — use language
far more accordant with man's instinctive sense
of God's mercy, love, and justice than is heard
in the majority of modern pulpits. For even
St. Augustine believed in a sort of purgatory,^
and wrote, *' Neque hoc dixerim ut diligenti-
orem tractationem videar ademisse de poenis
peccatorum quomodo in Scripturis dicuntur
ceternce." ^ And St. Jerome held that Chris-
tians at any rate would be saved after a future
j)unishment ; ^ and even Luther wrote, " God
forbid that I should limit the time of acquiring
1 See the Pasior of Hernias, iii. pp. 156-183. 2 /j^, p^ iq^^
8 Eternfil Hope, p. 159. ^ Ibid. p. 180, seq.
6 Aug. De Civ. Dei, xxi. 24. c in Matt. xxv. 26.
^ Sec references to St. Jerome's opiuioiis, Eternal HopCy
p. 166.
ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 305
faitli to the present life ! In the depths of
Divine mercy there may be opportunity to
win it in the future state." ^ But what have I
impugned ? Not the humble and awful dread,
not the tremblino; and sensitive submission of
pure and loving Christian souls, but that hard,
exaggerated, and damnatory literalism, — that
unreasonable insistence on admitted metaphors
and emotional appeals — that interpretation of
words in senses which they will not bear, —
that hideous play of the imagination employed
for the ignoble purpose of promoting virtue by
stimulating a sense of abject terror, of w^hich
some religious writers have been so dangerously
guilty. Principal TuUoch says with perfect
truth that " a Christian theology must not be
made responsible for these lurid pictures ; "
but my very object was to show that they form
no true part of Christian theology at all, and
ought to be eliminated from popular teaching
as dangerous to faith and dishonouring to God.
It is on these accretions alone that my so-called
invectives fell, and not on the more sober
teaching of thousands of holy and loving min-
isters of the Gospel, whose hearts will not allow
them to indulQ:e in such lang;uag;e as led to
1 Letter to Hansen von Reclienbcrg, 1522.
U
306 THE WIDER HOPE.
the celebrated exclamation, " Oh Dr. Emmons !
Dr. Emmons! has God then no mercy cct all? "
But many are now anxious to repudiate as
at all expressive of their views such amplifica-
tions as those of Mr. Spurgeon on the parable
of Dives :^ ^^ See how his tongue hangs from
hetiveen his blistered lips ! How it excoriates
and burns the roof of his month as if it ivere
afrebrand!" But, however much it may
now be rejected, it certainly ivas, and is, a
fair representation of much that is still uttered
by Christian ministers, and endured by Chris-
tian cono:reg:ations. " What do the wicked
do for ever in Hell ? " is the question of a
once celebrated catechism, which many of my
readers must have learned in their childhood.
" They roar, curse, and blaspheme God"
Where has this teaching been repudiated ?
When, and where, and by whom, until within
the last montli or two, has there been a dis-
tinct refusal by teachers of this school to
endorse the sentiments of the frightful sermon
of Jonathan Edwards, entitled " Sinners in
1 Who, be it observed in passing, was not in Gehenna at all,
but in Hades, the intermediate state ; -whom Abraham still
aildresses as sun ; and who can speak, and speak words of
sympathy and affection, in pite of his burning and excoriated
ton ^ue.
ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 307
the hands of an angry God " ? " Tlie God that
holds you over the int of hell, much in the same
way as one holds a sjnder or some loathsome
insect over the fire, abhors you and is dread-
fully provoked^ Apart from the metaphor,
is this to be regarded as orthodox teaching or
not ? Is this the God who has bidden us love
our enemies ? Is this the God of whom we
are taught that His love is deeper than that
of a mother, and that His tender mercies are
over all His works ? Is this the God who says
that He will not cast off for ever ? Is this the
God who " pardoneth iniquity," who ''retaineth
not His anger for ever, because He delighteth
in mercy " ? If language, such as I have
quoted, be utterly reprehensible, if it be an
unconscious blasphemy against the love and
pity of our Father in Heaven, why have
my sermons been so vehemently attacked ? I
have received so many letters on the subject,
from all sorts of strangers in Endand and
America, that few living men are, I suppose,
better able to estimate the character of the
extreme popular view, or the hardening,
embittering, inquisitorial^ Pharisaical, deprav-
ing, pride-and-hatred-engendering influence,
which it exercises on the minds — not, of
course, of all — but of too many who hold it.
308 THE WIDER HOPE.
This was the doctrine that produced the
Torquemadas, the Arnolds of Citeaux, the
Sprengels of the Middle Ages. This is the
doctrine which often makes the so-called
religious character so little lovely and so little
religious. This is the doctrine which to this day-
produces the dull and obstinate fanaticism of
many whom we would fain win to a diviner
charity. The Bishop of St. Andrews, having
recently written a letter on the war question,
received the next day the following post-card :
"Your letter ... is quite a scandal . . .
Why, you make Christian people rejoice that
there is in God's providence a place of retri-
hution for workers of evil like youj' I can
only say, " Legant, erubescant, horrescant,
Christiani. Perpendant, perhorrescant !"
Undoubtedly this vindictively remorseless
style of dwelling upon the " horribile decret-
um'' though, as I have experienced, far from
extinct, is being gradually modified, and is
inevitably doomed to pass away. Professor
Birks, in his somewhat acrid paper, complains
of my " loose massing of authorities " against
the popular view, because many of these
authorities differ widely from each other.
To me it seems that their very divergence in
other matters adds almost indefinite weight to
ARCHDEACON FARKAR. 809
their unanimity in this. I will not mention
the many names of the illustrious dead, from
Hernias down to Archbishop Tillotson, froin
Origen down to Archbishop Whately, from
St. Gregory of Nyssa down to Bishop Ewing
of Argyle, from Johannes Scotus Erigena
down to Professor F. D. Maurice, from
Clement of Alexandria down to Canon
Kingsley and Dr. Norman M'Leod ; but if
men, otherwise so dissimilar in their views
as Dr. Littledale and Mr. Llewelyn Da vies,
the Dean of Westminster and Archdeacon
Reichel, Mr. T. J. Eowsell and Mr. Jukes,
Bishop Moorhouse and Mr, S. Cox, Professor
Jellett and Mr. J. Baldwin Brown, Professor
Plumptre and Mr. E. White, LIr. H. N. Oxen-
ham, and Professor Birks himself — to mention
but a few out of hundreds of livinof divines,
of all schools, ranks, and degrees of learning,
in the Protestant Churches of England, Sweden,
Germany, and France — are agreed in rejecting
the doctrine of endless torment in the form in
which it has been preached, even recently, in
all its undisturbed horror, by many preachers,
then this fact alone is a very decisive proof
that such a doctrine cannot at any rate be
regarded as indisputably Scriptural. Contro-
versialists of the type of those who are con ten ^
310 THE WIDER HOPE.
ted with Horbery's " hundred and three texts
on his side" (!) or with the assertion that
eternal torments are " indisputahly taught in
twenty-six passages of the New Testament,"
might have thought themselves justified in
using such language fifty years ago, but now
simply put themselves out of court as having
failed to comprehend the most elementary
conditions of the controversy. Assertions of
that type are simply a mark of incompetent
provincialism, and they fall to the ground at
once before the unbiassed remark of the
devout, learned, and excellent Dr. Isaac Watts,
that " for the doctrine of an immortality of
endless torment he found in Scripture no
warrant whatever." In the face of such facts,
in the face of all Church history, in the face
of the existing belief of the largest part of
Christendom, how can any one, without
condemning himself, venture to assert that
the four accretions to the doctrine of future
retribution which I rejected — viz., physical
torture, necessarily endless duration, irreversi-
bility after death, and the all but universality
of the doom^ — are undeniably parts of the
1 Tliey profess to found this doctrine on an entire misin-
terpretation of Matt. vii. 13, 14, wliicli only conveys sucli a
meaning when it lias been tortured by a systematic and
ARCHDEACON FAIJRAR. 311
Catholic verity ? I have been anathematised
by many who are innocent of the veriest rud-
iments of criticism ; but is it not a significant
fact that of the fifteen divines — Irish, Scotch,
and English — who have been invited to criti-
cise my sermons, all but two, as well as both
the eminent laymen, agree with me in repu-
diating the main points which I have rejected;
and that even the two who desire to defend
the current opinion, make large concessions as
to the untenable character of popular eschato-
logy ?
Having thus endeavoured to clear the
ground, I will now glance with all possible
brevity at the criticisms contained in these
papers.
Professor Jellett, with a calmness and
courtesy worthy of all praise, has defended
the great canon of Bishop Butler on the
relations of natural to revealed religion.
Principal TuUoch also points out, with admir-
able force, the necessity of allowing weight to
the moral intuitions of mankind. He urges
against Universalism the Law of Continuity.
I am not concerned to defend Universalism ;
inferential literalism which -would fill all Scripture with
contradictions, and which is practically only tolerated in a
few favourite texts.
312 THE WIDER HOPE.
but seeing that repentance is always possible
in life — seeing that so long as life lasts any
man may become good — the Law of Continuity
was one of the very grounds on which I based
the doctrine of Eternal Hope. If the greatness
of God's mercies lasts till the grave, the
Law of Continuity strengthens our hope that
it will not be for ever cut short by the accident
of death. If the efficacy of Christ's Atonement
lasts till death, the Law of Continuity helps
to strengthen our conviction, so w^ell expressed
in the eloquent and admirable paper of Mr. J.
Baldwin Brown, that " the love of God cannot
be the one Divine powder in the universe which,
for man at any rate, is paralyzed by the hand
of Death."
With the greatest part of Dr. Hunt's able
paper I entirely agree ; but when he says that
the doctrine of never-ending torments "has
been believed by the majority of Christians
in all ages, in all Churches," this belief must be
most carefully distinguished from the post-
Keformation dogma — a dogma which even
Luther could not accept — of an all but uni-
versal, unmitigated, and irreversible doom to
endless torments at the moment of death.
Mr. White thinks that the doctrine of
Eternal Hope " gives to the generality of
ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 313
defiant men a cheerful and even hopeful view
of their ultimate destiny, and that it differs
toto coelo and even toto inferno from the fearful
doctrine of Christ and the Apostles, and will
be attended practically, as experience shows,
by widely different results." I reply that (l)
this is but an opinion ; and (2) that if my
view thus appears to differ from the letter of
some of Christ's utterances, it agrees most
absolutely with both the letter and the spirit
of others ; and Mr. White himself will hardly
say that it differs toto coelo and toto inferno
from the parables of the Lost Sheep and the
Prodigal Son, and Christ's prayer for His
murderers, and St. Paul's unlimited prophecies
of the final Palingenesia. And (3) that we
have nothing to do with remits, but with
truths. The doctrine of endless torments,
being at any rate unknown to the Old Dispen-
sation, cannot be necessary to deter from sin ;
and if the Gospel of Hope be wrested by some
to their own destruction, — which I doubt,
seeing that, in the words of St. Paul, " we are
saved by hope," — it certainly rescues others
from despair. But in truth Mr. White is
taking a wrong point of view when he talks of
my holding out to defiant men a cheerful view
of their future. To them we preach that so
314 THE WIDER HOPE.
long as they are defiant, so long must they
remain in that outer darkness which is aliena-
tion from God. We tell them that sin is loss
and ruin, and must inevitably entail, both here
and hereafter, that dread law of consequence
in W'hich they only refuse to believe w^hen it
is presented to them with impossible additions.
We tell them that the longer and the more
defiantly they continue in sin, the greater and
the deadlier must be that loss, which, even if
it do not assume the form of physical torment,
may continue to be loss — a p6e?20 damni — for
ever. The hope of the mitigatio, the refrigeria,
the remissions, which God may grant hereafter,
the cessation of a maddening agony and a
gnawdng remorse, is surely a very difi"erent
thing from the assertion that all sinners will
ultimately be admitted to the beatitude of
heaven — to those joys which eye hath not seen,
nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart
of man to conceive.^
I can only attribute much of Professor
Salmons paper to his having "skipped or
1 Canon Ryle, and many otlier?, fall into this misconception.
1, at any rate, have never taught that "we shall somehow
or other all get to heaven hereafter.'' In fact, nin^-tenths
of what has passed for triuniphant refutation of what I have
said is only triumphant in its refutation of w^iat I never dreamt
of saying at alL
ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 315
skimmed many pages " of the book which he
was professing to criticise. A less supercilious
process might have shown him that my
supposed horror of physical pain, as compared
to mental remorse, is not due, as he hints, to
personal pusillanimity, but to my belief that the
physical pain of which I was speaking — material
fire and material worms — could only be inflicted
by arbitrary external acts, the supposition of
which degrades our conception of God. Pro-
fessor Salmon entirely fails to see that I regard
vindictive and purposeless inflictions not as
" too dreadful " to believe, but as too contrary
to my faith in God's love ; too impossible to
reconcile with the declaration that He punishes
" not willingly but for our profit, that we may
be partakers of His grace."
Dr. Littledale's paper calls for no notice at
my hands. I regret, but shall not imitate, the
arrogant discourtesy by which it is character-
ised. Let others decide whether the tone
which he sees fit to adopt is justifiable or
becoming.
I have no such grounds of complaint against
Mr. Arthur. And yet I am simply amazed at
his statements that I found my opinion on two
texts ; that I do not refer to history and
experience; that I suppose the world to be
316 THE WIDER HOPE.
governed on the painless principle ; that I
assume that the Euler of the Universe could
never inflict pain ; and that, on this subject, I
do not seek guidance in the rules maintained
amono'st us on this side the c^rave. I could
almost suppose — were it not that it would
have been unworthy of his seriousness — that
Mr. Arthur had adopted the " skipping and
skimming " methods of Professor Salmon. If
it were respectful to Mr. Arthur, I could only
vent my astonishment by several notes of
admiration : as it is, I will simply refer to the
pages of my book, literally from end to end,
in direct refutation of every one of his
assertions. One indeed of his allegations is
perfectly correct — that I have not alluded to
" the procedure in the case of angels." I have
not done so, because, apart from Scholasticism
and Milton, we know so very little about it,
and are so entirely unable to estimate the
analogies to the destiny of man which it may
or may not present. I do not hold, as Mr.
Arthur thinks, either that all who repent in
Hades "pass to heaven," or that sin is put
away by pain. [ fear that Mr. Arthur Avill be
— but he ought not to be — surprised when I
entirely agree with him in saying that Christ
taught that '' they who will not repent will
ARCHDEACON FARRAH. 317
suffer an endless penalty;" but I instantly
part company with him if he makes the
unwarrantable addition, "they who will not
repent in this life" since my whole book is a
statement of the reasons why I venture to hope
that the gates of mercy are not finally closed
after the brief span of earthly existence. Again,
I hold with Mr. Arthur that if "God's severity
is all love," so God's love is sometimes
manifested by severity, and that punishment
does not necessarily imply cruelty. But endless
punishment — billions of millenniums of un-
utterable and flaming agony for each tenth
part of a second of sin — has Mr. Arthur faced
what that means ? Protection, as Mr. Arthur
says, may require punishment, but can he
prove that it requires endless torments f And
if in all my "impetuous flights" I "barely
graze the surface of the mystery of suffering,
like a bird skimming over a still but unfathom-
able deep," what human writer has ever done
more ? Not even the eagle-wing of the logical
and theological can do more, much less
'' smooth, gliding swallows, and noisy, impu-
dent tomtits " —
"Quales ego vel Cluvienus."
Mr. Arthur writes like a high-minded and
earnest man, but I would respectfully submit
318 THE WIDER HOPE.
that, so far as I am concerned, his paper,
from beginning to end, is a good ilhistration
of what is meant by Ljnoratio ElenchL
I now proceed to make a few remarks on the
second series of papers.
My friend, Dr. Plnmptre, quotes some
remarkable letters from a Catholic priest. I
have not been told who he is, but it is not very
difficult to conjecture, and, at any rate, his
letters are sufficient to show that he speaks
with authority. How very remarkable, then,
is his statement — how deeply ought that state-
ment to be weighed by the multitudes who have
so blindly asserted that my view has in all ages
been condemned by the Church — that "there is
nothing incompatible with the faith of Catho-
lics" in the view that vast multitudes who
have popularly been considered to fall under
the awful doom of everlasting punishment,
may be withdrawn from it by substituting the
notion of a purgatorial punishment in its place.
How remarkable, again, is the statement that
Catholics may hold " that there are innumer-
able degrees of grace and sanctity among the
saved, and that those who go to purgatory,
however many, die, one and all with the presence
of God's grace and the earnest of eternal life,
ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 319
however invisibly to man, already in their
hearts," so that " faith and repentance may
be believed to exist in many of those who die
and make no sign." And if such an one — one
who is so exceptionally high an authority on
patristic literature — admits that this view was
held " by several of the Fathers," what becomes
of the reckless, cruel, and ignorant assertion
that it is heretical, when it can be proved to
every candid reader that, though thus held,
and universally known to be thus held, by
leaders of orthodoxy like the two Gregories,
yet as a demonstrable, historical fact it has
never been authoritatively condemned ?
