The Doctrine of Endless Punishment

Chapter I THE HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE, . : ° ae |

Chapter II THE BIBLICAL ARGUMENT, . . : : Pag

CHAPTER III,—TuHE RATIONAL ARGUMENT, ‘ A : . 118

HNDLESS PUNISHMENT.

Chapter I THE HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE

The common opinion in the Ancient church was, that the future punishment of the impenitent wicked is endless. This was the catholic faith ; as much so as belief in the trinity. But as there were some church fathers who deviated from the creed of the church respecting the doctrine of the trinity, so there were some who dissented from it in respect to that of eternal retribution. The deviation in eschatology, however, was far less extensive than in trinitarianism. The Semi-Arian and Arian heresies involved and troubled the Ancient church much more seriously, than did the Universalism of that period. Long controversies, ending in cecumenical councils and formulated statements, were the consequence of the trini- tarian errors, but no cecumenical council, and no authoritative counter-statement, was required to

2 THE DOCTRINE OF

prevent the spread of the tenet of Restoration. Having so little even seeming support in scripture and reason, it gradually died out of the Ancient church by its own intrinsic mortality. Neander (II., 737), speaking of the second period in his arrangement (812-590), when there was more Restorationism than in the first, says: “The doc- trine of eternal punishment continued, as in the preceding period, to be dominant in the creed of the church. Yet, in the Oriental church, in which, with the exception of those subjects immediately connected with the doctrinal controversies, there was greater freedom and latitude of develop- ment, many respectable church teachers still stood forth, without injuring their reputation for or- thodoxy, as advocates of the opposite doctrine, until the time when the Origenistic disputes caused the agreement with Origen in respect to this “point also [viz., Restorationism] to be considered as something decidedly heretical.” Hagenbach (His- tory of Doctrine, $ 78) says of the period down to A.D. 250: “Notions more or less gross prevailed concerning the punishment of the wicked, which most of the fathers regarded as eternal.”

The principal deviation from the catholic doc- trine of endless retribution was in the Alexan- drine school, founded by Clement and Origen. The position taken by them was, that “the punish- ments of the condemned are not eternal, but only

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 3

remedial; the devil himself being capable of amel- 1oration”’ (Gieseler. I. 214). Thus early was the question raised, whether the suffering to which Christ sentences the wicked is for the purpose of correcting and educating the transgressor, or of vindicating and satisfying the law he has broken— a question which is the key to the whole contro- versy. For, if the individual criminal is of greater consequence than the universal law, then the suffering must refer principally to him and his in- terests. But if the law is of more importance than any individual, then the suffering must refer prin- cipally to it.

Origen’s Restorationism grew naturally out of his view of human liberty. He held that the liberty of indifference and the power of. contrary choice, in- stead of simple self-determination, are the substance of freedom. ‘These belong inalienably and forever to the nature of the finite will. They cannot be de- stroyed, even by apostasy and sin. Consequently, there is forever a possibility of a self-conversion of the will in either direction. Free will may fall into sin at any time; and free will may turn to God at any time. This led to Origen’s theory of an endless alternation of falls and recoveries, of hells and heavens; so that practically he taught nothing but a hell. For, as Augustine (City of God, XXI., 17) remarks, in his refutation of Origen, “heaven with the prospect of losing it

4 THE DOCTRINE OF

is misery.” ‘Origen’s theory,” says Neander (1., 656), “concerning the necessary mutability of will in created beings, led hini to infer that evil, ever germinating afresh, would still continue to render necessary new processes of purification, and new worlds destined for the restoration of fallen beings, until all should again be brought back from manifoldness to unity, so that there was to be a constant interchange between fall and re- demption, between unity and manifoldness.”

Traces, more or less distinct, of a belief in the future restoration of the wicked are found in Didymus of Alexandria, the two Gregories, and also in Diodore of Tarsus, and Theodore of Mop- suestia—the leaders of the Antiochian school. All of these were more or less under the influence of Origen. Origen’s opinions, .however, both in trinitarianism and eschatology, were strongly com- bated in his own time by the great body of contemporary fathers, and subsequently by the church under the lead of Epiphanius, Jerome, and Augustine.

The Medizval church was virtually a unit in ‘holding the doctrine of Endless Punishment. The Reformation churches, both Lutheran and Calvin- istic, adopted the historical and catholic opinion.

Since the Reformation, Universalism, Restora- tionism, and Annihilation, have been asserted by some sects and many individuals. But these tenets

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 5

have never been adopted by those ecclesiastical denominations which hold, in their integrity, the cardinal doctrines of the trinity and incarnation, the apostasy and redemption, although they have exerted some influence within these denomina- tions. None of the evangelical churches have in- troduced the doctrine of Universalism, in any form of it, into their symbolical books. The denial of endless punishment is usually associated with the denial of those tenets which are logically and closely connected with it—such as original sin, vicarious atonement, and regeneration. Of these, vicarious atonement is the most incom- patible of any with universal salvation; because the latter doctrine, as has been observed, implies that suffering for sin is remedial only, while the former implies that it is retributive. Suffering’ that is merely educational does not require a vicarious atonement in order to release from it. ° But suffering that is judicial and punitive can be released from the transgressor, only by being in- flicted upon a substitute. He, therefore, who denies personal penalty must, logically, deny vicarious penalty. If the sinner himself is not obliged by justice to suffer in order to satisfy the law he has violated, then, certainly, no one needs suffer for him for this purpose.

Within the present century, Universalism has obtained a stronger hold upon German theology

6 THE DOCTRINE OF

than upon any other, and has considerably vitiated it. It grew up in connection with the rationalism and pantheism which have been more powerful in Germany than elsewhere. Rationalism has many of the characteristics of deism, and is vehemently polemic toward evangelical truth. That it should combat the doctrines of sin and atonement is natural. Pantheism, on the other hand, has to some extent been mingled with evangelical ele- ments. A class of anti-rationalistic theologians, in Germany, whose opinions are influenced more or less by Spinoza and Schelling, accept the doctrines of the trinity, Incarnation, apostasy, and redemption, and assert the ultimate recovery from sin of all mankind. Schleiermacher, the founder of this school, whose system is a remark- able blending of the gospel and pantheism, has done much toward the spread of Restorationism. The following are the objections which this theo- logian (Glaubenslehre, § 163, Anhang) makes to eternal damnation: “1. Christ’s words in Matt. 25:46; Mark 9: 44; John 5: 29, are figurative. 2. The passage 1 Cor. 15: 25, 26, teaches that all evil shall be overcome. 3. Misery cannot increase, but must decrease. If it is bodily misery, custom habituates to endurance, and there is less and less suffering instead of more and more. If, on the other hand, it is mental suffering, this is remorse. The damned suffer more remorse in hell than they -

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 7

do upon earth. This proves that they are better men in hell than upon earth. They cannot, there- fore, grow more wretched in hell, but grow less so as they grow more remorseful. 4. The sympathy which the saved have with their former com- panions, who are in hell, will prevent the happi- ness of the saved. The world of mankind, and also the whole universe, is so connected that the endless misery of a part will destroy the happiness of the remainder.’ These objections appeal mainly to reason. But the two assumptions, that hell is abolished by becoming used to it, and that remorse is of the nature of virtue, do not commend them- selves to the intuitive convictions.

Besides the disciples of Schleiermacher, there are trinitarian theologians standing upon the position of theism, who adopt some form of Universalism. Nitzsch (Dogmatics, § 219) teaches Restorationism. He cites in support of it only two passages out of the entire scriptures—namely, 1 Pet., 8: 19, which speaks of the “preaching to the spirits in prison ;”’ and Heb. 11: 89, 40: “These received not the _ promises.” ‘These two passages Nitzsch explains, as teaching that “there are traces of a capacity in another state of existence for comprehending salva- tion, and for a change and purification of mind;” and upon them solely he founds the sweeping assertion, that “it is the apostolical view, that for those who were unable in this world to know Christ

8 THE DOCTRINE OF

in his truth and grace, there is a knowledge of the Redeemer in the other state of existence which is never inoperative, but is either judicial or quick- ening.”

Rothe (Dogmatics, Th. IL, Abth., 11. $$ 46—49, 124-131) contends for the annihilation of the im penitent wicked, in the sense of the extinction of self-consciousness. Yet he asserts that the aim of penalty is requital, and the satisfaction of justice— an aim that would be defeated by the extinction of remorse. Julius Miller (Sin, IL., 191, 418, 425) affirms that the sin against the Holy Ghost is never forgiven, because it implies such a hardness in sin as is incapable of penitence. But he holds that the offer of forgiveness through Christ will be made to every human being, here or hereafter. “Those who have never in this life had an opportu- nity of knowing the way of salvation will certainly be placed in a position to accept and enter upon this way of return, if they will, after their life on earth - is ended. We may venture to hope that in the interval between death and the judgment many serious misconceptions, which have hindered men from appropriating truth in this life, will be re- moved.” The use of the term “misconception” would seem to imply that some who had the offer of salvation in this life, but had rejected it, will have the opportunity in the next life to correct their error in this. Dorner (Christian Doctrine,

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 9

IV., 416-428), after giving the arguments for and against endless punishment, concludes with the re- mark, that “we must be content with saying that the ultimate fate of individuals, namely, whether all will attain the blessed goal or not, remains veiled in mystery.” His further remark, that “there may be those eternally damned, so far as the abuse of freedom continues eternally, but, in this case, man has passed into another class of beings,” looks in the direction of annihilation—suggesting that sin will finally destroy the humanity of man, and leave him a mere brute. Respecting the future offer of mercy, Dorner asserts that “ the final judg- ment can take place for none before the gospel has been so addressed to him that free appropria- tion of .the same was possible” (Christian Doc- trine, III., 77).

Universalism has a slender exegetical basis. The Biblical data are found to be unmanageable, and resort is had to human feeling and sympathy. Its advocates quote sparingly from scripture. In particular, the words of Christ relating to escha. tology are left with little citation or interpretation. Actual attempts by the Restorationist, to explain what the words, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels,” really mean, are rare. ‘The most common device is to dismiss them, as Schleiermacher does, with the remark that they are figurative. Some

10 THE DOCTRINE OF.

words of St. Paul, on the other hand,. whose views upon sin, election, and predestination, however, are not especially attractive to this class, are made to do yeoman’s service. Texts like Rom. 5: 18, “ As judgment came upon all men unto condemnation, so the free gift came upon all men unto justification vig and 1 Cor. 15: 22, “As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive;” are explained wholly apart from their context, and by voealiz- ing the word “all.” When St. Paul asserts that “the free gift came upon all men unto justifica- tion,” this is severed from the preceding verse, in which the “all” are described as “those which receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness.” And when the same apostle affirms that “in Christ shall all be made alive,” no notice is taken of the fact mentioned in the succeeding verse, that not all men are “in Christ”—the clause, “they that are Christ’s, at his coming,” implying that there are some who are not “Christ’s at his coming.” :

The paucity of the texts of scripture that can with any plausibility be made to teach Univer- salism sometimes leads to an ingenuity that is un- favorable to candid exegesis. The endeavor to escape the force of plain revelation introduces un- natural explanations. A curious example of ca- price in interpretation is found in Ruetschi’s Kritik vom Sindenfall (p. 2381). To prove his assertion,

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 11

that sin by its very nature finally ceases to be, he quotes Rom. 6: 23, “The wages of sin is death.” This means, according to him, that sin ultimately consumes and abolishes itself (muss sich schliess- lich selbst verzehren und aufheben), and this is its “wages” or punishment. This Hssay actually obtained the prize offered by the Hague Associa- tion for the defence of the Christian Religion. This specimen of Biblical interpretation 1s matched by that of a recent advocate of “Conditional Im- mortality,” who contends that Satan taught the natural immortality of the human soul when he said to Eve: “Ye shall not surely die;” and that God taught its natural mortality in the words: “Thou shalt surely die.”

12 THE DOCTRINE OF

Chapter IL THE BIBLICAL ARGUMENT

The strongest support of the doctrine of End- less Punishment is the teaching of Christ, the Re- deemer of man. Though the doctrine is plainly taught in the Pauline Epistles, and other parts of Scripture, yet without the explicit and reiterated statements of God incarnate, it is doubtful whether so awful a truth would have had such a con- spicuous place as it always has had in the creed of Christendom. If, in spite of that large mass of positive and solemn threatening of everlasting punishment from the lips of Jesus Christ, which is recorded in the four Gospels, the attempt has nevertheless been made to prove that the tenet is not an integral part of the Christian system, we may be certain that had this portion of Revelation been wanting, this attempt would have been much more frequent, and much more successful. The Apostles enter far less into detailed description, and are far less emphatic upon this solemn theme, than their divine Lord and Master. And well they might be. For as none but God has the - right, and would dare, to sentence a soul to eter- nal misery, for sin; and as none but God has

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT, HO

the right, and would dare, to execute the sentence ; so none but God has the right, and should presume, to delineate the nature and consequences of this sentence. This is the reason why .most of the _awtul imagery in which the sufferings of the lost are described is found in the discourses of our Lord and Saviour. He took it upon himself to sound the note of warning. He, the Judge of quick and dead, assumed the responsibility of teaching the doctrine of Endless Retribution. “TI will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him who after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.” “Nothing,” says Dr. Arnold, “1s more striking to me, than our Lord’s own description of the judgment. It is so inexpressibly forcible, coming from his very own lips, as descriptive of what he himself would do” (Stanley’s Life of Arnold, I. 176).

Christ could not have warned men so frequently and earnestly as he did against “the fire that never shall be quenched,” and “the worm that dieth not,” had he known that there is no future peril fully corresponding to them. That omniscient Being who made the statements respecting the day of judgment, and the final sentence, that are recorded in Matthew 25 : 31-46, could neither have believed nor expected that all men without exception will eventually be holy and happy. To threaten with “everlasting punishment” a class of

14 THE DOCTRINE OF

persons described as “goats upon the left hand” of the Eternal Judge, while knowing at the same time that this class would ultimately have the same holiness and happiness with those described as “sheep upon the right hand” of the judge, would have been both falsehood and folly. The threatening would have been false. Jor even a long punishment in the future world would not have justified Christ in teaching that this class of

mankind are to experience the same retribution with “the devil cee his angels;”. for these were understood, by the. Jemsetoen 1am héesoke, to be hopelessiigd nd. etemuatly © And the | dj lish, because it

would have Neen A Orutum fulmen, an exaggerated

danger, certainly in the mind of its author. And for the persons threatened, 1 would have been a terror only because they took a different view of it from what its author did—they believing it to be true, and he knowing it to be false !

1 Edersheim (Life of Jesus, IT. 789) asserts that.the schools of Shammai and Hillel both taught the doctrine of eternal punish- ment. ‘‘These schools represented the theological teaching in the time of Christ and his Apostles, showing that the doctrine of iiternal Punishment was held in the days of our Lord, however it may have been. afterwards modified.” Edersheim adds, that ‘‘ the doctrine of the eternity of punishment seems to have been held | by the Synagogue throughout the whole first century. In the second century, there is a decided difference in Rabbinic opinion ; some denying the doctrine of endless retribution. In the third century, there is a reaction and a return to former views.”

a eta oo eee

Ve ANTRAL ig,

ad

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 15

The mere perusal of Christ’s words when he was upon earth, without note or comment upon them, will convince the unprejudiced that the Redeemer of sinners knew and believed, that for impenitent men and devils there is an endless punishment. We solicit a careful reading and pondering of the following well-known passages: “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory; and before him shall be gathered, all nations, and he shall separate them ; one from another, as a shepherd ete dei polis sheep from the goats. And he shai gets aeamash his right hand, but the: goats | on ie

shall he say unto them on the left hand dyagan

from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, Brapined . for the devil and his angels. And these-shall go away into everlasting punishment” (Matt. 25: 31—) 83, 41,46). “If thy right hand offend*thee; cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched; where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it 1s better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched ; where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck 1 out: it is better for thee to enter into the king-

16 THE DOCTRINE OF

dom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9 : 48-48). “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? What is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and be cast away ?” (Mark 8: 86; Luke 9:25). “The rich man died and was buried, and in hell he lifted up his eyes being in torments” (Luke 16:22, 23). “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10:28). “TheSon of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 13: 41, 42). “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? Then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Matt. 7:22, 23). “He that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God. Unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, it shall never be for- given” (Luke 12:9, 10). ‘Woe unto you, ye blind guides. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” (Matt. 23 : 16, 33). “Woe unto that man by

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 17

whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born” (Matt. 26: 24). “The Lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and appoint him his portion with un- believers” (Luke 12 : 46). “He that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark 16:16). “Thou Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell” (Matt. 11:23). “At the end of the world, the angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire” (Matt. 13: 49,50). “Then said Jesus again to them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go ye cannot come” (John 8 : 21). “The hour is coming in which all that are in their graves shall hear my voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation” (John 5°: 28, 29).

To all this, add the description of the manner in which Christ will discharge the office of the Eternal Judge. John the Baptist represents him as one “whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner, but will burn up the chaff with eto eile fire” (Matt. 3:12). And Christ

18 THE DOCTRINE OF

describes himself as a householder who will say to the reapers, “ Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them” (Matt. 13: 80); as a fisherman “casting a net into the sea, and gathering of every kind; which when it was full he drew to the shore, and sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away” (Matt. 13:47, 48); as the bridegroom who took the wise virgins “ with him to the marriage,” and shut the door upon the foolish (Matt. 25 : 10); and as the man travelling into a far country who delivered talents to his servants, and afterwards reckons with them, rewarding the “ good and faith- ful,” and “casting the unprofitable servant into outer darkness, where there shall be weeping and enashing of teeth” (Matt. 25 : 19-80).

Let the reader now ask himself the question: Do these representations, and this phraseology, make the impression that the future punishment of sin is to be remedial and temporary? Are they adapted to make this impression? Were they in- tended to make this impression? Is it possible to believe that that Holy and Divine Person who uttered these fearful and unqualified warnings, eighteen hundred years ago, respecting the destiny of wicked men and devils, knew that a time is coming when there will be no wicked men and devils in the universe of God, and no place of re- tributive torment? Did Jesus of Nazareth hold

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 19

an esoteric doctrine of hell—a different view of the final state of the wicked, from that which the common and natural understanding of his language would convey to his hearers, and has conveyed to the great majority of his readers in all time? Did he know that in the far-off future, a day will come when those tremendous scenes which he de- scribed—the gathering of all mankind, the sepa- ration of the evil from the good, the curse pro- nounced upon the former and the blessing upon the latter—will be looked back upon by all man- kind as “an unsubstantial pageant faded,” as a dream that is passed, and a watch in the night? Having thus noticed the positive and explicit nat- ure of Christ’s teaching, we now proceed to examine the terms employed in Scripture to denote the abode of the lost, and the nature of their punishment. The Old Testament term for the future abode of the wicked, and the place of future punishment, is Sheol (8%). This word, which is translated

by Hades (addy) in the Septuagint, has two signifi- ©

cations: 1. The place of future retribution. 2. The grave.

Before presenting the proof of this position, we call attention to the fact, that it agrees with the explanation of Sheol and Hades common in the Early Patristic and Reformation churches, and disagrees with that of the Later Patristic, the Medieval, and a part of the Modern Protestant

20 THE DOCTRINE OF

church. It agrees also with the interpretation generally given to these words in the versions of the Scriptures made since the Reformation, in the various languages of the world.

The view of the Reformers is stated in the following extract from the Schaff-Herzog en- cyclopedia (Article Hades): “The Protestant churches rejected, with purgatory and its abuses, the whole idea of a middle state, and taught simply two states and places—heaven for be- levers, and hell for unbelievers. Hades was identified with Gehenna, and hence both terms were translated alike in the Protestant versions. The English (as also Luther’s German) version of the New Testament translates Hades and Gehenna

by the same word ‘hell,’ and thus obliterates the important distinction between the realm of the dead (or nether-world, spirit-world), and the place of torment or eternal punishment; but in the Re- vision of 1881 the distinction is restored, and the term Hades introduced.” The same change is made in the Revised Old Testament, published in 1885. The Authorized version renders Sheol sometimes by “hell,” in the sense of the place of punishment, and sometimes by “grave”—the context deter- mining which is the meaning. The Revisers sub- stitute “Sheol” for “hell,” and whenever they leave the word “grave” in the text, add the note: “The Hebrew is Sheol,” in order, as they say, “ to

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 21

indicate that it is not the place of burial.” Had they been content with the mere transliteration of Sheol, the reader might interpret for himself. But in the preface to their version they become com- mentators, and interpret for him. They deny that Sheol means “hell” in the sense of “the place of torment,” and assert that it “signifies the abode of departed spirits, and corresponds to the Greek Hades, or the Underworld” (Preface to the Re- vised Old Testament).

The meaning of an important technical term, such as Sheol, must be determined, certainly in part, by the connection of thought, and the general tenor of Scripture. An interpretation must not be put up- on it that will destroy the symmetry of doctrine. Whether Sheol is from >8% or 52%, or any other merely linguistic particular, will not of itself de- cide the question whether it denotes the Heathen Orcus, or the Christian Hell. That Sheol is a fear- ful punitive evil, mentioned by the sacred writers to deter men from sin, lies upon the face of the Old Testament, and any interpretation that essentially modifies this must therefore be erroneous. But such an essential modification is made by denying that it is the place of torment, and converting it into a promiscuous and indiscriminate abode for all dis- embodied spirits. ‘The indiscriminateness nullifies the evil, and the fear of it. A successful version of the Bible requires the union of philology and

Mise THE DOCTRINE OF

theology. A translation of Scripture made wholly upon assumed philological grounds, and inde- pendent of the analogy of faith, would be certain to contain errors. The general system of Christian truth, and the connection of ideas, confessedly con-

trols the explanation of such terms as ziozis, [o%, f fe

avedua, and Adyos. Merely to apply classical and lexical philology in these cases, would lead to mis- conception. Even, therefore, if it were conceded that the Greek and Hebrew learning of the Eng- lish Revisers 1s superior to that of the age of Usher and Selden, it would not necessarily follow that the truth in this instance is with them, and not with their predecessors. That they may have been under a dogmatic prepossession, and have in- terpreted Scripture by mythology, and the spu- rious clause of a creed, instead of by Scripture it- self, is a possibility.

I. In the first place, Sheol signifies the place of future retribution.

1. This is proved, first, by the fact that it is denounced against sin and sinners, and not against the righteous. It is a place to which the wicked are sent, in distinction from the good. “The wicked in a moment go down to sheol” (Job 21: 13). “The wicked shall be turned into sheol, and all the nations that forget God” (Ps. 9:17). ‘Her steps take hold on sheol” (Prov. 5:5). “ Her guests are in the depths of sheol” (Proy 9:

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 25

18). “Thou shalt beat thy child with a rod, and shalt deliver his soul from sheol” (Prov. 23:14). “A fire is kindled in my anger, and it shal! burn to the lowest sheol” (Deut. 32:22). “If I as. cend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in sheol [the contrary of heaven], behold thou art there” (Ps. 189:8). “The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from sheol beneath ” (Prov. 15:24). “Sheol is naked before him, and destruction [Abaddon, Rev. ver.] hath no covering” (Job 26:6). “Sheol and destruc- tion [Abaddon, Rev. ver.] are before the Lord ” (Prov. 15:11). “Sheol and destruction [Abad- don, Rev. ver.] are never full” (Prov. 27:20). If in these last three passages the Revised render- ing be adopted, it is still more evident that Sheol denotes Hell; for Abaddon is the Hebrew for Apollyon, who is said to be “the angel and king of the bottomless pit’’ (Rev. 9:11).

There can be no rational doubt, that in this class of Old Testament texts the wicked are warned of a future evil and danger. The danger 1s, that they shall be sent to Sheol. The connection of thought requires, therefore, that Sheol in such passages have the same meaning as the modern Hell, and like this have an exclusive reference to the wicked. Otherwise, it is not a warning. To give it a mean- ing that makes it the common residence of the good and evil, is to destroy its force as a Di-

24. THE DOCTRINE OF

vine menace. If Sheol be merely a promiscuous underworld for all souls, then to be “turned into sheol” is no more a menace for the sinner than for the saint, and consequently a menace for neither. In order to be of the nature of an alarm for the wicked, Sheol must be something that per- tains to them alone. If it is shared with the good, its power to terrify is gone. If the good man goes to Sheol, the wicked man will not be afraid to go with him. It is no answer to this, to say that Sheol contains two divisions, Hades and Paradise, and that the wicked go to the former. This is not in the Biblical text, or in its connection. The wicked who are threatened with Sheol, as the punishment of their wickedness, are not threat- ened with a part of Sheol, but with the whole of it. Sheol is one, undivided, and homogeneous in the inspired representation. The subdivision of it into heterogeneous compartments, 1s a conception imported into the Bible from the Greek and Roman classics. The Old Testament knows noth- ing of a Sheol that is partly an evil, and partly a good. The Biblical Sheol is always an evil, and nothing but an evil. When the human body goes down to Sheol in the sense of the “grave,” this is an evil. And when the human soul goes down to Sheol in the sense of “hell and retribution,” this is an evil. Both are threatened, as the penalty of sin, to the wicked, but never to the righteous.

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. ps)

Consequently, in the class of passages of which we are speaking, “going down to sheol” denotes something more dreadful than “going down to the grave,” or than entering the so-called underworld of departed spirits. To say that “the wicked shall be turned into sheol,” implies that the righteous shall not be; just as to say that “they who obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ shall be punished with everlasting destruction” (2 Thess. 1: 8,9), implies that those who do obey it shall not be. To say that the “steps” of the pros- titute “take hold on sheol,’ is the same as to say that “ whoremongers shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone ” (Rev. 21:8). To “deliver the soul of a child from sheol” by parental discipline, is not to deliver him either from the grave, or from a spirit-world, but from the future torment that awaits the morally undisciplined. In mentioning Sheol in such a connection, the imspired writer is not mentioning a region that is common alike to the righteous and the wicked. This would defeat his purpose to warn the latter.t Sheol, when

1 «The meaning of the Hebrew word Sheol is doubtful, but I have not hesitated to translate it hell. I do not find fault with those who translate it grave, but it is certain that the prophet means something more than common death; otherwise he would say nothing else concerning the wicked, than what would also happen to all the faithful in common with them” (Calvin on Ps, 9:17),

26 THE DOCTRINE OF

denounced to the wicked, must be as peculiar to them, and as much confined to them, as when “the lake of fire and brimstone” is denounced to them. All such Old Testament passages teach that those who go to Sheol suffer from the wrath of God, as the Eternal Judge who punishes iniquity. The words: “The wicked is snared in the work of his own hands. The wicked shall be turned into. sheol, and all the nations that forget God” (Ps. 9: 16, 17), are as much of the nature of a Divine. menace against sin, as the words, “In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die” (Gen! 2:17). And the interpretation which eliminates the idea of penal suffering from the former, to be consistent, should eliminate it from the latter. Accordingly, these texts must be read in connec- tion with, and interpreted by, that large class of texts in the Old Testament which represent God as a judge, and assert a future judgment, and a: future resurrection for this purpose. “Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen..18:25). “To me belongeth vengeance, and recompense; their feet shall slide in due time” (Deut. 32 : 35). “Hnoch the seventh from Adam prophesied of these, saying, Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed” (Jude 14, 15).

