Part 4

Yet there were many among the people of Israel who were blind to this glory, and many of the Gentiles who rejected this guiding light. This rejection was not caused by any restrictive quality in the revelation, any provision in the Gospel itself for the limitation of its privileges: nor was it caused by any previous arbitrary decree of the ordainer of salvation, that on account of some very ancient event, totally unconnected with the present dispensation, a large majority of the human race should be rendered absolutely incapable of participating in the blessings of redemption. It was occasioned by the prejudices of narrow minds, by the ignorance of darkened minds, by the spiritual pride of presumptuous minds, by the petty hopes and fears of selfish minds,--prejudices, ignorance and selfishness naturally arising in the then state of the world, and not to be immediately or speedily got rid of but by miracle: a mode of agency which the Divine Being has frequently made use of to sanction his revelations, but never to prepare the human mind for their reception. Thus spiritual ignorance and moral blindness are, we apprehend, the only obstacles to universal redemption; and we firmly believe that these obstacles are only temporary. The Gospel itself bears such an indisputable character of permanence and universality (as we shall hereafter show), and so evident a provision is made for the gradual dissipation of darkness and error, that we may confidently anticipate the time when the hope of the Gospel shall be the rich possession of every individual of every nation.

That it will be so we conclude, not from the persuasion of our own hopes, or at the bidding of our reason in opposition to the declarations of Scripture; but because every principle derived from the Gospel sanctions the commands of our reason and affords a warrant of our hope. There is in no Gospel, History, or Epistle, a hint of any restriction or limitation of the blessings of redemption. Christ is ever spoken of as having died for all; there are thanksgivings in the name of all, invitations embracing all, and anticipations of the ultimate bliss of all. Those who are mourned over, reproached, entreated, compassionated, because they will not accept freedom and peace, are spoken of as excluded by their own unfitness for grace, arising from natural causes, and not by any sin of any ancestor, or by any arbitrary decree of God, or by any repellant and exclusive character in the dispensation of grace itself. Its most distinguishing character, on the contrary, was its boundlessness. Its first work was to throw down the wall of partition which had separated the favored people from others, to abolish arbitrary distinctions, to exchange the multifarious conditions of the old law for the few, simple and universal requisites of salvation declared in the new. If other distinctions have since been instituted, other conditions imposed, other requisites insisted on, they are no part of Christianity, and shall no more impede its ultimate prevalence than the cloud which shrouds the lightning can prevent its shining from one part of the heaven unto the other.

It may be objected, and with justice, that this method of considering the scheme of justification makes out the gift of grace to be only ultimately and not strictly universal; unlimited in its tendencies, but hitherto very limited in the diffusion of its blessings: and hence may arise an inquiry concerning the fate of those who have died without the hope of the Gospel.

As to the limited spread of the Gospel thus far, it is our business not to assign the final cause of the fact, but to admit and reason on the fact itself. The fact occasions no horror in our minds, and less regret than is felt perhaps by any denomination of Christians besides ourselves; and for this reason, that we do not hold perdition to be the only alternative to salvation by Christ. We find no sanction for so fearful a collocation of terms in the record of the covenant; no mode of reconciling the doctrine thus originated with the attributes of Deity, or with our conceptions of justice, much less of benignity. Moreover we can clearly discern through what misconception the monstrous belief in the everlasting destruction of unbelievers, whether by natural or moral necessity, has sprung to birth. We believe it to have arisen from the before-mentioned misapprehension of the terms Salvation, Remission of sins, and Justification.