I quite agree with Dr. Allon, that the teach-
ing of our Lord respecting a future life can
hardly be settled by the philological analysis
of one or two words. If I have adduced and
examined those words with a view to prove
that their true sense was misunderstood, it is
because I was, for the time being, occupied
with that element of the question which
consists in showing that those words, especially
" Gehenna " and " seonian," not only do not
convey, but in my opinion distinctly exclude,
the senses which have been popularly attached
to them. The common interpretation of them
has indeed been all but universal since the
320 THE WIDER HOPE.
days of St. Augustine ; but this general
consensus is of little value if strong evidence
can be adduced to prove that the original
meaning had become gradually obscured, by
uncritical ignorance, and yet that this original
meaning continued to be maintained, not only
by multitudes of simple Christians, but by
some of the most profound and learned of
Fathers during the earlier centuries. And
surely when Dr. AUon says that our Lord " in
the most absolute manner affirmed, and
intended to affirm, the finality of religious
conditions after death," he must mean (though
he repeats the phrase several times) not "after
death," but "after the Day of Judgment."
I acrree with one of our most eminent and
learned Bishops, who, in a letter on this
subject, remarks how strange it is that any
who profess to be guided by the Bible only
should reject the primitive and catholic belief
of an Intermediary State between death and
judgment. If not one word which our Lord
uttered can be perverted into any statement
of a final decision at the moment of death, 1
should be quite content to leave untouched
the much more tenable — though not, I think,
at all demonstrable — conviction that He left
no hope of alleviation for those who were
ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 821
finally doomed at the Last Assize. And if
Dr. Allon holds it legitimate, nay, imperative,
to introduce limitations into what he calls
"rhetorical passages" of unlimited promise
and hopefulness in St. Paul and St. John, must
it not be far more admissible to refuse (if need
be) a scholastically rigid acceptation to pass-
ages of professed parable and admitted
metaphor? Again, Dr. Allon thinks that, after
all, "finality of moral condition does not imply
unending being, or unending consciousness of
retribution." Yet surely this view is far more
at variance with the prima facie teachings of
Scripture than one which mainly protests
against attaching the conception of " endless-
ness" to a word which, by universal concession,
does not necessarily or generally convey such
a meaning ?
Dr. Eigg is chiefly arguing against Univer-
salism. Now I have said, and I repeat with
all sincerity, that I am not a Universalist. I
do not mean that I condemn the doctrine as
heretical or untenable ; or that 1 do not feel
(can there be such a wretch as not to feel ?') a
longing, yearning desire that it might be true.
But I dare not say that it must be true,
because, as I intimated in my book, no man
has ever explained the present existence of
322 THE WIDER HOPE.
evil, and no man has ever sounded or can
know the abysmal deeps of personality or
" the marvel of the everlasting will."
Dr. Rigg and others seem to fancy that T
have overlooked this mystery of widespread
evil as a factor in the final conclusion. I
should have thought it stood out, terrible and
palpable, on every page of the Fifth Sermon.
The rebukes which bid me not to construct a
God, or a Universe, after my own liking —
even if that liking be guided by all that
Scripture teaches us to regard as most Divine
in the character of God — are to me quite need-
less. It is not I, but the maintainers of the
popular opinion — with all those fearful accre-
tions of it which I hope I shall have helped to
sweep away — who are " wise above what is
written." I take some of the books of God —
Eeason, Conscience, Nature, Experience, His-
tory ; they reveal antinomies which I cannot
solve, and apparent discords which I do not
deny ; but when I turn from them to Scripture,
in which I believe that we hear most clearly
the voice of God speaking through the mind
of man, I find that we are there taught to
trust in God, in spite of all that might seem
at strife with the love and perfectness of His
being ; I find ample grounds for the hope that
ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 323
all apparent discords shall ultimately be
harmonised in one vast concord ; and I do not
find one simple word which, when fairly
examined, sanctions the hideous accumulation
of dark human fancies which have gathered
round the supposed data of a literalism which
was at first inevitably ill-informed and then
became inevitably traditional.-^ The mystery
of the present evil is, indeed, insoluble ; but
does it not become transcendently less insoluble
— does it :_ot produce an infinitely less severe
strain on man's faith in the merciful omnipo-
tence of God — if we are entitled to, nay,
encouraged in, the belief that Evil at last shall
end, and God be Travra kv Tra^nv, all things in all
men f "So at least thought St. Paul," says
Archdeacon Reichel, " if his language means
what it appears to mean. To him the whole
Creation presents itself as travailing in the
1 Since Dr. Rigg doubts my view of Canon Kingsley's
opinions, I must reassert, on the highest authority, that they
were as nearly as possible identical with my own. If any one
desires to satisfy himself respecting that, let him consult his
Water of Life, p. 76, seq.; his Westminster Sermons, and his
Life, i. 318, 319, 371-375, 392-396, 469-471 ; ii. 41, 42, 207
395-397, 446. Whatever apparent contradictions on the
subject may be found in, his writings, as in those of Arch-
bishop Tillotson, and some of the Fathers, I have the best
reas(ms for positively affirming that Dr. Rigg is mistaken as
to the opinion which he held to the very last.
324 THE WIDER HOPE.
Lirtli-throes of something new and better, along
with ourselves who are its highest part. . . .
May not evil be likened to a discord or disson-
ance in the vast harmony of Creation, tolerable,
even beautiful, if resolved into a concord ;
intolerable if taken by itself, or protracted for
ever without such resolution ? " ^
Interpolation hy the Editor,
[Here I slightly reduce the Archdeacon's
"Eeply" from the original version. A paper
by the Rev. S. Cox, D.D. (author of Salvator
Mundi)^ which appeared in The Contemporary
Review, came in at this point, and is not
included in these reprints. The major part ot
the article was a precis of De Quincey's Essay,
which is now given in full at the commence-
ment of this volume. The writer terms it
"one of the most characteristic and charming
of his essays," and remarks that " as De
Quincey is a scholar praised by scholars, it
may be hoped that his authority, and still
more his argument, which seems unanswer-
able, may tell for something, and even for
much, in the present controversy."
Dr. Cox, before concluding, adverts to that
part of Dr. Littledale's " thoughtful paper," in
1 Sermon in St. Patrick's Cathedral, June 28, 1877.
AECHDEACON FARRAK. 325
whicli lie remarks that no sufficient stress has
been laid on the cardinal fact "that the
Scriptures of the New Testament contain two
parallel and often seemingly contradictory
statements as to the Last Things, one of which,
even after being jealously sifted by hostile
criticism, does make for the popular theology,
and another which more than implies a full
restoration, and the final victory of good over
evil."
• • • • •
The author of Salvator Mundi " would ask
those who are thus perplexed in thought to
consider whether their perplexity may not
spring from a common, and perhaps necessary,
feature in revelation of every kind ? Do not
the phenomena always, or almost always, point
in one direction, and the underlying facts or
realities in another? Is anything what it
seems — even light, or sound, or heat ? A
single force vibrating in different ratios, and
therefore manifesting itself in an incalculable
variety of forms, may be our simplest and
truest conception of the material universe ; but
is it the first to present itself to our minds ?
" When, then, we find these conflicting
currents of statement, whether in the Old
326 THE WIDER HOPE.
Testament or in the New, and are compelled
to choose between them, or at least to sub-
ordinate the one to the other, what is the
wiser and the better part ? Surely it is to
lean to the larger, the more generous and
spiritual side of the alternative. If we believe
that ' God is a Spirit,' and that ' God is Love,'
what can we do ? If the Jews would have
done well had they committed themselves to
the deeper current, the larger hope [the writer
here refers to the spiritual reign of the Messiah],
shall not we also do well if, of the two currents
in the Scriptures of the New Testament, we
commit ourselves to that which affirms or
implies a full restoration, and the final victory
of good over evil ? Let those who demur to
that course at least remember that if they were
to treat the texts in the New Testament
which relate to the Supper of the Lord as they
treat the texts which relate to the future
punishment of the wicked, they would infall-
ibly find themselves landed in the doctrine of
Transubstantiation ; or, at the very lowest, in
Luther's somewhat paltry evasion and substitu-
tion for it, the doctrine of Consubstantiation."
"• H.]
Archdeacon Farrar then proceeds to observe
ARCHDEACON FA REAR. 327
that De Quincey states, with clearness and
force, the fact which only prejudice can deny,
that the word ceonian is always coloured by
the substantive to which it is joined. [Here
the " Reply " resumes.] Of all arguments on
this question, the one which appears to me the
most absolutely and hopelessly futile, is the
one in which so many seem to rest with entire
content ; viz. that " eternal or CBonian life "
must mean endless life, and therefore that
** ceonian chastisement " must mean " endless
chastisement." This battered and ao^ed armi-
ment, . . . if it had possessed a particle
of cogency, would not have been set aside as
entirely valueless by such minds as those of
Origen and the two Gregories in ancient
days, nor by multitudes in the days of St.
Augustine and St. Jerome, nor by the most
brilliant thinker among the schoolmen, nor by
many of our greatest living divines.
No proposition is capable of more simple
proof than that ceonian is not a synonym of
endless. It only means, or can mean, in its
'primary sense, jDcrtaining to an ceon, and there-
fore " indefinite," since an CBon may be either
long or short ; and in its secondary sense
*' spiritual," "pertaining to the unseen world,"
*' an attribute of that which is above and
328 THE WIDER HOPE.
beyond time," an attribute expressive not of
duration but of quality. Can such an explan-
ation of the word be denied by any competent
or thoughtful reader of John v. 39 ; vi. 54; xvii.
3; 1 John v. 13, 20? Would not the introduc-
tion of the word "endless" into those Divine
utterances be an unspeakable degradation of
their meaning ? And as for the argument that
the redeemed would thus lose their promised
bliss, it is at once so unscriptural and so selfish
that, after what Mr. Cox and others have said
of it, one may hope that no one will ever be
able to use it again without a blush. I cannot
here diverge into a discussion with Bishop
Wordsworth and Canon Eyle, whose sermons
need some adversaria rather lono;er than I can
here devote to them ; but as they both dwell
on the fact that people who spoke Greek inter-
preted aitovios to mean endless, I reply that
some of the greatest masters of Greek, both in
classical times and among the Fathers, saw
quite clearly that, though the word might
connote endlessness by being attributively
added to endless things, it had in itself
no such meaning. I cannot conceive how
any candid mind can deny the force of
these considerations. If even Origenists
w^ould freely speak of future punishment as
ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 329
atwi/tos but never as anXiVTy^ros} — if, as even
these papers have shown, Plato uses the
word as the antithesis of endlessness — if St.
Gregory of Nyssa uses it as the epithet of
" an interval " — if, as though to leave this
Augustinian argument without the faintest
shadow of a foundation, there are absolutely
two passages of Scripture (Hab. iii. 6 and Eom.
xvi. 25) where this very word occurs in two
consecutive clauses, and is, in the second of
the two clauses, applied to God, and yet is, in
the first of the two clauses, applied to things
which are temporary or terminated — what
shall be said of disputants who still enlist the
controversial services of a phantom which has
been so often laid in the tomb from which it
ought never again to emerge ? How is it that
not one out of the scores of writers who have
animadverted on my book have so much as
noticed the very remarkable fact to which I
have called attention, that those who followed
Origen in holding out a possible hope beyond
the grave founded their argument for the ter-
minahility of torments on the acknowledged
sense of this very word, and on the fact that
other words and phrases which do unmistak-
1 Not areAeuTatos, a word known to Dr. Littledale, but not
to the Greek language.
330 THE WIDER HOPE.
ably mean endless are used of the duration of
good, but are never used of the duration of
evil ? 1
Of the carping verbal criticism to which
Professor Birks has descended, I take no notice.
I have already alluded to what he says about
my " loose massing of authorities," and to the
entire misconception which he shares with
Professor Salmon as to my reason for betraying
" a dislike of any element of sensible pain in
the punishment of the future." I am sorry
that he should charge me with *' vehement
invective and gushes of indignant declamation
against those simple believers in the Bible,
who dare not give up any part of the creed of
their childhood till they see surer grounds for
rejecting it than the unwillingness of sinful
hearts to believe anything so alarming, and an
offered choice, in its stead, of three or four
contradictory alternatives which exclude each
other." I fear that this sentence proves that
Professor Birks has not, even in the school of
persecution, himself learned that " caution, and
patience of thought, and exclusion of hasty
speech," which he preaches to me. He will
not find in my book a word of invective against
^ Cnesarius, Dial. 3, in Huet's Origeniana (0pp. ed. Paris,
iv. 233).
ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 331
'' simple believers," though he will find what
he calls invective and declamation against
errors which I believe to be at dang-erous vari-
ance with that revelation which God has given
us of Himself in His Son. On the contrary,
he will find that, in order to represent the
^' horribile deci-etum" in its very best light, 1
gave it originally, not in the language of
modern pulpiteers, but in the powerful images
of men of splendid genius. No names could
have been selected which lent more lustre to
the false theology of revolting, vindictive,
material tormeuts than those of Dante, Shak
speare, Jeremy Taylor, and Milton ; and no
names certainly which I regard with a warmer
love or a deeper reverence. And if this were
not a sufficiently obvious proof that I did not
dream of attacking those who held even the
most abhorrent and the most unscriptural
accretioDs to the belief in hell, I expressly
said that I knew them to be held in deep
sorrow by many good, holy, and loving Chris-
tians. I need not stoop to refute the uncharit-
able insinuations that I reject these inferences
because I reo;ard them as " alarming;," or
because I share the prevalent tendency to set
aside the warnings of God. If my Fifth
Sermon does not suffice to show the utter base-
332 THE WIDER HOPE.
lessness of such innuendoes, I am more than con-
tent to leave them unanswered. There are some
criticisms which are sheltered from refutation
by disdain. And yet how strange it is that
Professor Birks, determined to use a two-edged
sword, goes on to say that I myself adopt the
very method of those whose terrible jDictures I
reprobate, when I speak of the horrors of that
disease which is God's executioner on - drunk-
enness. Well, but in the first place, the
description is not mine at all ! It is simply
quoted from the pages of one whose name I
purposely suppressed, because he has not only
seen, but actually suflered from, this frightful
retribution. Has Professor Birks never seen
it ? Alas ! I have, and that in women ! And
did it never even occur to him that I at least
was alluding to facts which no human being
has ever dreamt of denying, while in my
opinion Dante and Jeremy Taylor were allud-
ing to the unwarranted and faith-destroying
fictions of human fancy which are now rejected
(as Professor Birks himself admits) by the
almost unanimous conviction of mankind ?
*' But," says Professor Birks, "the Scriptures
give us no pattern of such ' ghastly ' modes of
impressing their warnings ! " One might have
read such a sentence without surprise had it
ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 333
beeu written by a sceptical layman, but it is
very surprising indeed when written by a
Cambridge theologian. Has Professor Birks
never so much as read Deut. xxviii. 28-35, or
Prov. xxiii. 26-35, or Isa. i. 4-6, or Isa. li.
17-20 ? Might not multitudes of such pas-
sages have recurred to his memory had he
been less eager to find fault ?
I could adduce many more passages in
which Professor Birks has not been just in
his criticisms. At the close, for instance, of
his paper he says that " the practical creed
of millions is Universalism," and thinks that
my involuntarily published volume will "give
fresh currency to some of the worst elements
of a widespread popular delusion" — that namely,
which, under the name of religious consola-
tion, tells sorrowing relatives that every one
" except a few prodigious wretches," has gone
straight to heaven. Now as to the fact here
alluded to, it is indisputable, and it ought to
demonstrate how utterly inoperative, how
worse than useless, is the popular doctrine,
because it is so often instinctively rejected at
the very moment when it should have been
most effective. But this is the very kind of
hypocrisy which I abhor, and the very kind
of consolation which I never use. When in-
deed I find a woman mourning for a drunkard,
334 THE- WIDER HOPE.
whom yet slie loved, — and driven into wretcli-
lessness by thinking that he is burning in end-
less flames, — although I should try to soften
the agony of that hard desjDair by the gleam
of possible ultimate hope which I think that
God Himself has lighted in the mysterious
gloom of the sinner's future, I should never
dream of holding out any hope to her that he
had gone to bliss. He had suffered retribu-
tion in this world — terrible retribution; and if
that had failed to win him, he might have to
suffer a continuance of that terrible retribution
hereafter. But I should certainly not exclude
a hope that at least in the Intermediate State
God's love revealed in Christ might find him
ere the last great day. And as for the common
run of men — imperfect, faulty, not saints but
sinners, yet with many possibilities of good —
I should be content to say that wherever they
were, and whatever might be the retribution
which their sins had incurred, they were
** taken to the mercy of the Merciful." I
never met with any saying about death which
seemed to me at once more tender and more
reverent than that of F. W. Eobertson : " He
is gone. . . . Why should we have wished
him to remain a little longer ? Better surely
as it is. And as to the eternal question — we
ARCHDEACON FAERAR. 335
know of him all that we can ever know of any
one removed beyond the veil which shelters
the unseen from the pryings of curiosity —
that he is in the hands of the wise and loving.
Spirit has mingled with spirit. A child, more
or less erring, has gone home. Unloved hij his
Father f Believe it who may, that will
not /."
I come lastly to. Professor Gracey. He too
indulges in verbal criticism, to which I have
neither space nor inclination to reply, though
I think I could give him a very satisfactory,
and even important, explanation of some
passages which he seems to regard as mere
nonsense. When he thinks that he "under-
stands my ignorance," he is only " ignorant of
my understanding." But let me say in reply
to his concluding page, that I am not at all
ashamed of not having "mastered every doubt."