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. OT

“The wicked is reserved to the day of destruction. They shall be brought forth to the day of wrath” (Job 21:30). “The ungodly shall not stand in the judgment ; the way of the ungodly shall perish ” (Ps. 1:5,6). “Verily, he is a God that judgeth in the earth” (Ps. 58:11). “ Who knoweth the power of thine anger ? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath” (Ps. 90:11). “O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth, shew thyself. Lift up thy- self, thou Judge of the earth: render a reward to the proud” (Ps. 94:1, 2). “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Prov. 16:25). “God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for there is a time for every purpose, and every work” (Hecl. . 8:17). “Walk in the ways of thine heart, and

in the sight of thine eyes; but know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into judg- ment” (Eecl. 11:9). “God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil” (Hecl. 12:14). “The sinners in Zion are afraid; fear- fulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with devouring burnings?” (Is. 38: 14). Of “the men that have transgressed against God,” it is said that their “worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched” (Is. 66: 24). _ “T beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the

28 THE DOCTRINE OF

Ancient of days did sit. His throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels like burning fire; thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened” (Dan. 7:9, 10). “Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan. 12:2). “The Lord hath sworn by the ex- cellency of Jacob, Surely I never will forget any of their works” (Amos 8:7). “They shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my jewels” (Mal. 3: 17).

A. final judgment, unquestionably, supposes a place where the sentence is executed. Conse- quently, these Old Testament passages respecting the final judgment throw a strong light upon the meaning of Sheol, and make it certain, in the highest degree, that it denotes the world : where the penalty resulting from the verdict of the Supreme Judge is to be experienced by the transgressor. ‘The “ wicked,” when sentenced at the last judgment, are “turned into sheol,” as ‘idolaters and all liars,” when sentenced, “have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone” (Rev. 21:8).

2. A second proof that Sheol is the proper name for Hell, in the Old Testament, is the fact that there is no other proper name for it in the whole

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 29

volume—for Tophet is metaphorical, and rarely employed. If Sheol is not the place where the wrath of God falls upon the transgressor, there is no place mentioned in the Old Testament where it does. But it is utterly improbable that the final judgment would be announced so clearly as it is under the Old Dispensation, and yet the place of retributive suffering be undesignated. In modern theology, the Judgment and Hell are correlates; each implying the other, each standing or falling with the other. In the Old Testament theology, the Judgment and Sheol sustain the same rela- tions. ‘The proof that Sheol does not signify Hell would, virtually, be the proof that the doctrine of Hell is not contained in the Old Testament; and this would imperil the doctrine of the final judg- ment. Universalism receives strong support from all versions and commentaries which take the idea of retribution out of the term Sheol. No texts that contain the word can be cited to prove either a future sentence, or a future suffering. They only prove that there is a world of disembodied spirits, whose moral character and condition cannot be inferred from anything in the signification of Sheol; because the good are in Sheol, and the wicked are in Sheol. When it is merely said of a deceased person that he is in the world of spirits, it is impossible to decide whether he 1s holy or sinful, happy or miserable.

30 THE DOCTRINE OF

8, A third proof that Sheol, in these passages, denotes the dark abode of the wicked, and the state of future suffering, is found in those Old Testament texts which speak of the contrary bright abode of the righteous, and of their state of blessedness. According to the view we are combating, Paradise is in Sheol, and constitutes a part of it. But there is too great a contrast between the two abodes of the good and evil, to allow of their being brought under one and the same gloomy and terrifymg term Sheol. When “the Lord put a word in Balaam’s mouth,” Balaam said, “ Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his” (Num. 23: 5, 10). The Psalmist describes this “last end of the righteous” in the following terms: “My flesh shall rest in hope. Thou wilt show me the path of life; in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11). “As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness” (Ps. 17:15). “God will re- deem my soul from the power of sheol; for he shall receive me” (Ps. 49:15). “Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee?” (Ps. 73:24), In like manner, Isaiah (25: 8) says, respecting the righteous, that “ the Lord God will swallow up death in victory, and will wipe away

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. ob

tears from all faces;” and Solomon asserts that

“the righteous hath hope in his death” (Prov. 14:32). These descriptions of the blessedness of the righteous when they die have nothing in common with the Old Testament conception of Sheol, and cannot possibly be made to agree with it. The “anger” of God “burns to the lowest sheol;” which implies that it burns through the whole of Sheol, from top to bottom. The wicked are “turned” into Sheol, and “in a moment go down” to Sheol; but the good are not “turned” into “glory,” nor do they “in a moment go down” to “the right hand of God.” The “ pres- ence” of God, the “right hand” of God, the “olory” to which the Psalmist is to be received, and the “heaven” which he longs for, are cer- tainly not in the dreadful Sheol. They do not constitute one of its compartments. If, between death and the resurrection, the disembodied spirit of the Psalmist is in “heaven,” at the “right hand” of God, in his “presence,” and beholding

? it is not in a dismal underworld.

his “ glory,’ There is not a passage in the Old Testament that asserts, or in any way suggests, that the light of the Divine countenance, and the blessedness of communion with God, are enjoyed in Sheol. Sheol, in the Old Testament, is gloom, and only gloom, and gloomy continually. Will any one

seriously contend that in the passage: “ Enoch

By) THE DOCTRINE OF

walked with God: and he was not; for God took him,” it would harmonize with the idea of “ walk- ing with God,” and with the Old Testament con- ception of Sheol, to supply the ellipsis by saying that “ God took him to sheol?” Was Sheol that “better country, that is, an heavenly,” which the Old Testament saints “desired,” and to attain which they “were tortured, not accepting deliver- ance ?*’ (Heb. 11:16, 35).

4, A fourth proof that Sheol is the place of future retribution, is its inseparable connection with spiritual and eternal death. The Old Testa- ment, like the New, designates the punishment of the wicked by the term “death.” And spiritual death is implied, as well as physical. Such is the meaning in Gen. 2:17. The death there threat- ened is the very same Sdvarocg to which St. Paul refers in Rom. 5:12, and which “ passed upon all men” by reason of the transgression in Eden. Spiritual death is clearly taught in Deut. 30:15, “JT have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil;” in Jer. 21:8, “I set before you the way of life, and the way of death;” in Ezek. 18:32; 83:11, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked ; but that the wicked turn from his way and live ;” in Prov. 8:36, “ All they that hate -me love death.” Spiritual death is also taught, by implication, in those Old Testament passages which speak of spiritual life as its contrary. “ As

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT, Sa

righteousness tendeth to life, so he that pursueth evil pursueth it to his own death” (Prov. 11:19). “ Whoso findeth me findeth life” (Proy. 8:35). “He is in the way of life that keepeth instruc- tion” (Prov. 10:17). “Thou wilt show me the path of life” (Ps. 16:11). ‘“ With thee is the fountain of life” (Ps. 36:9). “Thebe the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore ” (Ps. 133:3). | Sheol is as inseparably associated with spir- itual death and perdition, in the Old Testament, as Hades is in the New Testament, and as Hell is in the common phraseology of the Christian Church. “Sheol is naked before him, and destruc- tion hath no covering” (Job 26:6). “Sheol and destruction are before the Lord” (Prov. 15:11). “Sheol and destruction are never full” (Prov. 27:20). “ Her house is the way to sheol, going down to the chambers of death” (Prov. 7: 27). “Her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead” (Prov. 2:18). “Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on sheol” (Prov. 5:5). The sense of these passages 1s not exhausted, by saying that licentiousness leads to | physical disease and death. The “death” here threatened is the same that St. Paul speaks of, when he says that “they which commit such things are worthy of death” (Rom. 1:82), and that “the end of those things is death” (Rom. | 3

34 THE DOCTRINE OF

6:21). Eternal death and Sheol are as insepar- ably joined in Prov. 5:5, as eternal death and Hades are in Rev. 20: 14.

But if Sheol be taken in the mythological sense of an underworld, or spirit-world, there is no in- separable connection between it and “death,” either physical or spiritual. Physical death has no power in the spirit-world over a disembodied spirit. And spiritual death is separable. from Sheol, in the case of the good. If the good go down to Sheol, they do not go down to eternal death.

II. In the second place, Sheol signifies the “orave,”’ to which all men, the good and evil alike, go down. That Sheol should have the two signifi- cations of hell and the grave, is explained by the connection between physical death and eternal retribution. The death of the body is one of the consequences of sin, and an integral part of the penalty. ‘To go down to the grave, is to pay the first instalment of the transgressor’s debt to jus- tice. It is, therefore, the metonymy of a part for the whole, when the grave 1s denominated Sheol. As in English, “death” may mean either physical or spiritual death, so in Hebrew, Sheol may mean either the grave or hell.

When Sheol signifies the “ grave,” it is only the body that goes down to Sheol. But as the body is naturally put for the whole person, the man is

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. ou)

said to go down to the grave when his body alone is laid in it. Christ “called Lazarus out of his grave” (John 12:17). This does not mean that the soul of Lazarus was in that grave. When a sick person says, “I am going down to the grave,” no one understands him to mean that his spirit is descending into a place under the earth. And when the aged Jacob says, “I will go down into sheol, unto my [dead] son mourning” (Gen. 87:35), no one should understand him to teach the descent of his disembodied spirit into a sub- terranean world. “The spirit of man goeth up- ward, and the spirit of the beast goeth downward” (Eecl. 3:21). The soul of the animal dies with the body; that of the man does not. The statement that “the Son of man shall be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matt. 12:40), refers to the burial of his body, not to the resi- dence of his soul. When Christ said to the penitent thief, “To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise,” he did not mean that his human soul and that of the penitent should be in “the heart of the earth,” but in the heavenly paradise. Christ is repre- sented as dwelling in heaven between his ascension and his second advent. “Him must the heavens receive, till the time of the restitution of all things” (Acts 3:21). “The Lord shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God” (1 Thess.

36 THE DOCTRINE OF

4:16). “Our conversation is in heaven, from which we look for our Saviour the Lord Jesus” (Phil. 3:20). But the souls of the redeemed, during this same intermediate period, are repre- sented as being with Christ. “ Father, I will that they whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me” (John 17:24). “We desire rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). When, therefore, the human body goes down to Sheol, or Hades, 1t — goes down to the grave, and is unaccompanied with the soul.

The following are a few out of many examples of this signification of Sheol. “The Lord killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to sheol, and bringeth up” (1 Sam. 2:6). “Thy servants shall bring down the gray hairs of thy servant our father with sorrow to sheol” (Gen. 44:31). “O that thou wouldest hidé me in sheol” (Job 14:18). “Sheol is my house” (Job 17:18). Korah and his company “went down alive into sheol, and they perished from the congregation” (Numbers 16:33). “In sheol, who shall give thee thanks?” (Ps. 6:5). “There is no wisdom in sheol whither thou goest” (Eccl. 9:10). “I will ransom them from the power of sheol; O sheol, I will be thy destruc- tion” (Hosea 18:14). “My life draweth nigh unto sheol” (Ps. 88:3). “What man is he that

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. | 37

liveth, and shall not see death? Shall he deliver his soul from the hand of sheol?” (Ps. 89: 48). “The English version,” says Stuart, “ renders Sheol by ‘grave’ in 30 instances out of 64, and might have so rendered it in more.”

Sheol in the sense of the “grave” is invested with gloomy associations for the good, as well as the wicked; and this under the Christian dispen- sation, as well as under the Jewish. The Old economy and the New are much alike in this respect. ‘The modern Christian believer shrinks from the grave, like the ancient Jewish believer. He needs as much grace in order to die tranquilly, as did Moses and David. It is true that “ Christ has brought immortality to light in the gospel;” has poured upon the grave the bright light of his own resurrection, a far brighter light than the Patriarchal and Jewish church enjoyed; yet man’s Faith is as weak and wavering as ever, and requires the support of God.

Accordingly, Sheol in the sense of the “grave ” is represented as something out of which the right- eous are to be delivered by a resurrection of the body to glory, but the bodies of the wicked are to be left under its power. “Like sheep, the wicked are laid in sheol; death shall feed on. them, But God will redeem my soul [me= my body] from the power of sheol” (Ps. 49:14, 15). “Thou wilt not leave my soul [me=my body] in sheol;

38 THE DOCTRINE OF

neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption” (Ps. 16:10) This passage, while Messianic, has also its reference to David and all believers. ‘I will ransom them from the power

of sheol. O death, I will be thy plagues; O sheol, I will be thy destruction ” (Hosea 13:14). St. Paul quotes this (1 Cor. 15:55), in proof of

1$t. Peter (Acts 2 : 31) asserts that ‘‘ David spake of the resurrec- tion of Christ,” when he said that “ his soul was not left in sheol, neither did his flesh see corruption.” But there is no resurrection of the soul. Consequently, it is the body that David “spake of.” To ‘leave Christ’s soul in sheol,” is the same thing as to ‘let his flesh see corruption ”—evincing, that ‘‘soul,” here, is put for ‘** body,” and ‘“‘sheol” means the “ grave.” St. Paul (Acts 13 : 35) omits the clause, ‘‘ Thou wilt not leave my soul in sheol,” evidently regarding the clause, ‘‘ Thou wilt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption,” as stating the whole fact in the case.

In support of this interpretation of these words, we avail our- selves of the unquestioned learning and accuracy of Bishop Pear- son. After remarking that the explanation which makes the clause, ‘He descended into hell,” to mean ‘‘ that Christ in his body was laid in the grave,” is ‘‘ ordinarily rejected by denying that ‘soul’ is ever taken for ‘ body,’ or ‘hell’ for the ‘ grave,’” he proceeds to say that “this denial is in vain: for it must be acknowledged, that sometimes the Scriptures are rightly so, and cannot otherwise be, understood. First, the same word in the Hebrew, which the Psalmist used, and in the Greek, which the Apostle used, and we translate ‘the soul,’ is elsewhere used for the body of a dead man, and rendered so in the English version. Both wp) and yvx7 are used for the body of a dead man in the Hebrew, and Septuagint of Num. 6:6: ‘He shall come at no dead body’ (02 tB2), The same usage is found in Lev. 5:2; 19:28; 21:1, 11; 22:4; Num. 18:11, 13; Haggai 2:13. Thus, several times, wp) and wux7 are taken for the body of a dead man; that body which polluted a man under the Law, by the touch thereof. And

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 39

the blessed resurrection of the bodies of believers —showing that “sheol” here “is the “grave,” where the body is laid, and from which it is raised.

The bodies of the wicked, on the contrary, are not delivered from the power of Sheol, or the grave, by a blessed and glorious resurrection, but

Maimondes hath observed, that there is no pollution from the body till the soul be departed. Therefore wo; and wWoyy did signify the body after the separation of the soul. And this was anciently observed by St. Augustine, that the soul may be taken for the body only : ‘ Anime nomine corpus solum posse significari, modo quodam locutionis ostenditur, quo significatur per id quod continetur illud quod continet’ (Epist. 157, al. 190 ad Optatum ; De animarum origine, c. 5, ¢ 19). Secondly, the Hebrew word Sinw which the Psalmist used, and the Greek word dns which the Apostle employed, and is translated ‘hell’ in the English version, doth certainly in some other places signify no more than the ‘grave,’ and is translated so. As when Mr. Ainsworth followeth the word, ‘ For I will go down unto my son, mourning, to hell ;’ our translation, arriving at the sense, rendereth it, ‘For I will go down into the grave, unto my son, mourning’ (Gen. 87: 35). So again he renders, ‘ Ye shall bring down my gray hairs with sorrow unto hell,’ that is ‘to the grave’ (Gen. 42:38). And in this sense we say, ‘The Lord killeth and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up’ (1 Sam. 2:6). It is observed by Jewish commentators that those Christians are mistaken who interpret those words spoken by Jacob, ‘I will go down into sheol,’ of hell [in the sense of underworld] ; declaring that Sheol there is nothing but the grave.” (Pearson, On the Creed, Article V.) The position that zip: is sometimes put for a dead body, and that Sheol in such a connection denotes the erave, was also taken by Usher (as it had been by Beza, on Acts 2:27, before him), and is supported with his remarkable philological and patristic learn- ing. See his discussion of the Limbus Patrum and Christ’s

40 THE DOCTRINE OF

are still kept under its dominion by a “ resurrec- tion to shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan. 12:2). Though the wicked are raised from the dead, yet this is no triumph for them over death and the grave. ‘Their resurrection bodies are not “celestial” and “ glorified,” like those of the re- deemed, but are suited to the nature of their evil

Descent into Hell, in his Answer to a Challenge of a Jesuit in Ire- land (Works, Vol. IIT).

This metonymy of ‘‘soul” for ‘‘ body” is as natural an idiom in Enelish, as it is in Hebrew and Greek. It is more easy for one to say that ‘‘the ship sank with a hundred souls,” than to say that it ‘‘sank with a hundred bodies.” And yet the latter is the real fact in the case.

It is objected that Sheol does not mean the ‘‘ grave,” because there is a word (732) for grave. A grave is bought and sold, and the plural is used; but Sheol is never bought and sold, or used in the plural. The reply is, that ‘“ grave” has an abstract and general sense, denoted by 54x), and a concrete and particular, denoted by sap. All men go to the grave; but not all men have & grave. When our Lord says that ‘‘all that are in their graves (uynpeios) Shall come forth” (John 5: 28), he does not mean that © only those shall be raised who have been laid in a particular grave with funeral obsequies. A man is “in the grave,” in the general sense, when his soul is separated from his body and his body has ‘‘returned to the dust” (Gen. 3:19). To be “in the grave,” in the abstract sense, is to have the elements of the body mingled with those of the earth from which it was taken (Hccl. 12:7). The particular spot where the mingling occurs is un- essential. Moses is in the grave; but “no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.” We say of one drowned in the ocean, that he found a watery grave. ‘These remarks apply also to the use of dédns and pynpeiov. According to Pearson (ut supra) the Jerusalem Targum, with that of Jonathan, and the Persian Targum, explains pinw, in Gen. 87:35; 42:38, by “ap.

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 4]

and malignant souls. “Like sheep they are laid in sheol ; death shall feed upon them” (Ps. 49:14). Respecting sinful Judah and the enemies of Jeho- vah, the prophet says, “Sheol hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure, and their glory shall descend unto it” (Isa. 5:14). Of the fallen Babylonian monarch, it is said, “Sheol from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy com- ing. Thy pomp is brought down to sheol: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee” (Isa. 14:9,11). To convert this bold personifica- tion of the “grave,” and the “worm,” which de- vour the bodies of God’s adversaries, into an ac- tual underworld, where the spirits of all the dead, the friends as well as the enemies of God, are gath- ered, is not only to convert rhetoric into logic, but to substitute the mythological for the Biblical view of the future life. “Some interpreters,” says Alexander on Isaiah 14: 9, “proceed upon the sup- position, that in this passage we have before us not a mere prosopopoeia or poetical creation of the highest order, but a chapter from the popular be- lief of the Jews, as to the locality, contents, and transactions of the unseen world. Thus Gesenius, in his Lexicon and Commentary, gives a minute - topographical description of Sheol as the Hebrews believed it to exist. With equal truth a diligent compiler might construct a map of hell, as con- ceived by the English Puritans, from the descrip-

49? THE DOCTRINE OF

tive portions of the Paradise Lost.” The clear perception and sound sense of Calvin penetrate more unerringly into the purpose of the sacred writer. “The prophet,” he says (Com. on Isa. 14: 9), “makes a fictitious representation, that when this tyrant shall die and go down to the grave, the dead will go forth to meet him and honor him.” Theodoret (Isa. 14: 9) explains in the same way.

The New Testament terms for the place of fut- ure punishment are Hades (ddy¢) and Gehenna (yéevya). Besides these, the verb raprapdw is once used, in 2 Pet. 2:4. “God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to Tar- tarus.” Tartarus was one of the compartments of the pagan Hades, the contrary of Elysium, from which there was no deliverance. Tantalus, Sisy- phus, Tityus, and Ixion were doomed to endless punishment in Tartarus (Odyssey, XI. 575). Plato (Gorgias, 2385) describes this class of trans- gressors as “forever (cor dei yodvor) enduring the most terrible, and painful sufferings.” It is note- worthy, that the place in which they suffer is de- nominated Hades, by both Homer and Plato— showing that in the classical use, Hades is some- times the equivalent of Tartarus and the modern Hell, and the contrary of Elysium.

There is no dispute respecting the meaning of Gehenna. It denotes the place of retributive suf- fering. It is employed twelve times in the New

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 43

Testament: seven times in Matthew’s Gospel ; thrice in Mark’s, and once in Luke’s. In every one of these instances, it is Christ who uses the term. The only other person who has used it is James (3:6). It is derived from 773, valley of Hin- nom; Chaldee 373 = [éevva, Sept. “Evvou. It was a valley southeast of Jerusalem, in which the Mo- loch worship was practised (2 Kings 23:10; Ezek. 23:37, 89). It was called Tophet, “ abomination” (Jer. 81:32). King Josiah caused the filth of Je- rusalem to be carried thither and burned (2 Kings 23:10). Robinson asserts that there is no evidence that the place was used in Christ's day for the de- posit and burning of offal. “Gehenna,” at the time of the Advent, had become a technical term for endless torment; as “Paradise” and “ Abra- ham’s bosom” had for endless blessedness; and as “ paganus” (villager) subsequently became, for a “heathen.”

Hades (ddys) is the word by which the Seventy © translate Sheol. It has the same two meanings in the New Testament that Sheol has in the Old: 1. The place of retribution. 2. The grave.

1. First of all, Christ’s solemn and impressive parable of Lazarus and Dives demonstrates that Hades is the place of future punishment. “The rich man died and was buried; and in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torments. And he cried, and said, Father Abraham have mercy upon me,

44 THE DOCTRINE OF

and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tor- mented in this:flame” (Luke 16: 22-24). Our Lord describes Dives as a disembodied spirit, and as suffering a righteous retribution for his hard- hearted, luxurious, and impenitent life. He had no pity for the suffering poor, and squandered all the “ good things received” from his Maker, in a life of sensual enjoyment. The Saviour also rep- resents Hades to be inexorably retributive. Dives

asks for a slight mitigation of penal suffering, “a

drop of water.” He is reminded that he is suffer- ing what he justly deserves, and is told that there is a “fixed gulf” between Hades and Paradise. He then knows that his destiny is decided, and his case hopeless, and requests that his brethren may be warned by his example. After such a descrip- tion of it as this, it 1s strange that Hades should ever have been called an abode of the good.

2. Secondly, Hades is represented as the con- trary of Heaven, and the contrary of Heaven is Hell. “Thou Capernaum which art exalted unto heaven shalt be brought down to hades” (Matt. 11: 23; Luke 10:15). This is explained by the asser- tion, that “it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee.”

8. Thirdly, Hades is represented as Satan’s

kingdom, antagonistic to that of Christ. “The

gates of Hades shall not prevail against my

—_ —- —_—

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 45

church ” (Matt. 16:18). An underworld, contain- ing both the good and the evil, would not be the kingdom of Satan. Satan’s kingdom is not so comprehensive as this. Nor would an underworld be the contrary of the church, because it includes Paradise and its inhabitants.

4, Fourthly, Hades is represented as the prison of Satan and the wicked. Christ said to St. John, “T have the keys of Hades and of death” (Rev. 1: 18), and describes himself as “ He that open- eth, and no man shutteth, and shutteth, and no man openeth” (Rev. 8:7). As the Supreme Judge, Jesus Christ opens and shuts the place of future punishment upon those whom he sentences. “T saw an angel come down from heaven having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand, and he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bot- _tomless pit, and shut him up” (Rev. 20: 1-8). All modifications of the imprisonment and suffer- ing in Hades are determined by Christ. “I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened, and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in those books; and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them, and they were judged every man according to their works; and death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire” (Rev. 20:

46 THE DOCTRINE OF

12-14). On the day of judgment, at the com- mand of the Son of God, Hades, the intermediate state for the wicked, surrenders its inhabitants that they may be re-embodied and receive the final sentence, and then becomes Gehenna, the final state for them. Hell without the body be- comes Hell with the body.

5. Fifthly, Hades, like Sheol, 1s inseparably con- nected with spiritual and eternal death. “I have the keys of Hades and of death” (Rev. 1:18). “Death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them” (Rev, 20:13). “Isaw a pale horse; and his name that sat upon him was Death, and Hades followed him” (Rev. 6: 8). Hades here stands for its inhabitants, who are under the power of (“follow”) the “second death” spoken of in Rev. 2:11; 20: 6,143 21: 8. This 1s spiritual-and eternal death, and must not be confounded with the first death, which is that of the body only. This latter, St. Paul (1 Cor. 15: 26) says was “destroyed” by the blessed resurrection of the body, in the case of the saints, not of the wicked. (supra p. 89.) The “second death” is defined as the “being cast into the lake of fire” (Rev. 20: 14). This “death” is never “destroyed;” be- cause those who are “cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, with the devil that deceived them, shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever’ (Rev. 20: 10).

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 47

Besides these instances, there are only three others in which Hades is found in the Received text of the New Testament : namely, Acts 2 : 27, 61; 1 Cor. 15.: 55.. In 1 Cor. 15: 55, the uncials ss BC D, followed by Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Hort, read Sdvare twice. In all these instances Hades signifies the “ grave.”

From this examination of texts, it appears that Hades, in the New Testament, has the same two significations that Sheol has‘in the Old. The only difference is, that, in the Old Testament, Sheol less often, in proportion to the whole number of in- stances, denotes “hell,” and more often the “orave,”’ than Hades does in the New Testament. And this, for the reason that the doctrine of future retribution was more fully revealed and developed by Christ and his apostles, than it was by Moses and the prophets.

If after this study of the Biblical data, there still be doubt whether Sheol and Hades denote, sometimes the place of retribution for the wicked, and sometimes the grave, and not an under-world, or spirit-world, common to both the good and evil, let the reader substitute either the latter or the former term in the following passages, and say if the connection of thought, or even common sense, is preserved. “The wicked in a moment go down to the spirit-world.” “The wicked shall be turned into the spirit-world, and all the nations that for-

48° THE DOCTRINE OF

get God.” “Her steps take hold on the spirit- world.” “Her guests are in the depths of the spirit-world.” “Thou shalt beat thy child with a rod, and shalt deliver his soul from the spirit- world.” “The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from the spirit-world beneath.” “In the spirit-world, who shall give thee thanks? ” “There is no wisdom in the spirit-world, whither thou goest.” “I will ransom them from the power of the spirit-world; O spirit-world I will be thy destruction.” “ Like sheep the wicked are laid in the spirit-world; death shall feed upon them. But God will redeem my soul from the power of the spirit-world.” “Thou wilt not leave my soul in the spirit-world ; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” “The gates of the spirit-world shall not prevail against the church.” “Thou Capernaum which art exalted unto heaven shalt be brought down to the spirit-world.” “And in the spirit-world he lft up his eyes being in torments.” “ Death and the spirit-world were cast into the lake of fire.” “Isaw a pale horse, and his name that sat upon him was Death, and the spirit-world followed him.”

