Chapter 30

§ 1. Different Views concerning the Condition of the Impenitent hereafter.

The different views concerning the future state, held by the Christian Church, may be thus classified; arranging them, exhaustively, under eight divisions:—

I. The Roman Catholic Church makes three conditions hereafter; viz.,—

1. Everlasting joy. 2. Everlasting suffering. 3. Temporal sorrow in purgatory.

II. The Orthodox Protestant Church makes two conditions hereafter; viz.,—

1. Unmixed and everlasting joy. 2. Unmixed and everlasting suffering.

III. The Old School Universalists make one condition hereafter; viz.,—

1. Eternal joy.

IV. New School Universalists and Restorationists make two conditions hereafter; viz.,—

1. Eternal joy. 2. Temporal and finite suffering.

V. Unitarians make an indefinite number of conditions hereafter, according to the various characters and moral states of men.

VI. The Swedenborgians make an indefinite but limited number of heavens and hells, suited to the varieties of character, but having a supernatural origin.

VII. The Spiritualists make the other world like this world, with no essential differences, making it a continuation of the natural life.

VIII. The Annihilationists believe that the finally impenitent will perish wholly, and come to nothing.

This statement includes all, or nearly all, of the views held in the Christian Church concerning the condition of departed souls in the other world. We do not propose to examine them all at the present time; but we shall examine at some length three of them.

Eternal punishment, annihilation, and universal restoration are the three principal views taken in the Church of the condition hereafter of those who die impenitent, and in a state of hostility to God. The wicked may hereafter be reformed, may be annihilated, or may be kept in a state of permanent punishment. One of these views is held by the Universalists; another by Orthodoxy; the third is now adopted by those who are dissatisfied with the horrors of Orthodoxy, but not yet ready to accept the Optimism of the Universalist hope. We will consider these, beginning with the Orthodox doctrine of everlasting punishment. We wish we could say that this doctrine was not fully and decidedly Orthodox. But it is quite as much so as the Trinity, the deity of Christ, or the atonement. No one is allowed to have any doubts or questions concerning it. It seems to be believed that the whole system of Orthodoxy would be endangered, if this terror was not held to its bosom with an unfaltering grasp.

§ 2. The Doctrine of Everlasting Punishment, as held by the Orthodox at the Present Time.

What is this doctrine, as it is taught at the present day in all Orthodox churches, and as it stands in all Orthodox creeds? It is, that the moment of death decides, and decides forever, the destiny of man; that those who die impenitent, unbelieving, and unconverted are forever lost, without the possibility of return; that those thus lost are to suffer forever and ever, without end, the most grievous torments in soul and body. These torments consist in banishment from the presence of God, and positive sufferings, in addition thereto, of an awful kind. Precisely what they are, it is not, perhaps, necessary for an Orthodox man to believe. There is no Orthodox definition which is authoritative on that point; and considerable range, therefore, is allowable. The suffering may be that of literal fire, or it may not. It may be physical suffering, or the pangs of conscience, the absence of love, and the sense of emptiness. On these points there is some liberty of opinion, doubtless. But we presume that it would not be Orthodox to admit a preponderance, in hell, of good over evil; or to admit, with Swedenborg, the existence of pleasure there, even though it be only a diabolical and sinful pleasure. The doctrine of Orthodoxy certainly is, that evil predominates over good, and pain over pleasure, in the condition of the damned; so that there existence is a curse, and not a blessing. Especially is hope shut out: there is no hope of return, no possibility of escape, no chance of repentance, even at the end of myriads of years. The man who is condemned to imprisonment for life, in solitary confinement, is in an unfortunate condition; but he has hope,—hope of escape, hope of pardon,—sure hope, at all events, of deliverance, one day, by death, from his condition, and a change to something better, or at least to something different. But, in the Orthodox opinion, there is no such alleviation as this to the sufferings of the future state.

It is usual, we know, for many Orthodox preachers to intensify in description the sufferings of the future state, and to task their imagination for multiplied pictures of horror; and we shall presently give some examples to show how far this is carried. We have no doubt that there are many Orthodox men who are as much shocked by these gross descriptions as those are who deny everlasting punishment. But are they not themselves really responsible for them? Those who admit the principle that God can torment his children forever, in the other life, for sins committed in this, have accepted the principle, from which _any_ view of the Deity, however shocking, may very legitimately proceed.

But let us, for the present, only assume that Orthodoxy asserts a preponderance of evil over good in the other world, and that this preponderance is to be continued without end—forever. Let us see what this means.

It means that the suffering to be endured hereafter by each individual soul, as a punishment for sins committed in this world, will infinitely exceed in amount all the suffering borne on the surface of the earth, by its total population, from the creation of Adam to the destruction of the world. Each lost soul will suffer not only more, but infinitely more, than all the accumulated sufferings of the human race throughout all time. We shudder as we read the account of the sufferings from hydrophobia, or the burning alive of a slave at the South, or the tortures inflicted by the Holy Inquisition, or the horrors of a field of battle, or the cruelties inflicted by savages upon their victims; but all of these, added together, are finite, and the sufferings of a single soul hereafter are infinite. That is to say, all the pain and evil of this world, resulting from all human sin, through all time, is infinitely small and insignificant when compared with the punishment endured by a single soul hereafter for his share of that sin. And all this is inflicted by God; and he is a God of love.

There are some doctrines, the statement of which is their refutation. This, we think, is one of them.

But it must also be considered, that this doctrine, which throws such darkness over the future, also sends down a rayless night over the present. It refutes every theodicy; it nullifies every solution of evil. The consolation for the sufferings of this world is, that the fashion of this world passes away, and that there is a better world to come. The explanation of the evils of this life is, that they are finite, and that they are, therefore, to be swallowed up and to disappear in an infinite good. The Christian finds relief, in considering the sufferings of this world, by regarding them as the means of a greater ultimate joy; by looking forward to the time when all tears shall be wiped away; and by a firm faith that love is stronger than selfishness, good stronger than evil. But the doctrine of eternal punishment gives us, in the condition of a single lost soul, a greater amount of evil hereafter than all the evil, which is to be thus explained, here; and the myriads of lost souls, each of which is to suffer infinitely more than all the sufferings of the present world, present us with a problem, in the future, so appalling, that the problem of present evil, vast as it is, becomes insignificant by its side.

We are tormented with evil here. We seek a solution of the problem: we find it in the limited, finite, and ancillary nature of evil. But that solution is wholly taken away when we are told that evil is infinite and eternal.