I came with no compact system ; no flawless
theodicy. No such is to be had. My object
was very different. It was to show that things
which were taught as Scriptural were as
unwarranted by Scripture as they were by
the confession of even Calvin and Jonathan
Edwards, agonizing to the conscience, abhor-
rent to the reason of mankind. Professor
Gracey is not content with Hope. Does he
336 THE WIDER HOPE.
then prefer Despair ? He says that possible
CB071S of retribution furnish a dismal look-out —
a fearful looking-for. Undoubtedly it is so,
and I do not think that God meant it to be
otherwise. But does Professor Gracey thiuk
it more consoling to accept the retribution as
unending f If not, his last eloquent sentences
are to me entirely unintelligible. He thinks
that I have offered but a weak basis for seonian
Hope ; but I need not surely remind him that
hope is not certainty, is not even faith. "For
we are saved by hope : but hope that is seen
is not hope ; for what a man seeth, why doth
he yet hope for? But if we hope for that
we see not, then do we with patience wait
for it."
The three remaining papers powerfully
support what I desired to maintain. Professor
Mayor has written with the learning a.nd
thoughtfulness which we should have expected
from him, and has dealt ably with points
which 1 left untouched. Mr. Beresford Hope,
alone of all my critics, points out a decided
omission in my treatment of the subject, and
I hail with deep thankfulness his declared
belief that *' all reason, all experience, all
Scripture, unite in the teaching that the
Divine work of discipline goes on behind as
AnCHDEACON FARRAR. 337
well as before the veil." The remarks of the
Layman deserve the very earnest considera-
tion of all who desire above all things to be
faithful, honest, and true.
I have finished my task, and have not con-
sciously left a single objection without reply.
And now I ask, What have the writers who did
not hold my opinion effected by their criti-
cisms ? Not one of them has touched, much
less attempted to set aside, the proof wdiich I
adduced for my palmary argument, that w^e
must mean by " hell " what our Lord meant by
Gehenna, and that Gehenna did not mean
endless torment. In spite of unfair deprecia-
tion, I venture to say that, hastily as my book
was produced, no modern writer has furnished
a fuller contribution from Jewish testimonies
to the decision of this important question ;
and if this position cannot be shaken, how
strongly does it tell in favour of Eternal Hope ?
Again, which of my critics has overthrown,
or even attempted to overthrow^, the various
arguments founded on the uses of the words
Olam and aio.v or alwvio'i] And wdiich of them
has produced the article of Creed, or decree of
Council, or decision of our Church, which dim-
inishes the force of the distinct historic proof
that this view, even when least popular, has
338 THE WIDER HOPE.
never been considered as untenable ? And
which of them has attempted to disprove that
the splendid name of Butler, so often invoked
against us, is absolutely on our side? And
which of them has weakened the testimony of
the many distinct passages which favour, nay
distinctly imply, an Eternal Hope ? And
which of them has even attempted to refute
the exegesis which shows the Trp^rov ip^dSos of
post- Reformation traditionalism? It may
comfort and harden those who love and cling
to the current dogmatism on endless torments
— it may effectually blind their eyes from any
enlightenment as to the real meaning of Scrip-
ture — it may disastrously prevent them from
having those noble thoughts of God and large
hopes for redeemed humanity which seem to
me to be of the essence of religion, — to be
told that not we only, but also all the great
saints and lofty souls who have believed in a
salvation by faith and hope, have only repeated
the lie of the old serpent, "Thou shalt not
surely die ; " or that we are robbing ' the
blessed of their hope of bliss ; or that Scripture
could not have tised clearer language (!) to
express the endless duration of penal torments ;
or that the non-endlessness of punishment is
(in spite of the highest decision to the con-
ARCHDEACON FARE A R. 839
trary) irreconcilable with the language of the
Prayer-book ; or that God's justice is the
antithesis of His love ; or that His justice
demands the endlessness of misery ; or that we
only reject endless torments because we do not
like them ; or " which of the two shall we
believe — Satan the father of lies, or Jesus
Christ, who is truth?" and so on, and so on.
But all this is not argument. It is not even
the shadow of argument* It may stereo-
type the bigotry of ignorance, and render
impregnable the obstinacy of prepossession,
but it will not have a feather's weight in the
ultimate decision. " Believe me that there is
nothing which Satan more desires than that
we should believe that there is no such place as
hell and no such thing as eternal torments.
He whispers all this into our ears, and he
exults when he hears a layman, and much
more when he hears a clergyman, deny these
things. For then he hopes to make them and
others his victims'' So writes Bishop Words-
worth. " Speetatum admissi , . . ?" Settino-
aside the excessively loose, inaccurate, and
misleading statement of my opinions — if
indeed (as I am informed) the sentence was
meant for me, — one would have said, had the
language been used by any one less to be hon-
340 THE WIDEU HOPE.
oured than so estimable and learned a prelate
— one would have said —
" Hie nigrse saccus loliginis, hsec est
^rugo mera. Quod vitium procul afore chartis
Atque animo prills, lit si quid promittere de me
Possum aliud vere, proraitto."
And when Canon Eyle says, " At the end of
six thousand years the greaf enemy of man-
kind is still using his old weapon (tlie daring
falsehood * Ye shall not surely die ') to persuade
men that they may live and die in sin, and yet
at some distant period finally be saved" — one
would have said of so glaring an abuse of that
text (which would tell equally against any who
preached the Forgiveness of Sins), and of this
attribution of a primitive Catholic opinion to
the devil, and this identification of those who
hold it (saints though many of them have
been, in nowise inferior in holiness to Canon
Ryle) with the devil's emissaries — one would
have said of him who spoke thus, had he been
a less excellent man than the vigorous and
worthy Canon,
" Hie niger est ; hunc tu, Romane, caveto."
But it is more charitable to refuse to treat
such remarks as serious. What would Canon
Eyle say were I to charge him with repeating
the devil's daring falsehood, when (as I suppose)
ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 841
he teaches that men may live in sin, and yet
not die, but even on the bed of death be saved
by repentance ? I should be every whit as
much justified in saying this to him, as he is
in saying it to me ; for he holds exactly what
I hold, that men may be saved from death,
upon repentance, by Christ's merits, even
though they have sinned. But one is accus-
tomed to this style of theological discussion,
and one can make large allowance. One could
hardly expect that eminent teachers should
confess that they have been mistaken all their
lives, and, abdicating the papacy of their
infallible opinions, should go humbly back to
ignorance again. Yet we all ought to do this
if necessary. But let those who cannot accept
our hope learn at least a deeper wisdom and a
truer charity in the attempt to refute it. To
go on repeating such arguments of the Dark
Ages as those w^hich I have quoted is to rely
on bows and arrows in a battle-field swept over
its wdiole surface from every point of vantage
by the mighty artillery of modern war. They
may identify us, if it so pleases them, with the
emissaries of Satan ; but certain passages of
the Gospel in which the Pharisees were blas-
phemously guilty of a similar identification
might make them pause and tremble, lest in so
342 THE WIDER HOPE.
doing they should be guilty of a very frightful
sin. But we shall not retaliate. Do they love
God ? So do we. Do they put their trust in
Christ ? So do we. But, let them denounce
as they will, our hope for ourselves and our
fellow-men proves this only — that our trust in
the love of God is deeper, our faith in the
efficacy of Christ's Redemption is stronger and
larger, than is theirs.
iEONIAN METEMPSYCHOSIS
XIX.
JEONIAN ME TEMPS YCHOSIS,
(Sequel) By FRANCIS PEEK.
Whatever may be the formal verdict passed
l)y the religious world upon the controversy
on Canon Farrar s book, we may safely
predict one practical result from it, namely,
that those grossly material views of the
future state until lately so general, and
which are still held by many persons who
claim peculiar orthodoxy, will have received
a further blow. If any proof were needed
that the spirit of this theology still exists,
not in one, but in many churches, it may
be found in the extracts given by Mr. Jukes
in his work. The Restitution of all Things.
Some of the horrible details there cited are
hardly, if at all, exceeded by the teaching of
the Koran as to the future state ; which, for
example, says — " That unbelievers will be
cast into a place of fire, where they will be
345
346 THE WIDER HOPE.
burned for ever, and that, as fast as the old
skin is consumed, God will provide them with
another, in order that they may never cease
to suffer the full intensity of the torment."
Surely, in the face of the shocking beliefs often
put forward publicly, it was high time for an
authoritative discussion of the matter.
Before going further, it may be well to deal
with a preliminary point. One of Canon
Farrar s critics blames him because, while
expressing himself so severely against the
doctrine of future material torment, he does
not show equal repugnance to the idea of
future mental or spiritual suffering, the objector
justly observing that this is really often more
hard to bear than bodily pain. No one, we
think, will deny this. It will be seen, how-
ever, on a little consideration, that we are
here dealing with two ideas between which
there is a vast difference. Let us look at the
subject closer. According to the old orthodox
view, every unconverted being becomes sub-
ject at death to " material " torture, and this
for ever. There are, as respects the fate itself,
no distinctions, no qualifications. The bright,
kindly youth, the attractive, amiable girl, the
noble-hearted patriot, the philanthropist, all,
if not actually in the state of a true believer,
FRANCIS PEEK. 347
share the same fate with the worst of the race,
the only partial exception being those totally
ignorant of God's will. Stated nakedly, this
idea of God's character is so horrible, that, at
ever}^ step, we seem to want evidence of its
being really held by anybody ; but those who
are conversant with the literature of a large
section of the religious world, know it is only
too prevalent. It is brought out with revolting
vividness in a little book published a few years
since, entitled Grace and Truth, the sale of
which is stated to have reached 115,000
copies.^ The details given in its pages only
1 The following extracts are from the above-named book,
which is by W. P. Mackay, who describes himself as "a
minister of tlie Gospel : " —
"You, educated, amiable lady, in God's sight, are just the
same as the vilest profligate ; just the same belbre God as that
man you heard about who was hanged for murdering his wife.
This is most terrible, but it is <?-we" (page 4).
"If you had lived for fifty years without committing one
sin or having one wrong wish or thought, and just then you
had an evil thought, and afterwards lived another fifty years
and died, aged one hundred, with only this one evil thought
(not even a word or an action), when you came to stand before
God in judgment, He would put you beside all the offscour-
ings of the earth, men who for a hundred years never had a
good thought, and He would say, ^ There is no difference^ ^
(page 7).
"Your name may have been written on the communion-roll
of any or all the Churches, or it may luwe been written in
348 THE WIDER HOPE.
fall short of the culminating statement of the
old Calvinistic preacher, who, carrying the
doctrine to its logical conclusion, declared that
there are in hell babes a span long.
No doubt, it would be admitted, even by
such teachers as these, that there is some
difference in the intensity of punishment ;
some being beaten with few, and others with
many stripes. This mitigation, however,
must not be pushed too far. To make the
theory consistent, its upholders assume tha.t
the few stripes are simply less extreme punish-
ment, but still eternal, only differing from the
many stripes in that the latter are more
severe.
Putting on one side, for the present, the
question of duration, it will be found that as
soon as the idea of material punishment is got
rid of, and that of spiritual suffering, whether
temporary or enduring, is substituted, we have,
as above hinted, passed into another region.
Our views as regards God's dealings with men
become after that substitution altogether
the sheets (jf the Newgate conviction-book for murderers, but
* there is no difference.' The lake of fire levels all distinctions.
In hell, and perhaps only there, for the first time, you will
believe that 'there is qw difference.' Every one believes it
there" (paL;el3).
FUANCIS PEEK. 849
clearer. We are tlien able to realise that tlie
punishment, in the very nature of it, rests
upon the just principle of consequence, that
the fruit is the result of the seed sown. The
belief then becomes this, that evil deeds justly
result in suffering exactly proportioned to the
kind and the amount of guilt ; and this truth,
once grasped, throws a new light upon our life,
both present and future. By its aid, we can
even calmly contemplate the death of those
whose life we cannot but acknowledge to have
been a failure, since we knov that the punish-
ment they have brought upon themselves,
beinor the exact outcome of their conduct, will
be, both in kind and in amount, such as a
most perfectly just, wise, and loving God
approves — such, moreover, as the sufferer him-
self, could he be brought to see things in the
light of Divine love and w^isdom, would
acknowledge to be necessary and entirely
consistent with these qualities.
It is worthy of remark, incidentally, that
a strange confusion prevails in the views of
certain theologians regarding the qualities of
justice and mercy. Statements are made as
if it were possible that those qualities could in
some way clash or be contrary to each other ;
but it must be admitted that as justice would
350 I HE WIDER HOPE.
cease to be perfect if swayed one hair's-breadth
by mercy, so it equally would do if it yielded
in the slig-htest degree to vindictiveness.
Apply this reasoning to the case before us.
Perfect justice in the Supreme Being must
include what we call mercy, which, if rightly
considered, is only the full recognition by
omniscient love of every circumstance that
can mitigate directly or indirectly the fault
of the criminal, and it would be impossible for
God to stop short of this without forfeiting
all claim to be perfectly just. Indeed, the
only true hope as well as the greatest comfort
which man possesses, is his confidence in this
perfect justice of his Creator, not a justice of
a kind that we are unable in any sense to
understand, but the quality as it is understood
amongst men, and seen here to be enforced by
the Divine law. Were God's justice in
reference to the life hereafter different from
that which He has held up for man's admira-
tion and imitation in this world, the name and
the attribute would be alike unintelligible to us.
Result of the Recent Controversy,
If we now go a step further, and pass from
the consideration of views soon, it is to be
hoped, doomed to become obsolete, and ask
FRANCIS PEEK, 351
what light the recent controversy has thrown
upon the actual state of belief in authoritative
quarters to-day as to future punishment, v/e at
once note that it is now acknowledged by most
thoughtful men, that the final condition of in-
dividuals cannot always be justly determined
in the brief time allotted to them on earth.
To that view we ourselves at once adhere. It
surely becomes a rational conclusion, when we
bear in mind how comparatively few of the
human race in each generation have any really
adequate opportunity of attaining to that faith
which is declared to be necessary to salvation,
and even of those few who may be said to be
within the sound and influence of the Gospel,
a small proportion indeed attain in their char-
acter to that likeness to the spirit of Christ
which the Scriptures declare is the only proof
of an acceptable faith and an essential qual-
ification for eternal life. Are not these the
plain facts of the case ? In the rest of man-
kind, we behold every variety of character,
ranging from the kind-hearted unselfish man
of the world — whom we must in so far admire,
for his life displays in those respects the same
spirit that was in Christ — down to the heart-
less, cruel sensualist, from whom those who
know him best shrink in horror and aversion.
352 THE WIDER HOPE.
To maintain that these differing characters,
and all others intervening between them,
living for such different periods of time, — some
cut off at the earliest dawn of responsibility,
some dying in extreme old age, — share at
death the same doom, is to shock every idea
of righteousness and justice, and to set up the
worship of a dreadful Moloch in the place of
that of an equitable, loving God.
So far as to the general conclusion which
the controvery has to our thinking clearly
made out. But there are yet the details.
Among the many theories wdiich have been
suggested trying to solve, by the supposition
of an intermediate state, the difficulty of some
men passing out of this world so imperfect, no
mention was made of one w^hich has neverthe-
less much to be said in its support, and w^hich
ought to be set forth, if the discussion is to
have anything like completeness. But before
stating it, a little clearing of the way is needful.
The Metaphors of Revelation,
The Bible revelation, it will be granted, is
comparatively silent as regards eternity, either
stretching back in the past or towards the
future. In this it is in striking contrast to its
teaching as to our present life and conduct,
FRANCIS PEEK. 353
which is clear and precise. Certainly it gives
us no clue by which to solve that greatest of
all mysteries, the origin of evil, and in all that
it says concerning the future existence, it
speaks only in metaphor and parable. For
example, we find it, when describing the abode
and condition of the blest, speaking of a place
of rest in which praise never ceases ; a Paradise
where there is no death, and in which the Tree
of Life grows abundantly on each side of a
stream of living water for the healing of the
nations ; a golden City, the breadth and the
length and the height of which are equal, pro-
tected by gates of pearl that are never shut by
day, although there is no night there. Re-
garding the state and place of the unblessed
dead, it tells of a bottomless pit, an eternal
death, an awaking to shame and everlast-
ing contempt, an everlasting destruction, a
Gehenna of fire, where the refuse of Jerusalem
is consumed with continual burning, of a field
of carnage, such as followed the great battle of
Gog and Magog in the prophetic vision, of a
place where the dead bodies of the men who
have ofi'ended are beheld undergoing perpetual
consumption by the undying worm and the
unquenchable fire. In reference to those who
in life professed to know Christ, but who
354 THE WIDER HOPE.
possessed so little of His Spirit, that tliey
did not imitate Him in His sympathy with
eai^thly suffering, and made no personal effort
to administer to the hungry and thirsty, the
sick and the prisoner, it speaks of a departure
from Him into everlasting fire prepared for the
devil and liis angels. All this is very solemn
in its significance. These are Figures indeed,
but terrible ones, representing, as they must
do, awful realities.