Hades is the disembodied state for the souls of the wicked between death-and the resurrection, as Paradise is for the souls of the righteous. All human souls between death and the resurrection are separated from their bodies. ‘ Then shall the

wt gt ae ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 49

dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return to God who gave it” (Hecl. 12: 7). “ Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the spirit” (Matt. 27: 50). “ When Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit; and having said this, he gave up the ghost” (Luke 238: 46). “Stephen called upon God, saying, Lord Jesus re- ceive my spirit” (Acts 7:59). “We are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be pres- ent with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). “I knew a man in Christ about four years ago, whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell” (2 Cor. 12:2). “I think it meet, as Jong as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance: knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me” (2 Pet.1:13,14). “I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus” (Rev. 20:4). “I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God” (Rev. 6: 9). All texts which teach the resurrection of the body at the day of judgment, imply that between death and the final judgment the human soul is disembodied.

Belief in the immortality of the soul, and its separate existence from the body after death, was characteristic of the Old economy, as well as the New. It ia also a pagan belief. Plato elabo-

50 THE DOCTRINE OF

rately argues for the difference, as to substance, between the body and the soul, and asserts the in- dependent existence of the latter. He knows nothing of the resurrection of the body, and says that when men are judged, in the next life, “ they shall be entirely stripped before they are judged, for they shall be judged when they are dead; and the judge too shall be naked, that is to say, dead ; he with his naked soul shall pierce into the other naked soul, as soon as each man dies.” (Gorgias 528).

That the independent and separate existence of the soul after death was a belief of the Hebrews, is proved by the prohibition of necromancy in Deut. 18: 10-12. The “gathering” of the patri- archs “to their fathers” implies the belief. Je- hovah calls himself “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” and this supposes the immortality and continued existence of their spirits; for, as Christ (Luke 20: 28) argues in reference to this very point, “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living;” not of the unconscious, but the conscious. Our Lord affirms that the future existence of the soul is so clearly taught by ‘Moses and the prophets,” that if a man is not convinced by them, neither would he be “ though one should rise from the dead” (Luke 16: 29).

Some, like Warburton, have denied that the im- mortality of the soul is taught in the Old Testa-

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 51

ment, because there is no direct proposition to this effect, and no proof of the doctrine offered. But this doctrine, like that of the Divine existence, is nowhere formally demonstrated, because it is everywhere assumed. Much of the matter of the Old Testament is nonsense, upon the supposition that the soul dies with the body, and that the sacred writers knew nothing of a future life. For illus- tration, David says, “ My soul panteth after Thee.” He could not possibly have uttered these words, if he had expected death to be the extinction of his consciousness. The human soul cannot “pant” for a spiritual communion with God that is to last only seventy years, and then cease forever. Every spiritual desire and aspiration has in it the ele- ment of infinity and endlessness. No human being can say to God: “Thou art my God, the strength of my heart, and my portion, for three-score years and ten, and then my God and portion no more forever.” When God promised Abraham that in him should “all the families of the earth be blessed” (Gen. 12: 8),and Abraham “ believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteous- ness” (Gen. 15 : 16), this promise of a Redeemer, and this faith in it, both alike involve a future ex- istence beyond this transitory one. God never would have made such a promise to a creature who was to die with the body; and such a creat- ure could not have trusted in it. In like manner,

6

he THE DOCTRINE OF

Adam could not have believed the protevangelism, knowing that death was to be the extinction of his being. All the Messianic matter of the Old Testa- ment is absurd, on the supposition that the soul is mortal. To redeem from sin a being whose con- sciousness expires at death, is superfluous. David prays to God, “Take not the word of truth out of my mouth; so shall I keep thy law contin- ually forever and ever (Ps. 119 : 48, 44).- Every prayer to God in the Old Testament implies the immortality of the person praying. “My flesh faileth, but God is the strength of my heart forever” (Ps. 63:2). “Trust ye in the Lord for- ever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength” (Isa. 26:4). The nothingness of this life only leads the Psalmist to confide all the more in God, and to expect the next life. “Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age 1s as nothing before thee: verily, every man at his best state is altogether vanity. And now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in thee” (Ps. 39:5, 7), » As Sir John Davies says of the soul, in his poem on Immortality : “Water in conduit pipes can rise no higher Than the well-head from whence it first doth spring:

Then since to eternal God she doth aspire, She cannot be but an eternal thing.”

Another reason why the Old Testament con- tains no formal argument in proof of immortality,

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. Ba

and a spiritual world beyond this life, is, because the intercourse with that world on the part of the Old Testament saints and inspired prophets was so immediate and constant. God was not only present to their believing minds and hearts, in his paternal and gracious character, but, in addition to this, he was frequently manifesting himself in theophanies and visions. We should not expect that a person who was continually communing with God would construct arguments to prove his existence; or that one who was brought into con- tact with the unseen and spiritual world, by supernatural phenomena and messages from it, would take pains to demonstrate that there is such a world. The Old Testament saints “ en- dured as seeing the invisible.”

The Old Testament teaches the conscious happi- ness of believers after death. “Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him” (Gen. 5:24). “Let me die the death of the right- eous, and let my last end be like his” (Numbers 93:10). “My flesh shall rest in hope. Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy presence is Puless Of joy” (Ps. 16: 9,11). * As for me, 1 will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness” (Ps. 17:15). “God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave; for he shall receive me” (Ps. 49:15). “Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel,

54 THE DOCTRINE OF

and afterward receive me to glory. My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion forever” (Ps. 73:24, 26). “He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces” (Isa, 25:8). This is quoted by St. Paul (1 Cor. 15:54), in proof that “this mortal shall put on immortality.” St. Paul also teaches that the Old Testament saints, like those of the New, trusted in the Divine promise of the Redeemer, and: of the resurrection. “I stand and am judged for the | hope of the promise made of God unto our fa- thers: unto which promise, our twelve tribes, in- stantly serving God day and night, hope to come. For which hope’s sake, king Agrippa, I am ac- cused of the Jews. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?” (Acts 26: 6-8; comp. 23:6.) “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And, truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have re- turned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly” (Heb. 11:13-16). ‘These bright and hopeful anticipations of the Old Testa-

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 5D

ment saints have nothing in common with the pagan world of shades, the gloomy Orcus, where all departed souls are congregated.

The New Testament abundantly teaches the con- scious happiness of believers in the disembodied state. “To-day shalt thou be with me in para- dise,” said Christ to the penitent thief (Luke 23: 43). “They stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (Acts 7: 59). Immediately on dying, Lazarus is in “ Abra- ham’s bosom;” “receives good things;” and is “comforted” (Luke 16:28, 25). “To die is gain. J am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and be with Christ, which is far better” (Phil. 1: 21,28). “I knew aman in Christ, above fourteen years ago, who was caught up to the third heaven, into paradise, and heard un- speakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter” (2 Cor. 12:2-4). “ We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dis- solved, we have a building of God; an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. There- fore we are always confident, knowing that whilst we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. We desire rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:1, 6, 8). “Christ died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him” (2 Thess. 5:10). “I bow my knees unto

56 THE DOCTRINE OF

the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven [not Hades] and earth is named” (Eph. 8:14,15). “Which hope entereth into that within the veil; whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus” (Heb. 6:20). “And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and white robes were given unto every one of them” (Rev. 6:9, 11). “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord” (Rev. 14: 138). The doctrine that the condition of all men between death and the resurrection is a disem- bodied condition has been greatly misconceived, and the misconception has introduced errors into eschatology. Inasmuch as the body, though not necessary to personal consciousness, 1s yet neces: sary in order to the entire completeness of the person, it came to be supposed in the Patristic church, that the intermediate state 1s a dubious — and unfixed state; that the resurrection adds very considerably both to the holiness and happiness of the redeemed, and to the sinfulness and misery of the lost. This made the intermediate, or disem-— bodied state, to be. imperfectly holy and happy for the saved, and imperfectly sinful and miserable for the lost. According to Hagenbach (§ 142), the © majority of the fathers between 250 and 730 “be- lieved that men do not receive their full reward till after the resurrection.” Jeremy Taylor (Lib-

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 57

erty of Prophesying, § 8) asserts that the Latin fathers held that “the saints, though happy, do

not enjoy the beatific vision before the resurrec-

)

tion.” ven so respectable an authority as Am-

_brose, the spiritual father of Augustine, taught that the soul “while separated from the body is held in an ambiguous condition” (ambiguo sus- penditur).*

The incompleteness arising from the absence of the body was more and more exaggerated in the Patristic church, until it finally resulted in the doctrine of a purgatory for the redeemed, adopted formally by the Papal church, according to which, the believer, between death and the resurrection, goes through a painful process in Hades which

‘Tt is often difficult to say positively, and without qualification, what the opinion of a church father really was upon.the subject of Hades, owing to the unsettled state of opinion. One and the _ same writer, like Tertullian, or Augustine, for example, makes different statements at different times. This accounts for the con- flicting representations of dogmatic historians. One thing, how- ever, is certain, that the nearer we approach the days of the Apostles, the less do we hear about an underworld, and of Christ’s descent into it. Little is said concerning Hades, by the Apostolical fathers. In the longer recension of Ignatius ad Smyrneos (Ch. ix.), they are exhorted to ‘repent while yet there is opportunity, for in Hades no one can confess his sins.” Justin Martyr (Trypho, Ch. v.) simply says that ‘‘the souls of the pious remain in a better place, while those of the wicked are in a worse, waiting for the time of judgment.” The extracts from the fathers in Huide- koper’s volume on Christ’s Mission to the Underworld, show the uncertainty that prevailed. The same is true of those in Kénig’s Christi Héllenfahrt, notwithstanding the bias of the author.

58 THE DOCTRINE OF

cleanses him from remaining corruption, and fits him for Paradise. The corresponding exaggera- tion in the other direction, in respect to the con- dition of the lost in the disembodied state, is found mostly in the Modern church. The Modern Res- torationist has converted the intermediate state into one of probation, and redemption, for that part of the human family who are not saved in this life. ?

The Protestant Reformers, following closely the Scripture data already cited, which represent the redeemed at death as entirely holy and happy in Paradise, and the lost at death as totally sinful and miserable in Hades, rejected altogether the Patris- tic and Medieval exaggeration of the corporeal incompleteness of the intermediate state. They affirmed perfect happiness at death for the saved, and utter misery for the lost. The first publication of Calvin was a refutation of the doctrine of the sleep of the soul between death and the resurrec- tion. The Limbus and Purgatory were energeti- cally combated by all classes of Protestants. “I know not,” says Calvin (Institutes II. xvi. 9), “how it came to pass that any should imagine a subterraneous cavern, to which they have given the name of hmbus. But this fable, although it is maintained by great authors, and even in the present age is by many seriously defended as a truth, is after all nothing but a fable.”

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 59

The doctrine of the intermediate or disembodied state, as it was generally received in the Reformed (Calvinistic) churches, is contained in the follow- ing statements in the Westminster standards: “The souls of believers are, at their death, made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory [The Larger Catechism (86) and Confes- sion (xxxil. 1) say, “into the highest heavens ”]; and their bodies, being still united to Christ,-do rest in their graves till the resurrection. At the resur- rection, believers, being raised up in glory, shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment, and made perfectly blessed in full- enjoying of God to all eternity” (Shorter Cate- chism, 37, 88). According to this statement, there is no essential difference between Paradise and Heaven. The Larger Catechism (86) asserts that “the souls of the wicked are, at death, cast into hell, and their bodies kept in their graves till the resurrection and judgment of the great day.” The Larger Catechism (89) and Confession (xxxil. 1) say that “at the day of gudgment, the wicked shall be cast into hell, to be punished forever.” According to this, there is no essential difference between Hades and Hell.

The substance of the Reformed view, then, is, that the intermediate state for the saved is Heaven without the body, and the final state for the saved is Heaven with the body; that the intermediate

60 THE DOCTRINE OF

state for the lost is Hell without the body, and the final state for the lost is Hell with the body. In the Reformed, or Calvinistie eschatology, there is no intermediate Hades between Heaven and Hell, which the good and evil inhabit in common. When this earthly existence is ended, the only specific places and states are Heaven and Hell. Paradise is a part of Heaven; Sheol, or Hades, is a part of Hell. A pagan underworld containing both Paradise and Hades, both the happy and the miserable, like the pagan idol, is “nothing in the world.” There is no such place.

This view of Hades did not continue to prevail universally in the Protestant churches. After the creeds of Protestantism had been constructed, in which the Biblical doctrine of Sheol is gen- erally adopted, the mythological view began again to be introduced. Influential writers ike Lowth and Herder gave it currency in Great Britain and Germany. “A popular notion,” says Lowth (Hebrew Poetry, Lect. VIII.), “prevailed among the Hebrews, as well as among other nations, that the life which succeeded the present was to be passed beneath the earth; and to this notion the sacred prophets were obliged to allude, occa- sionally, if they wished to be understood by the people, on this subject.” Says Herder (Hebrew Poetry, Marsh’s Translation, II. 21), “No meta- phorical separation of the body and soul was yet

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 61

known among the Hebrews, as well as among other nations, and the dead were conceived as still living in the grave, but in a shadowy, obscure, and powerless condition.” The theory passed to the lexicographers, and many of the lexicons formally defined Sheol and Hades as the underworld. It then went rapidly into commentaries, and popular expositions of Scripture.

The Pagan conception of Hades is wide and comprehensive; the Biblical is narrow and ex- clusive. ‘The former includes all men; the latter, only wicked men. The Greeks and Romans meant by Hades, neither the grave in which the dead body is laid, nor the exclusive place of retribu- tion, but a nether world in which all departed souls reside. There was one daddys for all, con- sisting of two subterranean divisions: Elysium and Tartarus. In proportion as the Later-Jews came to be influenced by the Greek and Roman mythology, the Old Testament Sheol was widened, and made to be a region for the good as well as the evil. Usher (Limbus Patrum), and Pearson (Creed, Art. Y.), cite Josephus as an example. This mythological influence increased, until the doctrine of purgatory itself came into the Jewish apocryphal literature. Purgatory is taught in 2 Maccabees, 12 : 45. Manasses, in his Prayer, asks God not “to condemn him into the lower parts of the earth.” The Synagogue, according

62 THE DOCTRINE OF

to Charnocke (Discourse II.), believed in a pur- gatory.*

The Pagan conception, as has been observed, passed also into the Christian church. It is found in the writings of many of the fathers, but not in any of the primitive creeds. “The idea of a Hades (5:82), known to both Hebrews and Greeks, was transferred to Christianity, and the assump- tion that the real happiness, or the final misery of the departed, does not commence till after the general judgment and the resurrection of the body, appeared to necessitate the belief in an interme- diate state, in which the soul was supposed to re- main, from the moment. of its separation from the body to the last catastrophe. Tertullian, however, held that the martyrs went at once to paradise, the abode of the blessed, and thought that in this they enjoyed an advantage over other Christians, while Cyprian does not seem to know about any intermediate state whatever” (Hagenbach: His- tory of Doctrine, § 77). |

According to this Hellenized eschatology, at death all souls go down to Hades: in inferna loca, or ad inferos homines. This is utterly unbiblical. It is connected with the heathen doctrine of the infernal divinities, and the infernal tribunal of

Minos and Rhadamanthus. The God of revela-

-'Qn the influence of Hellenism upon the Later-Judaism, see Hdersheim’s Messianic Prophecy and History, Lecture IX.

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. “Oo

tion does not have either his abode, or his judg- ment-seat, in Hades. From Christ’s account of the last judgment, no one would infer that it takes place in an underworld. In both the Old and New Testament, the good dwell with God, and God’s dwelling-place is never represented as “below,” but “on high.” Elijah ascends in a chariot of fire. David expects to be “received to glory.” Christ describes the soul of a_ believer, at death, as going up to Paradise. “The beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died, and was buried. And in Hades he lift wp his eyes, being in tor- ments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom” (Luke 16:22, 28). According to this description, Abraham’s bosom and Hades are as opposite and disconnected as the zenith and the nadir. To say that Abraham’s bosom is a part of Hades, is to say that the heavens are a compart- ment of the earth. St. Matthew (8:11) teaches that Abraham’s bosom is in heaven: “ Many shall recline (dvaxA.sjoortac) with Abraham, in the kingdom of heaven.” Paradise is separated from Hades by a “great chasm” (Luke 16:26). The word véoua denotes space either lateral or vertical, but more commonly the latter. Schleusner, in voce, says: “ Maxime dicitur de spatio quod e loco superiore ad inferiorem extenditur.” Hades is in infernis; Abraham’s bosom, or Paradise, is in

64 THE DOCTRINE OF

superis; and Heaven, proper, is in excelsis, or summis.

If Paradise is a section of Hades, then Christ descended to Paradise, and saints at death go down to Paradise, and at the last day are brought up from Paradise. ‘This difficulty is not met, by resorting to the Later-Jewish distinction between a supernal and an infernal paradise. The para- dise spoken of by Christ, in Luke 24:33, is evi- dently the same that St. Paul speaks of, in 2 Cor. 12:8, 4, which he calls “the third heaven.”

It is sometimes said, that there is no “above” or “below” in the spiritual world, and therefore the special representation in the parable of Dives and Lazarus must not be insisted upon. ‘This, certainly, should not. be urged by those who con- tend for an wnderworld. Paradise and Hades, like Heaven and Hell, are both in the universe of God. But wherever in this universe they may be, it is the Biblical representation (unlike the mytholog- ical), that they do not constitute one system, or one sphere of being, any more than Heaven and. Hell do. They are so contrary and opposite, as to exclude each other, and to constitute two separate places or worlds; so that he who goes to the one does not go to the other. This contrariety and exclusiveness is metaphorically expressed by space vertical, not by space lateral. Things on the same plane are alike. Those on different

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 65

planes are not. If Paradise is above and Hades is beneath, Hades will be regarded as Heil, and be dreaded. But if Paradise and Hades are both alike beneath, and Paradise is a part of Hades, then Hades will not be regarded as Hell (as some affirm it is not), and will not be dreaded. Hades will be merely a temporary residence of the human soul, where the punishment of sin is imperfect, and its removal possible and probable.

A portion of the fathers, notwithstanding the increasing prevalence of the mythological view, deny that Paradise is a compartment of Hades. In some instances, it must be acknowledged, they are not wholly consistent with themselves, in so doing. According to archbishop Usher (Works, III. 281), “the first who assigned a resting-place in hell [Hades] to the fathers of the Old Testa- ment was Marcion the Gnostic.” This was com- bated, he says, by Origen, in his second Dialogue against Marcion. In his comment on Ps. 9:18, Origen remarks that “as Paradise 1s the residence of the just, so Hades is the place of punishment (xoAaornpiov) for sinners.” ‘The locating of Para- dise in Hades is opposed by Tertullian (Adv. Marcionem, IV. 34), in the following terms: “Hades (inferi) is one thing, in my opinion, and Abraham’s bosom is another. Christ, in the par- able of Dives, teaches that a great deep is inter- posed paiweer the two regions. Neither could

66 THE DOCTRINE OF

the rich man have ‘lifted up’ his eyes, and that too ‘afar off,’ unless it had been to places above him, and very far above him, by reason of the immense distance between that height and that depth.” Similarly, Chrysostom, in his Homilies on Dives and Lazarus, as quoted by Usher, asks and answers: “ Why did not Lazarus see the rich man, as well as the rich man is said to see Lazarus? - Because he that is in the light does not see him who stands in the dark; but he that is in the dark sees him that is in the light.” Augustine, in his exposition of Ps. vi. (Migne, IV. 93), calls atten- tion to the fact that “Dives looked wp, to see Lazarus.” Again, he says, in his Epistle to Evodius (Migne, II. 711), “it is not to be believed that the bosom of Abraham is a part of Hades (aliqua pars inferorum). How Abraham, into whose bosom the beggar was received, could have been in the torments of Hades, I do not under- stand. Let them explain who can.” Again, in De Genesi ad literam, XIT. 38, 34 (Migne, IIL. 482), he remarks: “I confess, I have not yet found that the place where the souls of just men rest is Hades (inferos). If a good conscience may figu- ratively be called paradise, how much more may that bosom of Abraham, where there is no tempta- tion, and great rest after the griefs of this life, be called paradise.” To the same effect, says Gregory of Nyssa (In Pascha. Migne, II]. 614): “This

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 67

should be investigated by the studious, namely, how, at one and the same time, Christ could be in those three places: in the heart of the earth, in paradise with the thief, and in the ‘hand’ of the Father. For no one will say that paradise is in the-places under the earth (év inoySovioss), or the places under the earth in paradise; or that those infernal places (ra txoySdva) are called the ‘hand’ of the Father.” Cyril of Alexandria, in his De exitu animi (Migne, X. 1079-82), remarks: “ In- sontes supra, sontes infra. Insontes in ccelo, sontes in profundo. Insontes in manu dei, sontes in manu diaboli.” Usher asserts that the following fathers agree with Augustine, in the opinion that Paradise is not in Hades: namely, Chrysostom, Basil, Cyril Alexandrinus, Gregory Nazianzen, Bede, Titus of Bostra, and others.

These patristic statements respecting the super- nal locality of Paradise agree with Scripture. “The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from sheol beneath” (Proy. 15:24). When Samuel is represented as coming up from the earth (1 Sam. 28: 7-20), it is because the body re- animated rises from the grave. This does not prove that the soul had been in an underworld, any more than the statement of St. John (12:17), that Christ “called Lazarus out of his grave,” proves it. Paradise is unquestionably the abode of the saved; and the saved are with Christ. The common

68 THE DOCTRINE OF

residence of both is described as on high. “ When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive” (Eph. 4:8). “Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may see my glory” (John 17:24). “Those which sleep in Jesus, God will bring with him” [down from Paradise, not up from Hades] (2 Thess. 4:14). At the second advent, “we which are alive and remain shall be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thess. 4:17). Stephen “looked up into heaven, and saw Jesus standing on the right hand of God” (Acts 7:55). Christ said to the Pharisees, “Ye are from beneath, I am from above” (John 8:28). Satan and his angels are “cast down to Tartarus” (2 Pet. 2:4). The penitent thief says to Christ: “Lord remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.” Christ replies: “This day shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:42, 43). This implies that paradise is the same as Christ’s king- dom; and Christ’s kingdom is not an infernal one. Christ “cried with a loud voice, Father into thy hands I commend my spirit, and having said this, he gave up the ghost” (Luke 23: 46). The “hands” of the Father, here meant, are in heaven above, not in “sheol beneath.”

These teachings of Scripture, and their interpre- tation by a portion of the fathers, evince that Paradise is a section of Heaven, not of Hades, and

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 69

are irreconcilable with the doctrine of an under- world containing both the good and the evil.

Another stimulant, besides that of mythology, to the growth of the doctrine that the intermedi- ate state for all souls is the underworld of Hades, was the introduction into the Apostles’ creed of the spurious clause, “ He descended into Hades.” Biblical exegesis 1s inevitably influenced by the great cecumenical creeds. When the doctrine of the descent to Hades was inserted into the oldest of the Christian symbols, it became necessary to find support for it in Scripture. The texts that can, with any success, be used for this purpose, are few, compared with the large number that prove the undisputed events in the life of Chriss. This compelled a strained interpretation of such pas- sages as Matt. 12:40; Acts 2:27; Rom. 10:7; 1 Pet. 3: 18-20; 4:6, and largely affected the whole subject of eschatology, as presented in the Script- ures. .

The Apostles’ creed, in its original form, read as follows: “Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead, and buried; the third day he rose again from the dead.” The first appearance of the clause, ‘“‘ He descended into Hades,” is in the latter half of the 4th century, in the creed of the church of Aquileia. Pearson (Creed, Art. V.), by cita- tions, shows,that the creeds, both ecclesiastical and individual, prior to this time, do not contain it.

"0 THE DOCTRINE OF

Burnet (Thirty Nine Articles, Art. ITT.) asserts the same. Rufinus, the presbyter of Aquileia, says that the intention of the Aquileian alteration of the creed was, not to add a new doctrine, but to explain an old one; and therefore the Aquileian creed omitted the clause, “was crucified, dead, and buried,” and substituted for it the new clause, “ descendit in inferna.” Rufinus also adds, that “although the preceding Roman and Oriental editions of the creed had not the words, ‘He descended into Hades,’ yet they had the sense of them in the words, ‘He was crucified, dead, and buried,’” (Pearson, Article V.). The early history of the clause, therefore, clearly shows that the “Hades” to which Christ was said to have de- scended was simply the “grave” in which he was buried.

Subsequently, the clause went into other creeds. The Athanasian (600) follows that of Aquileia, in inserting the “descent” and omitting the “burial.” It reads: “Who suffered for our salvation, de- scended into Hades, rose again the third day from the dead.” Those of Toledo, in 683 and 698, like- wise contain it. It is almost invariably found in the Medizval and Modern forms of the Apostles’ creed, but without the omission, as at first, of the clause, “was crucified, dead, and buried.” If, then, the text of the Apostles’ creed shall be subjected, like that of the New Testament, to a revision in

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. (a)

accordance with the text of the first four cen- turies, the Descensus ad inferos must be rejected as an interpolation.

While the tenet of Christ’s local descent into Hades has no support from Scripture, or any of the first cecumenical creeds, it has support, as has already been observed (p. 56), from patristic authority... “The ancient fathers,” says Pearson (Article V.), “differed much respecting the con- dition of the dead, and the nature of the place into which the souls, before our Saviour’s death, were gathered; some looking on that name which we now translate hell, hades, or infernus, as the common receptacle of the souls of all men, both the just and unjust, while others thought that hades, or infernus, was never taken in the Script- ures for any place of happiness; and therefore they did not conceive the souls of the patriarchs or the © prophets did pass into any such infernal place.” This difference of opinion appears in Augustine, who wavered in his views upon the subject of Hades, as Bellarmine concedes. Pearson (Art. V.) remarks of him, that “he began to doubt concern- ing the reason ordinarily given for Christ’s descent into hell, namely, to bring up the patriarchs and prophets thence, upon this ground, that he thought the word infernus [ ddy¢] was never taken in Script-

1See Hagenbach’s History of Doctrine, 2% 77, 78, 141, 142. Smith’s Ed.