It seems to us impossible to hold the common doctrine on this subject, without having the gospel view of the divine character essentially shaken; it is not possible to regard Him as a being in whom love is the essential attribute. If this is so, as we shall presently undertake to prove, it becomes a matter of vital importance that the doctrine should be disproved and rejected. It is not enough that it should be quietly laid aside: it is due to the truth that it should be distinctly and fully confuted. For this doctrine, if it be false, is deeply dishonorable to God: it takes away his highest glory; it substitutes fear of him, in the place of love, in the human heart; it neutralizes the peculiar power of the gospel; it degrades the quality of Christian piety, and poisons religion in its fountain.

The Orthodox doctrine of future punishment is, then, exceedingly simple. There is to be a judgment in the last day, universal and final. All mankind are to be collected before the judgment seat of Christ, and there to be divided into two classes,—one on the right hand, and the other on the left. These are to go upward, to heaven, to be eternally happy; those downward, to hell, to be eternally miserable. There are no degrees of suffering; for the torments of hell are infinite in degree, as well as everlasting in duration. Usually the suffering is made intensively as well as extensively infinite. Sometimes degrees are allowed in suffering. No allowance is made for ignorance, or want of opportunity; for inherited evil, or evil resulting from force of circumstances. The purest and best of men, who does not believe the precise Orthodox theory concerning the Trinity, sits in hell side by side with Zingis Khan, who murdered in cold blood hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children, marking his bloody route by pyramids of skulls. The unbaptized child, who goes to hell because of the original sin derived from Adam, is exposed to God’s wrath no less than Pope Alexander VI, who outraged every law of God and man, and who, says Machiavelli, “was followed to the tomb by the holy feet of his three dear companions—Luxury, Simony, and Cruelty.”(46)

This is the doctrine which every denomination and sect in Christendom, except the Unitarians and Universalists, maintain as essential to Orthodoxy. It is but a year or two since twenty-one bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church issued a declaration of their belief that this doctrine is maintained, without reserve or qualification, by the Church of England. Only recently an ecclesiastical council of Congregationalists refused the fellowship of the churches to a gentleman elected as its pastor by the Third Congregational Church in Portland, Maine. In the report of the result, the council says that it believes the candidate to be generally sound in his belief, and exemplary in his Christian spirit, and heartily extends to him its Christian sympathy. But it declines to install him as pastor, because it “understands him as saying, that he does not know but there may be another state of probation and offer of salvation, after death, for all to whom Christ is not personally preached; and that, whilst believing in a future retribution, he says that the everlasting punishment of the wicked may be an extinction of the wicked by annihilation.” So that a mere doubt on this subject is considered a sufficient reason, by the most advanced and liberal of the whole Orthodox body at the present day, for refusing church fellowship.

The American Tract Society floods the land with loose leaves, all appealing to the fear of an eternal hell. We have one before us now, called “Are you insured?” which represents Christianity as a contrivance for escaping from everlasting torment, as a spiritual insurance office, where one must “take out a policy,” and so escape everlasting fire.(47)

There is no theological journal, bearing the Orthodox name, which is more rational and liberal than the “New York Independent.” But in its issue of January 5, 1860, it speaks of future endless misery thus, saying that there is a “vast amount and weight of evidence to the point—evidence enough to prove it, if provable; all nature, all law, all revelation uttering the doctrine, so that it is an amazing stretch and energy of unbelief not to believe it, implying a moral state and position that will not believe it on any testimony, however clearly and unqualifiedly, even to the exhaustion of the capabilities of language, God himself may declare and affirm it.”

There is evidently an energetic attempt made in some quarters to revive the decaying belief in the doctrine of everlasting punishment in the future state, as a penalty for the sins of this. Dr. Thompson, of New York, has published a work to this end, called “Love and Penalty.” Dr. J. P. Thompson, the author of this book, is considered the leader of New Haven theology—the Elisha on whose shoulders the mantle of Dr. Taylor, of New Haven, has fallen. Dr. Nehemiah Adams, of Boston, has labored in the same field, exerting himself to prove this doctrine in various tracts and other works. Professor Hovey, of the Baptist Seminary of Newton, has published a little book on the same subject.

It is probably thought dangerous by these gentlemen to relax at all the terrors of futurity. And, no doubt, if all those who have been restrained from evil by fear of eternal punishment were to lose that belief suddenly, the consequences, at first, would be sometimes bad. If you have exerted your whole force in producing fear of hell, instead of fear of sin, then, the terror of hell being taken away, men might rush at first into license. But the dread of a future hell is by no means so efficacious a motive as is often thought. We become hardened to everything, and neither the clergyman nor his parish eat any less heartily of their Sunday dinner, nor sleep any less soundly on Sunday night, in consequence of the terrible descriptions of eternal torments contained in the morning’s sermon.(48)

§ 3. Apparent Contradictions, both in Scripture and Reason, in Regard to this Doctrine.

Beside the practical motive for maintaining this doctrine, which we have intimated, there are also scriptural and philosophical reasons. Scripture and reason both do, in fact, seem to teach opposite doctrines on this subject. There are passages in the New Testament which appear to teach never-ending suffering, and others which appear to teach a final, universal restoration. It is written, “These shall go away into eternal punishment;” but it is also written, that Christ “shall reign till all things are subdued unto him;” when “the Son also himself shall be subject to Him who did put all things under him, that God may be all in all.” As the same word is used to express the way in which all enemies are to be subject to Christ, and the way in which Christ himself is to be subject to God, it follows that the enemies, when subjected, shall be friends. It is said that the wicked shall be punished “with everlasting destruction from the presence of God;” but it is also said that “in the dispensation of the fulness of times, God will gather in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and on earth;” and “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven, in earth, and under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” It is said of the wicked, that “their worm never dies, and their fire is not quenched;” but it is also said that “it pleased the Father, having made peace through the blood of the cross, by Christ to reconcile all things unto himself, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven.” So that Scripture, at first sight, seems to teach both eternal punishment and universal restoration.

There is a similar contradiction on this subject, if considered in the light of pure reason. When looked at from the divine attributes, the unavoidable conclusion seems to be, that all men must be finally saved. For God is infinitely benevolent, and therefore must wish to save all; is infinitely wise, and therefore must know how to save all; is infinitely powerful, and therefore must be able to overcome all difficulties in the way of saving all: hence all must be saved. But, on the other hand, when we consider the subject from the position of man’s nature, an opposite conclusion seems to follow. For man, being free, is able to choose either evil or good at any moment; and, as long as he continues to be essentially man, he must retain this freedom; and therefore, at any period of his future existence, however remote, he may prefer evil to good—that is, may prefer hell to heaven. But God will not compel him to be good against his will (for unwilling goodness is not goodness); and therefore it follows that there is no point of time in the infinite future of which we can certainly say that then all men will be saved.