To the enjoyment of the blessings of the Gospel no alternative could be opposed but their non-possession; to the remission of sins, but their retention; to justification, but condemnation under the law. But it does not follow that when these terms are shifted from their original use, and accommodated to a subject to which they do not naturally belong, they should be still opposed to each other, no others being allowed to intervene. If it be generally agreed to understand by _Salvation_ a state of perfect bliss after death, it is well: but if any man then choose to transfer the term _Perdition_ from meaning the loss of the privileges of Christianity to the loss of the happiness of heaven and a consequent subjection to the pains of hell, he goes further than the customary use of language allows, further than reason can sanction, and much further astray from a true theology than he can at present estimate, or can hereafter sufficiently deplore. It is mournful enough that myriads have died in ignorance and error, that thousands have rejected offered light; but no words can express the horror of the popular doctrine of the eternal condemnation of all who have not died in the faith of Christ, or our reprobation of the corruption through which such a doctrine has been originated, received, and retained. While we believe that grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, and that 'all things are but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord,' we cannot believe that wrath from above and misery from below, sin from within and darkness around, destined to be dissipated only by the flames of hell, are the portion of all but those who are equally happy with ourselves. Our belief appears to us more consistent with our apprehensions of the perfections of our Father, with our interpretations of his providence, and with the spirit of his revealed law. We believe that though Christianity is the focus in which all the lights of reason and religion are concentrated, every ray is not there absorbed. We believe that though shadows brood more or less darkly over every heathen land, there is in the most remote a glimmering of the dawn; a ray which may direct the eye towards the fountain of glory, and engage the attention to watch the rising of that sun which shall set no more.

We believe that the rewards of righteousness are promised to all; and that the practice of righteousness is not limited to any kindred, tongue, or people, or essentially connected with any religious belief. We hold that retribution is the universal sanction of the universal moral law; and if the nature of the sanction be more fully understood by Christians, and therefore practically admitted with greater readiness, let them be as grateful as they will for the great privilege, but beware of supposing that the sanction is abolished to all besides. Under the various obscurations of this sanction, savage virtue may be inferior to civilized,--Hottentot to Roman virtue, as both are to Christian holiness; but there is every reason to believe that the savage who surrendered his hard-earned meal to the hungry stranger, and the Pagan senators and warriors who toiled and bled for their country, were as sure of an appropriate reward as the most benevolent and heroic of Christians.

The unlimited nature of salvation in this sense, leads us on to another great doctrine of the Gospel; viz.

III. A Future State.

This truth, the most important to human improvement, the most interesting to human affections, was so fully brought to light by the Gospel, that Christians have differed respecting it no further than as to the time and mode in which future retribution will take place. That Jesus died on the cross, was inclosed in the sepulchre, and was led forth thence by the manifest power of God, are facts too well authenticated to be questioned to any purpose by the most hardy sceptic; and on them securely rests the sublime belief which, from the midst of obscurity, had already cheered the bereaved, animated the martyr, and exalted the hopes and fears of the great body of the Hebrew nation. They had been led, like many of the Gentiles, by the mournful questionings of their affections, to inquire concerning a future state, and at length to believe in it; but their indistinct belief was widely different in nature and far inferior in power to the firm and clear faith with which the resurrection of Christ authorized them to look forward. Their former belief was strong enough to reconcile them to death; and perhaps they had sufficiently clear convictions that the future life would be a scene of retribution, to govern their own conduct by some regard to it; but the evidence was not such as to authorize their pressing on the minds of others the motives which the doctrine now affords. Without the evidence of the facts of Christ's resurrection, Paul could not have made Felix tremble at the prospect of judgement to come; or have enforced the duties of masters to their servants by considerations of their accountability to a master in heaven; or have felt how far better it was to depart and be with Christ than to pursue his earthly labors. Without this evidence, Stephen could not have met his fate as if he had been welcoming the hour of rest from which the beams of a new day should awaken him. Without this evidence, no one of the Apostles could have passed through his labors and sufferings with zeal, patience, and cheerfulness; for we have their own testimony, that if in this life only they had had hope in Christ, they would have been of all men the most miserable. Without this evidence, not only would the hopes of millions who have since lived have vacillated, the peace of millions have been at the mercy of sickness and death, and their spiritual strength in perpetual peril from temptation, but the state of morals through the whole civilized world, imperfect as it yet is, would have been far inferior to what we see it, and could never attain the purity which we confidently anticipate in some future age. Without this evidence, Christianity would be almost nothing; for the doctrine of future retribution is not only its most important revelation, but it is so intimately connected with every other, as a sanction, that the Church might as well be supposed complete without its chief corner-stone, as Christianity to be efficacious if deprived of this last grand truth. This evidence we have, however; and possessing it, it is of comparatively little importance how widely men differ in their speculations as to the time and mode in which the future life shall succeed to the present, and as to the nature of the rewards and punishments which shall follow their probation. The belief in a certain and righteous retribution is all that is enforced upon us by Christianity, all that is a necessary consequence of our faith in the resurrection of Christ. Yet, as a tendency to unauthorized speculation, and also a misapprehension of some Scriptural expressions, appear to us to have caused a very extensive forgetfulness that retribution is not only certain, but will be righteous, we must enter on some explanation of our views respecting the extent of punishment of which the life to come is to be the scene.