Wipe THE DOCTRINE OF

ure in a good sense, to denote the abode of the righteous.”* Pearson cites, in proof, the passages already quoted from Augustine’s Hpistles, and Commentary on Genesis. On the other hand, in his City of God (XX. 15), Augustine hesitatingly accepts the doctrine that the Old Testament saints were in limbo, and were delivered by Christ’s de- scent into their abode. “It does not seem. absurd to believe, that the ancient saints who believed in Christ, and his future coming, were kept in places far removed, indeed, from the torments of the wicked, but yet in Hades (apud inferos), until Christ’s blood and his descent into these places de- livered them.” Yet in his exposition of the Apos- tles’ creed (De Fide et Symbolo), Augustine makes no allusion to the clause, “He descended into Hades.” And the same silence appears in the De Symbolo, attributed to him. After expounding the clauses respecting Christ’s passion, crucifixion, and burial, he then explains those concerning his resurrection and ascent into heaven. This proves that when he wrote this exposition, the dogma was not an acknowledged part of the catholic ‘faith. Still later, Peter Chrysologus, archbishop

of Ravenna, and Maximus of Turin, explain the

‘ Notwithstanding the currency which the view of Hades as the abode of the good and evil between death and the resurrection has obtained, it would shock the feelings, should a clergyman say to mourning friends: ‘‘ Dry your tears, the departed saint has gone down to Hades.”

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. cc

Apostles’ creed, and make no exposition of the Descent to Hades. The difference of opinion among the fathers of the first four centuries, to- gether with the absence of Scriptural support for it, is the reason why the Descensus ad inferos was not earlier inserted into the Apostles’ creed, It required the development of the doctrine of purga- tory, and of the medieval eschatology generally, in order to get it formally into the doctrinal system of both the Eastern and Western churches.’

The personal and local descent of Christ into Hades—whether to deliver the Old Testament saints from limbo; or to preach judicially, an- nouncing condemnation to the sinners there; or evangelically, offering salvation to them—if a fact, would have been one of the great cardinal facts connected with the Incarnation. It would fall into the same class with the nativity, the baptism, the passion, the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the ascension. Much less important facts than these are recorded. St. Matthew speaks of the descent of Christ into Egypt, but not of his descent into Hades. Such an act of the Redeemer as going down into an infernal world of spirits, would cer-

! Baumgarten-Crusius (Dogmengeschichte IT. 3 109) finds three stadia in the development of the dogma of the Descent to Hades. _ 1. The Descent was the Burial itself put into an imaginative form. 2. The Descent was a particular condition or status of Christ re-

sulting from his Burial. 3. The Descent was entirely separate from the Burial, being another and wholly distinct thing.

74 THE DOCTRINE OF

tainly have been mentioned by some one of the in- spired biographers of Christ. The total silence of the four Gospels is fatal to the tenet. St. Paul, in his recapitulation of the principal events of our Lord’s life, evidently knows nothing of the de- scent into Hades. “I delivered unto you that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day” (1 Cor. 15:3,4). The re- mark of bishop Burnet (Thirty-Nine Articles, Art. III.) is sound. “ Many of the fathers thought ‘that Christ’s soul went locally into hell, and preached to some of the spirits there in prison; that there he triumphed over Satan, and spoiled him, and carried some souls with him into glory. But the account that the Scripture gives us of the exaltation of Christ begins it always at his resurrec- tion. Nor can it be imagined that so memorable a transaction as this would have been passed over by the first three Evangelists, and least of all by St. John, who coming after the rest, and designing to supply what was wanting in them, and intend- ing particularly to magnify the glory of Christ, could not have passed over so wonderful an instance of it. The passage in St. Peter seems to relate to the preaching to the Gentile world, by virtue of that inspiration that was derived from Christ.” *

' Augustine, Bede, Aquinas, Erasmus, Beza, Gerhard, Hottinger, Clericus, Leighton, Pearson, Secker, Hammond, Hofmann, and

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 75

Having given the argument from Scripture, in proof that Sheol, Hades, and Gehenna, all denote the place of punishment for the wicked, we pro- ceed to consider the nature and duration of the suffering inflicted in it.

The Old Testament is comparatively silent upon these particulars. Sheol is represented vaguely, as an evil to be dreaded and avoided, and little description of its fearfulness is given by the “ holy

most of the Reformed theologians, explain 1 Pets 3: 18-20 to mean, that Christ preached by Noah to men who were “disobedient” in the days of Noah, and who for this cause were ‘‘ spirits in prison” at the time of Peter’s writing. The particle wore, qualifying arenoaci, shows that the disobedience (or disbelief) occurred ‘when the ark was a-preparing.” But the preaching must have been contemporaneous with the disobedience, or disbelief. What else was there to disobey, or disbelieve? Says Pearson (Creed, Art. II.), ‘‘ Christ was really before the flood, for he preached to them that lived before it. This is evident from the words of St. Peter (1 Pet. 3:18-20). From which words it appeareth, first, That Christ preached by the same spirit by the virtue of which he was raised from the dead: but that Spirit was not his [human] soul, but something of a greater power; secondly, That those to whom he preached were such as were disobedient ; thirdly, That the time when they were disobedient was the time before the fiood, when the ark was preparing. The plain interpretation is to be acknowledged for the true, that Christ did preach unto those men which lived before the flood, even while they lived, and con- sequently that he was before it. For though this was not done by an immediate act of the Son of God, as if he personally had appeared on earth and actually preached to that world, but by the ministry of a prophet, by the sending of Noah, ‘the eighth preacher of righteousness:’ yet to do anything by another not able to perform it without him, as much demonstrates the exist-

76 THE DOCTRINE OF

men of old who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” The New Testament makes a fuller revelation and disclosure; and it is principally the Redeemer of the world who widens the out- look into the tremendous future, The suffering in Hades and Gehenna is described as “ everlast- ing (aido0¢) punishment” (Matt. 25:46); “ever- lasting (aidzoc) fire” (Matt. 18:8); “the fire that never shall be quenched” (Mark 9: 45) ; “the worm that dieth not” (Mark 9:46); “flaming fire” (2 Thess. 1:8); “everlasting (didiocs) chains”

ence of the principal cause, as if he did it himself without any in- tervening instrument.”

Another proof of the correctness of this interpretation is the fact that Christ’s preaching to ‘‘the spirits in prison” was mvevuati, alone. The total SedvSpwros did not preach. The capé, or human nature, of Christ had no part in the act. But Christ’s personal and local preaching in Hades would require his whole Divine-human person; as much so as his preaching in Galilee or Jerusalem. The Formula Concordiz (IX. 2) so understands and teaches: ‘‘Credimus quod tota persona, deus et homo, post sepul- turam, ad inferos descenderit, Satanam devicerit,” etc. Christ’s preaching through Noah, ‘‘a preacher of righteousness” (2 Pet. 2:5), and therefore an ‘‘ambassador of Christ” (2 Cor. 5: 20), might be done through his divinity alone. Christ preached nvevpare through Noah, as David év mvevpari called him Lord (Matt. 22:43). The objection that actually living men upon earth would not be called “spirits” is met by Rom. 13:1; 1 John 4:1, 3; and by the fact that at the time of Peter’s writing the persons meant are disembodied spirits.

The passage 1 Pet. 4:6, sometimes cited in proof of the De- scensus ad inferos, refers to the preaching of the gospel to the spiritually ‘‘ dead in trespasses and sins.” This is Augustine’s in- terpretation (Ep. ad. Evodium VI. 21). In Eph. 4:9, ra xar@repa

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. (7

(Jude 6); “eternal (aiwmos) fire” (Jude 7); “the blackness of darkness forever” (Jude 13); “the smoke of torment ascending up forever and ever” (Rev. 14:11; 19:38); “the lake of fire and brim- stone,” in which the devil, the beast, and the false prophet “shall be tormented day and night, for- ever and ever” (Rev. 20:10).

Sensible figures are employed to describe the misery of hell, as they are to describe the blessed- ness of heaven. It cannot be inferred from the mere use of metaphors, that the duration of either

pépn ths yns to which Christ ‘‘ descended” from ‘‘ on high” signify this lower world of earth. St. Paul is speaking here of the in- carnation. ‘The incarnate Logos did not descend from heaven’ to hades, nor ascend from hades to heaven.* Compare Isa. 44: 23: «‘Shout ye lower parts of the earth.” This is the opposite of the ‘‘heavens,” which are bidden to “sing.” In Acts 2:19, this world is called 7 yn caro. Hades would be ra xatwrara pépn tis yns- In Rom. 10:7, Christ’s descent ‘into the deep ” (a8vccor) is shown by the context to be his descent into the grave. Whatever be the interpretation of 1 Pet. 3: 18-20, such a re- markable doctrine as the Descent to Hades should have more foundation than a single disputed text. The doctrine itself is so obscure that it has had five different forms of statement. 1. Christ virtually descended into Hades, because his death was efficacious upon the souls there. 2. Christ actually descended into Hades. 3. Christ’s descent into Hades was his suffering the torments of hell. 4. Christ’s descent into Hades was his burial in the grave. 5. Christ’s descent into Hades was his remaining in the state of the dead, for a season. The Westminster Larger Catechism (50) combines the last two: ‘‘ Christ’s humiliation after his death con- sisted in his being buried, and continuing in the state of the dead, and under the power of death, till the third day, which hath been otherwise expressed in these words, ‘He descended into hell.’”

78 THE DOCTRINE OF

is temporary. Figures are employed to describe both temporal and eternal realities. The Psalmist describes God as a “rock,” a “fortress,” a “shield,” etc; and man as a “vapor,” a “flower,” etc. <A ficure by its “form,” as the rhetoricians call it, in- dicates the intention of the writer. No one would employ the figure of a rock to denote transiency, or of a cloud to denote permanence. Had Christ intended to teach that future punishment is re- medial and temporary, he would have compared it to a dying worm, and not to an undying worm; to a fire that is quenched, and not to an unquench- able fire. The ghost in Hamlet (I. v.) describes the “glow-worm’s fire” as “ineffectual,” that 1s, harmless. None of the figures employed in Seript- ure to describe the misery of the wicked are of the same rhetorical “form” with those of the “morn- ing cloud,” the “early dew,” etc. They are in- variably of the contrary “form,” and imply fixed- ness and immutability. The “smoke of torment” ascends forever and ever. The “worm” of con- science does not die. The “fire” is unquenchable. The “chains” are eternal. The “blackness of darkness” overhangs forever. Had the sacred writers wished to teach that future punishment is for a time only, even a very long time, it would have been easy to have chosen a different species and form of metaphor that would have conveyed their meaning. And if the future punishment of

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 79

the wicked is not endless, they were morally bound to have avoided conveying the impression they ac- tually have conveyed by the kind of figures they have selected. “ Itis the wilful deceit,” says Paley, “that makes the he; and we wilfully deceive, when our expressions are not true in the sense in which we believe the hearer to apprehend them.” The epithet aidros (“everlasting”) is of prime importance. In order to determine its meaning when apphed to the punishment of the wicked, it is necessary, first, to determine that of the sub- stantive from which the adjective is derived. Aidy signifies an “age.” It is a time-word. It denotes “duration,” more or less. Of itself, the “age,” does not determine the length of the duration, or age. God has dura- tion, and angels have duration. The Creator has

word “duration,” or

an aidyv, and the creature has an aidy; but that of the latter is as nothing compared with that of the former. “ Behold thou hast made my days as an handbreath; and mine age is as nothing before thee” (Ps. 89: 5).

In reference to man and his existence, the Script- ures speak of two, and only two aidves, or ages; one finite, and one infinite; one limited, and one endless; the latter succeeding the former. An in- definite series of limited sons with no final end- less zon is a Pagan, and Gnostic, not a Biblical conception. ‘The importation of the notion of an

80 THE DOCTRINE OF

endless series of finite cycles, each of which is without finality and immutability, into the Chris- tian system, has introduced error, similarily as the importation of the Pagan conception of Hades has. The misconceiving of a rhetorical figure, in the Scripture use of the plural for the singular, namely, tots aidvas Tév aidvay for toy aidya, has also contributed to this error.

The two exons, or ages, known in Scripture, are mentioned together in Matt. 12 : 32, “It shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world (adv), nor in the world (aidyv) to come”; in Mark 10: 80, “He shall receive an hundred-fold now in this time (xapds), and in the world (aisy) to come, eternal life”; in Luke 18:30, “‘ He shall receive manifold more in this present time (xapds), and in the world (aidv) to come, life everlasting”; in Eph. 1:21, “Above every name that is named, not only in this world (aidv), but also in that which is to come.” The “things present” and the “things to come,” mentioned in Rom. 8:38; 1 Cor. 3: 22, refer to the same two ages. These two sons, or ages, correspond to the two durations of “time” and “eternity,” in the common use of these terms. The present age, or won, is “time;” the future

rq 66 , M1 age, or zon, 1s “ eternity.

1 It is relative, not absolute eternity ; eternity a parte post, not a parte ante. The future zon, or age, has a beginning, but no ending. This is the meaning, when in common phrase it is said

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 81

1. The present finite and limited age, or eon, is denominated in Scripture, “this world” (6 aidy obtos), M1 O29: Matt. 12:32; 13:22; Luke16: 8; 20734" Rom. 12:2: 1 Cor, 1320; 276; et alia. Another designation is, “this present world” (6 rbv aidy, or o éveotas aidy): 1 Tim. 6:17; 2 Tim. 4:10; (Titus 2:12; Gal. 1:4. Sometimes the present limited age, or won, is denoted by aidy without the article: Luke 1: 70, “ Which he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began” (ax’- aidvos); John 9:39, “It was not heard since the world began” (am’ aidvos).

For rhetorical effect, the present limited age, or gon, is sometimes represented as composed of a number of lesser ages or cycles, as in modern phrase the sum total of finite earthly time is de- nominated “the centuries,” or “the ages.” The following are examples: 1 Cor. 2: 7, “The hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages” (196 tév aidyor). Compare Eph. 8:9; Col. 1: 26. In1 Tim. 1:17, God is denominated Baoiredts

that ‘‘a man has gone into eternity”; and that his happiness, or misery, is “eternal.” The absolutely eternal has no beginning, as well as no ending; it is the eternity of God. The relatively eternal has a beginning but no end; it is the immortality of man and angel. The schoolman called the former, eternitas; the latter, sempiternitas. Scripture designates the absolute eternity of God, by the phrase, “from everlasting to everlasting” (Ps. 90:2). The punishment of the wicked is more properly endless, than eternal.

82 | THE DOCTRINE OF

tov aidvayv, king of the ages of time, and therefore “the king eternal” (A.V.). In Rom. 16: 25, a “mystery” is said to have been kept secret ypdvog atwvioc, “during sonian times” (A.V., “since the world began”). The ages of the limited con are meant. ‘The secret was withheld from all the past cycles of time. In Titus 1:2, “eternal life” is said to have been promised mp6 ypdrvar aiaviay, “before eonian times” (A.V., “before the world began”). The ages of the limited son are meant. God promised eternal life, prior to all the periods of time; ie., eternally promised. In these passages, “seonian times” is equivalent to “the centuries,” or the “long ages.” The Revisers make the reference to be to the unlimited seon— to eternity, not to time. Their rendering of Titus 1: 2 by, “Before times eternal,” involves the ab- surdity that a Divine promise is made prior to eternity; and of Rom. 16: 25 by, “Through times eternal,” represents the mystery as concealed dur- ing eternity: that 1s to say, as forever concealed. This rhetorical plural does not destroy the unity of the limited age, or zon. To conceal a mystery from the past “seonian ages,” or the past centuries and cycles of finite time, is the same as to conceal it from past finite time as a whole.

2. The future infinite and endless age, or son, is denominated, in Scripture, “the future world” ; A.V. and R.V. “the world to come” (aidvo uéAAor),

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 83

wan paiy: Matt. 12:32; Heb. 2:5; 6:5. Another designation is, “the world to come” (aidy o épy6- uevos): Mark 10: 80; Luke 18:30. Still another designation is, “that world” (aidy éxetvos): Luke 20:35. Frequently, the infinite and endless age is denoted by aidy simply, but with the article for emphasis (0 aidyv): Mark 3: 29, “ Hath never for-

giveness” (cio tov aidva); Mt. 51:29; John 4:14; eden os Seno. OF 59+ 10728 11 9610 234 Porno bee bows 2. Cor i9 9s, Hebb 266 200: @ne oe bet. 2: 17-2 1 John-2h7-a Jude 13.

The same use of the plural for rhetorical effect, employed in the case of the limited eon, is also employed in that of the unlimited. The future in- finite aidy is represented as made up of lesser aidves, or cycles, as, in English, “infinity ” 1s some- times denominated “the infinities,” “eternity,” “the eternities,” and “immensity,” “the 1mmensities.” The rhetorical plural, in this instance as in the other, does not conflict with the unity of the in- finite age, or won. The following are examples~ of this use: Rom. 1:25, “The creator is blessed forever” (eio tods aidvas); Rom. 9:5; 11: 36; foes? Cor 11931; Phil, 4:20; Gal. 1:5 Cee: Tovs aldvas tTOy aiovayv); 1 Tim. 1:17; Rev. fete 59, 10; 5:13;-7 712, et alia. The phrases, sig tovs aidrvas, and els tovs aidvag téy aidvay, are equivalent to eis tov aiéva. All alike denote the one infinite and endless zon, or age.

84 THE DOCTRINE OF

Since the word zon (aidy), or age, in Script- ure, may denote either the present finite age, or the future endless age, in order to determine the meaning of ‘“seonian” (aido¢), 1b is necessary first to determine 72 which of the two cons, the limited or the endless, the thing exists to which the epithet is applied; because anything in either eon may be denominated “seonian.” The adjec- tive follows its substantive, in meaning. Onesimus, as a slave, existed in this world (aidy) of “ time,” and when he is called an eonian, or “ ever- lasting” (aidos) servant (Philemon 15), it is meant that his servitude continues as long as the finite eon in which he is a servant; and this is practically at an end for him, when he dies and leaves it. The mountains are denominated xonian, or “everlasting” (aidva), i the sense that they endure as long as the finite world (aidyv) of which they are a part endures. God, on the other hand, is a being that exists in the infinite aiéy, and is therefore aidros in the endless signification of the word. ‘The same is true of the spirits of angels and men, because they exist in the future zon, as well as in the present one. If anything belongs solely to the present age, or son, it 1s eonian in the lhmited signification; if it belongs to the future age, or son, It 1s szonian in the unlimited signifi- cation. If, therefore, the punishment of the wicked occurs in the present son, it is ewonian in the

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 8)

sense of temporal; but if it occurs in the future zon, it 1s sonian in the sense of endless. The adjective takes its meaning from its noun.’

The English word “forever” has the same two- fold meaning, both in Scripture and in common use. Sometimes it means as long as a man lives upon earth. The Hebrew servant that had his ear bored with an awl to the door of his master, was to be his servant “forever” (Exod. 21:6). Some- times it means as long as the Jewish state should last. The ceremonial laws were to be statutes “forever” (Lev. 16:34). Sometimes it means, as long as the world stands. “One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever” (Hccl. 1:4). In all such instances, “forever” refers to the tem- poral eon, and denotes finite duration. But in other instances, and they are the great majority in Scripture, “forever” refers to the endless #on; as when it is said that “God is over all blessed forever.” The limited signification of “forever.” in the former cases, does not disprove its un: limited signification in the latter. That Onesimus was an “everlasting” (aidzos) servant, and that the hills are “everlasting” (aidwa), no more dis-

1 <¢ Aio@y de quocunque temporis spatio ita dicitur, ut, quale sit, judicari debeat in singulis locis ex orationis serie et mente script- oris, rebus adeo et personis, de quibus seymo est.” Schleusner, in voce. |

86 THE DOCTRINE OF

proves the everlastingness of God, and the soul; of heaven, and of hell; than the term “forever” in a title deed disproves it. To hold land “for- ever,” is to hold it “as long as grass grows and water runs”—that 1s, as long as this world, or ceon, endures.

The objection that because aiévis, or “seonian,” denotes “that which belongs to an age,” it cannot mean endless, rests upon the assumption. that there is no endless aidv, or age. It postulates an in- definite series of limited sons, or ages, no one of which is final and everlasting. But the texts that have been cited disprove this. Scripture speaks of but two sons, which cover and include the whole existence of man, and his whole duration. If, therefore, he is an immortal being, one of these must be endless. The phrase “ages of ages,” applied to the future endless age, does not prove that there is more than one future age, any more than the phrase “the eternities” proves that there is more than one eternity; or the phrase “the in- finities” proves that there is more than one infinity. The plural in these cases 1s rhetorical and inten- sive, not arithmetical, in its force.

This examination of the Scripture use of the word aidos refutes the assertion, that “sonian”’ . means “spiritual” in distinction from “ material ” or “sensuous,” and has no reference at all to time or duration; that when applhed to “death,” it

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 87

merely denotes that the death is mental and spiritual in its nature, without saying whether it is long or short, temporary or endless. Beyond dis- pute, some objects are denominated “eonian,” in Scripture, which have nothing mental or spiritual inthem. The mountains are “sonian.” The truth is, that aidy is a term that denotes time only, and never denotes the nature and quality of an object. All the passages that have been quoted show that duration, either limited or endless, 1s in- tended by the word. Whenever this visible world in the sense of the matter constituting 1t is meant, the word employed is xoouds, and not aidv. It is only when this world in the sense of the time of its continuance is intended, that aiév is employed. St. Paul, in Eph. 2:2, combines both meanings. The heathen, he says, “walk xava tov alava tov xdojov tovtov—according to the course [duration] of this world [of matter].” In Heb. 1:2; 11:38, where aiaves denotes the “worlds” created by God, it 1s, as Lewis (Lange’s Hcclesiastes, p. 47) remarks, in opposition to Winer and Robinson, “the time sense, of worlds after worlds,” not “the space sense, of worlds Jeyond or above worlds,” that is intended.

In by far the greater number of instances, alay and aiavis refer to the future infinite age, and not to the present finite age; to eternity, and not to time. Says Stuart (Hxegetical Hssays, $§ 18,

88 THE DOCTRINE OF

16), “aidrws is employed 66 times in the New Testament. Of these, 51 relate to the future hap- piness of the righteous; 7 relate to future punish- ment: namely, Matt. 18:8; 25: 41,46; Mark. 329; 1 Thess. 1¢95 Heb. *6% 25 SJitenGr ere late to God; 6 are of a miscellaneous nature (5 relating to confessedly endless things, as covenant, petual service). In all the instances in which alaviosg refers to future duration, it denotes end- less duration; saying nothing of the instances in which it refers to future punishment. The Hebrew b2i> is translated in the Septuagint by aay, 308 times. In almost the whole of these instances, the meaning is, time unlimited; a period without end. In the other instances, it means afoav in the secondary, limited sense; it is applied to the mountains, the Levitical statutes, priesthood, ete.” The younger Edwards (Reply to Chauncy Ch. XIV.) says that “aiav, reckoning the reduplica- tions of it, as alaves tOv alavor, to be single in- stances of its use, occurs in the New Testament in 104 instances ; in 32 of which it means a limited duration. In 7 instances, it may be taken in either the limited or the endless sense. In 65 instances, including 6 instances in which it is applied to future punishment, it plainly signifies an endless duration.”

An incidental proof that the adjective aiwos

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 89

has the unlimited signification when applied to future punishment, is the fact that the destiny of lost men is bound up with that of Satan and his angels. “Then shall he say unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41). These are represented in Scripture as hopelessly lost. ‘The devil that deceived them shall be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Rev. 20:10). The Jews, to whom Christ spoke, understood the perdition of the lost angels to be absolute. If the positions of the Restora- tionist are true in reference to man, they are also in reference to devils. But Scripture teaches that there is no redemption for the lost angels. ‘Christ took not on him the nature of angels” (Heb. 2:16).

Respecting the nature of the “everlasting pun- ishment,” it is clear from the Biblical representa- tions that it 1s accompanied with consciousness. Dives is “in torments” (Luke 16:23). “The smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever” (Rev. 14:11). “Fear hath torment” (1 John 4:18), and the lost fear “the wrath of the Lamb” (Rev. 6:16). The figures of the “ fire,” and the “ worm” are intended to denote conscious pain. An attempt has been made to prove that the pun- ishment of the wicked is the extinction of con- sciousness. This doctrine is sometimes denomi- nated Annihilation. Few of its advocates, however,

90 THE DOCTRINE OF

have contended for the strict annihilation of the substance of the soul and body. The more recent defenders maintain the doctrine of Conditional Im- mortality. According to this view, the soul is not naturally immortal. Some of this class contend that it is material. It gains immortality only through its redemption by Christ. All who are not redeemed, lose all consciousness at the death of the body, and this is the “spiritual death” threatened in Scripture. As the death of the body is the extinction of sensation, so the death of the soul is the extinction of consciousness. ‘The falsity of the theory of Annihilation, in both of its forms, is proved by the following considera- tions:

1. First, death is the opposite of birth, and birth does not mean the creation of substance. The con- ception and birth of an individual man, is the unit- ing of a soul and a body, not the creation ex nihilo of either; and the physical death of an individual man, is the separation of a soul and body, not the annihilation of either. Death is a change of the mode in which a substance exists, and supposes that the substance itself continues in being.

‘‘Ne, when the life decays and forme does fade, Doth it consume and into nothing goe, But chaunged is and often altered to and froe. The substaunce is not chaunged nor altered,

But th’ only forme and outward fashion.” Faérie Queene, ITT. vi.

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 91

The death of an animal substance makes an alteration in the relations of certain material atoms, but does not put them out of existence. Dead matter is as far from nonentity as living matter. That physical death is not the annihila- tion of substance, is proved by 1 Cor. 15:36: “That which thou sowest is not quickened except it die.” Compare John 12:24. In like manner, the death of the soul, or spiritual death, is only a change in the relations of the soul, and its mode of existence, and not the annihilation of its substance. In spiritual death, the soul is separated from God; as in physical death, the soul 1s separated from the body. The union of the soul with God is spiritual life; its separation from God is spiritual death. “We that hath the Son hath [spiritual] life, and he that hath not the Son hath not [spiritual] life” (1 John 5:12).

2. Secondly, the spiritually dead are described in Scripture as conscious. Gen. 2:7 compared with Gen. 8:8: “In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” Adam and Eve “ hid them- selves.” After their fall they were spiritually dead, and filled with shame and terror before God. The “dead in trespasses and sins walk according to the course of this world” (Eph. 2: 1,2). “She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth” (1 Tim. 5:6). “You being dead in your sins hath he forgiven” (Coloss. 2:18).

92 THE DOCTRINE OF

‘Thou livest, and art dead” (Rev. 8:1). Spirit- ual death is the same as the “second death,” and the second death “hurts” (Rev. 2:11); and its smoke of torment “ascends forever and ever” (Rey. 19:3).