Of course these seeming contradictions of Scripture and antinomies of reason are not real contradictions. God does not contradict himself either in revelation or in reason. Whether we can reconcile such antagonisms _now_, or not, we know that they will be reconciled. Meantime, it is our duty to disbelieve whatever is dishonorable to God, or opposed to the character ascribed to him by Jesus Christ. Christ has taught us to regard God as our Father. It is our duty to refuse credence to any doctrine concerning him which is plainly opposed to this character. If I have formed my opinion of my friend’s character from a large experience, I ought to refuse to believe, even on good evidence, anything opposed to it. What is faith in man, or in God, good for, that is unable to resist evil reports concerning them? If I am told that my friend has become a thief or a swindler, and he who tells me says, “I know that it is so—here is the evidence,” I reply, “I do not care for your evidence. I know that it is impossible.” So, if all the churches in the world, Catholic and Protestant, tell me that Jesus teaches everlasting punishment inflicted by God for the sins of this life, and produce chapter and verse in support of their statement, I reply, “If I have learned anything about God from the teachings of Jesus, it is that your assertion is impossible. About the meaning of these passages you may be mistaken, for the letter killeth; but I cannot be mistaken in regard to the fatherly character of the Almighty.”

These contradictions we shall consider in a paper printed in the Appendix (an examination of Dr. Neheimiah Adams’s tract on the “Reasonableness of Everlasting Punishment”). At present we will only say that we should hold it less dishonorable to God to deny his existence than to believe this doctrine concerning him. We think that in the last day it will appear that the atheist has done less to dishonor the name of God than those who persistently teach this view. For what says Lord Bacon? (Essays, XVII. Of Superstition.) “It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such an opinion as is unworthy of him; for the one is unbelief, the other is contumely; and certainly superstition is the reproach of the Deity. Plutarch saith well to that purpose. ‘Surely,’ saith he, ‘I had rather a great deal men should say there were no such man at all as Plutarch, than that they should say there was one Plutarch that would eat his children as soon as they were born,’ as the poets speak of Saturn. And as the contumely is greater towards God, so is the danger greater towards men.”

The doctrine of everlasting punishment, being essentially a heathen and not a Christian doctrine, cannot do any Christian good to any one. It is the want of faith in the Church which makes it afraid of giving it up. The Christian Church has not faith enough to believe in the power of truth and love. It still thinks that men must be frightened into goodness, or driven into it. Fear is a becoming and useful motive no less than hope; but fear of what? Not fear of God; but fear of sin, fear of ourselves, fear of temptation. To be afraid of God never did any one any good. These doctrines drive men away from God; or, if they drive them _to_ God, drive them as slaves, as sycophants, as servants, not as sons. We are saved by becoming _the sons of God_; but you cannot drive a man into sonship by terror. You may make him profess religion, and go through ceremonies, and have an outward form of service; but you cannot make him love God by means of fear.

But good men teach these things, no doubt. Men far better than most of us believe them and teach them. It always has been so. The best men have always been the chief supporters of bad doctrines. A good man, humble and modest, is apt to shrink from doubting or opposing what the Church has taught. He accepts it, and teaches it too. When God wants a reformer, he does not take one of these good, modest, humble men. He does not take a saint. He takes a man who has ever so much will, a little obstinacy, and a great love of fighting; and he makes the wrath of such a man to serve him.

Neither St. Teresa nor Fénélon could have reformed the Catholic Church. It took rough old Martin Luther and hard-hearted John Calvin to do it. The first Universalists, the Abolitionists, all reformers, are necessarily men of that sort. They are rude debaters, not standing on ceremony or politeness. They are hard-headed logicians, going straight to their point, careless of elegances and proprieties. They are God’s pioneers, rough backwoodsmen, hewing their way with the axe through the wilderness. After them shall come the peaceful farmer, with plough and spade, to turn the land into wheat fields, orchards, and gardens.

§ 4. Everlasting Punishment limits the Sovereignty of God.

It is certain that the doctrine of eternal punishment, in the common form, can only be maintained by giving up some of the infinite attributes of the Almighty. If punishment is to exist without end; if hell is always to co-exist with heaven; if certain beings are to be continued forever in existence merely as sinful sufferers,—then, it is clear, God is not omnipotent. He shares his throne forever with Satan. Satan and God divide between them the universe. God reigns in heaven, Satan in hell. God desires that all shall be saved; but this desire is absolutely and forever defeated by a fate greater than Deity. Law divorced from love—that is, nature in its old Pagan aspect—is higher than God. God is not the Almighty to any one who really believes eternal punishment. God is not the Sovereign of the universe, but only of a part of it. The doctrine of eternal punishment, in its common form, does, therefore, virtually dethrone God.(49)

It is, in fact, impossible to conceive of an eternal hell co-existing with an eternal heaven, without also seeing that it limits eternally the divine Omnipotence; for the omnipotence of God is in carrying out his will to have all men saved by becoming holy. Unless God’s laws are obeyed, God is not obeyed; and he is not sovereign if not obeyed. Hell is a condition of things hostile to God’s will: it is a permanent and successful rebellion of a part of the universe. It is no answer to say, that it is shut up, and restrained, and made to suffer; for it is _not_ conquered. God has conquered sin only when he has reduced it to obedience. Hell is no more subject to God than the Confederate States, during the rebellion, were subject to the United States government. They were shut up by a blockade; they were restrained by great armies and navies; they were made to suffer; but they were _not_ reduced to submission and obedience.

Nor is it any answer to say, that the existence of sin and suffering hereafter no more limits God’s omnipotence than their existence here and now limits his omnipotence. For the question is of ETERNAL suffering. Temporal suffering hereafter, we grant, is no objection to the divine Omnipotence. Limited and finite evil, in this world or the other, is no philosophical difficulty; and for this reason—that finite evil, when compared with infinite good, becomes logically and mathematically _no_ evil. The finite disappears in relation to the infinite. All the sufferings and sins of earth, through all ages, are strictly nothing when viewed in the light of the eternal joy and holiness which are to result from them. This is a postulate of pure reason. Make evil finite, and good infinite,—make evil temporal, and good eternal,—and evil ceases to be anything. But make evil eternal, as is done by this doctrine, and then we have Manicheism—an infinite dualism—on the throne of the universe.

§ 5. Everlasting Punishment contradicts the Fatherly Love of God.

This doctrine is a relapse on Paganism, and derived from it. It has nothing to do with Christianity, except to corrupt it. No man was ever made better by believing it: multitudes have been made worse. It attributes to our heavenly Father conduct that, if done by the worst of men, would add a shade of increased wickedness to their character. It assumes that God has made intelligent creatures with the intention of tormenting some of them forever. It assumes that those who are thus created, exposed to this awful risk, are to be thus tormented, unless they happen to pass through what is called an Orthodox conversion in this short earthly life. God keeps them alive forever in order to torture them forever.