Definite TeacJmigs of the Bible.
That is one side of the Scriptural presenta-
tion ; there is another complementing it. Be-
sides this symbolical teaching as to the future,
there is the Divine revelation regarding the
past of the race. The statements, as we have
said, are not very full, but something is told
us of what happened far back, as well as of
the present spiritual condition of man, and
the meaus needful for his salvation. It tells
us of a Fall, resulting in hereditary corruption,
a truth which finds confirmation in every good
man's struggle with temptation, and is effec-
tively illustrated in every bad man's history.
It speaks of salvation from this corruption
through spiritual union with One who is
the Prince of Life — the Son of God — who has
FRANCIS PEEK. 355
taken upon Himself the human form to save
the human race. Through His lips it gives us,
in one long, matchless sermon, a perfect moral
code which, if only universally obeyed, would
produce on earth a paradise of peace and
happiness. It pictures — in colours so vivid
that many an unbeliever in its contemplation
has been compelled to bow his head in rever-
ence — a human life admittedly too perfect for
the human mind to have ever conceived — a
Divine love so amazing that it forced the
Apostle, who of all men most grasped its ful-
ness, to sum up Christian perfection in the
comprehension of the breadth and length and
depth and height of the love of Christ, which
passes knowledge I Whatever separate action
of this recorded life we contemplate, we recog-
nise in it perfection, absolute justice, fullest
dignity, completest truth, and a love exhaust-
less, both in its human and Divine aspects.
This amazing perfection was sufficiently tested.
During thirty years of a life of trial and suffer-
ing we can discover no failure in it ; and at
the very close each attribute becomes intensi-
fied as He hangs upon a malefactors cross,
suffering every variety of pain, in order-— as we
believe — that the Divine Man might be able
to rescue every soul that will accept Him from
356 THE WIDER HOPE.
death, both temporal and eternal. This is the
main Scriptural revelation by which all the
details must be tried ; and where the human
heart is not altogether dead in selfishness, the
proclamation of this cross of love has never
failed to draw men to Christ. The record
presents this picture to us, with the simple
precept, Believe on Him, and life eternal is
yours. Not indeed that it is offered as an
arbitrary reward, but only as a consequence,
since true belief involves, through daily
struggle, a gradual conforming to His Spirit,
and the union thence existing implies the
destruction of selfishness or sin, which is
death, and the beginning of righteousness,
which is life. A soul once united by faith to
the perfect Christ, and so made a partaker of
His life, can never die. For it there can be no
purgatorial pains, no re-incarnation is neces-
sary. *' Where Christ is, there shall His ser-
vant be," and, as the worn-out tenement of
matter falls away, the real man must rise,
deathless and immortal, to be " for ever with
his Lord."
Such, freed from all excrescences, is, we
hold, the ideal creed intended for the whole
Catholic Church, but as we look away from its
contemplation and gaze around, there are per-
FRANCIS PEEK. 357
plexities. How often must every thoughtful
mind have felt almost crushed at the apparent
inconsistency of the existence of such a world
as this is under the dominion of such a God
as the New Testa.ment discloses ? While pon-
dering on the myriads who have abeady
passed away even during the last eighteen
centuries, to whom even the Name of Christ
was never know^n ; while viewing the apparent
triumph everywhere of evil over good, the
corruption, the baseness, and degradation
everywhere abounding, the never-ceasing tales
of innocence corrupted, of villany successful,
the poor robbed, the weak oppressed, how can
we keep thoughts and speculations from arising
unbidden, as to how such a condition of things
can be reconciled with the rule of an almighty
and all-loving; God ? Pass throuo^h the lanes
and alJeys of our great cities and see the
wretched children of profligate parents, half-
clad, half-starved, covered with sores, foul
both in body and mind, to w^hom the very
Name of God is known only as an introduc-
tion to a fiercer curse, or a more cruel blow.
Wander through the wards of such an asylum
as Earlswood, and contemplate the forms of
the drivelling idiots, sitting through life list-
lessly in chairs, from which they may never
358 THE WIDER HOPE.
rise till tlieir day of doom, and presenting
human fiices from which humanity is absent,
yet who still are recognised as members of the
human race, since otherwise they would have
to be destroyed as useless and loathsome
animals. Viewing such sights as these, we
cannot but speculate and conjecture, as the
disciples of old did when, looking upon the
man who was born blind, and remembering
that their Divine law declared that the sins of
the fathers were visited upon the children,
they asked, " Master, who did sin, this man or
his parents, that he was born blind ? " The
reply of Christ to this question is not a little
remarkable. He does not say, " Your ques-
tion is foolish ; how could the man have
sinned before his birth ? " but He replies,
*' Neither hath this man sinned, nor his
parents, but that the works of God might be
made manifest in him." This is a form of words
which certainly permits the conjecture that,
as some cases of suffering were undoubtedly
caused by the parents' sin, so in reference to
some others there mis^ht be such a thins; as
sin before birth visited by suffering from and
after birth. On the other hand, Christ does
not satisfy the curiosity of His inquirers, and
therefore any speculations of this kind regard-
FRANCIS PEEK. 359
ing the past or future must be held as con-
jectures only, although they may be to some
extent of use, if they suggest a ]possible
solution of some of the difficulties which
trouble us in these matters ; and with this
view auy theory may well be discussed.
Theoi^y of an Intermediate State,
Among those holding the necessity for an
intermediate state, it has for loug been gener-
ally supposed that such a state must be
spiritual, and therefore be under different
conditions from those of the present world.
But to this opinion forcible objections have
been urged. For instance, it is said that for
man, as w^e know him here, Christ took upon
Himself a human form to die ; and that there
appears no reason why discipline in an inter-
mediate state without a body should change
the depravity of character w^hich had been
contracted in a physical frame. Or to use the
words of Canon Eyle, as recently published : —
" There seems nothing in such an intermediate state to bridge
the wide gulf between natural man and his perfect Maker, to
effect the enormous spiritual change which every cliihl of
Adam nmst go through if he is to dwell for ever in God's
presence ; and thcie is an utter absence of any information in
the Bible that this change can take place after death."
360 THE WIDER HOPE,
Metempsychosis.
The question is, whether there is not a mode
of meeting these difficulties. Cannot the ob-
jections, regarded as intellectual ones only, be
done away by giving to the supposed inter-
mediary state an earthly location ? It is not
maintained that this theory will solve every
difficulty, especially that fundamental one as
to the origin of evil in eternity and its per-
mitted entrance into this world ; but if it is
conceived that, not in another sphere, not as
spirits only, but by re-incarnation in this very
world, those who have failed in past lives may,
again and again if need be, return to undergo
seonian punishment on earth till the Gospel
reaches their hearts, and sets them free for
ever, the whole question takes on another aspect.
The idea of metempsychosis contains nothing
new. It is a dogma of many religions, and
was once, in the early centuries, held in a
certain form among Christians. The most re-
markable view of it, of course, is the Buddhist
doctrine, which teaches that all life is an evil,
and that each individual at any stage of being
is but the embodim^ent of the defects of his
former existence ; so that, when all defects of
character have been overcome, there beins; no-
FRANCIS PEEK. 361
thing left upon which a new life can be formed,
existence will cease for ever — the individual
attaining Nirvana.
There is nothing inconsistent with natural
or revealed religion in the mere idea of metem-
psychosis. As we have already shown, the
words of Christ Himself, in one case at least,
suggest its possibility, and the teachings of
nature give many hints of the process of such
a change as is involved in the idea. The ele-
ments of a tree, when the old body decays,
return to their primary uses and form similar
structures ; and the chemist can point out
numberless instances where elements that have
become corrupted, and undergo the changes of
death, return to form parts of similar bodies.
There appears no reason, in the nature of the
case, wh)^ the spirit of a man who has failed
in one short period of existence should not
return from Hades (or the place of departed
spirits) to be incorporated once more at birth
in an infantile body, under the decree of
Divine justice, to suffer punishment in strict
accordance v/ith the character of a past life.
On this hypothesis we should have a
Dives entering into the body of a Lazarus,
condemned to suffer the same poverty and
wretchedness which he selfishly left unaided ; —
362 THE WIDER HOPE.
the grand lord or lady who, amidst wealth and
splendour, passed their time in frivolity and
sin, in corrupting the innocent and increasing
the misery of the world, would be re-born
children of the vicious and profligate, justly
obliged to suffer, in poverty, wretchedness, and
woe, the penalty of their own past sins, while
no less fulfilling that strange law of God's
government, the visitation of the parents' sins
upon their children. Carrying out the con-
ception a stage further, it may be that, in
looking upon the repulsive face of the drivel-
ling idiot, we may be beholding the re-incar-
nation of one who, like Byron, abused his
glorious gift of genius to corrupt and degrade
mankind.
At any rate, — and it is this which gives to
the speculation a chief part of its intellectual
interest, — this theory offers a seeming explana-
tion of the extraordinary inequalities which
meet us every day, not only in adults, but in
the condition and even in the character of
infants and very young children. Take the
latter point. In the same family we see the
strangest differences. Some of the children
are born apparently more or less of a cruel and
malignant disposition ; others at the earliest
tacre show themselves most amiable, unselfish.
FRANCIS PEEK. 363
and affectionate. Again, some children are
born in homes of vice and profligacy where it
would seem nothing short of a* miracle could
save them from degradation, while others are
born to happiness and prosperity, in Christian
families where every influence is beneficial.
In this way, too, an explanation seems to be
offered of the instinctive desire for children,
which, on any technical theological view — at
any rate, any of those held among Christians
who believe that the great majority are born
to everlasting suffering — is inexplicable. If it
is not necessarily a new spirit that comes into
the world, to run the risk of defilement through
a life which both Christians and unbelievers
unite in describing as almost universally
involving more suffering than joy, and often
meaning intense misery, but, instead, may be
the re-incarnation of a spirit that has previously
failed (perhaps of one already loved and wept
over as lost), and which has now another
opportunity, through the ministry of the
Gospel, of being brought into communion with
Christ, and thus escaping for ever from this
world and entering the joy of heaven — then
every Christian would indeed desire the pos-
session of children. And if we push the hypo-
thesis to its extreme, it may be to what may seem
364 THE WIDER HOPE.
it's grotesque limit, it might account for the
extraordinary disappearance of the aborigines
before the advance of higher types of humanity ;
the aborigines gradually dis^ippearing in order
to be re-incarnated, and thus gradually to
advance, through contact with Christianity,
to a higher life. It would also throw light
upon the chief mystery which must have sorely
puzzled every thoughtful mind, the long-con-
tinued existence of this evil and sufFerinor
world, explaining how, notwithstanding all the
evil and all the suffering which have since
occurred, the Bible speaks of the salvation of
Noah in the ark as an act of mercy, whereas if
the orthodox view is correct, it has been the
cause of endless misery to countless millions
of human beings.
Mysterious History of the Jeivish People,
Further, it accounts for the mysterious
history of the Jewish people. Eighteen
centuries ago they invoked the curse of the
innocent blood of Christ on themselves and
on their children ; and they have, ever since,
sufifered its awful punishment, being for long
ages objects of cruel oppression among all
nations, and still continuing so in some regions,
although in intellectual power and most moral
FRANCIS PEEK. 8G5
qualities the Jews are inferior to no people.
Can it be that in this ease the proverb that
Ezekiel so indignantly repudiated on God's
behalf is true, and that, because eighteen
hundred years ago the fathers ate sour grapes,
the children's teeth have ever since been set on
edge, or is it possible that during all these
generations the very men who rejected their
Saviour have been suffering seonian retribution
for their crime ? When perfect virtue appeared
in human form they hated it and crucified
it, and, according to the principle of this spec-
ulation, they would justly, age after age, suffer
in every form of cruel oppression from the
spirit of that robber whom they preferred to
Christ, and will be still condemned thus to
suffer, with only such modifications as God's
providence sees wise, till the veil is taken away
and the last time comes, once dimly foreseen
by the Apostle, when in prophetic rapture he
exclaimed : " If the casting away of them be
the reconciling of the world, what shall the
receiving of them be, but life from the dead ?
. . . And so all Israel shall be saved. . . .
For God hath concluded them all in unbelief
that He might have mercy upon all." This
stupendous statement would seem far too large
to apply only to that insignificant number of
366 THE WIDER HOPE.
Jews who may be alive at the time of the
restoration, but rather to point to some grander
exhibition of the mercy of God, of which, in-
deed, the Apostle seems to have caught one
dazzling glimpse as the prophetic vision faded
from his view, and left him with the exclam-
ation on his lips : *' Oh the depth of the riches
both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ;
how unsearchable are His judgments, and His
ways past finding out !"
Predictions as to the End of the World,
This theory of metempsychosis would make
it easier to understand those mysterious state-
ments found scattered throughout the inspired
book, which seem to foretell a great increase
in wickedness as the end of the world
approaches — predicting that, instead of pro-
gressing in virtue, as might be expected, it
shall wax worse and worse till, like Sodom and
Gomorrah, few, if any, righteous can be found
in it — and also throw light on that saying of
our Lord regarding the time of the end,
which He declares shall be when the Gospel
shall have been preached to every nation. It
would also make plainer St. Paul's statement
regarding the development of the mystery of
iniquity, which it is declared shall be destroyed
FRANCIS PEEK. 367
by the brightness of the Lord at His Second
Coming. The explanation which is pointed to
is that when every soul has had every possible
opportunity which perfect love and justice can
afford, the world and all that remains in it
would be burnt up. May not this include the
obstinate and impenitent who have resisted
through ages every painful discipline and every
presentation of the Gospel of love, and of
whom, indeed, it may then be w^ell said, " Itwere
good for such that they had never been born"?
Here we stop, having no intention to push the
matter further than the statement of it as an
intellectual speculation bearing on this contro-
versy.
Conversion.
Perhaps some may be prepared to raise the
objection that there is no reason for supposing
that a man wdio has failed in one life will
repent and attain salvation in another. But
a little thought will show that this objection
does not apply. Hundreds and thousands of
our best men have only become Christians
comparatively late in life — often after many
years of thoughtlessness and sin. Had these
been cut off in youth or early manhood, as
many millions of others less guilty than them-
selves were, they would, according to the
368 THE WIDER HOPE.
ortlioclox view, be now in endless, hopeless
torment ; the mere fact that their lives w^ere
preserved for a few years having, if the old
view be supposed true, made for them the
awful difference between endless bliss and
endless torture. But the matter may be
stated more widely than this. Who can deny
that the salvation of each soul has some
reference to the circumstances in w^hich it is
placed, when, as the Apostle declares, none
can " believe in him of whom they have not
heard"? This, be it remembered, includes a
far greater multitude, even in this Christian
land, than is generally supposed. The idea
that this one life decides eternity, whether
such life be cut off in the first dawn of
responsibility, or prolonged to old age, is only
consistent with the strictest Calvinistic doc-
trines of Election and Reprobation and the
awful logical conclusion of ' ' babes in hell a
span long ! "
Again, it may be urged that the character
of the new life at its commencement must be
exactly that which existed at the termination
of the old one, and the position therefore be
less advantageous, and more certain to result
in failure. But there is something to be said
in answer to this. Conversion is often seen to
FRANCIS PEEK. 369
take place in this world after many years of
sin in connection with some mere hap of cir-
cumstance — it may be sickness or the being
brought under the ministry of some good man.
There are, so to speak, violent interruptions
shown, not a level of continuity. Moreover,
the objection takes no account of the influence
that the body has upon the spirit. How much
better would even the best be, could they in
mature life get rid of their bodies, with all the
habits and physical tendencies to evil which
repeated departures from right have made, as
it were, j^art of their bodily nature, and which
often prove too strong for their utmost efforts
to resist. Suppose, for example, the spirit of
one of those amiable characters who, through
the influence of bad examples and bad compan-
ions, has been seduced to habits of drunkenness,
from which vice, when once it has taken
possession of a man, escape is almost impossible,
— suppose it freed from the body, which has
become thus degraded, and consequently liber-
ated from the cravings which the bodily
appetite has contra«:tecl, and that such spirit
be re-born in a family where all are temperate
— how naturally should we then exjject a
better life for it; while, at the same time, how
just it would be that such a life should begin
2 A
370 THE WIDER HOPE.
in a condition of suffering^ — the natural fruit
o
which former vice had produced in the old
body. By such an application of this theory,
you may hypothetically account, indeed, for
those numberless instances of satferers whose
presence in a family is a source of exquisite
pain of a certain sort to others of the circle,
and which nevertheless becomes, from the way
in which the sufferers themselves bear their
trial, in other modes an unspeakable blessing
to all about them. Moreover, and this is the
strong point of the case in this particular
aspecit of it, each fresh incarnation would give
a new opportunity for the revelation to the
soul of Christ, so often rejected in health, but,
at last, accepted in suffering.
Individuality not Dependent on Memory.