Tus Sort 3. Thirdly, the extinction of consciousness is U tote not of the nature of punishment. The essence of

mye

He Sica

HAG a

punishment is suffering, and suffering 1s conscious- ness. In order to be punished, the person must be

wcohn# conscious of a certain pain, must feel that he

deserves it, and know that it is inflicted because he does. All three of these elements are required in a case of punishment. ‘To reduce a man to un- consciousness would make his punishment an im- possibility. If God by a positive act extinguishes, at death, the remorse of a hardened villain, by ex- tinguishing his self-consciousness, it is a strange use of language to denominate this a punishment.

Still another proof that the extinction of con- sciousness is not of the nature of punishment is the fact, that a holy and innocent being might be de- prived of consciousness by his Creator, but could not be punished by him. God is not obliged, by his justice, to perpetuate a conscious existence which he originated ex nihilo. For wise ends, he might suffer an unfallen angel not only to lose consciousness, but to lapse into his original non- entity. But he could not, in justice, inflict re- tributive suffering upon him.

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 93

4, Fourthly, the extinction either of being, or of consciousness, admits of no degrees of punish- ment. All transgressors are “punished” exactly alike. This contradicts Luke 12:47, 48; Rom. a OR

5. Fifthly, according to this theory, brutes are

A gUhe

punished. In losing consciousness at death, the d22 animal like the man incurs an everlasting loss. @7¥«»

The Annthilationist contends that the substance of punishment is in the result, and not in its being felt or experienced. If a transgressor is put out of conscious existence, the result is an everlasting loss to him, though he does not know it. But the same thing is true of a brute. And if the former is punished, the latter is also.

6. Sixthly, the advocate of Conditional Im- mortality, in teaching that the extinction of con- sciousness is the “eternal death” of Scripture, 1m-

hice Bec ad

plies that the continuance of consciousness is -the

“eternal life.” But mere consciousness 1s not happiness. . Judas was conscious, certainly, when he hung himself, even if he is not now. But he was not happy.

7. Seventhly, the extinction of consciousness is not regarded by sinful men as an evil, but a good. They substitute the doctrine of the eternal sleep of the soul, for that of its eternal punishment. This shows that the two things are not equivalents. When Mirabeau lay dying, he cried passionately

94 THE DOCTRINE OF

for opium, that he might never awake. The guilty and remorseful have, in all ages, deemed the ex- tinction of consciousness after death to be a bless- ing; but the advocate of Conditional Immortality explains it to be a curse. “Sight, and hearing, and all earthly good, without justice and virtue,” says Plato (Laws II. 661), “are the greatest of evils, 2f life be immortal; but not so great, if the bad man lives a very short time.”

8. Highthly, the fact that the soul depends for its immortality and consciousness upon the uphold- ing power of its Maker does not prove either that it is to be annihilated, or to lose consciousness. Matter also depends for its existence and opera- tions upon the Creator. Both matter and mind can be annihilated by the same Being who created them from nothing. Whether he will cease to up- hold any particular work of his hand, can be known only by revelation. In the material world, we see no evidence of such an intention. We are told that “the elements shall melt with fervent heat,” but not that they shall be annihilated. And, certainly, all that God has said in Revela- tion in regard to creation, redemption, and per- dition, implies and teaches that he intends to uphold, and not to annihilate the human spirit; to perpetuate, and not extinguish its self-con- sclousness.

The form of Universalism which is the most

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 95

respectable, and therefore the most dangerous, is that which concedes the force of the Biblical and rational arguments respecting the guilt of sin, and its intrinsic desert of everlasting punishment, but contends that redemption from it through the vicarious atonement of Christ is extended into the next world. The advocates of this view assert, that between death and the final judgment the application of Christ’s work is going on; that the Holy Spirit is regenerating sinners in the inter- mediate state, and they are believing and repent- ing as in this life. This makes the day of judg- . ment, instead of the day of death, the dividing line between “time” and “eternity”; between o aidy ovros, and aidyv o wéAAwv. And this makes the intermediate state a third eon by itself, lying between “time” and “eternity”; between “this world,” and “the world to come.”

That the “intermediate state” is not a third won, but a part of the second endless on, is proved by the following considerations :

1. First, by the fact that in Scripture the dis- embodied state is not called “ intermediate.” This is an ecclesiastical term which came in with the doctrine of purgatory, and along with the exag- geration of the difference between Paradise and Heaven, and between Hades and Gehenna.

2. Secondly, by the fact that in Scripture death is represented as the deciding epoch in a man’s exist-

95 THE DOCTRINE OF

ence. It is the boundary between the two Biblical eecons, or worlds. Until a man dies, he is in “this world” (6 viv aidy); after death, he is in “the future world” (aiév 6 weAAor). The common understanding of the teaching of Scripture is, that men are in “time,” so long as they live, but when they die, they enter “eternity.” “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after that the judg- ment” (Heb. 9:27). This teaches that prior to death, man’s destiny is not decided, he being not yet sentenced; but after death, his destiny 1s settled. When he dies, the “private judgment,” that is, the immediate personal consciousness either of penitence or impenitence, occurs. Every human spirit, in that supreme moment when it “returns to God who gave it,” knows by direct self-consciousness whether it is a child or an enemy of God, in temper and disposition; whether it is humble and contrite, or proud, hard, and impenitent; whether it welcomes or rejects the Divine mercy in Christ. The article of death is an event in human existence which strips off all disguises, and shows the person what he really is, in moral character. He “knows as he is known,” and in this flashing lhght passes a sentence upon himself that is accurate. This “private judgment” at death, is reaffirmed in the “general judgment” of the last day.

Accordingly, our Lord teaches distinctly that

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 97

death is a finality for the impenitent sinner. Twice in succession, he says with awful emphasis to the Pharisees: “If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins” (John 8:21, 24). This implies, that to “die in sin,” is to be hopelessly lost. Again, he says: “ Yet a little while is the heht with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth, While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light ” (John 12: 35, 86). According to these words of the Redeemer, the light of the gospel is not accessible in the darkness of death. ‘The night cometh, wherein no man can work” (John 9:4). The night of death puts a stop to the work of salvation that is appointed to be done in the day- time of this life. St. Paul teaches the same truth, in 1 Thess. 5:5-7: “Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep, sleep in the night; and they that be drunken, are drunken in the night.” “God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided? So 1s he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God” (Luke 12: 20, 21).

With mcse New Testament teachings, agrees

98 THE DOCTRINE OF

the frequent affirmation of the Old Testament, that after death nothing can be done in the way of securing salvation. “In death there is no re- membrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks”? (Ps. 6:5). “ Wilt thou show won- ders to the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise thee? Shall thy loving kindness be declared in the grave”? (Ps. 88:10,11). “The dead praise not the Lord, nor any that go down into silence” | (Ps. 115:17). “To him that is jomed to all the living, there is hope: for the living know that they shall die; but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward” (Hecl. 9: 4-6). These passages do not teach the utter unconscious- ness of the soul after death, in flat contradiction to that long list already cited which asserts the contrary, but that there is no alteration of char- acter in the next life. “In death, there is no [happy | remembrance of God” [if there has been none in life]. “The dead shall not arise, and praise God” [in the next world, if they have not done so in this world]. “Shall God declare his — loving kindness [to one] in the grave” [if he has not declared it to him when upon earth] ?

The parable of Dives proves that death is the turning point in human existence, and fixes the everlasting state of the person. Dives asks that his brethren may be warned Jefore they die and enter Hades; because after death and the entrance -

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 99

into Hades, there is an impassable gulf between misery and happiness, sin and holiness. This shows that the so-called “intermediate” state is not mtermediate in respect to the essential ele- ments of heaven and hell, but is a part of the final and endless state of the soul. It is “intermediate,” only in reference to the secondary matter of the presence or absence of the body.

The asserted extension of redemption into the endless zon, or age, is contradicted by Scripture. Salvation from sin is represented as confined to the limited zon. One of the most important pas- sages bearing upon this point is 1 Cor. 15: 24-28. “Then cometh the end, when Christ shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when he shall have put down all [opposing] rule, and all [opposing] authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.” St. Paul here states the fact, disclosed to him by revelation from God, that the redemption of sinners will not go on forever, but will cease at a certain point of time. The Mediator will carry on his work of saving sinful men, until he has gathered in his church, and completed the work according to the original plan and covenant between himself and his Father, and then will surrender his mediatorial commission and _ office (Gacireiav). There will then no longer be any mediation going on between sinners and God.

100 THE DOCTRINE OF

The church will be forever united to their D1 vine Head in heaven, and the wicked will be shut up in the “outer darkness.” ‘That Christ’s mediatorial work does not secure the salvation of all men during the appointed period in which it is carried on, is proved by the fact that when “the end cometh” some men are described as the “enemies ” of Christ, and as being “ put under his feet” (1 Cor. 15:24, 25). All of Christ’s re- deemed “stand before his throne” (Rev, 14:3; 19: 4-7; 21:3). They are in the “mansions” which he has “ prepared” for them (John 14: 2, 8).

The reason assigned for Christ’s surrender of his mediatorial commission is, “that God may be all in all” (1 Cor. 15: 28): not, that “God even the Lather may be all in all” (1 Cor. 15:24). It is the Trinity that is to be supreme. To Christ, as an incarnate trinitarian person, and an anointed mediator, “all power is [temporarily] given in heaven and upon earth” (Matt. 28:29), for the purpose of saving sinners. As such, he accepts and holds a secondary position of condescension and humiliation, when compared with his original unincarnate position. In this reference, he receives a “commandment” (John 10:18), and a “king- dom” (1 Cor. 15:24). In this reference, as be- lievers “are Christ’s,’ so “Christ is God’s” (1 Cor. 3: 23); and as “ the head of the woman is the man, so the head of Christ is God” (1 Cor. 11:3).

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 101

But when Christ has finished his work of media- ting between the triune God and sinful men, and of saving sinners, this condition of subjection to an office and a commission ceases. The dominion (GaciAsiay) over heaven and earth, temporarily delegated to a single trinitarian person incarnate, for purposes of redemption and salvation, now re- turns to the Eternal Three whence it came, and to whom it originally belongs. The Son of God, his humanity exalted and glorified, and his Divine- human person united forever to his church as their Head, no longer prosecutes that work of redemp- tion which he carried forward through certain ages of time, but, with the Father and Spirit, Three in One, reigns over the entire universe—over the holy “ who stand before the throne,” and over the wicked who are “under his feet,” and “in the bottomless pit.”

The confinement of the work of redemption to the limited son, which terminates practically for each individual at the death of the body, is taught in many other passages of Scripture. ‘My spirit shall not always [R.V. “for ever”]| strive with man, for that he also is [sinful] flesh; yet his © days shall be an hundred and twenty years ” (Gen. 6:3). This teaches that the converting operation of the Divine Spirit in the sinner’s heart, is limited to the 120 years which was then the average length of human life. “O that they

102 THE DOCTRINE OF

were wise, that they would consider their latter

end” (Deut. 82:29). “Teach us so to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom” (Ps. 90:12). “ Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave whither thou goest” (Hccl. 9:10). “Seek ye the Lord while he may be found; call ye upon him while he is near” (Isa. 55:6). “Take heed to yourselves lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares: for as a snare shall it come on all them. that dwell on the face of the earth” (Luke 21:34, 35). “ Watch, therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord cometh. The Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with unbelievers: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Mt. 24:42,50). “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes” (Like 19:42). “Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying Lord, Lord, open unto us, he shall

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. TOS

answer, and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are” (Luke 13:24, 25). “We beseech you that ye receive not the grace of God in vain. For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succored thee : behold now is the accepted time; behold now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2). “To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts” (Heb. 3:7). The argument in Heb. 3: 7-19 is to the effect, that as God swore that those Israelites who did not believe and obey his servant Moses during the forty years of wandering in the desert should not enter the earthly Canaan, so those who do not “while it is called, To-day ”— that is, while they are here in time—believe and obey his Son Jesus Christ, shall not enter the heavenly Canaan. “Take heed lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief. But exhort one another daily, while it is called, To-day” (Heb. 3:12, 13). “God limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To-day, after so long a time [of impenitence|, To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts” (Heb. 4:7). Hebrews 10 : 26 speaks of a time when “there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries of God.” ‘ Behold I come quickly ; and my reward is with me, to give to every man according as his work shall be. He that

104 THE DOCTRINE OF

is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that is right- eous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still” (Rev. 22:11, 12).

If sinners are redeemed beyond the grave, man must be informed of the fact by God himself. There is no other way of finding it out. He has not been so informed, but, if language has any meaning, has been informed of the contrary. Bishop Butler (Analogy, Pt. I. Ch. 11.) states the case with his usual conciseness and clearness. “Reason did, as it well might, conclude that it should finally be well with the righteous, and ill with the wicked; but it could not be determined upon any principles of reason whether human creatures might not have been appointed to pass through other states of life and being, before that distributive justice should finally and effectually take place. Revelation teaches us that the next state of things after the present is appointed for the execution of this justice; that it shall no longer be delayed, but the mystery of God, the ereat mystery of his suffering vice and confusion to prevatl, shall then be finished; and he will take to him his great power, and Hall reign, by render- ing to every one according to his works.”

The asserted extension of redemption into the period between death and the resurrection cannot be placed upon the ground of right and justice;

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 105

and the only other ground possible, that of the Divine promise so to extend it, is wanting. Our Lord teaches that men prior to his coming into the world are “condemned already” (John 8:16). His advent to save them supposes that they are already lost; and they are lost by sin; and sin is man’s free self determination. Consequently, man the sinner has no claim upon God for redemption. Forgiveness is undeserved, whether offered here or hereafter. The exercise of mercy is optional with God. “J will have mercy on whom I will have mercy” (Rom. 9:15). It follows from this, that the length of time during which the offer of mercy is made to transgressors is likewise optional with God. It may be long or short, according to the Divine will. Should God say to a sinner: “I will pardon your sin to-day, if you will penitently con- fess it, but not to-morrow,” this sinner could not complain of injustice, but would owe gratitude for the mercy thus extended for a limited time. It cannot be said, that unless God offers to pardon man forever and ever, he is not a merciful Being. Neither can this be said, if he confines redemption to this life, and does not redeem sinners in the in- termediate state.’

It is here that the logical inconsistency of such theologians as Miller and Dorner appears. Less-

1 Compare the Author’s Sermons to the Natural Man. Sermon XVITI.

ue

106 THE DOCTRINE OF

ing, the first of German critics, makes the follow- ing remark respecting the German mind: “ We Germans suffer from no lack of systematic books. No nation in the world surpasses us in the faculty of deducing from a couple of definitions whatever conclusions we please, in most fair and logical order.” (Preface to the Laocoon.) The truth of this remark is illustrated by some of the systems of theology and philosophy constructed in Ger- many. The reasoning is close, consecutive, and true, in some sections, but loose, inconsequent, and false, as a whole. ‘The mind of the thinker when moving in the limited sphere, moves logically ; but moving in the universe, and attempting to con- struct a philosophy or theology of the Infinite, fails utterly. Many of the trains of reasoning in Schleiermacher’s Glaubenslehre are profound, close- ly reasoned, and correct, but the system as a whole has fatal defects. No one will deny the rigor of Hegel’s logical processes, in segments, but the total circle of his upena is pantheistic, and full of inconsistency.

Lessing’s remark applies to that type of Uni- versalism of which Miller and Dorner are the best representatives, and the ablest advocates. In the first place, upon “a couple” of obscure and du- bious scripture texts, they rear the whole great fabric of a future redemption, in direct contradic- tion to some scores of perfectly plain texts that

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 107

teach the confinement of redemption to this life. And, secondly, after laying down a theory of sin which represents it as pure self-determination and guilt, sin is then discussed as an evil that is en- titled to the offer of a pardon, and a remedy. Miller and Dorner, both alike, explain sin as orig- inating in the free and guilty agency of the finite will, and as requiring an atonement in order to its remission.» And yet both alike, when they come to eschatology, assume tacitly, but do not formally assert, that the Divine Perfection requires that the offer, of forgiveness be made, sooner or later, to every sinner; that there will be a defect in the benevolence, and a blemish in the character, of the Supreme Being, if he does not tender a pardon to every transeressor of his law. Their eschatology thus contradicts their hamartiology.

The extension of the work of redemption into the future world is made to rest very much, for its support, upon the cases of the heathen and of in- fants. Respecting the former, it is certain that the heathen are voluntary transgressors of the moral law, and therefore have no claim upon the Divine mercy. Scripture teaches that they perish be- cause of their sin, and impenitence in sin. It is wicked to sin, and still more wicked not to repent

1The merit of Miiller, in particular, in respect to a profound and true view of sin is very great. No theological treatise of this cen- tury has more value than his work on Sin.

108 THE DOCTRINE OF

of it. The heathen are chargeable with both. St. Paul describes them as those “who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them” (Rom. 1:32). “The Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being | alienated from the life of God through the ignor- ance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness” (Hph. 4 : 17). “There is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without [written] law shall also perish without [written] law” (Rom. 2:11). “The Gentiles show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bear- ing witness, and their thoughts accusing, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ” (Rom. 2:14, 15). “Remember that ye being in time past Gentiles, were at that time without hope, and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:11, 12). “Murderers, whore- mongers, and idolaters, shall have their part in the lake of fire and brimstone: which is the sec- ond death” (Rev. 21:8). Jesus Christ said from heaven to Saul of Tarsus, that he had appointed him to be “a minister and witness to the Gentiles, to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 109

light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inherit- ance among them that are sanctified by faith” (Acts 26: 16-18). There is, consequently, no ground for asserting that justice and equity re- ‘quire that the pardon of sins be tendered to the heathen in the next life.

It does not follow, however, that because God is not obliged to offer pardon to the unevangelized heathen, either here or hereafter, therefore no un- evangelized heathen are pardoned. The electing mercy of God reaches to the heathen. It is not the doctrine of the Church, that the entire mass of pagans, without exception, have gone down to end- less impenitence and death. That some unevangel.. ized men are saved, in the present life, by an ex- traordinary exercise of redeeming grace in Christ, has been the hope and belief of Christendom. It was the hope and belief of the elder Calvinists, as it is of the later. The Second Helvetic Confession (I. 7), after the remark that the ordinary: mode of salvation is by the instrumentality of the written word, adds: “ Agnoscimus, interim, deum illumi- nare posse homines etiam sine externo ministerio, quo et quando velit: id quod ejus potenti est.” The Westminster Confession (X. 3), after saying that “elect infants dying in infancy are regener- ated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when and where and how he pleaseth,”

110 THE DOCTRINE OF

adds, “so also are all other elect persons [regene- rated and saved by Christ through the Spirit] who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the word.” This 1s commonly un- derstood to refer not merely, or mainly, to idiots and insane persons, but to such of the pagan world as God pleases to regenerate without the use of the written revelation. One of the sternest Calvinists of the 16th century, Zanchius, whose treatise on predestination was translated by Top- lady, after remarking that many nations have never had the privilege of hearing the word, says (Ch. IV.) that “it is not indeed improbable that some individuals in these unenlightened countries may belong to the secret election of grace, and the habit of faith may be wrought in them.” By the term “habit” (habitus), the elder theologians meant an inward disposition of the heart. The “habit of faith” inyolves penitence for sin, and the longing for its forgiveness and removal. The “habit of faith” 1s the broken and contrite heart, which expresses itself in the prayer, “God be mer- ciful to me a sinner.” It is certain that the Holy Ghost can produce, if he please, such a disposition and frame of mind in a pagan, without employing, as he commonly does, the written word. ‘The case of the blind man, in John 9: 86-88, is an example of the “ habit of faith,” though produced in this in- stance through the instrumentality of the written

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 111

law. “Jesus saith unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? He answered and said, Who zs he, Lord, that I might beheve on him? And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee. And he said, Lord I believe. And he worshipped him.” Here was sor- row for sin, and a desire for redemption from it, wrought in the heart by the Divine Spirit, prior to the actual knowledge of Christ as the Saviour of sinners. ‘The cases of the centurion Cornelius, and the Ethiopian eunuch, are also examples of the “habit of faith.” These men, under the teaching of the Spirit, were conscious of sin, and were anx- iously inquiring if, and how, it could be forgiven. That there is a class of persons in unevangelized heathendom who are the subjects of gracious in- fluences of this kind, is implied in St. Paul’s af- firmation, that “they are not all Israel, which are of Israel” (Rom. 9:6); and that “they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham” (Gal. 3:7). It is taught also in Matt. 8:11; Luke 13:30: “ Many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven, but the chil- dren of the kingdom [those who have had the written word] shall be cast out. And, behold, there are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last.” This affirmation of Christ was called out by the “habit of faith,” or disposi-

LLZ THE DOCTRINE OF

tion to believe, in that Gentile centurion, respect- ing whom he said, “I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel” (Matt. 8: 5-10).

The true reason for hoping that an unevangelized heathen is saved is not that he was virtuous, but that he was penitent. A penitent man is neces- sarily virtuous; but a virtuous man is not neces- sarily penitent. Sorrow for sin produces morality ; but morality does not produce sorrow for sin. A great error is committed at this point. The Sen- ecas, the Antonines, the Plutarchs, and such like, have been singled out as the hopeful examples in paganism. It is not for man to decide what was the real state of the heart; but the writings of these men do not reveal the sense of sin; do not express penitence; do not show a craving for re- demption. There is too much egotism, self-con- sciousness, and self-righteousness in them. The man, judged by his books, is moral, but proud. He is virtuous, but plumes himself upon it. This is not a hopeful characteristic, when we are asking what are the prospects of a human soul, before the bar of God. “To this man will I look, saith the Lord, even to him that is poor, and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word” (Isa. 66:2). _ “ Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3).

This line of remark holds good in Christendom, as well as in Heathendom. There is a class of

— —

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. HUGG es

men in modern society marked by morality, and lofty self-respect, but by no consciousness of sin, and no confession of it. And judged by New Testament principles, no class of mankind is far- ther off from the kingdom of heaven. There is no class that scorns the publican’s cry, and spurns the atoning blood, with such decision and energy as they. To them, the words of Christ, in a similar case, apply: “The publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of heaven before you” (Mark 21:31). The Magdalen is nearer the Divine Pity than the Pharisee. And upon the same principle, those benighted children of ignorance and barbar- ism who feel their sin and degradation, and are ready to listen with docility to the missionary when he comes with the tidings of the Infinite Compassion, are nearer to heaven, than the chil- dren of a gilded and heartless civilization, who have no moral unrest, and turn a deaf ear to all the overtures of mercy.’

1The passage, ‘In every nation, he that feareth God and work- eth righteousness is accepted with him” (Acts 10:35), is often ex- plained as teaching that there are in every nation some who live virtuous and exemplary lives, and upon this ground obtain the. re- wards and blessedness' of the future. This would be salvation by works, which is impossible, according to St. Paul. It is with ref- erence to such an interpretation of this text, that the Westminster Confession (X. 4) asserts, that ‘‘men not professing the Christian religion cannot be saved in any other way whatever, be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature, and the law of a religion which they do profess.” In the pas-

6

114 THE DOCTRINE OF

This extraordinary work of the Holy Spirit is mentioned by the Redeemer, to illustrate the sov- ereignty of God in the exercise of mercy, not to guide his church in their evangelistic labor. His command is, to “preach the gospel to every creat- ure.” The extraordinary and “strange” work of God is not a thing for man to expect, and rely upon, either in the kingdom of nature, or of grace. It is his ordinary and established method which is to direct him. The law of missionary effort is, that “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 11:17).

Two errors, therefore, are to be avoided: First, that all men are saved ; secondly, that only a few men are saved. Some fifty years ago, Schleier- macher surprised all Lutheran Germany with a defence of the Calvinistic doctrine of election; but the surprise was diminished, when it appeared that he held that God has elected, and will save,

sage above cited, the phrase ‘‘fearer of God,” and ‘‘ worker of righteousness,” is employed technically, by St. Peter, to denote a man inquiring after the way of salvation—somewhat as it was among the Jews, to signify a proselyte of the gate (Guericke’s Church History, p. 29). This is evident from the fact, that to this ‘ de- vout ” Cornelius who ‘‘ feared God with all his house ” (Acts 10:2), the Apostle preached Christ as the Saviour of sinners, “ through whose name, whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins,” and that Cornelius believed, and was baptized (Acts 10: 36-48). He would not have done this, if he had expected that his ‘fearing God” and ‘‘ working righteousness ”—-in other words, his morality and virtue—would save him.

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 115

every human creature without exception. This cannot be squared with Scripture. On the other hand, some Calvinists have represented the num- ber of the reprobated as greater than that of the elect, or equal to it. They found this upon the words of Christ, “ Many are called, but few are chosen.” But this describes the situation at the time when our Lord spake, and not the final result of his redemptive work. Christ himself, in the days of his flesh, called many, but few responded to the call from his gracious lips. Our Lord’s own preaching was not as successful as that of his apos- tles, and of many of his ministers. This was a part of his humiliation, and sorrow. But when Christ shall have “seen of the travail of his soul,” and been “satisfied ” with what he has seen; when the whole course of the gospel shall be complete, and shall be surveyed from beginning to end; it will be found that God’s elect, or church, is “a great multitude which no man can number, out of al/ nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues,” and that their voice is as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, “ Hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent Permeum (nev. 7:9; 19:6). ° The; circle: of God’s election is a great circle of the heavens, and not that of a treadmill.

Respecting the more difficult case of infants— the Scriptures do not discriminate and except them

116 THE DOCTRINE OF

as a class from the mass of mankind, but involve them in the common sin and condemnation. “ Suf- fer little children to come unto me” [their Re- ‘ deemer] (Luke 18:16). “The promise [of sal- vation] is unto you, and to your children” (Acts 2:39). The fall in Adam explains their case. Adopting the Augustino-Calvinistic statement of this fall, it can then be said that infants, like all others of the human family, freely and responsibly “sinned in Adam, and fell with him, in his first transgression”? (Westminster Shorter Catechism, 16). This is no more impossible, and no more of a mystery, in the case of infants, than of adults. If it be conceded that the whole race apostatized in Adam, infants are righteously exposed to the punishment of sin, and have no claim upon the Divine mercy. The sin which brings condemna- tion upon them is original sin, and not actual transgressions. But original sin is the sinful in- clination of the will. An infant has a rational soul; this soul has a will; this will is wrongly inclined ; and wrong inclination is self-determined and punishable. If sinful inclination in an adult needs to be expiated by the atoning blood of Christ, so does sinful inclination in an infant. In- fants, consequently, sustain the very same relation to the mercy of God in Christ that the remainder of the human race do. They need the Divine clem- ency, like the rest of mankind. The “salvation”

_ ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. ELG

of infants supposes their prior damnation. Who- ever asserts that an infant is “saved,” by implica- tion concedes that it is “lost.” The salvation of an infant, like that of an adult, involves the re- mission and removal of sin, and depends upon the unmerited and optional grace of God. This be- ing’ so, it cannot be said, that God would treat an infant unjustly, if he did not offer him salvation in the intermediate state. And upon the suppo- sition, now common in the evangelical churches, that all infants dying in infancy, being elect, are “regenerated and saved by Christ through the ‘Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth ” (Westminster Confession, X. 3), there is no need of any such offer.