The barbarity of this opinion exceeds all power of language to express. We are accustomed to mourn over the anguish and misery that are in this world. The problem of earthly evil has been a burden and anxiety to good men in all times, a great question for thinkers in all ages. The only satisfactory solution is, that it is temporary and educational; that it is to pass away, and, in passing, to create a higher joy and goodness than could otherwise have come. But the doctrine of everlasting punishment not only annuls this explanation, and makes it impossible to explain earthly evil, but adds to it a tenfold greater mystery. The fatherly character of God disappears in Pagan darkness, in view of this horrid doctrine; for the everlasting suffering of one human being contains in itself more evil than the accumulated sufferings of all mankind from the creation of the world to the end of it. Add together all the sicknesses, bereavements, disappointments, of all mankind; all the wars, famines, pestilences, that have tormented humanity; add to these all the mental and moral pangs produced by selfishness and sin in all ages, and all that are to be to the end of time,—and these all combined are logically and mathematically _nothing_, compared with the sufferings of one human being destined to be everlastingly punished. For all temporal sufferings added together are finite; but this is infinite.

Now, the being who could inflict such torture as this is _not_ the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. There may be some deity of cruelty, some incarnation of wrath and despotism, in the Hindoo Pantheon, capable of such terrific wickedness. It is no answer to say that God inflicts suffering now in this world, and therefore he may inflict everlasting suffering in the other; for those are all finite; that is infinite. _Finite_ suffering may result in greater good, may be an education to good; but _everlasting_ suffering cannot. The finite and infinite cannot be compared together. There is no analogy between them.

The God of the New Testament is our Father. If he inflicts suffering, it is for our good; “not for his pleasure, but for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness.” All earthly suffering finds this solution, and accords with the fatherly character of God in this point of view. Much, no doubt, cannot be now fully understood. We do not _see how_ it tends to good; but all suffering _that ends_ MAY end in good. Suffering that does not end CANNOT end in good.

If human beings are everlastingly punished, it must either be that they go on sinning forever, and cannot repent, lose all power of repentance, and so cease to be moral agents, or else that they retain the power of repenting, and therefore _may_ repent. In the first case, God continues to punish forever those who have ceased to sin, because their freedom and moral power have ceased; or else he punishes forever those who have repented, and _so_ ceased sinning. In either case, God must punish everlastingly those who have ceased to be sinners; which is incredible.

If God is a Father, he is at least _as good_ as the best earthly father. Now, what father or mother would ever consent to place a child in a situation where there was even a chance of its running such an awful risk? God has _created_ us with these liabilities to sin; he has (according to Orthodoxy) chosen and determined that we shall be born wholly prone to evil, and sure to fall into eternal and unending ruin, unless he saves us by a special act of grace. “What man among you, being a father,” would do so? Custom dulls our sense to these horrors. Let us therefore imagine a case far less terrible. Suppose that a number of parents should establish a school, to which to send their children. Suppose they should arrange a code of laws for the school of such a stringent character that all the children are sure to break it. Under the school are vaults containing instruments of torture. For each offence against the laws of the school (offences which the children cannot fail to commit) they are to be punished by imprisonment for life in these cells, with daily torture, from racks, thumb-screws, and the like. A few of them are to be selected from the rest, not for any merit of their own, but by an arbitrary decree of the parents, and are to be rewarded (not for their superior good conduct, but according to the caprice of the parents) with every luxury and privilege. Among these privileges is included that of taking a daily walk through the cells, and witnessing the horrible sufferings of their brothers and companions, and hearing their shrieks of anguish, and praising the JUSTICE of their parents in thus punishing some and rewarding the rest.

But this, you may say, is not a parallel case. No, we grant it is not, for what are these torments to that of a never-ending futurity? They are all as nothing. Therefore every such comparison must utterly fail of doing justice to the diabolic cruelty ascribed to the Almighty by this Orthodox doctrine.

“But what right,” says the Orthodox defender of this doctrine, “have we to reason in this way concerning the divine proceedings, by the analogy of earthly parents? What right have we to compare God’s doings with those of a human father?” _No_ right, perhaps, as philosophers; but as Christians we have not only the right to do it, but it is our duty to do so. Jesus has himself taught us to use this analogy, in order to acquire confidence in God’s ways, and to assure ourselves that God cannot fail of acting as we should expect a good and wise earthly parent to act. “What man is there of _you_, whom, if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If _ye_ then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father, which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him?” (Matt. 7:9-11.) Jesus authorizes and commands us to reason from the parental nature in man to that in God. Instead of simply assuring us of it, on the ground of his own authority to teach us; instead of saying, “Believe this, because I say it,” he says, “Believe it, because it accords with your own convictions and with human nature.”

§ 6. Attempts to modify and soften the Doctrine of Everlasting Punishment.

The reasons for the late efforts to support this terrific doctrine are probably to be found in a widespread and increasing disbelief concerning it, pervading the churches nominally Orthodox. This has come from the growing intelligence and progressive movements of thought in the Christian Church. The evidences of this belief are numerous and increasing. Those who reject the Orthodox view are a numerous body, but divided into several parties. There are the old-fashioned Universalists, a valiant race,—men of war from their youth,—who, under the lead of such men as Hosea Ballou and Thomas Whittemore, have spent their lives in fighting the doctrine of everlasting punishment. Very naturally, perhaps, they went to the opposite extreme of opinion, and denied all future suffering. But this view has, we think, ceased to be the prevailing one among the Universalists. The doctrine of ultimate restoration has very generally taken its place. This doctrine also prevails widely in other denominations; not only among the liberal bodies, like the Unitarians, but also among Methodists, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists. It has widely spread, as is well known, in Germany. It was held by Schleiermacher, the father of modern German theology. It tinges the writings of such Orthodox men as Tholuck, Hahn, and Olshausen. Others profess to believe in everlasting punishment, but make it a merely negative consequence of lost time and opportunity: one will be always worse off hereafter in consequence of the neglect of duty. Others follow Swedenborg, and make the sufferings of hell rather agreeable than otherwise to those who bear them.

Various ineffectual attempts have indeed been made, in all ages of the Church, to soften the austerity of this doctrine. From the days of Origen, these merciful doctors(50) have always been trying to soften this austere dogma, but ineffectually; for the dread of an eternal hell has been one of the chief motives which the Church has used in converting men from sin to holiness. Any suggestion of the possibility of future restoration would, it is feared, cut the sinews of effective preaching. For the baptized who are not fit for heaven the Roman Catholic Church has established, indeed, a temporary hell, with torments of an inferior sort; for bad Catholics there is purgatory, with the hope of ultimate escape from it; but for the unbaptized heathen, for heretics, and for excommunicated persons, there is nothing but eternal punishment.