Now we come to the final objection to the
hypothesis which will probably be the one
most urged, namely : — That, inasmuch as the
remembrance of the past is blotted out, the
new existence would, practically, involve a
new individuality. In the first place, it seems
necessary that there should be this forget-
fulness, if life here is to be a state of moral
probation. If all was remembered, the
punishment would tend to take a mechanical
FRANCIS PEEK. 371
effect. But it is obvious that this objection is
founded upon the belief that the memory of
the past is necessary for the continuance of
personal identity. But is this made out ? It
is stated authoritatively that in some diseases
the memory of a portion of the past life is
entirely erased, although the effect that that
past life has had upon the self remains, and
the fact that the past is forgotten in no way
diminishes its practical effect upon the indi-
vidual. For example, let any one imagine
twelve months of his own life to be altoo-ether
forgotten, is he not forced to believe that his
character will still remain very different from
what it would have been had those twelve
months never been lived ? Indeed, it may be
held reasonably made out that personal identity
has no absolute connection either with recollec-
tion or with sameness of the body. This latter
point is ampl}'' proved by our experience in
this world. Take the case of a child who in a
fit of passion injures itself. Through life he or
she suffers the effect of that injury, though no
memory of the childish passion remains, and
though, as years pass on, the very body in
which that passion was experienced has become
changed more than once in the process of natural
growth. Probably most persons in later life
372 THE WIDER HOPE.
suffer from the effects of indiscretions or sins
of which the remembrance has become quite
obliterated. From all these instances we see
that, even in this world, though the remem-
brance has ceased and the bod}^ become
(changed, yet personal identity remains. It,
therefore, violates no natural, nor any Divine
law, to extend this reasoning, and suj3pose in
a sufficient number of cases to cover the
puzzling difficulties of the world that, as a
spirit enters a new-born babe, it may come,
not from the void, but from the place of
departed spirits, to begin, in a state more or
less happy, more or less suffering, the just
seonian punishment for the j)ast, but finding
in it a merciful opportunity for the future.
Let us restate the practical application of the
theory. It is that, according to this view,
selfish men of wealth may be re-born as the
despised pauper, — that the sensualist and
profligate may be re-born a child of profligate
parents, inheriting the fruits of their vice, and
the punishment of his own sin, not knowing,
it is true, why he suffers, but being in these
indirect ways prepared by the effects of that
suffering to apprehend the true nature of sin,
and the acceptance of the Gospel, and through
it, by the ministry of Christ's people, to be
FRANCIS PEEK. 373
brouo^lit to that union with Christ which is
immortal life.
Hell on Earth,
One last possible objection suggests itself —
the amount of the penalty. If any one con-
cludes that there is not sufficient possibility of
punishment in such a re-incarnation, let him
consider the depth of the wretchedness which
is the fate of so many — a misery so bitter that
it leads some even to face, by self-destruction,
hell itself, as represented in the pictured
material horrors still believed in, rather than
endure this world's sufferings.
Certain Hope.
To some these, or any other speculative con-
jectures, may appear mere dreams. Be it so,
but even dreams, if they are hopeful ones, are
sweet. They will from others have a w^elcome,
if by their shadowy flittings they suggest even
a possibility of some solution of a mystery so
painful as this one is. We are but as
"An infant crying in the night,
An infant crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry ;"
and we are assured that such conjectures have
relieved the distressing strain which all must
more or less experience who realise the extent
374 THE WIDER HOPE.
of the woe and misery prevailing in the world.
But beyond all such speculations we have a
surer source of comfort in the certainty, that,
whether such notions contain a truth or not,
we know that though clouds and darkness are
round about Him, "justice and mercy are the
habitation of God's throne," and therefore we
are not left without gleams of light. Walking
through the streets of our large towns, sad-
dened by painful sights, by discordant sounds,
and wondering how such a degradation can be
permitted of those beings God once made in
His own imag:e, it is some relief to realise the
fact that saddest suffering in this world is con-
sistent with God's laws of government. As
we raise our eyes to the church spires which
offer us a glimpse, far up, of the emblem of
that cross upon which the incarnate God once
suffered for man, we go on our way in the
liolit of His cross, comforted with the sure
conviction that by and by it will be seen that
not one of the pangs suffered on earth has
been unnecessary, and if, unhappily, one soul
is doomed to suffer eternal woe, it can only be
after every eflfort possible to infinite love, —
every means that infinite wisdom can put forth
to save it, — shall have been tried and tried in
vain.
MERCY AND JUDGMENT
XX.
MERCY AND JUDGMENT,
By Archdeacon FARRAR.
"We know our place and our portion : To give a witness and
to be condemned ; to be ill-used and to succeed. Sucb is the
law wliicli God has annexed to tlie pronuilgation of the truth :
its preachers suffer, but its cause prevails," — Dr. Newman,
Tracts /or </ie Times, iv. p. ix.
Again and again it has been asserted or
implied — even by those whose character and
position should have made them more careful
in their statements — that I deny the eternity
of punishment.
Once more, and once for all, I desire to
render such false witness inexcusable by
saying on the very first page of this book that
I have never denied, and do not now deny, the
eternity of punishment. And, to avoid any
possible mistake, I repeat once more, that
though I understand the word eternity in a
sense far higher than can be degraded into the
1 This Section consists of the " Prefatory and Personal"
opening to Archdeacon Farrar's Mercy and Judgment^ pub-
lished in 1881.— J. U.
378 THE WIDER HOPE.
vulgar meaning of endlessness, I have never
even denied, and do not now deny, even the
possible endlessness of punishment. In proof
of which, I need only refer to the pages of my
own book — Eternal Hope — standing as they
do unaltered from the very first.
In the month of November 1877, durino;
my ordinary course of residence as a canon, I
preached a sermon in Westminster Abbey on
1 Peter iv. 6, " For for this cause was the
Gospel preached also to them that are dead."
At that time there had been some discussions
both on the nature of Eternal Happiness, and
on the question, "Is life worth living?"
Accordingly, on October 14 1 had preached on
"What Heaven is ; " and on November 4 upon
the value and preciousness of human life.
But since I desire always and above all things
to be truthful and honest, it was im]30ssible
for me to attempt the refutation of that
cynical pessimism which treats human life as
a curse and as a mistake, without entering
into the awful question of future retribution.
While in common with all Christians I believed
that there would be a future punishment of
unrepented sin, and even that it might con-
tinue without any revealed termination so
long as impenitence continued, it appeared to
ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 379
me that, on that subject, many of the concep-
tions constantly kept alive by current teaching
were derived only from mistaken interpretations
of isolated texts, and were alien from the
general tenor of Divine revelation. I knew it
to be the popular belief, sanctioned by ordinary
sermons, that the vast majority of living men
would pass from the sorrows, miseries, and
failures of our mortal life into inconceivable,
hopeless, and everlasting agonies. I gave
some specimens of that teaching, and in order
not to prejudge it, those specimens were
chosen, not from the writings of the vulgar and
the ignorant, but from the pages of great men
whom I love and reverence — from Dante and
Milton, and Jeremy Taylor and Henry Smith.
I endeavoured to show, as far as could be
shown in the narrow limits of a sermon
addressed to a mixed multitude, that much
which had been said on this subject was
unscriptural and untenable. In that sermon,
and in one delivered on November 18 upon
the question, " Are there few that be saved ? "
it was my object to prove that the current
belief went far beyond what was written, and
tended to force upon men's minds a view of
God's dealings with the human race which it
was almost, if not utterly, impossible to recon-
380 THE WIDER HOPE.
cile with all that is revealed to us of His mercy
and of His justice, and with the whole mean-
ing of the Gospel of Salvation.
I venture to think that such subjects should
not frequently be treated in the pulpit, because
the field of undisputed and essential truth is
so large as to supply the amplest materials for
moral and spiritual edification, without forcing
us to dwell upon controverted questions. I
have alw^ays acted upon this conviction.
During twenty-five years I have scarcely ever
done more than refer to the speculative
question as to the nature and duration of
future punishment. In six volumes ^ of school,
university, parochial, and cathedral sermons,
the reader will scarcely find any allusion to the
controversy. I have held it sufficient to dwell
on the certain and awful truth that, both in
this world and the next, God punishes sin ;
that without repentance sin cannot be for-
1 The Fall of Man, and other Sermons; 4tli Thousand. The
Witness of History to Christ. Hulsean Lectures for 1870 ; 7th
Thousand. The Silence and Voices of God. University and
other Sermons ; 6th Thousand. In the Days of thy Youth.
Practical Sermons at Marlborough College, 1871-1876 ; 7th
Thousand. Saintly Workers. Lent Addresses at St. Andrew's,
Holborn, 1879 ; 4th Thousand. FphjjhaOiay or, The Amelioration
of the World. Westminster Abbey Sermons, 1880 ; 3rd
Thousand.
ARCHDEACON FAREAK. 881
given ; that without holiness no man shall see
the Lord ; that by the death of Christ and the
gift of the Spirit the love of our Father in
Heaven has? provided us with the means of
redemption and given us the grace which leads
to sanctification. But there would be no chance
of religious sincerity or of spiritual progress,
if we were never to enter a protest against
the tyranny of human error when it encroaches
upon the domain of faith and teaches for
doctrine the mistakes and traditions of men.
The pulpit of a metropolitan cathedral has
always been considered a legitimate place for
the treatment of questions which are not so
well suited for ordinary parochial teaching;
nor do I see any reason why Westminster
Abbey, with its large and mingled congrega-
tions, should not occasionally be used for
purposes analogous to those which made the
pulpit of St. Paul's Cross so powerful in the
days of the Reformation. Those who during
the last four years have heard my sermons
in the Abbey know full well that, there
as w^ell as at St. Margaret's, in ninety-
nine instances out of a hundred, my aim
is entirely practical, and my subjects chosen
from the wide realm of those truths re-
specting which all Christians are agreed.
382 THE WIDER HOPE.
But I am not at all ashamed, nor do I in the
least regret, that, when I was naturally led to
deal with a question in which the popular
theology goes far beyond the Catholic faith, I
did not hesitate to express my strong con-
viction that the opinions traditionally accepted
by the majority of those who have never
seriously thought of them, are unwarranted
and are dangerously wrong. To believe with
awful reverence in Eternal Judgment is a very
different thing from believing in the utter
distortion and perversion of the language and
metaphors of Scripture which ignorance and
tradition, working hand in hand for centuries,
have degraded into what a deeply religious
modern poet has characterised as " obscene
threats of a bodily hell."
It has been laid to my charge almost as if it
were a grave fault that in those sermons I
adopted a vehement tone. Is it a sin to feel
strongly and to speak strongly ? Are the
Prophets and the Psalmists never vehement ?
Is St. Paul never vehement? Are St. Peter
and St. James and St. John never vehement ?
As for "adopting a vehement tone," my reply
is that I never "adopt" any tone at all, but
speak as it is given me to speak, and only
use such language as most spontaneously and
ARCHDEACON FA REAR. 383
naturally expresses the thoughts and feelings
with which I write. "Every one," says Dr.
Newman/ " preaches according to his frame of
mind at the time of preaching ; " and it is
quite true that at the time when I preached
those sermons my feelings had been stirred to
their inmost depths. I am not in the least
ashamed of the "excitement" at which party
newspapers and reviews have sneered. I do
not blush for the moral indig-nation which
most of what has since been written on this
subject shows to have been intensely needful.
In the ordinary course of parochial work I had
stood by deathbeds of men and women which
had left on my mind an indelible impression
I had become aware that the minds of many of
the living were hopelessly harassed and — I
can use no other word — devastated by the
horror with which they brooded over the fate
of the dead. The happiness of their lives was
shattered, the peace of their souls destroyed,
not by the sense of earthly bereavement, but
by the terrible belief that brother, or son, or
wife, or husband had j^assed away into physical
anguish and physical torment, endless, and
beyond all utterance excruciating. Such
1 Apologia, Appendix, p. 15.
384 THE WIDEll HOPE.
tlioughts did not trouble the careless or the
brutal, who might be supposed to need them.
They troubled only the tender-hearted and the
sincere. They were the direct result of the
religious teaching which they had received
from their earliest years. To the irreligious
poor the common presentment of " endless
torment " was a mere stumblingr-block : to the
best of the religious it was a permanent
misery. The irreligious are driven to dis-
believe in any punishment, because they have
heard the punishment with which they are
threatened described in such a way as to be
utterly unbelievable ; the religious accept these
coarse pictures, and are either hardened by
them into lovelessness or crushed into despair.
Pharisaism and Infidelity are the twin children
of every form of theology which obscures the
tenderness of revelation, and belies the love of
God.
Now to me it seemed that the Gospel of the
grace of God ought to have in it at least some
message of consolation for more than that mere
handful of the bereaved who can feel sure that
those whom they love are saved ; and not for
these only, but for all whose imagination is
strong enough to realise what words mean,
whose candour is sullicient to make them face
ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 385
the real significance of what they profess to
maintain. For, if the common language of
23reachers on these subjects be true, there
seems to be no escape from the logical con-
clusion that those who are saved are few
indeed. Popular teachers still continue to
arorue, with no semblance of anofuish or of
horror, that the majority of the millions of
mankind whom we daily see are perishing ;
that they are not walking in those paths which
alone lead to heaven ; that, to all human
appearance, they die as they lived ; and that,
if those who have lived sinful lives, and
brought forth no fruits of amendment, and not
even given any visible indication of repentance,
cannot enter into heaven, then all but a
fraction of mankind are doomed to hell. Now
to the mass of ignorant Christians the words
" to be doomed to hell " have no other meaningr
o
than to be doomed to agonies in which sinners
will burn to endless ages in torments to which
all the racks and wheels and flames of the
Inquisition — as religious writers again and
again have told us — are as nothing ; doomed
to torments which exceed beyond all conception
the deadliest agony which the mortal body can
endure on earth.
I have been sometimes gravely warned not
2b
386 THE WIDER HOPE.
to attempt to be wise " above what is written."
It was precisely because I feel the wisdom of
such advice that I wished to sweep away the
cruel dogmas and ghastly fancies which, pre
tending to represent "what is written," hor-
ribly distort it, — add to it and take away from
it, and entomb its pure words in inverted
pyramids of fallible inference, — and by so
doing furnish sad instances of being wiioise
above what is written. I obeyed the precept
by pointing to the errors of that self-styled
orthodoxy by which it has been so habitually
and so grievously transgressed.
Already I observe among the better sort of
those from whose previous writings no other
conclusion than the popular one could logically
have been drawn, an anxiety to back out of
these conclusions ; a tendency to explain them
away ; an effort to repudiate them. They are
now trying to soften down all those parts of
their doo;ma aoainst which the heart and con-
science of man cannot but indignantly revolt,
because we should otherwise be driven to
admit that the life which has come to men,
without their seeking;, is and must be to all but
the chosen few, no blessing, but an awful, intol-
erable, and inextinguishable curse. In the
following pages I shall prove, as I have proved
ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 387
Lefore, that the errors which I repudiate have,
to their fullest extent, been the teachings of a
majority of preachers, and even of theologians.
It was my express object to show that they
were not the teachings of Scripture when rightly
interpreted, and not the teachings of the
Church as decided by the decrees of her four
great Councils, and by the authentic creeds
and formularies of her faith.
Before proceeding, I should like to say one
word on a very common charge which has been
made against the opinions expressed in my
Eternal Hope. It is that they were " incon-
sistent ; " " that it was difficult to make
out what I did exactly believe;" *' that
I adopted Universalist arguments while
I repudiated Universalist conclusions." I
reply that it was not my immediate aim
to be constructive or positive ; I desired
to get rid of what I believed to be false, not
to lay down fresh dogmas as to what I believed
to be true. It is painful to me to have to
repeat once more that the publication of my
book was forced on me by shorthand reporters
who published my sermons against my will ;
and that the sermons, though they expressed
beliefs which I had held for years, were every-
day sermons written in a few hours, not
388 THK WIDER HOPE.
elaborate theological treatises prepared during
long leisure. But further, I believe that in all
arguments upon the details of this solemn
subject it is very desirable that no systematic
doofmas should be laid down. The Church
herself has carefully abstained from laying
down such dogmas ; she has only sketched a
few great limits, *' Qtios ultra citraque nequit
consistere rectum " I accept sincerely all that
the Church of England has required us to
believe concerning hell. What I repudiate
is that which she has never required. And the
reason why neither the Catholic Church, nor the
Eng^lish branch of it, has ever defined the
precise beliefs which have been taught by
hundreds of individual preachers, is because
Scriptural teaching on this subject has left
room for very wide diversities of opinion. If I
Gfave their due weio^ht to what are called
" Universalist " arguments, it is because they
ought to have their due w^eight side by side
with the arguments which prevent most
Christians from entirely adopting them. And
w^e ouQcht to disting-uish between that which is
permissible as a hope and that which is tenable
as a doctrine. Is there any human being to
whom it would not be an infamy to confess
that he did not ivish that it were true that alJ
ARCiJ DEACON FARRAR. 389
men might be ultimately saved, as it is God's
will (1 Tim. ii. 4) that they should be saved?
We are taught to pray : " That it may please
Thee to have mercy upon all men." We pray
for this. Would it not cause us the deepest
joy if we could be fully persuaded in our
own minds that our prayer can be granted ?
Do we wish that any soul of man should
sufier endless torments ? If not, we are
surely permitted to pay respectful atten-
tion to the arguments of those who think
themselves entitled by Scripture to believe
that which we too desire, but scarcely even dare
to hope. Those arguments may offer some
relief to us even when we cannot athrm their
absolute validity. They may cast some gleam
upon a horror of great darkness, even if they
do not enable us to enjoy the boundless day.