118 THE DOCTRINE OF

Chapter IIL THE RATIONAL ARGUMENT

The chief objections to the doctrine of Endless Punishment are not Biblical, but speculative. The great majority of students and exegetes find the tenet in the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. David- son, the most learned of English rationalistic critics, explicitly acknowledges that “if a specific sense be attached to words, never-ending misery is enunci- ated in the Bible. On the presumption that one doctrine is taught, it is the eternity of hell tor- ments. Bad exegesis may attempt to banish it from the New Testament Scriptures, but it is still there, and expositors who wish to get rid of it, as Canon Farrar does, injure the cause they have in view by misrepresentation. It must be allowed that the New Testament record not only makes Christ assert everlasting punishment, but Paul and

John. But the question should be looked at from '

a larger platform than single texts—in the light of God’s attributes, and the nature of the soul. The destination of man, and the Creator's infinite good- ness, conflicting as they do with everlasting pun- ishment, remove it from the sphere of rational belief. If provision be not made in revelation for

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 119

a change of moral character after death, it is made in reason. Philosophical considerations must not be set aside even by Scripture” (Last Things, pp. 133, 186, 151). |

Consequently, after presenting the Biblical argu- ment, for Endless Punishment, it becomes necessary to present the rational argument for it. So long as the controversy is carried on by an appeal to the Bible, the defender of endless retribution has com- paratively an easy task. But when the appeal is made to human feeling and sentiment, or to ratio- cination, the demonstration requires more effort. And yet the doctrine is not only Biblical, but rational, It is defensible on the basis of sound ethics and pure reason. Nothing is requisite for its maintenance but the admission of three cardinal truths of theism, namely, that there is a just God; that man has free will; and that sin is voluntary action. If these are denied, there can be no de- fence of endless punishment—or of any other doc- trine, except atheism and its corollaries.

The Bible and all the creeds of Christendom affirm man’s free agency in sinning against God. The transgression which is to receive the endless punishment is voluntary. Sin, whether it be in- ward inclination or outward act, is unforced human agency. This is the uniform premise of Christian theologians of all schools. Endless pun- ishment supposes the liberty of the human will,

120 THE DOCTRINE OF

and is impossible without it. Could a man prove that he is necessitated in his murderous hate, and his murderous act, he would prove, in this very proof, that he ought not to be punished for it, either in time or eternity. Could Satan really con- vince himself that his moral character is not his own work, but that of God, or of nature, his re- morse would cease, and his punishment would end. Self-determination runs parallel with hell.

Guilt, then, is what is punished, and not mis- fortune. Free and not forced agency is what feels the stroke of justice. What, now, is this stroke? What do law and justice do when they punish? Everything depends upon the right answer to this question. The fallacies and errors of Universalism find their nest and hiding-place at this point. The true definition of punishment detects and excludes them.

Punishment is neither chastisement nor calamity. Men suffer calamity, says Christ, not because they or their parents have sinned, “ but that the works of God should be made manifest in them” (John 9:8). Chastisement is inflicted in order to develop a good, but imperfect character already formed. “The Lord loveth whom he chasteneth,” and “what son is he whom the earthly father chast- eneth not?” (Hebrews 11: 6,7). Punishment, on the other hand, is retribution, and is not intended to do the work of either calamity or chastisement,

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. ea.

but a work of its own. And this work is to vindi- cate law; to satisfy justice. Punishment, there- fore, as distinguished from chastisement, 1s wholly retrospective in its primary aim. It looks back at what has been done in the past. Its first and great object is requital, A man is hung for murder, principally and before all other reasons, because he has voluntarily transgressed the law forbidding murder. He is not hung from a prospective aim, such as his own moral improvement, or for the purpose of deterring others from committing murder. The remark of the Englsh judge to the horse-thief, in the days when such theft was capi- tally punished, “ You are not hung because you have stolen a horse, but that horses may not be stolen,” has never been regarded as eminently judicial. It is true that personal improvement may be one consequence of the infliction of pen- alty. But the consequence must not be confounded with the purpose. Cum hoc non ergo propter hoe. The criminal may come to see and confess that his crime deserves its punishment, and in genuine un- selfish penitence may take sides with the law, approve its retribution, and go into the presence of the Final Judge, relying upon that great atone- ment which satisfies eternal justice for sin; but even this, the greatest personal benefit of all, is not what is aimed at in man’s punishment of the crime of murder. For should there be no such

122 THE DOCTRINE OF

personal benefit as this attending the infliction of the human penalty, the one sufficient reason for inflicting it still holds good, namely, the fact that the law has been violated, and demands the death of the offender for this reason simply and only. “The notion of il-desert and punishableness,” says Kant (Praktische Vernunft, 151. Ed. Rosen- kranz), “is necessarily implied in the idea of voluntary transgression; and the idea of punish- ment excludes that of happiness in all its forms. For though he who inflicts punishment may, it is true, also have a benevolent purpose to produce by the punishment some good effect upon the criminal, yet the punishment must be justified, first of all, as pure and simple requital and retri- bution: that is, as a kind of suffering that is de- manded by the law without any reference to its prospective beneficial consequences; so that even if no moral improvement and no personal advan- tage should subsequently accrue to the criminal, he must acknowledge that justice has been done to him, and that his experience is exactly conformed to his conduct. In every instance of punishment, properly so called, justice is the very first thing, and constitutes the essence of it. / A benevolent purpose and a happy effect, it is true, may be con- joined with punishment; but the criminal cannot claim this as his due, and he has no right to reckon upon it. All that he deserves is punish-

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 198

ment, and this is all that he can expect from the law which he has transgressed.” These are the words of as penetrating and ethical a thinker as ever lived. |

Neither is it true, that the first and principal aim of punishment, in distinction from chastise- ment, is the protection of society, and the public good. ‘This, like the personal benefit in the pre- ceding case, is only secondary and. incidental. The public good is not a sufficient reason for put- ting a man to death;* but the satisfaction of law

1 Beccaria and Bentham are the principal modern advocates of the contrary theory, viz.: that punishment is founded on utility and expediency. Beccaria’s position is, that the standard of crime is the injury which it does to society. He refers exclusively to the public good, and never appeals to the moral sentiment (Penny Cyclopeedia, Art. Beccaria). Bentham takes the same view, con- necting it with the utilitarian ethics. From these writers, this theory has passed considerably into modern jurisprudence. Austin, a popular writer on law, follows Bentham.

The theory which founds morality upon righteousness, and jiun- ishment upon justice, is historical. Plato (Laws, X. 904, 905) held that punishment is righteous and retributive. Cicero (De - Legibus, I. 14 sq.) contends that true virtue has regard to essential justice, not to utility. Grotius defines penalty as ‘‘the evil of suffering which is inflicted on account of the evil of doing.” The great English jurists, Coke, Bacon, Selden, and Blackstone, ex- plain punishment by crime, not by expediency. Kant, Herbart, Stahl, Hartenstein, Rothe, and Woolsey, define punishment as requital for the satisfaction of law and justice (Woolsey’s Political Science, Pt. IT. Ch. viii.).

* Hence, those who found punishment upon utility, and deny that it is retributive, endeavor to abolish capital punishment. And if their theory of penalty is true, they are right in their endeavor.

124 THE DOOTRINE OF

is. This view of penalty is most disastrous in its influence, as well as false in its ethics. For if the good of the public is the true reason and object of punishment, the amount of it may be fixed by the end in view. The criminal may be made to suf- fer more than his crime deserves, if the public wel- fare, in suppressing this particular kind of crime, requires it. His personal desert and responsibility not being the one sufficient reason for his suffer- ing, he may be made to suffer as much as the pub- he safety requires. It was this theory of penalty that led to the multiplication of capital offences. The prevention of forgery, 1t was once claimed in England, required that the forger should forfeit his life, and upon the principle that punishment is for the public protection, and not for strict and exact justice, an offence against human property was explated by human life. Contrary to the Noachic statute, which punishes only murder with death, this statute weighed out man’s life-blood against pounds, shillings, and pence. On this theory, the number of capital offences became very numerous, and the criminal code very bloody. So that, in the long run, nothing is kinder than exact justice. It prevents extremes in either direction —either that of indulgence, or that of cruelty. This theory breaks down, from whatever point it be looked at. Suppose that there were but one person in the universe. If he should transgress

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 195

the law of God, then, upon the principle of ex- pediency as the ground of penalty, this solitary subject of moral government could not be pun- ished—that is, visited with a suffering that is purely retributive, and not exemplary or correc- tive. His act has not injured the public, for there isno public. There is no need of his suffering as an example to deter others, for there are no others. But upon the principle of justice, in distinction from expediency, this solitary subject of moral government could be punished.

The vicious ethics of this theory of penalty ex- presses itself in the demoralizing maxim, “It is better that ten guilty men should escape than that one innocent man should suffer.” But this is no more true than the converse, “ It is better that ten innocent men should suffer than that one guilty man should escape.” It is a choice of equal evil and equal injustice. In either case alike, justice is trampled down. In the first supposed case,

there are eleven instances of injustice and wrong; “4 m/e and in the last supposed case, there are likewise * *

eleven instances of injustice and wrong. Unpun- ished guilt is precisely the same species of evil with punished innocence. To say, therefore, that it is better that ten guilty persons should escape than that one innocent man should suffer, is to say that it is better that there should be ten wrongs than one wrong against justice. The maxim assumes that

126 THE DOCTRINE OF

the punishment of the guilty is not of so much con- sequence as the immunity of the innocent. But the truth is, that both are equally required by justice.

The theory that punishment is retributive honors human nature, but the theory that 1t 1s merely ex- pedient and useful degrades it. If justice be the true ground of penalty, man is treated as a person; but if the public good is the ground, he is treated as a chattel or a thing. When suffering is judi- cially inflicted because of the intrinsic gravity and real demerit of crime, man’s free will and respon- sibility are recognized and put in the foreground ; and these are his highest and distinguishing attri- butes. The sufficient reason for his suffering is found wholly within his own person, in the exer- cise of self-determination. He is not seized by the magistrate and made to suffer for a reason extra- neous to his own agency, and for the sake of some- thing lying wholly outside of himself—namely, the safety and happiness of others—but because of his own act. He is not handled like a brute or an inanimate thing that may be put to good use; but he is recognized as a free and voluntary person, who is not punished because punishment is expedi- ent and useful, but because it is just and right; not because the public safety requires it, but because he owes it. The dignity of the man _ himself, founded in his lofty but hazardous endowment of free will, is acknowledged.

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 127

Supposing it, now, to be conceded, that future punishment is retributive in its essential nature, it follows that it must be endless from the nature of the case. Tor, suffering must continue as long as the reason for it continues. In this respect, it is like law, which lasts as long as its reason lasts: ratione cessante, cessat ipsa lex. Suffering that is educational and corrective may come to an end, because moral infirmity, and not guilt, is the rea- son for its infliction; and moral infirmity may cease to exist. But suffering that is penal can never come to an end, because guilt is the reason for its infliction, and guilt once incurred never ceases to be. The lapse of time does not convert guilt into Innocence, as it converts moral infirmity into moral strength ; and therefore no time can ever arrive when the guilt of the criminal will cease to deserve and demand its retribution. The reason for retribution to-day is a reason forever. Hence, when God disciplines and educates his children, he causes only a temporary suffering. In this case, “He will not keep his anger forever” (Ps. 108: 9). But when, as the Supreme Judge, he punishes rebellious and guilty subjects of his government, he causes an endless suffering. In this case, “their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:48).

The real question, therefore, 1s, whether God ever punishes. That he chastises, is not disputed. But

128 THE DOCTRINE OF

does he ever inflict a suffering that is not intended to reform the transgressor, and does not reform him, but is intended simply and only to vindicate law, and satisfy justice, by requiting him for his transgression? Revelation teaches that he does. “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord” (Rom. 12:19). Retribution is here asserted to be a function of the Supreme Being, and his alone. The creature has no right to punish, except as he is authorized by the Infinite Ruler. “The powers that be are ordained of God. The ruler is the minister of God, an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil” (Rom. 13:1, 4). The power which civil government has to punish crime—the private person having no such power—is only a delegated right from the Source of retribution. Natural religion, as well as revealed, teaches that God inflicts upon the voluntary transgressor of law a suffering that is purely vindicative of law. The pagan sages enunciate the doctrine, and it 1s mor- tised into the moral constitution of man, as is proved by his universal fear of retribution. ‘The objection, that a suffering not intended to reform, but to satisfy justice, is cruel and unworthy of God, is refuted by the question of St. Paul: “Is. God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? God forbid: for how then shall God judge the world?” (Rom. 38:5,6). It is impossible either to found or administer a government, in heaven

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 129

or upon earth, unless the power to punish crime is conceded.

The endlessness of future punishment, then, is implied in the endlessness of guilt and condemna- tion. When a crime is condemned, it is absurd to ask, “ How long is it condemned?” The verdict “Guilty for ten days” was Hibernian. Damna- tion means absolute and everlasting damnation. All suffering in the next life, therefore, of which the sufficient and justifying reason is guilt, must continue as long as the reason continues; and the reason is everlasting. If it be righteous to-day, in God’s retributive justice, to smite the transgressor because he violated the law yesterday, it 1s right- eous to do the same thing to-morrow, and the next day, and so on ad infinitum; because the state of the case ad infinitum remains unaltered. The guilt incurred yesterday is a standing and endless fact. What, therefore, guilt legitimates this instant, it legitimates every instant, and forever.

The demand that penal suffering shall stop when it has once begun, is as irrational as the demand that guilt shall stop when it has once begun. The continuous nature of guilt necessi- tates the endlessness of retribution. A man, for illustration, 1s guilty of profanity to-day. God, we — will suppose, immediately begins to cause him to suffer in his mind, as the righteous requital for his Wapearegeion of the third commandment. The

130 THE DOCTRINE OF

transeressor immediately begins to feel remorse for his sin. Why, upon principles of justice, should he feel remorse for his profanity to-day, and not feel it to-morrow? Why should he feel it to-morrow, and not feel it a million years hence ? Why should he feel it a million years hence, and not feel it forever? At what point should remorse stop? If we suppose the state of the case to be unchanged; if we suppose no penitence forthe profanity, and no appropriation of the only_atone- ment that cancels guilt; then the mental suffering which the profanity deserves and experiences now, it always must deserve and experience. ‘The same reasoning will apply to whatever suffering besides remorse enters into the sum-total of future punish- ment.

Again, the endlessness of punishment follows from the endivisibility of guilt. The nature of guilt is such that it cannot be divided up and distributed in parts along a length of time, and be expiated in parts, but 1s concentrated whole and entire at each and every point of time. The guilt of the sin of profanity does not rest upon the transgressor, one part of it at twelve o’clock, and another part of it at half past twelve, and another part of it at one o'clock, and so on. The whole infinite’ euilt of this act of sin against God lies upon the smner at each and every instant of time. He is no more guilty of the supposed act, at half past twelve, than at

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT, Pow

twelve, and equally guilty at both of these in- stants. Consequently, the whole infinite penalty can justly be required at any and every moment of time. Yet the whole penalty cannot be paid at any and every moment, by the suffering of that single moment. The transgressor at any and every point in his endless existence is infinitely guilty, and yet cannot cancel his guilt by what he endures at a particular point. Too long a punishment of guilt is thus an impossibility. The suffering of the criminal can never overtake the crime. And the only way in which justice can approximately obtain its dues, is by a never ceasing infliction. We say approximately, because, tested strictly, the endless suffering of a finite being is not strictly infinite suffering; while the guilt of sin against God is strictly infinite. There is, therefore, no over pun- ishment in endless punishment.*

1 Tt must be remembered, that it is the degree, together with the endlessness of suffering, that constitutes the justice of it. We can conceive of an endless suffering that is marked by little intensity in the degree of it. Such, according to Augustine, is the suffering of unbaptized infants (mitissima omnium). It is negative banish- ment, not positive infliction. An evil that is inflicted in a few hours may be greater than one inflicted in endless time. One day of such torment as that of Satan would be a greater distress, than a slight physical pain lasting forever. The infinite incarnate God suffered more agony in Gethsemane, than the whole finite human race could suffer in endless duration. Consequently, the uniformity in the endlessness must be combined with a variety in

the intensity of suffering, in order to adjust the future punish- ment to the different grades of sin,

132 THE DOCTRINE OF

It will be objected that, though the guilt and damnation of a crime be endless, it does not follow that the suffering inflicted on account of it must be endless also, even though it be retributive and not reformatory in its intent. A human judge pronounces a theft to be endlessly a theft, and a thief to be endlessly a thief, but he does not sentence the thief to an endless suffering, though he sentences him to a penal suffering. But this objection overlooks the fact that human punish- ment is only approximate and imperfect, not abso- Jute and perfect like the Divine. It is not adjusted exactly and precisely to the whole guilt of the offence, but is more or less modified, first, by not considering its relation to God’s honor and majesty ; secondly, by human ignorance of the in- ward motives; and, thirdly, by social expediency. Earthly courts and judges look at the transgres- sion of law with reference only to man’s temporal relations, not his eternal. They punish an offence as a crime against the State, not as a sin against God. Neither do they look into the human heart, and estimate crime in its absolute and intrinsic nature, as does the Searcher of Hearts and the Omniscient Judge." A human tribunal punishes

7 “ Human laws,” says Paley (Moral Philosophy, Bk. I. Ch. iii.), “omit many duties, such as piety to God, bounty to the poor, for- giveness of injuries, education of children, gratitude to benefac- tors. And they permit, or, which is the same thing, suffer to go

*

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. Pao

mayhem, we will say, with six months’ imprison- ment, because it does not take into considera- tion either the malicious and wicked anger that prompted the maiming, or the dishonor done to the Supreme Being by the transgression of his commandment. But Christ, in the final assize, punishes this offence endlessly, because his All- seeing view includes the sum-total of guilt in the case: namely, the inward wrath, the outward act, and the relation of both to the infinite perfec- tion and adorable majesty of God. The human tribunal does not punish the inward anger at all; the Divine tribunal punishes it with hell fire: “For whosoever shall say to his brother, Thou fool, is in danger of hell fire” (Matt.5:22). The human tribunal punishes seduction with a pecuni- ary fine, because it does not take cognizance of the selfish and heartless lust that prompted it, or of the affront offered to that Immaculate Holiness which from Sinai proclaimed, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” But the Divine tribunal pun- ishes seduction with an infinite suffering, because of its more comprehensive and truthful view of the whole transaction. And, in addition to all this im- perfection in human punishment, the human trib- unal may be influenced by prejudice and selfishness.

unpunished, many crimes, such as luxury, prodigality, caprice in the disposition of property by will, disrespect to parents, and a multitude of similar examples.”

134 THE DOCTRINE OF

‘Tn the corrupted currents of this world, Offence’s gilded hand may shove by justice ; And oft ’tis seen, the wicked prize itself Buys out the law. But ’tis not so above. There is no shuffling, there the action lies In his true nature; and we ourselves compelled Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, To give in evidence.” —Hamlet, ITT. iv.

Again, human punishment, unlike the Divine, is variable and inexact, because it 1s to a consider- able extent reformatory and protective. Human government is not intended to do the work of the Supreme Ruler. The sentence of an earthly judge is not a substitute for that of the last day. Con- sequently, human punishment need not be mar ked, even if this were possible, with all that absolute- ness and exactness of justice which characterizes the Divine. Justice in the human sphere may be relaxed by expediency. Human punishment may sometimes be more severe, and sometimes less severe, than exact requital demands, but Divine punishment may not be. The retributive element must, indeed, enter into human punish- ment; for no man may be punished by a human tribunal unless he deserves punishment—unless he isacriminal. But retribution is not the sole element when man punishes. Man, while not overlooking the guilt in the case, has some refer- ence to the reformation of the offender, and still more to the protection of society. Here, in time,

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 135

the transeressor is capable of reformation, and society needs protection. Hence civil expediency and social utility modify exact and strict retribu- tion. Tor the sake of reforming the criminal, the judge sometimes inflicts a penalty that is less than the real guilt of the offence. For the sake of shielding society, the court sometimes sentences the criminal to a suffering greater than his crime deserves. Human tribunals, also, vary the punish- ment for the same offence—sometimes punishing forgery capitally, and sometimes not; sometimes sentencing those guilty of the same kind of theft to one year’s imprisonment, and sometimes to two.

But the Divine tribunal, in the last great day, is invariably and exactly just, because it is nedther reformatory, nor protective. In eternity, the sin- ner is so hardened as to be incorrigible, and heaven is impregnable. Hell, therefore, is not a pent- tentiary. It is righteous retribution, pure and simple, unmodified by considerations either of utility to the criminal, or of safety to the uni- verse. In the day of final account, penalty will not be unjustly mild for the sake of the trans- gressor, nor unjustly severe for the sake of soci- ety. Christ will not punish incorrigible men and devils (for the two receive the same sentence, and go to the same place, Matt. 25:41), for the pur. pose of reforming them, or of screening the right- eous from the wicked, but of satisfying the broken

136 THE DOCTRINE OF

law. His punishment at that time will be nothing but just requital. The Redeemer of men is also the Eternal Judge; the Lamb of God is also the Lion of the tribe of Judah; and his righteous word to wicked and hardened Satan, to wicked and hardened Judas, to wicked and hardened pope Alexander VI., will be: “ Vengeance is mine; I will repay. Depart from me, ye cursed, that work iniquity” (Rom. 12:19; Matt. 25::413 7.93). “The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey -not the gospel” (2 Thess.'1: 7, 8)... The wicked will receive their desert, and reap accord- ing as they have sown. The suffering will be unerringly adjusted to the intrinsic guilt: no greater and no less than the sin deserves. “That servant which knew his lord’s will [clearly], and did not according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes; but he that knew not [clearly], and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. As many as have sinned without [written] law, shall also perish without [written] law; and as many as have sinned under [written] law, shall be judged by the [written] law” (Luke 12:47, 48; Rom. 2:12).

It is because the human court, by reason of its ignorance both of the human heart and the true nature of sin against a spiritual law and a holy

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT Lz

God, cannot do the perfect work of the Divine . tribunal, that human laws and penalties are only provisional, and not final. Harthly magistrates are permitted to modify and relax penalty, and pass a sentence which, though adapted to man’s earthly circumstances, is not absolute and perfect, and is finally to be revised and made right by the omniscient accuracy of God. The human penalty that approaches nearest to the Divine, is capital punishment. ‘There 1s more of the purely retrib- utive element in this than in any other. The reformatory element is wanting. And this punish- ment has a kind of endlessness. Death is a final- ity. It forever separates the murderer from earth- ly society, even as future punishment separates forever from the society of God and heaven.

The difference between human and divine pun- ishment is well stated by Paley (Moral Philoso- phy, Book V. Ch. ix.): “The proper end of hu- man punishment is not the [exact] satisfaction of justice, but the prevention of crimes. By the sat- isfaction of justice, I mean the retribution of so much pain for so much guilt; which is the dispen- sation we expect at the hand of God, and which we are accustomed to consider as the order of things that perfect justice requires. Crimes are not by any government punished in proportion to their [exact] guilt, nor in all cases ought to be so, but in proportion to the difficulty and the neces-

138 THE DOCTRINE OF

sity of preventing them. The crime must be pre- vented by some means or other; and consequently whatever means appear necessary to this end, whether they be proportionable to the [exact] guilt of the criminal or not, are adopted rightly. It is in pursuance of the same principle, which pervades indeed the whole system of penal juris- prudence, that the facility with which any species of crime is perpetrated has been generally deemed a reason for aggravating the punishment. This severity would be absurd and unjust, if the [exact] guilt of the offender was the immediate cause and measure of the punishment.

On the other hand, from the justice of God we are taught to look for a gradation of punish- ment exactly proportioned to the guilt of the of.- fender. When, therefore, in assigning the degrees of human punishment we introduce considerations distinct from that of guilt, and a proportion so varied by external circumstances that equal crimes frequently undergo unequal punishments, or the less crime the greater, it is natural to demand the reason why a different measure of punishment should be expected from God; why that rule which befits the absolute and perfect justice of the deity should not be the rule which ought to be preserved and imitated by human laws. The so- lution of this difficulty must be sought for, in those peculiar attributes of the Divine nature which dis-

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 139

tinguish the dispensations of Supreme wisdom from the proceedings of human judicature. <A Being whose knowledge penetrates every conceal- ment; from the operation of whose will no act or flight can escape; and in whose hands punishment is sure: such a Being may conduct the moral gov- ernment of his creation in the best and wisest manner, by pronouncing a law that every crime shall finally receive a punishment proportioned to the guilt which it contains, abstracted from any Foreign consideration whatever, and may testify . his veracity to the spectators of his judgments, by carrying this law into strict execution. But when the care of the public safety is intrusted to men whose authority over their fellow creatures is lim- ited by defects of power and knowledge; from whose utmost vigilance and sagacity the greatest offenders often he hid; whose wisest precautions and speediest pursuit may be eluded by artifice or concealment; a different necessity, a new rule of proceeding results from the very imperfection of their faculties. In their hands, the uncertainty of punishment must be compensated by the severity. The ease with which crimes are committed or con- cealed, must be counteracted by additional pen- alties and increased terrors. The very end for which human government is established requires that its regulations be adapted to the suppression of crimes. This end, whatever it may do in the

140 THE DOCTRINE OF

plans of Infinite Wisdom, does not, in the desig- nation of temporal penalties, always coincide with the proportionate punishment of guilt.” Black- stone, also (Com. Book IV., Ch. i.), alludes to the same difference in the following words: “The end, or final cause of human punishments, is not atonement or expiation for the crime committed ;! for that must be left to the just determination of the Supreme Being.”

The argument thus far goes to prove that retri- bution in distinction from correction, or punish- ment in distinction from chastisement, is endless from the nature of the case: that is, from the nature of guilt. We pass, now, to prove that it is also rational and right.

1. Endless punishment is rational, in the first place, because it is supported by the human con- science. ‘The sinner’s own conscience will “ bear witness” and approve of the condemning sentence, “in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ” (Rom. 2:16). Dives, in the parable, when reminded of the justice of his suffering, is silent. Accordingly, all the evangeli- cal creeds say with the Westminster (Larger Cate- chism, 89) that “the wicked, upon clear evidence and full conviction of their own consciences, stall have the just sentence of condemnation pronounced against them.” If m the great day there are any innocent men who have no accusing consciences,

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 141

they will escape hell. We may accommodate St. Paul’s words (Rom. 13:3, 4), and say: ‘The final judgment is not a terror to good works, but to evil. Wilt thou, then, not be afraid of the final judgment? Keep the law of God perfectly, without a single slip or failure, inwardly or out- wardly, and thou shalt have praise of the same. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid.” But a sentence that is justified by the highest and best part of the human constitution must be founded. in reason, justice, and truth. It is absurd to ob- ject to a judicial decision that is confirmed by the man’s own immediate consciousness of its right- eousness. ‘For what, my small philosopher, is hell ? "Tis nothing but full knowledge of the truth,

When truth, resisted long, is sworn our foe: And calls eternity to do her right.”—-Youne.