Many, in all ages, have made the everlasting continuance of punishment not absolute, but _hypothetical_—depending on the question, “Will the sinner continue forever to sin?”(51) Others have made future punishment _relatively_ everlasting; that is, because even the repentant sinner will be always just so far behind the position he would have had if he had not sinned. This, however, is taking a material view of progress, as though it was limited, like the going of a horse, to so many miles a day.

Many of the early fathers, and some of the mediæval doctors, took milder views of the future sufferings of the impenitent or unconverted. Proceeding from the idea of freedom, as indestructible in the human soul, Origen declared that, no matter how low any moral being has fallen, a way to return is always open to him. Even the devil may, in time, regain the highest position in the angelic hierarchy.(52) No doubt Origen admitted the need of external conditions for this restoration; but he said, God is able to heal the damage done to any part of his works.(53) He will restore all things to their origin, uniting the end and the beginning, and so becoming indeed the Alpha and Omega. This may require long processes, through many ages.(54) Since Jesus speaks of a sin which cannot be forgiven in this age (ἀιὼν) nor the next, it follows, says Origen, that there is a series of ages, or worlds, through which we pass, and many of these ages of ages (sæcula sæculorum) must pass away before all bad men and angels shall have returned to their original state. Quoting the passage, “The last enemy that shall be destroyed,” he says that he shall not be destroyed as to his substance, but as to his enmity. His being was made by God, and cannot perish; his hostile will proceeded from himself, and shall be destroyed.

Mr. Brownson (or rather a writer in Brownson’s “Quarterly Review,” July, 1863) takes another way of softening the terrors of hell. With him too, hell is an everlasting state; but he maintains that the Roman Church has not made it an article of faith to believe that there is any positive suffering therein. If you believe in an eternal hell, that is enough; you are not precluded from softening its horrors to any extent you can. Thus he maintains that the great Augustine allows hell to be only a negative state—only the absence of the exquisite beatitude of heaven. This writer (who is said by the editor to be a learned Catholic priest) asserts that there is a growing repugnance to the popular doctrine upon eternal punishment among the most intelligent of the Catholic laity, and this reluctance is the chief obstacle to the reception of the faith by a large class of non-Catholics. He attempts to meet this state of mind by showing that neither the doctrine of St. Augustine nor that of the Catholic Church supports this popular view, but allows a much milder one. He proceeds to make these points:—

1. St. Augustine nowhere teaches that human nature is intrinsically evil, but he invariably teaches that it is substantially good. (“Omnis natura in quantum natura est bona est.” “Omnis substantia aut Deus est aut ex Deo.” De Lib. Arbit.) Therefore it follows that the very notion of _total_ depravity is impossible. St. Augustine distinctly says that “the very unclean spirit himself is good, inasmuch as he is a spirit, but evil inasmuch as he is unclean.” Hence, not even the nature of the devil himself is evil. So St. Thomas (“Diabolus, in quantum habet esse, est bonus”), “the devil, so far as he _is_, is good.”

2. St. Augustine teaches in explicit terms that existence is a good even to angels and men who are eternally bound by the consequences of evil.

3. Eternal death, according to St. Augustine, is a subsidence into a lower form of life, a privation of the highest vital influx from God in order to everlasting life, or supreme beatitude, but not of all vital influx in order to an endless existence, which is a partial and incomplete participation in good. These sinful souls, therefore, fulfil in a measure the end of their creation, and have a place and a function in harmony with the general order of the cosmos. There is no trace, in this view of Augustine, that God hates a portion of his creatures with an absolute, infinite, and eternal hatred, and is hated by them in return. The original act of creative love is an enduring and eternal act, in which even Satan is included. “Their nature still remains essentially good, and far superior in excellence and beauty to material light, which is the highest corporeal substance.”

4. Hell, therefore (Infernus), is simply a lower state of inchoate and imperfect being, “of saints nipped in the bud.” Infant damnation is only a gentle sadness—“levis tristitia.” All positive suffering in hell is probably temporal, and therefore must at last cease. The lost souls will enjoy there quite as much as they can do here, _minus_ the temporal sufferings of this life. They continue _natural_ beings, and therefore can enjoy all natural joy; and that which they lose, being the “beatific vision,” of which they have no conception, is a loss of which they are wholly unconscious.

Swedenborg maintains, in the same way, the everlasting character of the punishment of those who have passed the final judgment, but admits many palliations to its sufferings. He teaches that delight is the universal substance of heaven, and also of hell, and that evil spirits are in the delight of evil, as good spirits in that of good. An evil spirit would be as unhappy in heaven as a good one would be in hell.

§ 7. The meaning of Eternal Punishment in Scripture.

But what, then, is the vital truth in the doctrine of eternal punishment? Christ says, “These shall go away into eternal punishment.”(55) What is this “eternal punishment”? It is commonly supposed to mean the same thing as punishment which shall never end, or punishment continued through all time. But this is to misunderstand both the philosophical and scriptural meaning of the word “eternal.” Eternal punishments are the opposite of temporal punishments: they have nothing to do with time at all; they are punishments outside of time. To attempt to realize eternity by adding up any number of myriads of years of time, is necessarily a failure; for time and eternity are different things. You might as well attempt to produce thought or love, by adding up millions of miles of distance, as, by adding up millions of years of time, to get any idea of eternity. Eternal life, in the language of Scripture, has nothing to do with the future or the past. It is a present life in the soul, awakened within by the knowledge of God and Christ. “This _is_ life eternal, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” “Eternal life and eternal death both come from the knowledge of God and of Christ.” To one it is a savor of life, to another of death. Eternal punishment and eternal life are the punishments and the rewards of eternity, distinguished from those of time, and having their root in the knowledge of God which comes through Christ. Eternal life and eternal punishment both commence here, from the judgments which takes place now: but the last judgment, or the judgment of the last day, is that which will take place hereafter, when the soul shall have a full knowledge of itself and of God; see its whole life as it really is; have all self-deceptions taken away, all disguises removed, and know itself as it is known. God’s love, when revealed, attracts and repels. Like all real force, it is a polar force. The one pole is its attractive power over those who are in a truth-loving state; the other pole is its repelling power to those who are in a truth-hating state. Love attracts the truthful, and repels the wilful. Eternal punishment, then, is the repugnance to God of the soul which is inwardly selfish in its will,—loving itself more than truth and right. It is the sense of indignation and wrath, alienation and poverty, which rests on it while in this condition. It is the outer darkness; it is the far country; it is the famine, which comes as a holy and blessed evil, sent to save, by bringing to repentance, the prodigal child, who has not yet “come to himself.”