God has given us natures disposed to love. He
has bidden us to forgive and love our enemies.
He has told us that His Name is Love. " I
must believe," said a devout and learned writer
nearly two hundred years ago, " that Thy grace
will sooner or later superabound where sin hath
most abounded, till I can think a little Drop
of Being, and but one remove from Nothing,
can excel in goodness that Ocean of Goodness
which hath neither shore, bottom, nor surface.
390 THE WIDER HOPE.
Thou art Goodness itself in the abstract, in its
first spring, in its supreme and universal form
and spirit. We must believe Thee to be infin-
itely good ; to be good without any measure
or bound ; to be good beyond all expression
and conception of all creatures, or we must
give over thinking of Thee at all. All the
goodness which is anywhere to be found scat-
tered among the creatures is sent forth from
Thee, the fountain, the sea of all goodness.
Into this sea of all goodness I deliver myself
and all my fellow creatures. Thou art Love,
and canst no more cease to be so than to be Thy-
self : take Thy own methods with us, and sub-
mit us to them. Well may we do so, in the
assurance that the beginning, the way, and the
end of them all is love." ^ — Is there anything
wrongr in such sentiments ? Is it not well for
the world that all which can be said in their
favour should be fairly and kindly considered,
even if they point to conclusions too bright and
too vague to be formulated into our Articles
of Faith ?
There were, however, in my little volume
some expressions which, to my great surprise,
1 The Restoration of All Things, Jer. White, Chaplain to
Oliver Cromwell, \.d. 1712.
ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 391
caused ambiguity in the minds of readers.
When those terms are explained in the sense
in which alone I used them, it will become
even more clear than it has already become
to the minds of all candid theologians, that my
views are in the strictest accordance with all
that is required by the Catholic Church. I
assert fearlessly that they were, and are, in
far deeper accordance with "what is of faith,"
than the current errors which they were
intended to rejjudiate, or the bitter assertions
which have been urged in their supposed
refutation.
I. The first of these expressions was the
word " eternal.'' By " eternal " I never meant
" endless ; " by *' eternity " I never meant
" endlessness." I do not exclude the connot-
ation of endlessness from certain uses of the
word, but those uses are the accidents of its
meaning, not its essence. I use, and always
shall use, the word " eternal " in the sense of
the word aionios, and especially in St. John's
sense of that word. By ''Eternal Hope'' —
a title not of my own choosing — I meant
" hope as regards the ivorld to come "
(just as in our form of the Nicene Creed,
"eternal life" is "the life of the world to
392 THE WIDER HOPE.
come ").^ I used this word in what I conceive
to be its true and not its vulgar sense, which
I thought that I could do safely, because much
of my book was devoted to establishing that
true meaning. But I have evidently underrated
the fatal force and fascination of words long
used in inaccurate senses, " which, as a Tartar's
bow, do shoot back upon the understanding of
the wisest, and mightily entangle and pervert
the judgment." In the following pages I ask
the reader to observe that thouijh the writers
o
^ This clause is not in the genuine Creed of Nicnea, in which
"I believe in the Holy Ghost" is followed by an anathema.
In the "Constantinopolitan" Creed, or Revised Creed of
Jerusalem, first occurs Kal ^oii)v rod /xeAAovros atwvo? ; but in
the Creed of Cappadocia noAv used by the Armenian Church,
in the Revised Creed of Antioch, in the Creed of Mesopotamia
now used by the Nestorian Churches, and in the Creed of
Philadelphia as recited by Charisiiis at Ephcsup, we have cts
(otrjv aliovioi^. Nothing then can be more clear than that
"aeonian life," in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, was
regarded as the equivalent of "the life of the age to come."
Now this latter phrase is very far indeed from a necessary
implication of endlessness, for o fieXXcov a'uov is the " olam
habba" of the Jews, and this future Age is in Scripture
expressly regarded as only one step towards a final consumma-
tion (1 Cor. XV. 24). "Aeon," says Theodoret (Hacr. v. 6), is
" an interval indicative of time.'' On the light thrown upon the
meaning of the phrase by the fact that St. Gregory of Nyssa
was not unconcerned in its admission into the Creed (Nice-
pliorus H. E. xii. 13) I shall touch later on (p. 261). See Dr.
Hort's 7'wo Dissertations, pp. 106, 138-147.
ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 393
whom I quote often use the word " eternal "
when they mean endless, the word never has
that meaning with me.
11. On the other hand, I generally used the
word '^ heir' in its j^opular, and not in its
theological sense. In current religious phrase-
ology nothing is more common than the phrase
"to die and to go to hell." Strictly speaking,
such language is in every case inaccurate, for
" hell," in the sense of " endless torments," as
apart from the retribution of the intermediate
state, is a condition which, in its final stao^e,
does not begin till the Eesurrection and the
Judgment Day. When, therefore, I spoke of
" hell " not being endless for all who incur it,
I meant to indicate the doctrine which has
now once more been brought into far greater
prominence by English Churchmen than it had
been for many previous years, viz., that a soul
may pass hence into a retribution and punish-
ment, which is yet not an endless hell, but is
that intermediate state of purification which
may be metaphorically included in the term
(C
aeonian fire."
III. Lastly, by dying "^l^ a state of sin" I
meant dying without any visible repentance
and amendnient ; in such a state of sin as — so
394 THE WIDER HOPE.
far as human judgment is concerned — would
render the soul unfit for heaven. Such being
the case, I find, with deep thankfulness, that
between Dr. Pusey's views and my own there is
not a single point of difi'erence as regards any
matters of faith ; — that there was no material
difference between my views and those of
many of our most learned living bishops and
theologians I had already been assured.
IV. Further than this, the reason for some
apparent contradictions was explained in many
passages of the book itself. It was due to
what, for want of a better word, I must call
the "antinomies" of Scripture. By antinomies
I do not mean absolute contradictions, but —
partly adopting the sense in which Kant used
the word — I mean that semblance of contra-
diction which results from the law of reason,
when, j)assing the limits of experience, we seek
to know the absolute ; — I mean, in fact, truths
which (so far as Scripture is concerned) may
be maintained by opposing arguments of
almost equal validity. There are some
passages of Scripture which, if understood in
their literal meaning, seem to teach a final
restitution of all things, a final triumph of
absolute blessedness, a final immanence of God
ARCHDEACON FARKAR. 395
in all Illinois. ^ There are others which, taken
in their literal meaning, seem to point to the
final annihilation of the wicked.^ There are
again others which hold out no definite hope
of alleviation to the doom of the finally
impenitent.^ There are others, again, which
seem to point to some temporary punishment,
some purifying discipline through which men
must pass, but from which they may be
saved.* It is in some form of the last aspect
of the subject that I see the most probable
solution to our difiiculties and perplexities. In
the doctriue of the Intermediate State, and of
such changes in the condition of the dead as
are implied in the ancient practice of prayers
for the dead ; in that " probatory fire " of the
day of judgment, which the Fathers almost
unanimously deduced from 1 Cor. iii. 13 ; in
the doctrine of Christ's descent into hell ; in the
1 Luke ix. 56 ; John i. 29 ; iii. 17 ; xii. 32 ; Acts iii. 21 ;
Rom. iv. 13 ; v. 15, 18, 19 ; xi. 26, 32 ; 1 Cor. xv. 22-28, 55 ;
2 Cor. V. 19 ; Eph. i. 10 ; Phil. ii. 9, 10 ; Col. i. 20 ; 1 Tim.
ii. 4 ; iv. 10 ; Tit. ii. 11 ; Heb. ii. 14 ; 1 John ii. 2 ; iii. 8 ;
Mic. vii. 9 ; Isa. xii. 1 , etc.
2 Matt. iii. 12 ; v. 30 ; x. 28 ; Luke xiii. 1-5 ; xx. 18, 35 ;
Acts iii. 23 ; Rom. vi. 23 ; viii. 13 ; Heb. x. 26-31 ; Rev. xx.
14 ; xxi. 8, etc.
3 Matt. xiii. 49, 50 ; xvi. 27 ; xxv. 46 ; Mark iii. 29 ; ix.
44-50 ; Rev. xiv. 10 ; xx. 10 ; xxi. 8.
4 Matt. v. 26 ; Luke xii. 59 ; 1 Cor. iii. 13, 15.
396 THE WIDER HOPE.
doctrine of tlie '^pain of loss" as containing the
essence of future retribution ; and in all these
doctrines taken in connection with those con-
clusions which we cannot but form from the
infinitude of God's mercy and the universal
efficacy of Christ's Atonement, I see the dawn
of a "hope for the world to come," and the
emancipation of the human heart from the
terrible pressure of teachings which not a few
of God's saints have found it all but impossible
to reconcile with His Name of Love.
But I have never pretended to have any
ready-made rigid scholastic dogma on the
subject. My object was to repudiate what I
regarded as unscriptural, not to attempt the
impossible task of formulating a dogma more
definite than any which the Church has laid
down as to what is true. It is doubtless
because of those very antinomies which I have
mentioned, which are perhaps inseparable from
the nature of the subject, that the Church has
left such large latitude to individual opinion.
"This alone," says Perrone, "is matter of
faith that there is a helL"^ The Church of
England has not even condemned Universal-
ism ; she rejected the Forty-second Article,
1 De Beo Creatorey iii. G, § 3 (in Dr. Pusey's What is oj
Faith'? p. 19).
ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 397
which was aimed against it ; and she has no
utterance in any of her formnlaries so distinct
**as to require us to condemn as penal the
expression of hope by a clergyman that even
the ultimate pardon of the wicked, who are
condemned in the Day of Judgment, may be
consonant with the will of God." ^ Knowing,
therefore, as I do, how many there are of the
highest intellect — especially among the laity
and among our most eminent literary and
scientific men — who regard the jDopular teach-
ing respecting "endless torments" as one of
their most insuperable difficulties in the way of
accepting the Christian faith, I still think it my
duty to show that those torments have been de-
1 Privy Council judgment, Wilson v. Fendall. As regards
three or four expressions in the Prayer Book, such as " ever-
lasting damnation " (an expression unknown to Scripture, in
which no such word as "damnation" in its popular sense
occurs), in the Litany, and "perish everlastingly" in the
Athauasian hymn, and "eternal death" (an expression
unknown to Scripture) in the Burial Service, I may observe
that — (1) the possibility of that awful doom is denied by
Universal! sts alone, and not by me ; and (2) those phrases can,
in any case, only mean wtiat is meant by their Scripture
equivalents ; and (3) they do not exclude the sense of
" extinction of being," which is, at any rate, the very anti-
thesis to endless torments. There is not a single word on the
subject of endless torments in all the Thirty-nine Articles, and
the Forty-second Article, which forbade Universalisra, was
struck out in 1562.
398 THE WIDE II HOPE.
.scribed in a manner unauthorised by Scripture,
and that their " endlessness" is not so distinctly
revealed as not to admit of being: reg:arded in
an aspect less appalling to the heart and more
reconcilable with all which our Lord has tausfht
us of our Father in Heaven, than that in which
it has been presented in popular teaching.
But while, in form, this book is a rep]y
to Dr. Pusey, in reality my conclusions are
almost identical with his, except on minor
points of history and criticism. And though
I may be met again by refutations, triumph-
ant only in refuting what I have never said, I
am not discouraged. The book will at least
find sonie serious, candid, and high-minded
readers. On these this mass of evidence will
not be without weight. That which is true
makes its way in time even into the minds of
those who persuade themselves that they have
rejected it. What is said of an individual
matters nothing ; but truth and justice ulti-
mately prevail. " He that judgeth me is the
Lord." To Him. humbly, yet with glad and
perfect confidence, I trust the cause which I
maintain. If what I have written be con-
demned on earth, I say with Pascal that what
I here repudiate is condemned in heaven.
Ad tuum, Domine Jesu, tribunal appello.
XXI.1
By Archdeacon FARRAR.
"So runs my creed : but what am I
An infant crying in the night :
An infant crying for the light :
And with no language but a cry." — Tenntson.
"And Thou, O God, by whom are seen
All creatures as they be,
Forgive me, if too close I lean
My human heart on Thee." — Whittier.
But to conclude : If, as I have shown, the
ultimate extinction of the being of sinners
appears to be taught by the literal meaning of
many passages of Scripture ; and if the final
restoration of all mankind appears also to be
taught in many passages of Scripture ; and if
the popular conception of endless torments for
the vast majority is nowhere indisputably
taught in Scripture ; and if it is only by
inference we are led to the fear that any souls
may be finally excluded from the presence of
1 This Section contains the "Conclusion" of Archdeacon
Farrar's Mercy and Judfjmenty published in 1881.— J. H.
SCO
400 THE WIDEE HOPE.
God at the end of the ages ; — if, I say, these
are the conclusions to which Scripture alone
has led us, what is it that on this subject I
finally believe ?
It will be seen at once that I propound no
"Optimist theory" (as it has been called),
" that all men will be saved ; " though since
the sujDpression of the old Forty-second Article
that view is nowhere declared to be untenable in
our formularies as interpreted by the highest
authority. Still less do I teach that all men
will attain to everlasting felicity, or that — to
refer to the coarse instance selected by Jerome
— a Jezebel will be at last as a Virgin Mary.
Nay, I do not even say that some men may
not for ever suffer from the consequences of
their sins, and from impenitence respecting
them, dearly as 1 wish that it were possible
for us to believe in final universal felicity as a
glorious triumph of the love of God and the
cross of Christ. But I think that even if
some portion of the "pain of loss " may con-
tinue for ever, there is nothing to sanction the
assertion that such hopes as sinners may here
embrace may not also be open to them, at
least until the great Judgment, in the Inter-
mediate State beyond the grave. The death
of the soul shall last as long as its willing
ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 401
sinfulness lasts, and its " hell " burn as long as
ifcs enmity to God continues. The only hope
is that from this sin and this enmity it may
at last — far off — before the end of the ages —
possibly be saved. Hell and death are endless
conditions so long as there is persistent im-
penitence. They cease when the soul repents,
but not till then. But who shall say that
when the moment of death is over there can
be no further answer to the sinner's cry, " Will
the Lord cast off for ever, and will He be
favourable no more ? Is His mercy clean gone
for ever ? Doth His promise fail for evermore ?
Hath God forgotten to be gracious ? Hath He
shut up His lovingkindness in displeasure ?"
B.ut it is due to my readers that I should
try to express this in language as clear as the
subject admits, not by way of laying down a
dogma or of giving expression to a novelty,
but by stating what I hold to be the teaching
— not of sects or of individuals^ or even of
majorities, — but of the Catholic Church, of
which I am, and ever have been, a loyal and
faithful, though most humble and most un-
worthy son.
In accordance, then, with what the Church
has ever held — adding nothing to that Catholic
creed, and subtracting nothing from it,
2 c
402 THE WIDER HOPE.
I believe that on the subject of man's future
it has been God's will to leave us uninstructed
in details, and that He has vouchsafed to us
only so much light as may serve to guide our
lives.
I believe in God the Father, the Creator;
in God the Son, the Redeemer; in God the
Holy Ghost, the Comforter.
I believe that God is Love.
I believe that God willeth all men to be
saved.
I believe that God has given to all men the
gift of immortality, and that the gifts of God
are without repentance.
I believe that every man shall stand before
the Judgment-seat of Christ, and shall be
judged according to his deeds.
I believe that He who shall be our Judg;e is
He who died for the sins of the whole world.
I believe that " if any man sin, we have an
Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the
Eighteous, and He is the Propitiation for our
sins."
I believe in the forgiveness of sins.
I believe that all who are saved are saved
only by grace through faith ; and that not of
ourselves ; it is the gift of God.
I believe that every penitent and pardoned
ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 403
soul will pass from this life into a condition of
hope, blessedness, and peace.
I believe that man's destiny stops not at
the grave, and that many who knew not Christ
here will know Him there.
I believe that " in the depths of the Divine
compassion there may be opportunity to win
faith in the future state."
I believe that hereafter — whether by means
of the " almost-sacrament of death " or in
other ways unknown to us — God's mercy may
reach many who, to all earthly appearance,
might seem to us to die in a lost and unregen-
erate state.
I believe that as un repented sin is punished
here, so also it is punished beyond the grave.
I believe that the punishment is effected,
not by arbitrary inflictions, but by natural aud
inevitable consequences, and therefore that the
expressions which have been interpreted to
mean physical and material agonies by worm
and flame are metaphors for a state of remorse
and alienation from God.
I see reasons to hope that these agonies may
be so tempered by the mercy of God that the
soul may hereafter find some measure of peace
and patience, even if it be not admitted into
His vision and His Sabbath.
404 THE WIDER HOPE.
1 believe that among the punishments of the
world to come there are '' few stripes " as well
as " many stripes," and I do not see how any
fair interpretation of the metaphor, "few
stripes," can be made to involve the conception
of endlessness for all who incur future retribu-
tion.
I believe that Christ went and preached to
the spirits in prison, and I see reasons to hope
that since the Gospel was thus once preached
" to them that were dead," the offers of God's
mercy may in some form be extended to the
soul, even after death.
I believe that there is an Intermediate State
of the soul, and that the great separation of
souls into two classes will not take place until
the final judgment.