The opponent of endless retribution does not draw his arguments from the impartial conscience, but from the bias of self-love and desire for happiness. His objections are not ethical, but sentimental. They are not seen in the dry light of pure truth and reason, but through the colored medium of self-indulgence and love of ease and sin.

Again, a guilty conscience expects endless pun- ishment. There is in it what the Scripture denom- inates “the fearful looking-for of judgment, and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adver-

p4y THE DOCTRINE OF

saries” of God (Hebrews 10:27). This is the awful apprehension of an evil that is to last for- ever; otherwise, 1t would not be so “fearful.” The knowledge that future suffering will one day cease would immediately relieve the apprehension of the sinner. A guilty conscience is in its very nature hopeless. Impenitent men, in their re- morse, “sorrow as those who have no hope” (1 Thess. 4:18). Unconverted Gentiles “have no hope, and are without God in the world” (Eph. De LOY. “The hope of the wicked shall be as the giving up of the ghost” (Job 11:20). “The hypoerite’s hope shall perish” (Job 8:18). Con- sequently, the great and distinguishing element in hell-torment is despair, a feeling that is imposst- ble in any man or fallen angel who knows that he ‘is finally to be happy forever. Despair results ‘from the endlessness of retribution. No endless- ness, no despair! Natural religion, as well as re-

1 «<< Tf,” says Pearson (Creed, Art. V.), “‘we should imagine any damned soul to have received an express promise of God, that after ten thousand years he would release him from those torments and make him everlastingly happy, and to have a true faith in that promise and a firm hope of receiving eternal life, we could not say that that man was in the same condition with the rest of the damned, or that he felt all that hell which they were sensible of, or all that pain which was due unto his sins; because hope, and confidence, and relying upon God, would not only mitigate all other pains, but wholly take away the bitter anguish of despair.” It is obvious, that if God makes any such promise in his word, either expressly, or by implication, despair is not only impossible

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 1438

vealed, teaches the despair of some men in the fut- ure life. Plato (Gorgias 525), Pindar (Olympia II.), Plutarch (De sera vindicta), describe the punishment of the incorrigibly wicked as eternal and hopeless.

In Scripture, there 1s no such thing as eternal hope. Hope is a characteristic of earth and time only. Here, in this life, all men may hope for forgiveness. “Turn, ye prisoners of hope” (Zech. 9:2). “Now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6: 2). But in the next world there is no hope of any kind, because there is elther fruition or despair. The Christian’s hope is converted into its realization: “ For what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for it?” (Rom. 8: 24). And the impenitent sinner’s hope of heaven is converted into despair. Canon Farrar’s phrase “eternal hope” is derived from Pandora’s box, not from the Bible. Dante’s legend over the portal of hell is the truth: “ All hope abandon, ye who enter here.” ? to the believer of Scripture, but is a sin. No man should despair. And if God does not make any such promise, but man makes it to his fellow sinner, in saying, as Satan did to Eve, ‘‘ Thou shalt not surely die,” and the human promise is believed, the effect will be the same. There will be no despair, until the reckless human falsehood is corrected by the awful demonstration at death.

i'The words of Paul, in 1 Cor. 13 : 18, are sometimes cited to prove the eternity of hope, because it ‘‘ abides.” But in this pas-

sage, ‘‘faith, hope, and charity” are contrasted with the super- natural charismata of chapter 12. These latter are transitory, but

144 THE DOCTRINE OF

That conscience supports endless retribution, is also evinced by the universality and steadiness of the dread of 1t. Mankind believe in hell, as they believe in the Divine Existence, by reason of their moral sense. Notwithstanding all the attack made upon the tenet in every generation, by a fraction of every generation, men do not get rid of their fear of future punishment. Skeptics themselves are sometimes distressed by it. But a permanent and general fear among mankind cannot be pro- duced by a mere chimera, or a pure figment of the imagination. Men have no fear of Rhadamanthus, nor can they be made to fear him, because they know that there is no such being. “ An idol is nothing in the world” (1 Cor. 8:4). But men have “the fearful looking-for of judgment ” from the lips of God, ever and always. If the Biblical hell were as much a nonentity as the heathen At- lantis, no one would waste his time in endeavoring to prove its non-existence. What man would seri- ously construct an argument to demonstrate that there is no such being as Jupiter Ammon, or such an animal as the centaur? The very denial of endless retribution evinces by its spasmodic eager- the former ‘‘abide,” because they are essential to the Christian life here upon earth. But in respect to the eternity of ‘‘ faith,” St. Paul teaches that it is converted into ‘‘sight” (2 Cor. 5: 7); and that ‘‘hope” is converted into ‘‘ fruition” (Rom. 8: 24).

Charity is ‘‘ greater” than faith and hope, because it is not changed into something else, but is eternal.

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 145

ness and effort to disprove the tenet, the firmness with which it is intrenched in man’s moral consti- tution. If there really were no hell, absolute in- difference toward the notion would long since have been the mood of all mankind, and no arguments, either for or against it, would be constructed.

And finally, the demand, even here upon earth, for the punishment of the intensely and incorri- gibly wicked, proves that retribution is grounded in the human conscience. When abominable and satanic sin is temporarily triumphant, as it some- times has been in the history of the world, men cry out to God for his vengeance to come down. “Tf there were no God, we should be compelled to invent one,” isnow afamiliar sentiment. “If there were no hell, we should be compelled to invent one,’ is equally true. When examples of great _ depravity occur, man cries: “ How long, O Lord, how long?” The non-infliction of retribution up- on hardened villany and successful cruelty causes - anguish in the moral sense. For the expression of it, read the imprecatory psalms and Milton’s son- net on the Massacre in Piedmont.

2. In the second place, endless punishment is rational, because of the endlessness of sin. If the preceding view of the relation of penalty to guilt be correct, endless punishment is just, without bringing the sin of the future world into the

account. Man incurs everlasting punishment for 10

146 THE DOCTRINE OF

“the things done in his body” (2 Cor. 5:10). Christ sentences men to perdition, not for what they are going to do in eternity, but for what they have already done in time. It is not necessary that a man should commit all kinds of sin, or that he should sin a very long time, in order to be a sinner. ‘“ Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all” (James 2:10). One sin makes guilt, and guilt makes hell.

But while this is so, it is a fact to be observed, that sin is actually being added to sin, in the fut- ure life, and the amount of guilt is accumulating. The lost spirit is “treasuring up wrath” (Rom. 2:5). Hence, there are degrees in the intensity of endless suffering. The difference in the grade arises from the greater resoluteness of the wicked self-determination, and the greater degree of light that was enjoyed upon earth. He who sins against the moral law as it is drawn out in the Sermon on the Mount, sins more determinedly and desperately ' than the pagan who sins against the light of nat- ure. There are probably no men in paganism who sin so wilfully and devilishly as some men in Christendom. Profanity, or the blaspheming of God, is a Christian and not a Heathen charac- teristic.’ They are Christian peoples who force

‘It is related by Dr. Scudder, that on his return from his mis- sion in India, after a long absence, he was standing on the deck of

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 147

opium and rum on helpless pagans. These degrees of sin call for degrees of suffering. And there are degrees in future suffering, because it is infinite in duration only. In intensity, it is finite. Conse- quently, the lost do not all suffer precisely alike, though all suffer the same length of time. A thing may be infinite in one respect and finite in others. A line may be infinite in length, and not in breadth and depth. A surface may be infinite in length and breadth, and not in depth. And two persons may suffer infinitely in the sense of endlessly, and yet.one experience more pain than the other.

The endlessness of sin results, first, from the /

nature and energy of sinful self-determination. Sin is the creature’s act solely. God does not work in the human will when it wills antagonis- tically to him. Consequently, self-determination to evil is an extremely vehement activity of the will. ‘There is no will so wilful as a wicked will. Sin is stubborn and obstinate in its nature, because it is enmity and rebellion. Hence, wicked will in- tensifies itself perpetually. Pride, left to itself, increases and never diminishes. Hnmity and hatred become more and more satanic. “Sin,” a steamer, with his son, a youth, when he heard a person using loud and profane language. ‘‘See, friend,” said the doctor, ac- costing the swearer, ‘‘ this boy, my son, was born and brought up

in a heathen country, and a land of pagan idolatry ; but in all his life he never heard a man blaspheme his Maker until now.”

148 THE DOCTRINE OF

says South, “is the only perpetual motion which has yet been found out, and needs nothing but a beginning to keep it incessantly going on.” Upon this important point, Aristotle, inthe seventh book of his Ethics, reasons with great truth and im- pressiveness. He distinguishes between axoAacia and axpacia ; between strong will to wickedness, and weak self-indulgence. ‘The former is vicious- ness from deliberation and preference, and implies an intense determination to evil in the man. He goes wrong, not so much from the pull of appe- tite and passion, as purposely, knowingly, and en- ergetically. He has great strength of will, and he puts it all forth in resolute wickedness. The lat- ter quality is more the absence than the presence of will; it is the weakness and irresolution of a man who has no powerful self-determination of any kind. The condition of the former of these two men, Aristotle regarded as worse than that of the latter. He considered it to be desperate and hopeless. The evil is incurable. Repentance and reformation are impossible to this man; for the wickedness in this instance is not mere appetite ; it is a principle; it is cold-blooded and total de- pravity.

Another reason for the endlessness of sin is the i bondage of the sinful will. In the very act of transgressing the law of God, there is a reflex ac- tion of the human will upon itself, whereby it be-

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 149

comes unable to perfectly keep that law. Sin is the suicidal action of the human will. A man is not forced to kill himself, but if he does, he cannot bring himself to life again. And a man is not forced to sin, but if he does, he cannot of himself get back where he was before sinning. He cannot get back to innocency, nor can he get back to holi- ness of heart. The effect of vicious habit in di- minishing a man’s ability to resist temptation is proverbial. An old and hardened debauchee, like Tiberius or Louis XY., just going into the presence of Infinite Purity, has not somuch power of active resistance against the sin that has now ruined him, as the youth has who is just beginning to run that awiul career. The truth and fact is, that sin, in and by its own nature and operation, tends to de- stroy all virtuous force, all holy energy, in any moral being. The excess of will to sin is the same thing as defect of will to holiness. The human will cannot be forced and ruined from without. But if we watch the influence of the will upon itself ; the influence of its own wrong decisions, and its own yielding to temptations; we shall find that the voluntary faculty may be ruined from within—may surrender itself with such an absorb- ing vehemence and totality to appetite, passion, and selfishness, that it becomes unable to reverse itself and overcome its own inclination and self- determination. And yet, from beginning to end,

150 THE DOCTRINE OF

there is no compulsion in this process. The trans- gressor follows himself alone. He has his own way, and does as he likes. Neither God, nor the world, nor Satan, forces him either to be, or to do, evil. Sin is the most spontaneous of self-motion. But self-motion has consequences as much as any other motion. And moral bondage is one of them. “Whosoever committeth sin is the slave of sin,” says Christ (John 8:34).

The culmination of this bondage is seen in the next life. The sinful propensity, being allowed to develop unresisted and unchecked, slowly but surely eats out all virtuous force as rust eats out a steel spring, until in the awful end the will becomes all habit, all lust, and all sin. ‘Sin, when it is fin- ished, bringeth forth death” (James 1:15). In the final stage of this process, which commonly is not reached until death, when “the spirit returns unto God who gave it,” the guilty free agent reaches that dreadful condition where resistance - to evil ceases altogether, and surrender to evil be- comes demoniacal. The cravings and hankerings of long-indulged and unresisted sin become organic, and drag the man; and “he goeth after them as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or asa fool to the correction of the stocks, till a dart strike through his liver” (Prov. 7:22, 23). For though the will to resist sin may die out of a man, the conscience to condemn it never can. ‘This remains eternally.

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 151

And when the process is complete; when the re- sponsible creature, in the abuse of free agency, has perfected his moral ruin; when his will to good is all gone; there remain these two in his immortal spirit: sin and conscience, “brimstone and fire” (Rev. 21:8).

Still another reason for the endlessness of sin, is

the fact that rebellious enmity toward law and its , f

Source is not diminished, but increased, by the righteous punishment experienced by the impeni- tent transgressor. Penal suffering is beneficial only when it is humbly accepted, is acknowledged to be deserved, and is penitently submitted to; when the transgressor says, “ Father, I have sinned, and am no more worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of thy hired servants” (Luke 15: 18,19); when, with the penitent thief, he says, “ We are in this condemnation justly; for we receive the due _ reward of our deeds” (Luke 23:41). But when in this life retribution is denied, and jeered at; and when in the next life it 1s complained of, and resisted, and the arm of hate and defiance is raised against the tribunal; penalty hardens and exasper- ates. ‘This is impenitence. Such is the temper of Satan; and such is the temper of all who finally become his associates. This explains why there is no repentance in hell, and no meek submission to the Supreme Judge. This is the reason why Dives, the impenitent sensualist, is informed that there is

152 THE DOCTRINE OF

no possible passage from Hades to Paradise, by reason of the “great guif fixed” between the two; and this is the reason why he asks that Lazarus may be sent to warn his five brethren, “ lest they also come into this place of torment,” where the request for “a drop of water,’ a mitigation of punishment, is solemnly refused by the Eternal Arbiter. A state of existence in which there is not the slightest relaxing of penal suffering is no state of probation.

3. In the third place, endless punishment is ra- tional, because sin is an infinite evil; infinite not because committed by an infinite being, but against one. We reason Invariably upon this principle. To torture a dumb beast is a crime; to torture a man isa greater crime. To steal from one’s own mother is more heinous than to steal from a fellow. citizen. ‘The person who transgresses is the same in each instance; but the different worth and dig- nity of the objects upon whom his action termti- nates makes the difference in the gravity of the two offences. David’s adultery was a finite evil in reference to Uriah, but an infinite evil in refer- ence to God. ‘Against thee only have I sinned,” was the feeling of the sinner in this case. Had the patriarch Joseph yielded, he would have sinned against Pharaoh. But the greatness of the sin as related to the fellow-creature is lost in its enormity as related to the Creator, and his only question is:

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. sys)

“How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God ?” *

The incarnation and vicarious satisfaction for sin by one of the persons of the Godhead, demon- strates the infinity of the evil. It is incredible that the Eternal Trinity should have submitted to such a stupendous self-sacrifice, to remove a merely finite and temporal evil. The doctrine of Christ’s vicarious atonement, logically, stands or falls with that of endless punishment. Historically, it has

stood or fallen with it. The incarnation of Al- | f

mighty God, in order to make the remission of sin ~ possible, is one of the strongest arguments for the eternity and infinity of penal suffering.

The objection that an offense committed in a finite time cannot be an infinite evil, and deserve an infinite suffering, implies that crmie must be meas- ured by the time that was consumed in its perpe- tration. But even in human punishment, no refer- ence is had to the length of time occupied in the commission of the offense. Murder is committed in an instant, and theft sometimes requires hours. But the former is the greater crime, and receives the greater punishment.

4. In the fourth place, that endless punishment is reasonable, is proved by the preference of the wicked themselves. The unsubmissive, rebellious,

1On this point, see Edwards On the Justice of God. Works, TV. 228-229.

154 THE’ DOCTRINE OF

defiant, and impenitent spirit prefers hell to heaven. Milton correctly represents Satan as saying: “ All good to me becomes bane, and in heaven much worse would be my state”; and, also, as declaring that “it is better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven.” This agrees with the Scripture repre- sentation, that Judas went “to his own place” (Acts 1:25).

The lost spirits are not forced into a tee ea is unsuited to them. There is no other abode in the universe which they would prefer to that to which they are assigned, because the only other abode is heaven. The meekness, lowliness, sweet submis- sion to God, and love of him, that characterize heaven, are more hateful to Lucifer and his angels, than even the sufferings of hell. The wicked would be no happier in heaven than in hell. The burden and anguish of a guilty conscience, says South, is so insupportable, that some “ have done violence to their own lives, and so fled to hell as a sanctuary, and chose damnation as a release.” This is illus- trated by facts in human life. The thoroughly vicious and ungodly man prefers the license and freedom to sin which he finds in the haunts of vice, to the restraints and purity of Christian society. There is hunger, disease, and wretchedness, in one circle; and there is plenty, health, and happiness, in the other. But he prefers the former. He would rather be in the gambling-house and brothel

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 155

than in the Christian home. “Those that, notwith- standing all gracious means, live continually in re- bellion against God; those that impenitently die in their sins ; those that desire to live here forever, ‘that they might enjoy their sweet sins; those that are so hardened and naturalized in their vices, that if they were revived and brought again into this world of temptations, would certainly return to the pleasures of sin; is it not right that their in- -corrigible obstinacy should be punished forever 4” (Bates, On Eternal Judgment, Ch. III.).

The finally lost are not to be conceived of as having faint desires and aspirations for a holy and heavenly state, and as feebly but really inclined to sorrow for their sin, but are kept in hell contrary to their yearning and petition. They are some- times so described by the opponent of the doctrine, or at least so thought of. There is not a single throb of godly sorrow, or a single pulsation of holy desire, in the lost spirit. The temper toward God in the lost is angry and defiant. “They hate both me and my father,” says the Son of God, “without a cause” (John 15:24,25). Satan and his followers “love darkness rather than light,” hell rather than heaven, “ because their deeds are evil” (John 38: 19). Sin ultimately assumes a fiendish form, and degree. It is pure wickedness without regret or sorrow, and with a delight in evil for evil’s sake. There are some men who reach this state of de-

156 THE DOCTRINE OF

pravity even before they die. They are seen in the callous and cruel voluptuaries portrayed by Tacitus, and the heaven-defying atheists described by St. Simon. They are also depicted in Shake- speare’s Iago. The reader knows that Iago is past saving, and deserves everlasting damnation. Im- pulsively, he cries out with Lodovico: “ Where is that viper? bring the villain forth.” And then Othello’s calmer but deeper feeling becomes his own: “I look down towards his feet—but that’s afable: If that thou be’st a devil, Z cannot kill thee.” The punishment is remitted to the retribu- tion of God."

41 Tt ought to be noticed, that the ‘‘ hatred” of Himself, and of his Father, which Christ attributes to ‘‘ the world” (John 15:18, 19), and which is a distinguishing element in impenitence, does not necessarily imply sensuality and vice. Sin may be wholly in- tellectual — what St. Paul denominates “spiritual wickedness” ~ (Eph. 6:12). The most profound of Shakespearean critics calls attention to ‘‘the passionless character of Iago. It is all will in intellect” (Coleridge’s Works, IV. 180, Harper’s Ed.). The “carnal mind” manifests itself in two ways. The proud spirit of the moralist is one phase of it; the self-indulgent spirit of the voluptuary is the other. The Pharisee represents the first; Dives the last. Both alike confess no sin, and implore no forgiveness. In illustra- tion of the former, consider the temper of a certain class of in- tellectual men toward the cross of Christ. They are perhaps austerely moral. By temperament, taste, study, and occupation, they have even an antipathy to sensuality. They ‘scorn delights, and live laborious days.” But present for their acceptance those truths of the New Testament which involve the broken and con- trite heart, and their whole inward being rises in vehement recoil. Of the effect of the doctrine of election, Calvin remarks that

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 137

5. In the fifth place, that endless punishment is rational, is proved by the history of morals. In the records of human civilization and morality, it is found that that age which is most reckless of law, and most vicious in practice, is the age that has the loosest conception of penalty, and is the most inimical to the doctrine of endless retribu- tion. A virtuous and religious generation adopts sound ethics, and reverently believes that “the Judge of all the earth will do right” (Gen. 18: 25); that God will not “call evil good, and good evil, nor put darkness for light and light for darkness” (Isa. 5: 20); and that it is a deadly error to assert with the sated and worn-out sen- sualist: “ All things come alike to all; there is one event to the righteous and the wicked” (Hccl. 9:2).

‘¢when the human mind hears of it, its irritation breaks all re- straint, and it discovers as serious and violent agitation as if alarmed by the sound of a martial trumpet” (Inst. IIT. xxi. 1). So, too, when the authoritative demand of Jesus Christ, to confess sin, and beg remission through atoning blood, is made to David Hume, or Dayid Strauss, or John Stuart Mill, none of whom were sensualists, it wakens intense mental hostility. Now without as- serting which theory in religion is true, that of the New Testa- ment, or that of the skeptic, is it not clear, that 7/ there be an- other life, and if the teaching of the New Testament shall prove to be the absolute truth, the latter person must be classed with the *“‘ haters of God”? Willnot the temper of this unsensual and intellectual man towards what is found, in the end, to be eternal

verity, be as thoroughly of the nature of enmity, as that of the most immoral and hardened debauchee’?

158 THE DOCTRINE OF

The French people, at the close of the last cen- tury, were a very demoralized and vicious gener- ation, and there was a very general disbelief and denial of the doctrines of the Divine existence, the immortality of the soul, the freedom of the will, and future retribution. And upon a smaller scale, the same fact is continually repeating itself. Any little circle of business men who are known to deny future rewards and punishments are shunned by those who desire safe investments. The recent uncommon energy of opposition to endless punish- ment, which started about ten years ago in this country, synchronized with great defalcations and breaches of trust, uncommon corruption in mercan- tile and political life, and great distrust between man and man. Luxury deadens the moral sense, and luxurious populations do not have the fear of God before their eyes. Hence luxurious ages, and luxurious men, recalcitrate at hell, and “kick — against the goads.” No theological tenet is more important than eternal retribution to those modern nations which, like England, Germany, and the United States, are growing rapidly in riches, lux- ury, and earthly power. Without it, they will infallibly go down in that vortex of sensuality and wickedness that swallowed up Babylon and Rome. The bestial and shameless vice of the dissolute rich, that has recently been uncovered — in the commercial metropolis of the world, is a

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 159

powerful argument for the necessity and reality of “the lake which burneth with fire and brim- ~ stone.”

A single remark remains to be made respecting the extent and scope of hell. It is only a spot in the universe of God. Compared with heaven, hell is narrow and limited. The kingdom of Satan is insignificant in contrast with the kingdom of Christ. In the immense range of God’s dominion, good is the rule, and evil is the exception. Sin is a speck upon the infinite azure of eternity ; a spot on the sun. Hell is only a corner of the universe. The Gothic etymon (Hohle, Hélle) denotes a cov- ered-up hole. In Scripture, hell is a “pit,” a “lake”; not an ocean. It is “ bottomless,” but not boundless. The Gnostic and Dualistic theo- ries, which make God, and Satan, or the Demiurge, nearly equal in power and dominion, find no sup- port in Revelation. The Bible teaches that there will always be some sin, and some death, in the universe. Some angels and men will forever be the enemies of God. But their number, compared with that of unfallen angels and redeemed men, is small. They are not described in the glowing language and metaphors by which the immensity of the holy and blessed is delineated. “The char- iots of God are twenty thousand, and thousands of angels” (Ps. 68: 17). “The Lord came from Sinai, and shined forth from mount Paran, and he

160 THE DOCTRINE OF

came with ten thousands of his saints” (Deut. 29° 2). “The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom ruleth over all” (Ps. 103:21). “Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory” (Matt. 6: 18). The Lord Christ “must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet” (1 Cor. 15: 25). St. John “heard a voice from heaven as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder” (Rev. 14:1). The New Jerusalem “lieth four square, the length is as large as the breadth; the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day; the kings of the earth do bring their honor into it” (Rev. 21:16, 24, 25). The number of the lost spirits is never thus em- phasized, and enlarged upon. The brief, stern statement is, that “the fearful and unbelieving shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone” (Rev. 21: 8). No metaphors and amplifications are added, to make the impres- sion of an immense “multitude which no man can

number.” 4

1 Calvin, explaining the elect ‘‘ seven thousand,” in Rom. 11: 4, remarks, that ‘“‘ though this stands for an indefinite number, it was the Lord’s design to specify a great multitude. Since, then, the grace of God prevails so much in an extreme state of things, let us not lightly give over to the devil all those whose piety does not openly appear to us.” Zuingle thought that all who died in early childhood are regenerated and saved. Edwards (Against Chauncy,

Chapter XIV ) denies that it is an article of his faith, that ‘‘ only a

small part of the human race will finally be saved.” Hopkins

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. LGd

We have thus briefly presented the rational ar- gvument for the most severe and unwelcome of all the tenets of the Christian religion. It must have a foothold in the human reason, or it could not have maintained itself against all the recoil and opposition which it elicits from the human heart. Founded in ethics, in law, and in judicial reason, as well as unquestionably taught by the Author of Christianity, it is no wonder that the doctrine of Kternal Retribution, in spite of selfish prejudices and appeals to human sentiment, has always been a belief of Christendom. From theology and phi- losophy it has passed into human literature, and is wrought into its finest structures. It makes the solemn substance of the Iliad and the Greek Drama. It pours a sombre light into the bright- ness and grace of the Aineid. It is the theme of the Inferno, and is presupposed by both of the other parts of the Divine Comedy. The epic of Milton derives from it its awful grandeur. And the greatest of the Shakespearean tragedies sound and stir the depths of the human soul, by their de- lineation of guilt intrinsic and eternal.

In this discussion, we have purposely brought (Future State, Section V.) asserts that ‘there is reason to believe that many more of mankind will be saved than lost; yea, it may be many thousands to one.” Hodge (Theology III. 879) says that ‘we have reason to believe that the number of the finally

lost, in comparison with the whole number of the saved, will be very inconsiderable.” 11

162 THE DOCTRINE OF

into view only the righteousness of Almighty God, as related to the voluntary and responsible action of man. We have set holy justice and disobe- dient free-will face to face, and drawn the con- clusions. This is all that the defender of the doctrine of retribution is strictly concerned with. If he can demonstrate that the principles of eter- nal rectitude are not in the least degree infringed upon, but are fully maintained, when sin is end- lessly punished, he has done all that his problem — requires. Whatever is just is beyond all rational attack.

But with the Christian Gospel in his hands, the defender of the Divine justice finds it difficult to be entirely reticent, and say not a word concern- ing the Divine mercy. Over against God’s infinite antagonism and righteous severity toward moral evil, there stands God’s infinite pity and desire to forgive. This is realized, not by the high-handed and unprincipled method of pardoning without legal satisfaction of any kind, but by the strange and stupendous method of putting the Eternal Judge in the place of the human criminal; of sub- stituting God’s own satisfaction for that due from man. In this vicarious atonement for sin, the Triune God relinquishes no claims of law, and waives no rights of justice. The sinner’s Divine Substitute, in his hour of voluntary agony and death, drinks the cup of punitive and inexorable

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT, 163

justice to the dregs. Any man who, in penitent faith, avails himself of this vicarious method Obie setting himself right with the Eternal N emesis, will find that it succeeds; but he who rejects it, must through endless cycles grapple with the dread problem of human guilt in his own person, and. alone.