From this knowledge of God and of itself, therefore,—from this judgment of the last day,—will flow eternal life to the one class, and eternal punishment or suffering to the other. Those who have been conscientious and generous; who have endeavored faithfully to live for truth and right; who have made sacrifices, and not boasted of them; who have clothed the naked and fed the hungry, making the world better and happier by their presence,—will hear the Saviour say, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry, and ye gave me meat.” Perhaps they have never even heard the name of Christ; perhaps they were the Buddhists of Burmah, of whom Mr. Malcom speaks, who brought food to him, though a stranger to them. “I was scarcely seated,” says he, “when a woman brought a nice mat for me to lie on; another, cool water; and a man went and picked me a half dozen fine oranges. None sought or expected the least reward, but disappeared, and left me to my repose.” Or perhaps they will be the poor black women in Africa, who took such kind care of Mungo Park, singing, “Let us pity the white man: he has no mother to bring him milk, no wife to grind him corn.” The reward of their fidelity will be the gift of a greater power of goodness, coming from a knowledge of God and Christ. They were helping Christ, though they did not know him. They will say, “Lord, when saw we thee an hungered?” These Gentiles, without the law, who do by nature the things contained in the law, will come to know Christ, and receive a spiritual life—life flowing from that knowledge. On the other hand, those who have not endeavored to do what they knew to be right will receive from the same knowledge of God and Christ a spiritual or eternal punishment. Perhaps they have received some of it already in this world; but a deeper knowledge of the truth will bring a keener self-reproach. The worm that never dies is this gnawing(56) tooth of conscience. The fire which is not quenched is the heart still selfish, turned to evil, joined with a conscience which sees the good. For man, as long as he is man, cannot get away from himself. He may sophisticate himself with falsehoods, put his conscience to sleep, and imagine that he has escaped all the penalties of evil; but he cannot escape from himself. The longer and deeper the sleep of conscience, the more terrible its final awakening.

Eternal punishment, therefore, is the punishment which comes to man from his spiritual nature; from that side of man which connects him with eternity, in contradistinction from temporal punishment, which is that which comes from his temporal nature and the temporal world. Through the body he receives temporal pleasure or pain from the world of time and space; through the spirit he receives spiritual joy or sorrow from the world of eternity and infinity.

Thus intimately are judgment and retribution connected. There is nothing arbitrary about rewards or punishments. They follow naturally and necessarily from the revelation of divine and eternal truth. Sooner or later, the everlasting distinctions between right and wrong, good and evil, make themselves seen and known. The distinctions between right and wrong _are_ eternal.

The idea of duration is not connected with eternal punishment or eternal life; for the idea of duration belongs to time, and not to eternity. Human law sentences men, for crime, to be punished by imprisonment for six months, three years, ten years, or for life; but in God’s world there is not, and cannot be, any relation between a man’s guilt and the precise time he is to suffer. He must suffer while he is guilty, be the time longer or shorter. When he ceases to be guilty, he must cease to suffer. He therefore fixes the _duration_ of his suffering himself: that makes no part of the divine sentence. If he judges himself unworthy of eternal life during five, ten, one hundred, or ten thousand million years, that is for himself to say. God will never save him against his will; and God can wait. The sphere of time belongs to man’s freedom; that of eternity, to the freedom of God.

And this reconciles the philosophic difficulty. Man, being _free_, can postpone his submission and obedience _indefinitely_; but, being finite, cannot postpone it _infinitely_. At any point of time, he may still resolve to resist the influx of eternal life, and continue in the sphere of death: but eternity surrounds time, and infolds it; and in eternity God’s purposes will be realized, and every knee bow, of things in heaven, and in earth, and under the earth. Universal harmony must prevail at last.

“Eternal” and “everlasting” are two wholly different ideas. We fully believe in eternal punishment, but not in everlasting punishment. Eternal life is spiritual life: eternal suffering is spiritual suffering.

The whole of antiquity recognizes this distinction; and the Bible is saturated with it. When Jesus says, “He who believes in me has _eternal life_ abiding in him,” there is nothing about duration intended in that. When he says, “This is _life eternal_, to know thee the only true God,” there is nothing about duration implied. It is the quality of the life which is conveyed—spiritual life, life flowing from the sight of God and Christ.

We believe in eternal punishment; but, because it is eternal, therefore it is not everlasting. Eternal suffering, flowing from the sight of the eternal truth and love of God, is real suffering, because it involves the sight of sin, the consciousness of failure, the deep conviction of what we ought to do and have not done; but all this leads to repentance and salvation. When the Lord turned and looked on Peter, Peter went into eternal suffering. He saw his own guilt and the infinite goodness of his Master at the same time. The one produced penitence; the other, hope. But, when Judas hanged himself, he did _not_ go into eternal punishment, but into temporal. He saw his own baseness and his own folly; but he did not see God’s love. If he had seen God’s love and Christ’s pardoning mercy, together with his sin, he would not have hanged himself; but, like Peter, he would have repented, and gone forth to preach the gospel.

When we see God’s truth and love, we go into eternal life or into eternal suffering, according to the direction of our lives and hearts. If we are following Christ, and trying to do right,—if we are not selfish, but generous,—then the sight of God’s love and truth in Christ leads us directly into spiritual joy; but if we are selfish, and seeking only our own good, if we are indifferent to the rights of our fellow-men, then we go into eternal or spiritual suffering.

The force of eternal punishment, therefore, is not in the statement that it is never to end; nor in any description, however vivid, of outward physical torments. Such descriptions produce excitement, agitation, terror. But this is not _conviction_. The doctrine, not being in harmony with the attributes of God or the nature of man, can never be sincerely or profoundly believed. It is inwardly opposed by every Christian conviction in the human soul; for it is not Christian, but Pagan. It is a relapse into Paganism, an importation of Pagan terrors into Christianity. It degrades every soul that teaches it, or that accepts it, in the same way that idolatry degrades it. It puts a veil between the soul and the true God.

But the true Christian doctrine of eternal punishment is, that the soul which sins shall eternally suffer; that there is an eternal distinction between truth and falsehood, good and evil; that spiritual distinctions are positive and real; and that evil is not a mere negative thing, implying a little less of good, but positive, being the state of a soul which is repelled, not attracted, by the divine goodness; which keeps away from God, as the shadow keeps on the side of the globe which is away from the sun.