I believe that we are permitted to hope
that, whether by a process of discipline, or
enlightenment, or purification, or punishment,
or by the special mercy of God in Christ, or in
consequence of prayer, the state of many souls
may be one of progress and diminishing
sorrow, and of advancing happiness in the
Intermediate State.
I believe that there will be degrees of blessed-
ness and degrees of punishment or deprivation,
and I see reasons to hope that there may be
ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 405
gradual mitigations of penal doom to all souls
that accept the AVill of God respecting them.
I believe, as Christ has said, that " all man-
ner of sin shall be forgiven unto men, and
their blasphemies, however greatly they shall
blaspheme ;" and that as there is but one sin of
which He said that it should be forgiven
neither in this aeon nor in the next, there
must be some sins which will be forgiven in
the next as well as in this.
I believe that without holiness no man can
see the Lord, and that no sinner can be
pardoned or accepted till he has repented, and
till his free will is in unison with the Will of
God ; and I cannot tell whether some souls
may not resist God for ever, and therefore
may not be for ever shut out from His
presence.
And I believe that to be without God is
" hell ; " and that in this sense there is a hell
beyond the grave ; and that for any soul to
fall even for a time into this condition, though
it be throuo^h its own hardened impenitence
and resistance of God's grace, is a very awful
and terrible prospect ; and that in this sense
there may be for some souls an endless hell.
But I see reason to hope that through God's
mercv, and throudi the merits of Christ's
406 THE WIDER HOPE.
sacrifice, the great majority of mankind may
be delivered from this awful doom. For,
according to the Scriptures, though, I know
not what its nature will be or how it will be
effected.
I believe in the restitution of all things ; and
I believe in the coming of that time when
— though in what sense I cannot pretend to
explain or to fathom —
GOD WILL BE ALL IN ALL.
Jo^a r^ ©ew.
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Sermon [on Gal. vi. 7, 8], etc. — The Resurrection of
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etc.] 8vo. 4466 k.
Immortality. Immortality. A Clerical Symposium on
•what are the Foundations of the Belief in the Im-
mortality of Man. By . . . Canon Knox-Little, . . .
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"Do the Scriptures wairant a Belief in the Wicked
being finally rescued from Perdition and admitt'd
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Studie. pp. 53. Elberfeld, 1883. 8vo. 4257. i. 32.
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ScHMiCK, J. Heixrich. Die Unsterblichkr^it dex Seele
naturwissenschaftlich und philoHophi5<;h begriindet.
Zweite, v/esentlich vermehrte Auflage der Schrift
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U., C. C. The Gulf Bridged; or, "The Everlasting
Gospel " in the World to Come. With a Xote on
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2 D
418 APPENDIX.
Fischer, E. (Pastor zu Bessingen). Der Glaulie an die
Unsterblichkeit nach seinem Einfluss auf das sitt-
liche Leben, etc. pp. 93. Gotha, 1884. 8vo.
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einer Karte. pp. xii. 195. Leipzig, 1885. 8vo.
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Third Edition, pp. 55. G. J. Palmer: London;
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and Why . . . A Lecture . . . setting* forth the
Bible Doctrine of Hell. As distinguished from the
Superstitions set forth by the Religious Teachers
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Cremer, Hermann. Uber den Zustand nach dem Tode.
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Question, **Is Salvation possible after Death?" By
S. Leathes, ... J. Cairns, . . . E. White, S. A.
Brooke, . . . R. Littledale, . . . D. Macewan, . . .
and Others, pp. 324. 1886. See Nisbet & Co.
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APPENDIX. 419
pp. 16. Freethoiight Publishing Co. : London, 1886:
8vo. 4018. aaa. 32 (6.)
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Endless Punishment, pp. vii, 163. J. Nisbet &
Co. : London, 1886. 8vo. 4257. 1. 13.
Arnold, Isaac K The Layman's Faith: "If a Man
die, shall he live again?" A Paper, etc. pp. 31.
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4017. d. 3. (1.)
Plumptre, Edward Hayes (Dean of Wells). The Spirits
in Prison. New and Revised Edition, pp. xxi.
440. W.Isbister: London, 1886. 8vo. 4257.1.16.
Lizzi, ViNCENTius Maria de. De diuturnitate poe-
narum quibus in inferno torquentur illi Tartarei
vere infelicissimi habitatores theses theologico-dog-
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Shedd, William Greenough Thayer. The Doctrine of
Endless Punishment, pp. vii. 163. C. Scribner's
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Paget, Francis. Everlasting Punishment, pp. 15. 1886.
See Oxford House Papers. Oxford House Papers.
Ko. IL 1886, etc. 8vo. 4017. bbb.
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By ... S. A. B., etc. 1886. See Nisbet & Co.
Nisbet's Theological Library. 1886, etc. 8vo.
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Punishment, pp. 98. Elliot Stock : London, 1886.
8vo. 4257. g. 28.
Jerwitz, Wilhelm. Zum Frieden. Ueber die person-
liche Unsterblichkeit. pp.77. Dresden, 1885. 8vo.
4422. b. 33. (2.)
Garratt, Samuel. World without End. pp. xvi. 263.
W. Hunt & Co. : London [1886]. 8vo.
4257. 1. 15.
420 APPENDlA.
Landels, William. Future ProlDation. . . . By . . .
W. L., etc. 1886. See Nisbet & Co. Nisbet's
Theological Library. 1886, etc. 8vo. 4257. m.
Allen, William (Cardinal). Souls Departed : Being a
Defence and a Declaration of the Catholic Church's
Doctrine touching Purgatory and Prayers for the
Dead. First published in 1565, and now edited in
modern [sjpelling by the Rev. T. E. Bridgett. pp.
xii. Burns & Gates : London, 1886. 8vo.
4257 f. 4.
Swaynb, Egbert George. The Blessed Dead in Para-
dise. Four All Saints' Day Sermons, etc. pp. 98.
Rivingtons: London, 1887. 8vo. 4257. g. 34.
Mackson, Charles. The Blessed Dead with Christ in
Heaven, and not in an Intermediate State : their
Resurrection and Reunion, pp. 16. Brook &
Chrystal: Manchester [1886]. 8vo.
4372. d. IS. (9.)
Shall. Shall we know them again"? [A Treatise on
the Future State.] pp. viii. 127. J. Nisbet & Co. :
London, 1886. 8vo. 4257. 1. 21.
D., E. M. The Fuller Life. Thoughts in Memory of
the Departed, and of Comfort to the Sorrowing.
Selected from Various Sources by E. M. D. Skef-
fington & Son : London, 1887. 8vo. 4257. g. 35.
Yernon, S. M. Probation and Punishment. A Rational
and Scriptural Exposition of the Doctrine of the
Future Punishment of the Wicked, etc. pp. 300.
J. B. Lippincott & Co. : Philadelphia, 1886. 8vo.
4257. 1. 23.
Spear, Samuel T. Meditations on the Bible Heaven,
pp. 403. Funk & Wagnalls : New York, 1 ^^Q. 8vo.
4257. 1. 24.
Shedd, William Greenough Thayer. The Doctrine
of Endless Punishment, pp. vii. 163. J. IS^isbet
& Co. : London, 1886. 8vo. 4257. 1. 22.
APPENDIX. 421
Cantt, Michael. Purgatory, Dogmatic and Scholastic,
etc. pp. xii. 271. . . . M. H. Gill & Son : Dublin,
1886. 8vo. 4257.
Meric, Elie. The Blessed will know each other in
Heaven. . . . Translated from the French by Mrs.
J. Ringer, pp. xiv. 138. Burns & Gates: London,
1888. 8vo. 4378. a. 3.
Row, Charles Adolphus. Future Retribution, viewed
in the Light of Reason and Revelation. pp.
X. 429. AY. Isbister: London, 1887. 8vo.
4257. m. 16.
Kliefoth, Theodor. Christliche Eschatologie. pp. iv.
351. Leipzig, 1886. 8vo. 4257. m. 7.
Willington, James Waldyve. Eternal Scenes from the
Poets, and their Views of the After Life. Studies
in Criticism and Reflection, pp. 130. Simpkin,
Marshall & Co.: London; Dublin, printed 1887.
8vo. 4257. g. 37.
Livonia. Ein Deutsches Land in Gefahr ! Zustande
und Vorgiinge in Liv-, Est- und Kurland. pp. 30.
Berlin, 1886. 8vo. 8033. g. 27 (4.)
Arnold, Edwin. Death — and Afterwards. Reprinted
from the Fortniglitly Revieio of August 1885. AVith
a Supplement, pp. 62. Triibner & Co. : London,
1887. 8vo. 4257. g. 38.
Schweeel, Gscar. Tod und ewiges Leben im Deutschen
Volksglauben. pp. vi. 388. Mindeni. Westf., 1887.
8vo. 4257. m. 8.
G'Reilly, Bernard, L.D. Novissima ; or. Where do our
Departed go 1 pp. xvi. 332. Baltimore Publishing
Co. : Baltimore, 1886. 8vo. 4380. bbb. 33.
Starkey, Nathaniel. Man in Solution ; or. Thoughts
on the Intermediate State, deduced from Certain
Scriptures, pp. 24. Elliot Stock: London [1887].
obi. 8vo. 4422. bbb. 50 (3.)
Stoney, H. "Life and Death." A Brief Enquiry into
422 APPENDIX.
the Leading Views of the Future State, pp. 38.
Hodges, Figgis & Co. : Dublin, 1887. 8vo.
4372. df. 31. (11.)
Xewman, Francis William. Life after Death? Palin-
odia. pp. 5L Triibner & Co.: London; Notting-
ham [printed], 1886. 8vo. 4372. h. 25. (6.)
AssiER, Adolphe d'. Posthumous Humanity (Essai sur
I'Humanite, etc.). A Study of Phantoms. . .'.
Translated and Annotated by H. S. Olcott . . .
To which is added an Appendix showing the Popular
Beliefs current in India respecting the Post-mortem
Vicissitudes of the Human Entity, pp. xxiv. 360.
G. Redway : London, 1887. 8vo. 8632. c. 27.
Hendy, David Ponting. Thirty-six Reasons for be-
lieving in Everlasting Punishment, pp. 15. Mar-
shall Brothers : London ; Bishop's Stortford [printed],
1887. 8vo. 4372. df. 31 (8.)
Relmensnyder, Junius B. Doom Eternal . . . With an
Litroduction by C. P. Krauth. pp. xxiv. 384.
Funk & Wagnalls : Chicago, New York, and London,
1887. 8vo. 4257. g. 39.
Gregory, John Robinson. The Coming of the King:
Thoughts on the Second Advent, pp. 128. 1887.
See Watkinson (W. L.) and Gregory (A. E.).
(Helps HeaA^enward.) 1887, etc. 16mo.
4400. ee.
Newman, Francis William. Life after Death? Palin-
odia. . , . Second Edition, pp. 55. Triibner & Co. :
London; Nottingham [printed], 1887. 8vo.
4257. 1. 28.
DoDD, Robert. An Infallible Sunlight Discourse on
Holy Scriptural Rewards and Punishments in a
Future State, etc. pp. 130. Carlisle, 1886. 8vo.
4257. f. 10.
Hurter, Heinrioh von. The Catholic Doctrine about
Hell. From the Compendium of Dogmatic Theo-
APPENDIX. 423
logy by H. H. Translated by K. D. Best. pp. 15.
Burns & Oates : London, 1887. 8vo.
4372. i. 8. (6.)
ScHMiCK, J. Heinrich. Ist der Tod ein Ende oder nicht?
Gespraiche iiber das Erdenleben und die Menschen-
natiir . . . Zweite Auflage. pp. 175. Leipzig,
1888. 8vo. 4257. 1. 29.
Eeynolus, Joseph William. The World to Come.
Immortality a Physical Fact. pp. xxv. 310. Kegan
Paul & Co. : London, 1888. 8vo. 4257. m. 10.
Jeremias, Alfred. Die Babylonisch-Assyrischen Yor-
stellungen vom Leben nach dem Tode. Nach den
Quellen, mit Beriicksichtigung der alttestamentlichen
Parallelen, dargestellt von Dr. A. J. pp. 126.
Leipzig, 1887. 8vo. 7704. bb. 36.
GiRARD, Victor. La transmigration des ames, et revolu-
tion indcfinie de la vie au sein de I'univers. pp.
406. Paris, Corbeil [printed, 1888]. 8mo.
8470. bbb. 46.
Stockwell, C. T. The Evolution of Immortality ; or,
Suggestions of an Individual Immortality based upon
our Organic and Life History, pp. 69. C. H. Kerr
<fe Co. : Chicago, 1887. 8vo. 4257. m. 11.
Eow, Charles AooLrnus. Future Eetribution .... En-
larged Edition, pp. xlv. 429. Wm. Isbister : Lon-
don, 1889 [1888]. 8vo. 2210. e.
GuRNEY, Alfred. Our Catholic Inheritance in the
Larger Hope. An Essay . . . together with a His-
torical Appendix by H. H. Jeaffreson. pp. 87. Kegan
Paul & Co. : London, 1888. 8vo. 4257. m. 17.
Love, William de Loss. Future Probation examined,
pp. X. 322. Funk & Wagnalls : New York, 1888.
8vo. 4257. m. 18.
Petavel, afterAvards Petavel - Olliff, Emmanuel.
Quelques difficultes du dogme traditionnel concernant
la vie future. Reponse a un article de M. F. Godot.
424 APPENDIX.
(Extrait de la Eevue de th(5o]ogie et de philosophie.)
pp. 46. Geneve, Lausanne [printed], 1887. 8vo.
4372. i. 9. (7.)
Child, Thomas. Is there an Unseen World 1 Rational
Proof of its Existence. (The Unseen World, etc.).
... A Series of Lectures on the Unseen World. 5 pt.
J. Speirs: London, 1888. 8vo. 3716. aa. 28. (10.)
Proof. The Proof of Eternal Hope : A Reasoning-out of
Eternal Judgment. ... By a High Church Clergy-
man. Sin A. pp. 31. J. Hey wood : Manchester
[printed], 1887. 8vo. 4372. e. 25. (4.)
Hereafter. The Hereafter. Twenty-three Answers . . .
to the question. What are the Strongest Proofs and
Arguments in Support of the Belief in a Life Here-
after? [Papers published in the Boston Herald]
pp. 123. D. Lothrop Co.: Boston [Mass., 1888].
8vo. 4257. h. 37.
Baissac, Jules. La vie apres la mort. Eternite et
Iramortalite. pp. xii. 245. Paris, Poitiers [printed],
1886. 16mo. 4257. f. 12.
Romanism. Romanism Scripturally Analysed. Purga-
tory. ... By an Oriental Traveller, pp. 32. F.
Kirby : London [1889]. 8vo. 3942. aaa. 4. (5.)
Revel, P. C. Esquisse d'une demonstration scieiitifique
de I'existence de la vie future, etc. pp. 69. Lyon,
1887. 8vo. 4018. c. 7. (2.)
Fleming, James (Vicar of St. Michael's, Chester Square).
Personal Recognition in Eternity : A Sermon [on 1
Cor. xiii. 12] preached . . . 1888. pp. 12. Lamer
& Stokes: London [1888]. 8vo. 4473. g. 29. (9.)
HoBSON, William Topham. Conditional Immortality : A
Reply to . . . C. H. Waller and the Record. [Being
a Reply to Five Articles by C, H. Waller, printed in
the Record, and entitled, "Conditional Immor-
tality."] pp. 72. Elliot Stock: London, 1889,
8vo. 4109. aa. 41-
APPEXDIX. 425
Clarke, Thomas (M.D.) The Fate of the Dead: An
Address to Laymen, pp. xv. 196. F. Xorgate :
London, 1889. 8vo. 4257. f. 13.
Porter, Jermain G. Our Celestial Home : An Astrono-
mer's View of Heaven, pp. 11(5. A. D. F. Ran-
dolph & Co. : Xew York, 1888. 8vo. 4257. b. 12.
FROM POOLE'S
"INDEX TO PERIODICAL LITERATURE.
THIRD EDITION,
[A List of Abbreviations is given in the Index.]
EscHATO LOGICAL STUDIES. (J. A. Keubelt.) Bib. Sac.
27: 647.
Eschatolngy ; Cumming's Great Tribulation. Tait, n. s.
26: 655.
A New Escbatology. Scrib. 8. 331.
Eschatology of 0. T. Apocrypha. (E. C. Bissell.) Bib.
Sac. 36 : 320.
Eschatology, Olshausen's. Theo. and Lit. J. 11 : 635.
Eternal Life and Eternal Death. (J. W. Santee.)
Mercersb. 23 : 617.
in the Gospel of St. John. Lond. Q. 49 : 358.
Eternal Punishment. (L G. M. INIiller.) Luth. Q. 9 : 1.—
(G. Porter.) Month, 33 : 358.— (C. H. Robertson.)
Kitto, 39:56. — (T. J. Sawyer.) Univ. Q. 25 :
205. 27 : 40.— (A. Wolfe.) Kitto, 39 : 299.
Kitto, 40 : 152. Chr. Obs. 54 : 433. ^^at. R.
16 : 88.— (C. Long.) Bib. Sac. 17 : 111. Metli.