We say respecting the _extent_ only, because the _nature_ of the punishment is a subject of far inferior importance, and one on which we possess so little light that it may fairly be left to the imagination of each individual to conceive for himself. Some persons, perhaps the great majority of every denomination of Christians, believe that the pains of actual burning will be inflicted on a corporeal frame, susceptible of suffering in the same way as the body which we at present inhabit, but rendered indestructible. Others conceive that the Scripture language which describes the wicked as tormented by fire is metaphorical, and that it clearly refers, by way of allusion, to the valley of Hinnom, where corrupt substances were devoured by worms, and where human sacrifices were offered by fire to Moloch. Such imagine that the future sufferings of the wicked will be purely mental, but not therefore the less severe and awful. If it had been necessary to form clear conceptions on this subject, a fuller light would have been cast upon it; and as that fuller light is not granted, we may fairly suppose that we cannot at present understand the exact nature of the evil of which we are emphatically called on to beware. But of the duration of the evil, we believe ourselves so far qualified to judge, as to anticipate that it will not be eternal.

Our reasons for thus determining are various. It is, in the first place, utterly inconceivable that God should appoint to any individual of his creatures a lot in which misery predominates over happiness. Our belief in the Divine prescience requires that we suppose the fate of every man to be ordained from the beginning. Our faith in the Divine mercy requires that we should expect an overbalance of good in the existence of every being thus ordained; and that in no case can the punishment be disproportionate to the offence. Our faith in the Divine benevolence inspires a conviction that all evil is to be made subsidiary to good, and that therefore all punishment must be corrective, all suffering remedial. Thus far the light of nature teaches us to anticipate the final restitution of sinners.

It is confirmed by revelation,--by every passage of the sacred records which represents God as a tender Father to all the human race, as just and good, as incapable of being 'angry for ever,' or of taking pleasure in the punishment of the wicked, and as chastising in mercy, for corrective purposes. It is confirmed by every passage which describes the good brought into the world by Christ as overbalancing the evil produced by the introduction of sin and death. It is confirmed by every passage which prophetically announces the triumph of the Gospel over all adverse powers,--death, sin, and sorrow. Above all, it is confirmed by the whole tenor of the preachings and writings of the Saviour and his followers,--by the spirit of boundless benevolence, of joyful faith, of exulting hope, which is every where blended with their emphatic warnings of the perils of sin, and their mournful regret for the infatuation of sinners. It appears to us that against all this array of evidence on the one side, little or none can be adduced on the other.

That which is brought forward most frequently and with the most show of reason is the expressions commonly translated _everlasting_, and which are applied both to the future happiness of the righteous and misery of the wicked. These terms (which are much less frequently applied to a future state than is commonly supposed) do not invariably signify 'everlasting' and 'eternal,' as is evident from their being applied to various institutions and states which have already come to an end and passed away: as to the covenant with Abraham, which is declared to have been long since annulled; to the priesthood of Aaron, of which no vestiges remain; and to the flames of Gehenna, which have been quenched for ages. The strictly correct rendering of the terms in these cases is _permanent_, _continual_, _lasting_, and not absolutely eternal.