Again: eternal suffering is the suffering of eternity, as distinguished from temporal suffering, which has its root in time. This is something which comes from within, while temporal suffering comes from without. Till man is reconciled to God by obedience and love, he has the sentence of death in himself. This suffering is not arbitrary, but fixed in the nature of things. As a sinner, man must be eternally separated inwardly from God, and therefore from bliss. His hell is within him, not without. And it is also here, as well as hereafter, since eternity is here, no less than time.

In this view of eternal punishment, there is an important truth—truth essential to the just spiritual growth of man. It is needed to resist the tendency to make light of sin. It is needed to oppose the view which makes evil, as well as good, a natural growth, and teaches that all men are on their way upward, and will ultimately fall into heaven by some specific levity. It is needed to remind us that we must choose whom we will serve, and that, consciously or unconsciously, we are at all moments tending either upward or downward—either towards God or away from him.

This is the great truth which is often lost sight of by Liberal Christianity, and by that easy optimism which declares that “whatever is, is right;” but darkly taught, because dimly seen, by Orthodoxy. Pagan in its form, there is often an essentially Christian idea communicated by the Orthodox pulpit. The Pagan form may be neglected and disbelieved: the Christian impression may remain. It tightens the nerves of the soul, as a cold bath invigorates the body made languid by too much warmth and ease. Yet, as long as the Pagan form remains, the interior truth is shorn of its full power. Let us pray that the truth, divested of its dark errors, may at last be recognized by the Christian Church. For very often the words of a great writer and thinker (who also was an earnest opponent of the Orthodox form of this doctrine) recur to us in these studies: “Few see the things themselves, but only the forms of things, in the mirror of reflection, as images. But we shall at last see the things themselves face to face, as it is said, and without a veil, if it please God, in part before the close of this present life, more fully in the life to come.”(57)

§ 8. How Judgment by Christ is connected with Punishment.

To what we have said of judgment by Christ, in the previous chapter, we add here some further thoughts in regard to its connection with punishment. Orthodoxy makes this connection arbitrary and outward. For such sins, it says, God has appointed such a punishment; and the object of judgment is to glorify God, by showing how exact he is in finding out every sinner, and fulfilling his every threat against evil. But, according to a better view, which alone can commend itself to minds of any large range—future judgment is simply the act by which God shows to a man the truth concerning himself, so that he can see it.

A deaf and dumb child being asked, “What is judgment?” replied, “Judgment is to see ourselves as we are, and to see God as he is.” This is the essential thing in judgment; and in this sense Christ is declared “to be the judge of the quick and the dead;” that is, he judges us in this world, and will judge us in the other world. His judgments are not external, sentencing us to external punishments; but they are internal, causing us to judge ourselves. He shows us what we are. Whenever he comes, he comes to judgment, separating the good from the evil, testing the state of the heart, causing men to go to the right or the left. His coming always makes an issue which cannot be avoided; calls upon us to decide which course we shall take, what thing we shall do, what master we will serve. When Christ first came, he came for judgment, that the thoughts of many hearts might be revealed,—revealed to themselves and to others. Wherever he came, men immediately were divided into two classes,—becoming his disciples, or becoming his opponents. No longer was any compromise possible between truth and error, between right and wrong. They were obliged to choose which to serve; and they chose according to the inward tendency of their hearts. They whose hearts were right, chose the right: they whose hearts were wrong, chose the wrong.

Christ is thus the Judge of the living as well as the dead. Often in our lives he comes to us thus to be our Judge. Every time he calls upon us to do anything for him, he judges the state of our heart. Every time he offers an opportunity to the world of improvement or progress, he judges the world.

When he was on trial before Caiaphas and before Pilate, they were on trial, and not he. When they sentenced him, they condemned themselves. During the whole of those dark hours, when Christ was buffeted, spit upon, crowned with thorns, to the eyes of angels he was seen to be sitting on the throne of his glory. Caiaphas and the Jewish priests, Pontius Pilate and the Roman soldiers, Judas Iscariot, the Jewish people, each in turn received their sentence, and passed to the left hand. And so ever since, whenever any great opportunity has been given to the world to decide between right and wrong, the world has pronounced judgment on itself; has gone to the right hand with the sheep, or to the left hand with the goats. When Paul offered Christianity to the Jews, and they rejected it, he said “it was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you; but seeing you put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.” So it always is. God does not judge us, nor Christ; but we judge ourselves. For this reason Jesus says, “If any man hear me, and believe not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world.” And again he says, “The word which I have spoken, the same shall judge him at the last day.” And yet again, “This is the judgment, that light has come into the world, and that men have chosen darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil.”

The account of judgment (in the 25th chapter of Matthew) at Christ’s coming we considered in the last chapter. It will, however, bear a little further examination. There are _three_ different judgments indicated in the three parables of the virgins, the talents, and the sheep and goats. The first is the judgment of opportunity, the second of work, the third of knowledge. In the first and second we judge ourselves, in the last we are judged. These two occur in time, the other in eternity. The first two are the judgments which take place at Christ’s coming here; the third is the judgment of “the last day.” The first takes place whenever we are “called” by a new opportunity; the second comes in all retribution; the third by the inward revelation of God’s truth, showing men what they are, and what God is. The wise and foolish virgins represent those _who are invited to receive Christianity_; the servants with the talents, believers who have received it in different degrees; and the nations (heathen, τὰ ἔθνη)(58) those (in Christendom or outside of it) to whom Christianity has never come.

§ 9. The Doctrine of Annihilation.

This view of the final results of moral evil, as destroying personal existence, is hardly an Orthodox doctrine, though quasi-Orthodox. It is the refuge of that class of minds which are unable to accept universal restoration on the one side, or everlasting punishment on the other. To them a large number of human beings seem “too good for banning, and too bad for blessing,” and in their opinion will be suffered quietly to drop out of conscious existence. The analogies of nature, in which out of many seeds and many eggs produced, only a few attain to the condition of plants and animals, tend to confirm this view. The state of human character here appears also to favor it, since multitudes pass out of this world in an undeveloped condition, seeming wholly to have failed of the end of their being. The chief scriptural argument in favor of the doctrine is found in the assumption that “life through Christ” is equivalent to continued conscious existence, and that “death” as the punishment of sin, is equivalent to annihilation. We have so fully discussed the meaning of these terms in the previous chapter, that it is not desirable to argue this point here. We agree with the Orthodox view, and differ from that of the annihilationists on this point. The God of the gospel is the Father of all his children—of the weakest, feeblest, and most sinful. If he is the God of _all_, then he is “the God, not of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.” Indian tribes and heathen nations may be willing that the sickly infants, and those worn with age, should perish; they may expose female infants, thinking them not worth bringing up; but Christian nations establish schools and hospitals for the deaf and dumb, the insane, the inebriates, the idiotic. If we, then, being evil, know how to care for the weak, undeveloped, and vegetative natures, how much more shall their Father in heaven care for them! The doctrine of annihilation rests fundamentally on a Pagan view of God.