M. 25: 402. Theo. R. 1. 559.
APPENDIX. 427
Eternal Punishment and Evil. Kitto, 40 : 152.
and Immortality. Kitto, 26 : 433.
and Universalism. (H. N. Oxenham.) Contemp,
27 : 222-724. Chr. Rem. 45 : 433.
and the Word Eternal Chr. Rem. 27 : 200. See
AtwV.
Barnes on. Univ. Q. 9 : 377.
Belief in, essential to Ordination. (D. Merriman.)
Cong. Q. 15 : 225.
Christ's Testimony on. (J. Leavitt.) Chr. Mo.
Spec. 9 : 617.
Doctrine of. (M. Ballon.) Univ. Q. 11 : 72.— (F.
H. Hedge.) Chr. Exam. 67: 98.
Farrar's Eternal Hope. Bib. Sac. 35 : 779. (C. G.
Thompson.) St. James, 42 : 514. (E. Y. Ger-
hart.) Mercersb. 25: 600.
Papers on, by seventeen Writers. Contemp. 32 :
153, 338, 545.
Reply to Critics. (F. W. Farrar.) Contemp. 32:
569.
Sequel to Discussion. (F. Peek.) Contemp. 32:
694.
Grounds of, considered. (T. J. Sawyer.) Univ.
Q. 29: 182. 31: 306. 32: 458.
in Church of England. Contemp. 19 : 573.
in Old and New Testaments. (W. E. Manley.)
Univ. Q. 23 : 281.
Is it Endless? (F. H. Foster.) Bib. Sac. 35:
353.
Matthew xxv. 46. (A. R. Abbott.) Univ. Q. 20:
42.
Moshcim's Thoughts on. (T. J. Sawyer.) Univ.
Q. 12: 69.
Oxenham on. Canad. Mo. 8 : 548.
Preaching. Chr. R. 25 : 576.
A Result of Character. New Eng. 9 : 186.
428 APPENDIX.
Eternal Punishment, Unreasonableness of. (T. C. Dm-
ley.) Univ. Q. 30: 215.
Untrue. (M. Goodrich.) Univ. Q. 13 : 329.
Eternity, Metaphysical Idea of. (C. M. Mead.) New
England 34: 222.
Realised. (S. E. Andrew.) Chr. Q. Spec. 6 : 73.
Future Life. (G. Bailey.) Univ. Q. 34 : 78.— (A. C.
Barry.) Univ. Q. 35 : 300.— (J. Bayma.). Cath.
World, 25: 494.— (P. Felts.) Luth. Q. 6:
62.— (C. S. Gerhard.) Mercersb. 25 : 102.—
(J. H. Morison.) Unita. E. 3: 152.— (J. W.
Willmarth.) Bapt. Q. 4: 198. So. E. n. s.
20 : 459.
-i Ancient and Modern Belief in. (H. Giles.) Nat.
Q. 8 : 358.
and Future Punishment, H. W. Beecher on. (H.
E. Nye.) Univ. Q. 35 : 83.
and the Soul. (F. Harrison.) 19th Cent. 7 : 623,
832.— Same art. Sup. Pop. Sci. Mo. 7 : 237, 309.
Symposiuna on. 19th Cent. Q. 329, 497. Same
art. Sup. Pop. Sci. Mo. 1 : 499. 2 : 20.
Apostolic Doctrine of. So. E., n. s. 24 : 404.
■ Bakewell on. (E. Peabody.) Chr. Exam. 49 : 37.
The Bible and. (J. Boyden.) Univ. Q. 24 : 397.
Chaldaeo- Assyrian Doctrine of. (0. D. Miller.)
Univ. Q. 36: 318.
confirmed by Nature and Science. (G. W. Quim-
by.) Univ. Q. 8: 381.
J) aniel versus Zoroastei. (C.H.Hall.) Am. Church
E. 16 : 355.
Degrees of Happiness in. (T. B. Thayer.) Univ.
Q. 14: 129.
■ Destiny of Man in. (A. F. Hewit.) Cath. World,
27: 145.
Druidical Doctrine of. (W. E. Alger.) Chr.
Exam. 62 : 88
APPENDIX. 429
Future Life, Egyptian Doctrine of. ("W. R. Alger.)
Univ. Q. 13: 136.
Figuier on. 0. & K 6 : 462.— Temple Bar, 35 :
104.
Great Future. Hours at Home, 7 : 344.
Hebrew Doctrine of. (W. R. Alger.) Chr. Exam.
60: 1.
History of Doctrine of. (W. T. Clarke.) Univ.
Q. 21 : 72.
Alger's. (0. B. Frothingham.) Chr. Exam.
70 : 1.
Hudson on. (J. Strong.) Meth. Q. 18 : 404.
in Brahmanism and Buddhism. (W. R. Alger.)
No. Am. 86 : 435.
Inductive Argument for. (T. B. Thayer.) Univ.
Q. 22 : 36.
Life after Death. (F. P. Cobbe.) Theo. R. 10:
438.
Life in Death. (W. Walford.) Bib. R. 2 : 19.
Natural Evidence for. (W. Walford.) Bib. R.
2: 108.
of the Good. (A. Norton.) Chr. Exam. 1 : 350.
of Man and Brute. (C. C. Everett.) Chr. Exam.
67: 157.
Personal Identity in. (G. H, Emerson.) Univ.
Q. 11: 407.
Physical Theory of, Taylor's. (Sir J. Stephen.)
Ed. R. 71 : 220. Same art. Liv. Age, 87 : 385.
—Eel. R. 64 : 85.— (W. A. Stearns.) Am. Bib.
Repos. 8: 494.— Eraser, 14: 407.
Positive Creed on. (F. B. Lock wood.) Penn. Mo.
9: 177.
Practical Value of Belief in. (C. H. Brigham.)
Chr. Exam. 86 : 158.
Progressive Knowledge of. Mo. Rel. Mo. 28 :
19.
430 APPENDIX.
Future Life, Rabbinical Doctrine of. (W. R. Alg^r.)
Chr. Exam. 60 : 1 89.
Spiritual Theory of. (J. Service.) Con temp. 17 : 129.
What can we know of? Canad. Mo. 13 : 62G.
What shall we be ml (W. R. French.) Univ. Q.
17:167. 18:67.
FuTUKE Punishment. (E. T. Fitch.) Chr. Q. Spec. 1 :
598.— (M. Stuart.) Am. Bib. Repos. 2d s. 3 : 1.
—Brit. Q. 7 : 105.— Chr. Exam. 8 : 392.— Am.
Church R. 2 : 359.— Chr, Mo. Spec. 3 : 505.—
(W. S. Edwards.) Meth. Q. 32 : 546.— (G. P.
Fisher, J. M. Whiton, and W. S. Tyler.) iNTew
Eng. 37:169, 311.— (T. Meritt.) Am. Meth.
M. 6 : 201.— (G. S. Mott.) Princ. 43 : 532.—
(G. Salmon.) Contemp. 32 : 182. Same art.
Eel. M. 689.— (A. Woodbury.) Unita R. 9 : 673.
— (S. Whiting.) Meth. Q. 19 : 414, 614. Am.
Meth. M. 3: 112.— Bentley, 18, 183.— Bost. R.
1 : 113.— Brit. Q. 68 : 107.— Brownson, 19 : 85.
and Future Life, H. W. Beecher on. (H. R. Nye.)
Univ. Q. 35 : 83.
and Rationalism. (E. P. Tenney.) Cong. R. 8 :
161.
and Reward, Doctrine of. Eel. R. 86 : 385.
Christ on Duration of. (C. Kent.) Bib. Sac. 35 :
290.
Cudworth's MS. on. (C. Kenny.) Theo. R. 15 :
267.
Dobney on. Theo. and Lit. J. 3 : 395.— Eel. R.
82 : 153.
Doctrine of. Eel. R. 85 : 39.
Duration of. (E. P. Gould.) Bib. Sac. 37 : 221.
Everlasting. Dub. R. 88, 117.
Decline of Faith in. (A. S. Chesebrough.) Naw
EncT. 39 : 308.
APPENDIX. 431
Future Punishment, Pusey on. (J. B. Mayor.) Con-
temp. 38 : 1025.
Foster on. (R. A. Hallam.) Am. Church R. 2 :
359.— (F. Wayland.) Am. Presb. R. 14 : 61.
in the Old Testament. (H. Cowles.) Bib. Sac.
35 : 514.
of Infants 7wt Calvinism. (L. Beecher.) Spirit
Pilg. 1 :42, 78, 149.
Probation after Death. (J. T. Tucker.) Conc^.
R. 10 : 330.— (J. E Roy.) New Eng. 29 : 400.
and the New Testament. (R. D. C. Robbins.) Bib.
Sac. 38 : 460.
Result of Character. (S. Harris.) New Eng. 9 :
186.
Symposium on. Contemp. 32 : 153-182.
Verdict of Reason on. (S. Cobb.) Univ. Q. 23 :
151.
See Annihilation — Retribution — Hell
(in Poole).
Future State.— (G. Grote.) Contemp. 18 : 153.— (W. H.
Browne.) So. M. 17:250.— (C. Follen.) Chr.
Exam. 7 ; 390. 8 : 115, 265.— (J. M. Hoppin.)
Bib. Sac. 15 : 381.— (C. G. Lyttleton.) Contemp.
21 : 915.— Liv. Age, 110 ; 664.— (J. M. C.
Breaker.) Chr. R. 22 : 1.— Univ. Q. 9 : 160.—
H. Ballou, 2d.) Univ. Q. 10 : 29.— (T. S.
Lothrop.) Univ. Q. 30 : 207.
Analogy between the Present and. (H. Ballou, 2d.)
Univ. Q. 4: 113.
Analogies of, in Nature. (A. Traver.) Evan. R.
18:249.
Ancient Idea of. (A. Yerrington.) Hogg, 1 : 171.
—Am. Bib. Repos. 3rd s. 2 : 686.
Future State and Science. (B. Stewart.) Priuc.
n. s. 2 : 309. 3 : 537.
432 APPENDIX.
Future State, Antepasts of Chr. Obs. 46 : 513.
Apocalyptic Doctrine of. (W. E. Alger.) Chr.
Exam. 57 : 1.
Buddhistic Idea of. (G. T. Flanders.) Univ. Q.
32 : 428.
Clark and Mattison on. (C. T. Moss.) Meth. Q.
27 : 236.
Doctrine of, in the Epistle to the Hebrews. (W. E.
Alger.) Chr. Exam. 53 : 157.
Doctrine of Eewards and Punishments. Bib. E.
5 : 352.
Effect of Present Conduct on. (H. Ballou.) Univ.
Q. 2 : 39, 251.
Egyptian Doctrine of. (J. P. Thompson.) Bib.
Sac. 25 : 69.
Harpings upon Hades. (C. A. Alexander.) Knick,
42 : 405.
Homeric Ideas of. (J. Proudfit.) Bib. Sac. 15 :
753.
Hudson's Doctrine of Theo. (Lit. J.) 10 : 592.
Life after Death. (F. P. Cobbe.) Theo. E. 10:
438.
Mythology of. Tait, n. s. 21 : 100, 129, 198.
Opinions of Contemporaries of the Evangelists on.
(T. E. Conder.) Eraser, 91 : 100.
Paul's Doctrine of. (W. E. Alger.) Chr. Exam.
54 : 202.
Peter's Doctrine of. (W. E. Alger.) Chr. Exam.
55 : 217.
Philosophy of. (Dick's.) AYest. Mo. E. 3 : 596.
Physical Speculations on. (W. James.) Nation,
20 : 366. Brit. Q. 64 : 35.— Lond. Q. 45, 49.
Place of the Departed. (Mrs. H. A. Bingham.)
Univ. Q. 24 : 477. (N. H. Griffin.) Bib. Sac.
13: 153.
Progressive Eevelation of. Chr. Obs. 74 : 161.
APPENDIX. 433
Future State. Proved from the Light of ISTatiire. Theo.
Repo. 1 : 236. 2 : 22. 3 : 219.
Purgatory, Heaven, and Hell. (J. M. Capes.)
Contemp. 22 : 731.
Scriptural Doctrine of. (E. P. Barrows.) Bib.
Sac. 15 : 625.
J. P. Thompson on. (E. C. Towne.) Chr. Exam.
70: 169.
The Unseen Universe. Brit. Q. 64 : 35. Same art.
Liv. Age, 131 : 195.
Vedic Doctrine of. (W. D. Whitney.) Bib. Sac.
16 : 404.
Whateley on. Mercersb. 8 : 384. — Theo. and Lit.
J. 8 : 640. 9:7.
See Hades— Immortality— Intermediate State
(in Poole).
Probation after Death. (J. E. Roy.) ISTew Eng. 29 :
400.
, Is there any Limit to Man's? Mo. Rel. M. 37 :
285, 339.
Life the only Period of. (A. Hovey.) Chr. R. 16 :
541,
PuNiSHMEKT OF SiN. — Delay of, Plutarch on. Bib. Sac.
13 : 609.
Of Sin. (A. Norton.) Chr. Exara. 2 : 169.
Heathen Views of. (E. Fisher.) Univ. Q. 13 :
84.
in the Intermediate State. (W. R. Bagnall.) Mcth.
Q. 12 : 240.
2e
434 APPENDIX.
FIRST SUPPLEMENT, 1882-1886.
Eternal Life and Eternal Death. (C. Z. Weiser.)
Ref. Q. 33 : 238.
of the Kew England Divines. (F. H. Foster.)
Bib. Sac. 43 : 1.
of Origen. (A. F. Hewit.) Cath. World, 36 :
563,^721.
of Paul. (S. S. Hebberd.) Univ. Q. 39 : 14.
of the Psahns. (J. B. Bittinger.) And. R. 2:
225.
Old Testament. (T. Lewis.) Meth. Q. 45 : 23L
Relation of Consciousness to. (W. D. Hyde.)
New Eng. 43 : 745.
Studies in. (P. SchafF.) Presb. R. 4 : 723.
Eternal Life, The New Man and. Church Q. 21 :
271.
Eternal Punishment. Month. 44 : 195, 305.
Certainty of. (W. G. T. Shedd.) No. Am. 140 :
153.
New Defences of. (T. J. Sawyer.) Univ. Q. 38 :
94.
Eternal Regret. (S. Crane.) Univ. Q. 39 : 460.
Eternity and Eternal, New Testament Meaning of.
(G. D. Little.) Presb. Q. 2 : 620.
Future Life, The. (N. Pearson.) 19th Cent. 14 : 262.
— (L. W. Ballou.) Univ. Q. 43 : 298.— Spec.
55 : 621. 56 : 958.
Annexation of Heaven. Atlan. 53 : 135.
• Chaldseo- Assyrian Doctrine of. (0. D. Miller)
Univ. Q. 37: 318.
Death — and Afterwards. (E.Arnold.) Fortn. 44 :
218.
APPENDIX. 435
Future Life, The, in the Old Testament. (G. F. Moore.)
And. R. 2 : 433.
in the Wrong Paradise. (A. Lang.) Fortn. 40 :
845.
Oliphant's Little Pilgrim. Lit W. (Bost.) 13 :
39L
Plumptre on. Spec. 58. — Same art. Liv. Age,
165 : 60.— Lit. W. (Bost.) 16 : 132.
Possibility of. J. Sci, 12 : 472.
Recent Books on. Cong. 14 : 629.
Future Punishment. (E. W. Herndon.) Chris. Q. 2 :
245. — (F. W. Farrar.) Xo. Am. 140 : 193.
Cong. Q. 15 : 225.— (0. D. Miller.) Univ. Q.
40 ; 342.
Future Punishment and Reward. (0. Cone.) Univ. Q.
41 ; 90.
Certainty of. (W. G. T. Shedd.) Brit, and For.
Evang. R. 34 : 336.
New Defences of. (T. J. Sawyer.) Univ. Q. 37 :
94.
Recent Theories on. (J. Cairns.) Cath. Presb.
1 :81.
Future State, The. Liv. Age, 153 : 634.
Darwin on. Spec. 55 : 1249.
Hellenic Idea of the After World. (P. Gardner.)
Eel. M. 105: 215.
Revised Version on. (0. A. Kingsbury.) New
Eng. 42 : 527.
Symth's Dorner. Lit. W. (Bost.) 14 : 123.
Probation after Death. (C. F. Mussey.) Bapt. R. 5 :
440.— (L E. Dwinell.) Brit, and For. Evang.
R. 35 : 326.— (D. A. Whedon.) Meth. Q. 44 :
121, 316.
Dorner on. (W. H. Cobb.) Bib. Sac. 39 : 751.
Practical Bearings of. (G. F. Wright.) Bib. Sac
40 : 694.
436 APPENDIX.
Probation after Death, Conditions and Limitations of.
(J. H. Fairchild.) Bib. Sac. 43 : 423.
Future. (I. E. Dwinell.) Bib. Sac. 43 : 33.— (S.
H. Kellogg.) Presb. E. 6 : 226.
Limit of. (W. Eupp.) Eef. Q. 34 : 518.
Prentiss, Gerhart, and Edgar on. (E. C. Smyth.)
And. E. 1 : 316.
Problem of Human Life, Hall's ; Ecply to C. Braden.
(A. W. Hall.) Chris. Q. 3 : 107.
of Man's Destiny. (S, Fitzsimons.) Am. Cath. Q
7 : 137.