@r. Shebh’s Works.

By WILLIAM G. T. SHEDD, D.D.,

Professor of Systematic Theology in Union Theological Seminary, New Vork,

A HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. Two vols., crown 8vo. Seventh edition, cloth, $5.00.

HOMILETICS AND PASTORAL THEOLOGY. One vol., crown 8vo. Seventh edition, cloth, $2.50.

A CONCISE ANALYTICAL COM- MENTARY ON ST. PAUL’S EPIS- TLE TO THE ROMANS. One vol., crown 8vo, cloth, $2.50.

SERMONS TO THE SPIRITUAL MAN. One vol., crown 8vo., cloth, $2.50.

SERMONS TO THE NATURAL MAN. One vol., crown 8vo. Third edition, cloth, $2.50.

THEOLOGICAL ESSAYS. One vol., 8vo. Enlarged and carefully revised edition, cloth, $2.50.

LITERARY ESSAYS. A series that relate principally to Hsthetics and Lit- erature. With portrait. One vol., crown, 8vo, cloth, $2.50.

THE DOCTRINE OF ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. One vol., crown 8vo., $1.50.

SERMONS TO THE SPIRITUAL MAN.

“The thought which they express is not only profound and well wrought out, but it has a certain grip on the mind which insures more than a temporary influence however strong that may be.”—Congregationalist, Boston.

‘*All are nobly written. All contain passages which could have been produced by no one buta master of style. Most of them are truly eloquent, and their eloquence is of the highest type.” —Presbyterian, Pa.

“The last two discourses, entitled ‘*‘ Every Christian a Debtor to the Pagan,” and ‘‘ The Certain Success of Evangelistic Labor,” place the duty of the world’s Christianization upon its broad Scriptural foundations, and set forth the reasons for its progressive and ultimate triumphs with inspiring eloquence.” —Christian [ntelli- gencer, New York.

“To all minds awake and in earnest touching spiritual things, we can unre- servedly commend this volume. It will be sure to aid in the struggle against sin, and in victory over it.”—New York Evangelzst.

“The sermons are peculiarly adapted for reading, and they are among the most spiritual and thoughtful discourses that have been published in recent years.”— Wesleyan Christian Advocate.

Dr. Shedd’s Works.

‘¢Dr, Shedd’s sermons command respect from the intellectual ability of their author. They are interesting exhibitions of the way in which a modern Calvinist, who holds with great tenacity to the Augustinian theology, views divine progress in its relation to human character and destiny. The new departure has not yet invaded Dr. Shedd’s mind to any extent. Consequently, to a progressive Christian thinker, the premises of most of his discourses are unacceptable.”—Christian Register, Boston.

‘‘ They are distinguished by a clear and luminous style, and the boldness and vigor which comes from profound conviction. No better volume of sermons, none more thoughtful, spiritual, or satisfying, has come from the press for a long time.”— Christian at Work, New York.

‘« We commend these sermons to our readers ; for though, as a Presbyterian divine, we could not endorse all his views, yet, upon the great essential doctrines and duties of Christianity, we are much at one with him.”—Churchman, New York.

A HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.

“ Dr. Shedd has furnished an important contribution to the study of church his- tory. To have made a readable book—a book which must interest the general scholar as well as the professed theologian—on a topic so difficult and so remote from the ordinary interests and literary currents of the time, is itself a rare and very great merit, demanding graceful recognition from all the scholars of the land.”—Worth American Review.

“Tt is many years since a more valuable contribution has been made, in this country or Engiand, to theological literature ; one the study of which will yield riper fruits of Christian knowledge. These volumes are marked by a thoroughness of knowledge and clearness of statement, as well as by a certain vzta/l element which pervades them, and which shows the love of the author for his great theme, and that he takes his position, not without but within his subject, and so relates the transfor- mations and developments of religious thought as if he had himself passed through them.”—Bzbliotheca Sacra.

““We hold that this is the most important contribution that has been made to our theological literature during the present age.”—Presbyterian Standard.

‘Tn our judgment, no production of greater moment has been given to the public for a long time.” —Princeton Review.

“A body of theological history which is in form as perfect as it is in substance excellent.”—WV. Y. Evening Post.

‘Tt well deserves an honorable and permanent place in the standard literature of theology.”—New Englander.

‘*A rich addition to our theological literature.” —A merican Theological Review.

“‘Dr. Shedd’s History of Christian Doctrine, on its first appearance, was unani+ mously recognized as filling with remarkable success a blank that had existed in our English literature on this important subject, and it still holds the foremost place in works of this class.’—Edinburgh Daily Review.

HOMILETICS AND PASTORAL THEOLOGY.

“*The work will be found to be an admirable guide and stimulus in whatever per- tains to this department of theology. The student finds himself in the hands of a master able to quicken and enlarge his scope and spirit. The homiletical precepts are well illustrated by the author’s own style, which is muscular, while quivering with nervous life. Nowadays one rarely reads such good English writing—elevated and clear, sinewy and flexible, transparent for the thought. Each topic is handled in a true progressive method.. Our young ministers may well make a study of this book.”—A merican Theol. Review.

Dr. Shedd’s Works.

A

————y

** We have read this book with almost unqualified zpproval. We cannot but regard @t as, on the whole, the very best production of the kind with which we are acquainted The topics discussed are of the first importance to every minister of Christ engaged in active service, and their discussion is conducted by earnestness as well! as ability, and in a style whicn for clear, vigorous, and unexceptionable English, is itself a model.’—W. V, Evangelist.

“The ablest book on the subject which the generation has produced.” — Christiaan letetligencer. “Dr. Shedd’s Homiletics and Pastoral Theology has everywhere been welcomed

as a sagacious and valuable contribution to the equipment of our rising preachers ” dinburgh Daily Review.

SERMONS TO THE NATURAL MAN.

** These Sermons are an excellent course upon the theology of the law. Dr. Shedd 1§ One of the best known in this country of American theologians, and those who ara acquainted with his writings do not require to be told that he carries out 71s ideas with perspicuity, force, and conclusive completeness." —Edinburgh Daily Review.

** The reader, whether he assent to the deductions of the author or not, must admit that they are enforced with logical conciseness, a rare wealth of learning, and an uncom:

ys Goes , mon ability of argumentation.” —N. V. Evenzng Post.

** We commend this volume to all who love the ‘strong meat? of Christian truth, and who rejoice in the adaptation of the power of the gospel to the deepest needs of the ‘natura! man.’ "—Na?’l Baptist, Phila.

“The author has given us a collection of clear, logical, earnest discourses, well adapted to the spirit of the times. We specially commend the work to preachers of the gospel.” —Methodist Protestant, Baltimore.

“These sermons are clear in thought, the style is lucid and simpie, and free from the much-worn phrases of the pulpit. The arguments of the author are well arranged and put with great force.”—Christian Union.

THEOLOGICAL ESSAYS.

“These Essays bear traces on every page, not only of a mind disciplined to close thinking, and at home in the abstractions of philosophy and theology, but versed in the noblest works of literature, and equally able to appreciate the creations of art and imagi nation. The terseness and vigor of the style are well mated to the character of the

ht.’—New Englander. Pie ! iat: These ee all marked by profound thought and perspicuity of sentiment. The author has achieved a high reputation for the union of philosophic insight with genu- ine scholarship ; of depth and clearness of thought with force and elegance of style; and for profound views of sin and grace, cherished not merely on theoretical, but still more on moral and experimental grounds.” —Priucetonx Review. ;

“The Essay upon Evolution, is an extraordinary specimen of the metaphysical treatise, and the charm of its rhetoric is not less noticeable Prof. Shedd never puts his creed under a bushel ; but there are few students of any sect or class that will not derive great assistance from his labors.” —Universalist Quarterly. Shae: ;

“‘ The tendency of this volume is to encourage doctrinal investigation and doctrinal preaching ; to stimulate clergymen to improve their methods of study, and to quicken their love of inquiry into the profoundest truths of religion.” —Bzbliotheca Sacra. j

‘These Essays abound in strong thought, firmly and clearly expressed, and in this the reader of a different school of ep ee a pleasure, while he may dissent

opounded.”—Methodist Quarterly. i ; any Pee cls remarkable for profound thought and for dogmatic severity. Perhaps no stronger work has gone forth of late from any Amerivan eee. nor any work which at the same time runs ee yeOny be A 3 face of the present drift o Sis or

i ientific study."—New York Times. | ree ee ot oorter has probably no abler or more devoted follower, at the present day than the author of these essays. In the circle of his readers he will abe many who regard the study of his writings as an admirable exercise, for the nti ° their statements, the closeness of their logic, and the athletic grasp of Ag conciees althoweh their own convictions are not represented in his system of theology.”—Nz% vias De Shedd’s weighty and forceful rhetoric has been the admiration and eres ef most of his readers. To weight and force, we must add one other auality whic Te, tinguishes it, namely, fervor. Every theological student and pats minister §, xossuss, and should not only read, bw study this volume.” ~-The Presbyterian

Dr. Shedd’s Works.

COMMENTARY ON ROMANS.

‘*No better discipline could be suggested to a young minister than a patient and faiths ful study of a volume like this . . . . not only because it is the freshest, but because it is so purely intellectual and spiritual, wasting no time upon side issues, but grappling manfully with the highest and most recondite themes.” —Christianx Intelle-

CHCEF.

“We know of no commentary by any living author on this epistle that, in our esti-

mation, deserves to be esteemed above it.”—Hartford Religious Herald. —

“To the thorough learning of an accomplished scholar, it adds a style of special grace, luminous without superficiality, and, sparkling without levity.",—Lutheran Mis- SZOHAVY.

‘* We consider this volume to be indispensable to a theological library.”—Richmond Central Presbyterian.

““We have been instructed, interested, and edified as we have turned over his pages, and while not agreeing with him in all particulars, we have always been com- pelled by him to revise our views, and give a reason for our preference.” —Christzan at Work.

_ “The commentary is brief; there is no verbiage, no amplification, no preaching ; it is as clear as crystal.”—/dlustrated Christian Weekly.

_ ‘*We like thoroughly the keenly critical scholarship of Dr. Shedd’s book and the vigor of his style. . . . . We commend the work as an excellent stimulus, anda great help in doctrinal study.”— Congregationalist.

‘* Like the previous writings of Professor Shedd, this learned and scholarly volume is remarkable for the acute insight with which it applies profound philosophical principles to the elucidation of religious doctrine.”—W. Y. Trzbune.

LITERARY ESSAYS.

‘¢ His productions are never of an ephemeral character ; though often separated by a wide interval of years, they possess the unity which grows out of thoroughness of examination and earnestness of conviction ; powerful in argument, lucid in exposition, and effective in style, they challenge the interest of many readers who are unable to assent to their conclusions.’’—/V. VY. Trzbune.

‘* Here is something deserving a permanent place in the realm of reading». . . . We wish to notice especially, commending it at the same time ‘to the careful study of every one, the essay on ‘ The Influence and Method of English Studies.’ . . Se

can, without hesitation, say, that it is one of the most profound, and thoughtful, and scholarly productions on this subject that we have ever read.” —-The Churchman.

‘““ The essays, one and all, are worthy of the Professor’s pen. They reveal extensive reading, culture of a high order, and sympathy with all that is true and beautiful and good in nature, in life, and in art."—W. VY. Scotsman.

‘They bear the marks of the author’s scholarship, dignity, and polish of style, and profound and severe convictions of truth and righteousness as the basis of culture as well as character.’”’—Chzcago Interior.

‘* The severe and chastened beauty of his style is a fit vehicle for the lofty truths among which his mind ranges, and which he here announces and defends.”—Presbyterian.

‘Dr. Shedd deals with themes not of passing but of enduring importance, and his productions on these subjects, being those of a wide reader and profound thinker, will always be valuable.”—Christiax at Work,

*.% For sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, upon receipt of price, by CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, PuBLISHERS,

743 AND 745 BRoaADWAY, NEW YORE

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS’

NEW. AND STANDARD PUBLICATIONS

IN THEOLOGY, BIBLICAL LITERATURE, THE HISTORY SE RELIGIONS, CHURCH HISTORY ETC,

Rev. Samuel J. Andrews.

THE LIFE OF OUR LORD UPON THE EARTH; Considered in its Historical, Chronological and Geographical Relations. New Edition. Crown 8vo. $2.50.

“For both research and candor, I do not know tts superior.” —Mark Hopkins, D.D., LL.D. GOD’S REVELATIONS OF HIMSELF TO MEN, As successively made in the Patriarchal, Jewish and Christian Dispensations, and in the Messianic King- dom. Crown 8vo.

Edwin C. Bissell, D.D.

THE PENTATEUCH: Its Origin and Structure; An Examination of Recent Theories. 1 vol., 8vo. $3.00.

Professor Bissell’s contribution to the discussion of the character and import of the Hebrew Pentateuch ts broader in its scope and scholarship than any book that has hitherto appeared on the conservative side of the question.

Francis ‘Bowen, LL.D.

A LAYMAN’S STUDY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE; Considered in its Literary and Secular Aspect. 1vol.,12mo. $1.00. The views presented in this volume are strikingly independent and free Srom the trammels of the schools, but at the same time they are wholly reverent and tn accord with the spirit of the Bible.

Charles A. Briggs, D.D.

AMERICAN PRESBYTERIANISM. Its Origin and Early History, together with an Appendix of Letters and Documents, many of which have recently been discovered. 12mo, with maps. $3.00.

BIBLICAL STUDY. Its Principles, Methods and History. Together with a Catalogue of Books of Reference. 8vo. $2.50.

Prof. Briggs’ book ts one indication of the revival of Biblical Study, which ts now in progress, and ts one of the best frutts of zt. It ts ample in scholarshtp, reverent in tone, sympathetic toward the new criticism, though conservative in tts theological attitude.

2 THEOLOGY; BIBLICAEVLITERATURE, ETC:

Horace ‘Bushnell, D.D.

NATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL, As together constituting the One Sys- tem of God. 12mo. $1.50.

CHRISTIAN NURTURE. 12mo. $1.50. SERMONS FOR THE NEW LIFE. remo. $1.50. CHRIST AND HIS SALVATION. In Sermons variously related thereto. 12mo.

$1.50. SERMONS ON LIVING SUBJECTS. 12mo. $1.50.

THE VICARIOUS SACRIFICE. Grounded in Principles interpreted by Human Analogies. Twovols. 12mo. $3.00.

GOD IN CHRIST. 1s2mo. $1.50.

WORK AND PLAY. i2mo. $1.50.

MORAL USES OF DARK THINGS. 12mo. $1.50.

BUILDING ERAS IN RELIGION. $1.50.

WOMAN’S SUFFRAGE: The Reform against Nature. 12mo. $1.50.

THE CHARACTER OF JESUS, Forbidding his possible Classification with Men. 32mo, cloth, net, 60 cents; paper, net, 4o cents.

Rev. W. J. Conybeare, and Rev. J. S. Howson.

THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL. Zwo volumes in one, with all the Maps and Illustrations. Half calf, $5.50; sheep, $4.50; cloth, $3.00.

Notwithstanding the very able and comprehensive works that have appeared since Conybeare and Howson’s St. Paul was written, it remains unquestionably the standard treatise on the subject.

Josiah Po OOORE IL LUD:

RELIGION AND CHEMISTRY; A Restatement of an Old Argument. A revised edition, with additions. 12zmo. $1.50.

‘* RELIGION AND CHEMISTRY presents the happiest combination of religion, philosophy and natural sctencein a harmonious trinity that we have ever ” SCCN.

Jyorn DeWitt, D.D.;

Professor in Lane Theological Seminary.

SERMONS ON THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 1 vol., 8vo. $2.50.

Dr. De Witt’s book ts not a discussion of spectal doctrines or phases of Christianity, but deals with Christtanity, considered as a whole, from various aspects ofhumnan life. It consists of strong, manly, earnest dis- courses upon subjects which appeal to a very large class of readers.

’

I. A. Dorner, D.D.

DOCTRINE OF THE FUTURE STATE, With an Introduction and Notes by Rev. NEwMAN SmyTH. 12mo. $1.00.

A very suggestive discussion of the events following death, as indicated by the established laws of mind and the revelations of the Bible.

THEOLOGY, BIBLICAL’ LITERATURE, ETC. 3

Henry M. Field, D.D.

ON THE DESERT. Crown 8vo. $2.00, AMONG THE HOLY HILLS. Withamap. Crown 8vo. $1.50.

George PF. Fisher, D.D.

SUPERNATURAL ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY; With Special Reference to the Theories of Renan, Strauss, and the Tiibingen School. New and enlarged ‘edition. 8vo. $3.00. ‘

THE REFORMATION. 8vo. $2.50.

THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIANITY; With a view of the State of the Roman World at the Birth of Christ. 8vo. $3.00.

FAITH AND RATIONALISM; With Short Supplementary Essays on Related Topics. 12mo. 75 cents.

A new edition of this valuable book for popular circulation. Prof. Fisher has thoroughly revised the text and added notes and much inter- esting new matter.

DISCUSSIONS IN HISTORY AND THEOLOGY. 8vo. $3.00. THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 1r2mo, paper, 30cents; cloth, 40 cents. THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 8vo. $2.50.

wsa.Gray, LL.D.

NATURAL SCIENCE AND RELIGION. Crown 8yvo. $1.00.

‘This little book ts the best and clearest explanation of what modern sczence 7s in tts essence, and what its conclusions are, that ts anywhere to be found in brief compass by unscientific readers.” —N. Y. EVENING Post.

Arnold Guyot, LL.D.

CREATION; Or, the Biblical Cosmogony in the Light of Modern Science. With full-page wood-cuts and lithographic plates. 12mo. $1.50.

Samuel Harris, D.D.

THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS OF THEISM., An examination of the Personality of Man, to ascertain his capacity to know and serve God, and the validity of the principle underlying the defence of Theism. 8vo. $3.50.

This work is of great value as an exposition of first theological prin- ciples in the light and for the service of Christian belief; tt ts extremely JSascinating for neinds of a philosophical turn.

Hibbert Lectures.

See Miiller, Renouf. Kuenen, Reville and Pfleiderer.

rojessor. L..E. Hicks.

A CRITIQUE OF DESIGN-ARGUMENTS. A Historical Review and Free Exame ination of the Methods of Reasoning in Natural Theology. 12mo. $2.00. ““Weventure the prediction that Professor Hicks’s fascinating and in every way admirable treatise will become recognized as one of the works which not only mark but help to make an epoch in speculative thought,” — THE EXAMINER.

‘

4 THEOLOGY, BIBLICAL LITERATURE, ETC.

Charles Hodge, D:D. LED.

SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY. Complete in three vols., including Index. 8vo. Half calf, $19.50; cloth, $12.00

WHAT IS DARWINISM? s2mo. $1.50,

DISCUSSIONS IN CHURCH POLITY. From Contributions to the Priuceton Review. Arranged by Rev. William Durant, with a Preface by A. A. Hodge, D.D. $3.50.

CONFERENCE PAPERS; Or, Analyses of Discourses, Doctrinal and Practical, Delivered on Sabbath Afternoons to the Students of Princeton Theological Seminary. 8vo. $3.00.

“We take tt to be the attribute ofa great mind tomake difficult subjects simple and clear. It ts gust here that Dr. Hodge shows his superiority to other men. His intellect penetrated so far down into the deep well of truth that the water which he brought up was as clear as crystal.—Rev. Won. M. Paxton, D.D. ,

Rev. H. S. Holland.

LOGIC AND LIFE. With other Sermons. With an Introductory Notice, by President Noah Porter. 12mo. $1.50.

The topics treated are vital and fundamental, the Trinity, the In- carnation, Christian Soctety, the Soul’s Progress in Strong Faith and its Outlook toward the Better Land.

Mark Hopkins, D.D., LL.D.

THE LAW OF LOVE, AND LOVE AS A LAW; Or, Christian Ethics. A new edition with tmportant additions. 12m0. $1.75.

SCRIPTURAL IDEA OF MAN. i2mo. $1.00.

TEACHINGS AND COUNSELS. Twenty Baccalaureate Sermons, with a Dis- course on President Garfield. z12mo. §1.50.

jJobn F. Hurst, D.D.

BIBLIOTHECA THEOLOGICA. A select and classified Bibliography of Theol- ogy and General Religious Literature. $3.00.

cA. nuenen, D.iD., LLD.

NATIONAL RELIGIONS AND UNIVERSAL RELIGIONS. The Hibbert Lectures for 1882. 12m0. $1.50.

George T. Ladd, D.D.

“THE DOCTRINE OF SACRED SCRIPTURE. A Critical, Historical and Dog- matic Inquiry into the Origin and Nature of the Old and New Testaments. 2 vols., 8vo. $7.00.

“We doubt whether during the age there has been a more scholarly and masterly argument added to the literature of Christianity than this erttical review of the doctrine of Sacred Scripture by Professor Ladd.” — Cuicaco INTER-OCEAN.

THE PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH POLITY. Crown 8vo. $2.50.

James Legge.

THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA. Confucianism and Taoism described and com- pared with Christianity. 1zmo. $1.50.

ee

THEOLOGY, BIBLICAL- EVYFERATURE, ETC. 5

Francots Lenormant.

THE BEGINNINGS OF HISTORY, According to the Bible and the Traditions of Oriental Peoples. From the Creation of Man tothe Deluge. 12mo. $2.50.

James M. Macdonald, D.D.

THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ST, JOHN, Edited with an Introduction, by the Very Rev. J. S- Howson, D.D., Dean of Chester. With 33 illustrations and 2 maps. 8vo. $3.00.

Selah Merrill.

EAST OF THE JORDAN: A Record of Travel and Observation in the Countries of Moab, Gilead, and Bashan, during the years 1875-1877. With illustrations and Maps. 8vo. $2.50.

Dr. Merrill’s contribution to our knowledge of the Holy Land will take tts place along side of ROBINSON’S RESEARCHES.

Edward D. Morris, D.D.

ECCLESIOLOGY: A Treatise on the Church and Kingdom of God on Earth. 8vo. $1.75. The plan is a comprehensive one, and the discusston ts marked by candor, fairness, thoroughness and literary ability of the highest type.

~F. Max Miuiller.

LECTURES ON THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION; With Papers on Buddhism, and a Translation of the Dhammapada, or Path of Virtue. Crown 8vo. $2.00.

LECTURES ON THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF RELIGION, As illustrated by the Religions of India. Hibbert Lectures for 1878. Crown 8vo. $2.50.

T. C. Murray.

THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS. i2mo. $1.50.

** One of the most tmportant works in the department of biblical intro- duction and criticism that have been produced in this country.”—THE In- DEPENDENT.

O. Pfleiderer,

THE INFLUENCE OF THE APOSTLE PAUL ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. The Hibbert Lectures for 1885. Crown 8vo. $2.00.

Austin Phelps, D.D. THE THEORY OF PREACHING ; Or, Lectures on Homiletics. 8vo. $2.50.

MEN AND BOOKS; Or, Studies in Homiletics. Lectures introductory to ‘*©Theory of Preaching.” 8vo. $2.00.

ENGLISH STYLE IN PUBLIC DISCOURSE. With special reference to the usages of the Pulpit. 8vo. $2.00.

MY PORTFOLIO. Collection of Essays. 12mo. $1.50.

MY STUDY AND OTHER ESSAYS. i2mo. $1.50.

“To the treatment of his subject Dr. Phelps brings such qualifications as very few men now living possess. Fe ts one of those natures which are tnstinctively critical, and yet full of what Matthew Arnold happily calls * sweet reasonableness.”

6 FHE QLOGY: BIBLICAL LITERATUR 2e «Gq

P. Le Page Renouf.

THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF RELIGION, As illustrated by the Religion of Ancient Egypt. The Hibbert Lectures for 1879. i12mo. $1.50.

Albert Reville.

THE ANCIENT RELIGIONS OF MEXICO AND PERU. The Hibbert Lectures for 1884. 12mo. $1.50.

Philip Schaff, D.D.

er Oey. OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. New edition, rewritten and en< arged.

APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY, A.D. 1—100. 8vo. $4.00. ANTE-NICENE CHRISTIANITY, A. D. roo—325. 8v0. $4.00. NICENE AND POST-NICE CHRISTIANITY, A. D. 311—600. $4.00.

MEDIA-VAL CHRISTIANITY, A. D. 590—1073. $4.00.

‘‘In no other single work of its kind with which I am acquainted will students and general readers jind so much to instruct and interest them.” —Proressor RoswEeLt D. Hircucocx, D.D.

THE PERSON OF CHRIST. The Miracle of History. Witha Reply to Strauss and Renan, and a Collection of Testimonies of Unbelievers. 12mo. $2.00.

CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY. Studies in Christology, Creeds and Confes- sions, Protestantism and Romanism, Reformation Principles, Sunday Obser- vance, Religious Freedom, and Christian Union. t1vol., 8vo. $2.50.

A discusston of many of those vital questions which are forced upon the minds of thinking Christians of to-day, by a writer whose profound knowledge of all phases of principles and dogmas, and af the records of the Christian church, will secure at once the attention of all students to his work.

William G. T. Shedd, D.D.

A HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. Two vols., 8vo. $5.00.

A TREATISE ON HOMILETICS AND PASTORAL THEOLOGY. 8vo. $2.50. THEOLOGICAL ESSAYS. Crown 8vo. $2.50.

LITERARY ESSAYS. 8vo. $2.50.

A CONCISE ANALYTICAL COMMENTARY ON ST. PAUL’S EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 8vo. $3.00.

SERMONS TO THE NATURAL MAN. Crown 8vo. $2.50.

SERMONS TO THE SPIRITUAL MAN. Crown 8vo. $2.50. | Complete sets, eight vols. in a box, $18.00.

THE DOCTRINE OF ENDLESS PUNISHMENT.

Charles W. Shields, D.D.

THE FINAL PHILOSOPRY, As Issuing from the Harmony of Science and Relig- ion. An Historical and Critical Introduction. Second edition revised. 8VO. $3.00.

This ts perhaps as comprehensive, and tn the good sense as ambitious a treatise as has been written on this side of the Atlantic.

pen

ei

Meee yy Ae i

feeb Ns. Be Ped tee hart

RSL me ost

it e

pee Rey ey

*

is 7 Hu ’ 4 os ae |

v\e " SY MEA Oa

betes Bylaws, oe ATGs he

A

ie ip eo} i ff ie

a

Date Due .

i cl are