§ 10. The Doctrine of Universal Restoration.

This opinion has its roots, we think, in the gospel. It has prevailed in the church from the earliest times, having been held, as we have seen, by Origen, and a great number of eminent church fathers and doctors. What more Christian word has come to us from the earliest centuries than the cry out of the heart of the great Alexandrian teacher, “My Saviour, even now, mourns for my sins. My Saviour cannot be happy while I remain in my iniquity. He does not wish to drink the cup of joy alone in the kingdom of God; he is waiting till we shall come and join him there.”(59)

Our object in this chapter is to consider the Orthodox view, and we shall not, therefore, enter into any extensive argument concerning universal salvation. We will only here indicate the general scriptural evidence in its support. The alternative to the Orthodox view of everlasting punishment is not, as we have shown, necessarily Universalism. It may be annihilation, or it may be, under the name of eternal punishment, a negative evil, being the privation of the highest kind of happiness. Still, it seems proper to suggest, if only very briefly, some reasons given by Universalists for their belief.

In the Epistles of Paul there are five or six passages, which appear to teach, or to imply, an ultimate restoration of salvation of all moral beings. Among them are these:—

1. Eph. 1:9, 10. “Having made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he hath purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him.”

The apostle is speaking of the “riches of God’s grace,” wherein “he hath _abounded_ toward us,” and gives as the proof this revelation made in Christ of a great mystery—that “in the dispensation [economy] of the fulness of times” he might bring into one (under one head) “all things in heaven and on earth.” The idea of the passage seems evidently to be that in the economy, or order, of the divine plan, which extends through indefinite periods of time, all things shall be united under one head in Christ. But if brought under one head (as the Greek word signifies), then all become Christians, all “in heaven and earth.” This would seem to be a very plain statement of a universal restoration.

As such, Olshausen, one of the most Orthodox of commentators, regards it. He rejects all the explanations offered by the advocates of everlasting punishment as unsatisfactory. “It cannot be disputed,” he says, “that in it the restoration of all things seems to be again favored—a view which Paul in general, as has already been remarked (on Rom. 11:32; 1 Cor. 15:24; Gal. 3:22) says more to support than the other writers of the New Testament.” Olshausen declares the interpretations which suppose a merely external subjection of the world to Christ to be entirely inadequate, and have left unresolved the principal difficulty, which is, “how Paul could say that all have a share in redemption, if he held the common view that the numberless hosts of angels who fell, along with the far greatest part of mankind (Matt. 7:13, 14) are eternally damned, and thus shut out from the harmony of the universe.” The defenders of universal restoration, says Olshausen, “understand the harmony of the universe seriously, in its literal meaning, and seem, according to that, to be here in the right.”

2. Phil. 2:9, 10. “Wherefore God hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Here we have “_things under the earth_” (καταχθονίων) added to “things in heaven and on earth.” This word only occurs here in the New Testament, but is by Bretschneider (Lex. Man.) translated “subterranean” or “infernal,” and applied to the inhabitants of Hades, with a reference to Origen, who uses the word in relation to the demons. De Wette applies the language to angels, living men, and the dead. At all events, it appears to include all moral beings, and to declare that the whole human race shall bow to Christ, and accept him as Master. But this cannot mean a merely outward submission, for such a forced and reluctant homage would bring little honor to God, nor be worth such admiration on the part of the apostle. It must therefore mean that all men, not only all who now live, but all who have lived, shall finally become Christians and enter into the glory of God.

3. Col. 1:20. “And, having made peace by the blood of the cross, by him to reconcile all things to himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven.” Here a new feature is added to the statement by the word “reconcile,” which evidently expresses the entire conversion of the heart, and therefore of human beings, to the law of Christ.

4. 1 Cor. 15:22. “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” The “all” must be as extensive on one side as the other. Now, whether the death in Adam be physical or moral, whether it mean the dissolution of the earthly body, or the loss of innocence by sin, it certainly includes _all_ human beings, in the fullest sense. All men die, and all men sin. It would therefore seem that the other “all” must be quite as comprehensive. It must include all human beings. All men shall “be made alive in Christ.” But this cannot mean a mere physical immortality, or an immortality in misery; for one cannot be said to be “alive in Christ” who is suffering endless torment. To be “alive in Christ” means to be spiritually alive, for “he that hath the Son hath life.”

5. 1 Cor. 24:28. In this passage Paul declares that _all_ enemies shall be subject to Christ. But this, again, cannot mean a forced submission, for that is in no sense being subject to Christ. _Christ’s_ subjects are willing subjects. It therefore must mean that, finally, all human beings shall become Christian in conviction and in heart.

These five texts from the apostle Paul seem to us very plain and conclusive as to his opinions. But perhaps the strongest evidence in proof of a universal restoration is to be found in Christ’s own parable of the prodigal son. For in this the genuine spirit and purpose of the gospel is shown to be that God _never_ loses his fatherly love for his rebellious and lost children. On the contrary, his heart yearns towards them with a more earnest affection than towards the holy and good. The prodigal son represents those who are “dead in sin.” (Luke 15:24-32.) The parable teaches that God loves them all the while they are away, and that “there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance.” Now, if God loves the sinners thus whose bodies are yet alive, does he cease to love them when the bodily change takes place which we call death? Does his nature change then? And if not, does it ever change? After millions of years, if they have been lost and dead so long, has his love become weary of waiting, or does “his mercy endure forever”?

To us it seems clear, that if the parable of the prodigal son is to be taken as a true statement of the feeling of God towards every sinner, that every sinner must at last be brought back by the mighty power of this redeeming love. The power of the human will to resist God is indeed indefinite; but the power of love is infinite. Sooner or later, then, in the economy of the ages, all sinners must come back, in penitence and shame, to their Father’s house, saying, “Make us as thy hired servants.” If so, if universal restoration does not mean primarily restoration to outward happiness, but to inward obedience, it seems to us that the doctrine may be so stated as to be a new motive for _present_ repentance and obedience. May we not say to the sinner, You may resist God to-day, to-morrow, for a million years; but, sooner or later, you _must_ return, obey, repent, and submit? God will spare no means to bring you. His love to you requires him to use all methods, all terrors, all suffering. The “worm that never dies,” the “fire that is never quenched,” the “outer darkness,”—these are all blessed means, in the providence of the Almighty, to bring the sinner back to a sense of his evil state. In the other world, as in this world, God will “chasten us, not for his pleasure, but for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness.”