In order to reconcile the terms as usually rendered with the attribute of Divine justice, some Christians have imagined that the limited punishment of the wicked will be followed by immediate destruction; but this supposition leaves the difficulty where it was before, and is besides destitute of all support from reason or Scripture; as it is incompatible with the character of the Divine dispensations that punishment should be appointed for any but corrective purposes, or that sin and sorrow should triumph in the annihilation of any individual of God's creatures.

If we are asked why then we firmly believe in the immortality of the righteous? we reply, that we found our faith on much better evidence than the use of the terms we have now been considering. We believe it, because the happiness of the creature is the fulfilment of the ends of creation and providence; because happiness is an eternal principle, while misery is only a temporary influence; and because it would argue imperfection in the Deity, if he were either unable or unwilling to prolong a holy and blissful existence.

This doctrine,--of the limited and corrective nature of future punishment,--is often likened by those who disbelieve and disapprove it, to the Catholic doctrine of purgatory; a likeness which Catholics and Unitarians are perhaps equally unwilling to admit, though the latter have little doubt that the belief in purgatory is a corruption of the genuine doctrine as they hold it now.

It was the opinion of many of the Fathers in very early times, that the world would be destroyed by fire; that the good would be purified by the process, and the wicked consumed. It is clear that they derived a part of this belief from some other source than the Scriptures; but it is equally clear that they had no notion of an eternity of torment. Origen, Clemens Alexandrinus, his master, with Gregory Nazianzen, and others of the Fathers, held that the wicked would survive this punishment, and come out purified and fit for a blissful state. The Catholic doctrine of purgatory probably arose out of some of these opinions, though it embraces much which does not appear to have entered into the imaginations of the Fathers. Its substance, as declared in the councils of Florence and Trent, is that every man is liable both to temporal and eternal punishment for his sins; that the eternal punishment may be escaped by faith in the atonement of Christ; but that the temporal must be borne by the individual in this world or at his entrance on the next; that the sufferings of those who undergo purgation may be relieved by the prayers and suffrages of their earthly brethren, though in what manner this relief is wrought, whether by a process of satisfaction, or of intercession, or of any other method, it is not essential to true faith to be certified. Neither is it necessary to know where the place of purgation is; of what nature its pains are, and how long sufferers may be detained there. The belief in purgatory was, for some ages, held by all Christians, except the ancient Waldenses, who left the Church of Rome before the doctrine was established there, and who never admitted it. Soon after the Reformation, it was abandoned by all who left the Church of Rome; so that it has since been peculiar to that church.

Our reasons for rejecting it are, that we find no trace of it in Scripture, and that, as we declared before, we do not admit ecclesiastical traditions as matters of faith. We also reject the notion that any part of the punishment of sin can be escaped through the sacrifices, or mediation, or intercession of any being whomsoever. We have been frequently accused of impairing a divinely appointed sanction by asserting the limited extent of future punishment; but we think that the sanction is, in reality, abolished by the admission that the Divine decrees may be set aside by human acts, and that the relations of good and evil, virtue and vice, which are declared to be immutable, may be changed at the pleasure of mortal agents. We believe the punishment of sin to be of limited duration; but as certain as the existence of the moral agent, and as little capable of remission through the will of any created being as the law which regulates the rise and fall of the tides, the changes of the moon, and the revolutions of the planets. We hold it to be awful, not only from its certainty, but from its concealed nature. It will doubtless transcend all that the experience of earth can suggest to the imagination. Can it be said that we impair this sanction when we hold that the suffering consequent on guilt is absolutely certain, lasting in its duration, and inconceivably dreadful in its nature? What apprehensions could be fitted to excite greater dread?

For the purpose of explaining why we believe that no part of the consequences of guilt can be evaded through the sacrifices, mediation, or intercession of any being whatsoever, it is necessary to pass on to the next division of our subject. Having stated the three leading doctrines of Christianity, the Unity of God, the unlimited scope of the plan of redemption, and a future state, we now proceed briefly to examine the principles of morals proposed by the Gospel.