Not The Doctrine Of Scripture.
By Thomas Davis, M.A.
Yorkshire, London:
Longmans, Green, And Co.
1866.
THE following discourses, with the exception of one, which was delivered more recently, were addressed in the spring of last year to a country congregation, consisting almost exclusively of gentry and their servants. My aim was to be as intelligible to both as moderate justice to my subject would permit.
In publishing them now my object is threefold: first, to afford those among whom I minister an ‘ opportunity of weighing deliberately the arguments already addressed to them; next, to vindicate my own position, as one who has assured them that he cannot with a pure conscience preach any other doctrine on future punishment than that which they have long heard from him; and further, to contribute in some small degree to remove what I believe to be with many a, serious hindrance to faith in the Scriptures.
The long, earnest, painstaking study, which has preceded this step, my deep sense of solemn responsibility in taking it, and my strong reluctance to differ from some with whom, but for the nature of the difference, I should very greatly prefer to agree, are known fully where alone they can be; and in the consciousness of this I must rest.
Whatever opposition I have at any time experienced I am willing to attribute to the same conscientiousness that compelled, on my part, a refusal to yield to it. The only question that I had to determine was, whether I would preach according to my convictions, or forbear to preach altogether.
Some of the arguments employed here have been suggested by the writings of others; some are the fruit of my own reflections: my sole care being to advance none that did not appear to me incapable of refutation. The subject is infinitely too solemn for any but the most honest and the most earnest treatment.
Should any one deal with these pages, let him do so as one to whom Truth is sacred; grappling especially with what appear the strongest, rather than the weakest points they present; and I will carefully weigh his arguments.
I now ask all who may read these lines to consider candidly, and with earnest prayer, that which is here laid before them; and may He who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, guide them to a right conclusion.
February 15, 1866.
MATT. 7. 13, 14.
Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that fold it.
WHEN the question was proposed to our Lord, ‘Which is the first commandment of all? ‘the answer given was—and nothing like it is to be found in all heathen literature—’ The first of all the commandments is, Hear, 0 Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment.’ Hence one of the greatest and most practical uses to which the pulpit can be applied, is to dispel any error which is calculated to hinder, or render more difficult, the exercise of this affection. Precisely according to our love is our piety; and in exact proportion to our piety have we good reason to expect peace on earth and blessedness in heaven.
And let it be well considered and remembered, that true love to the Lord God demands a perception and belief of His goodness. It is not enough that this goodness be authoritatively taught; the intellect must sufficiently perceive it, or the truth will not penetrate and influence the heart. Not that it is necessary for this end, that every difficulty respecting the benevolence of the Supreme Ruler should be solved: it is simply requisite that the evidence for such benevolence should be so abundant and forcible, that all objections should be feeble against it. A child may feel strong love for a parent, while there may be some features in the parental rule which seem to it somewhat harsh and severe; but let the stern features eclipse all the tender ones, and no effort on the child’s part will suffice to prevent the extinction of affection.
It avails nothing to reply to this, that the difference between the child’s and the parent’s mind is limited, while that between the human and divine is infinite; because, if our faculties be so feeble that we cannot form any judgment of that which is excellent and admirable in our Creator, we must at the same time be equally unable to feel any intelligent love for Him. Praise, also, which implies an appreciation of goodness, would be thus rendered impossible. There might indeed be the utterance of its language: there could not be the feeling that is essential to its worth.
Add to this, that the capability of man to estimate in some degree the excellency of his Maker, is very plainly implied in Scripture; as, for example, in those words (to cite but two passages out of many) addressed by the Lord God to Israel: Judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard.’ Are not my ways equal? are not your ways unequal?‘ With these few preliminary remarks, I proceed to the passage of Scripture before us; one of the most solemn in the whole Bible.
In the course of a ministry extending now over a long period, I have never yet been able to bring myself to preach on it. I have felt, of course, that if I took it as a text, I must, as I would be faithful to God and my conscience, declare what I, whether rightly or wrongly, believed to be its true meaning. I have felt that I must not slur over its principal terms, or purposely employ ambiguous language, but preach honestly, as a minister of Christ.
Formerly, I took the ordinary view of it, and shrank like the multitude from even thinking of it. If it is possible to believe what one will not think of, I accepted the common interpretation; but, so far as I am able to judge, I did so with much lurking doubt. In truth, I could not have fully received it without feeling strongly and painfully that a deep gloom was thrown over creation, and that life in this world of temptation and sin was inexpressibly fearful. I have now, however, been able for many years to contemplate steadily this utterance of Christ, and be at the same time conscious that, though the passage is still awful, humble faith is able to accept it, and see that it leaves untouched both the justice and the goodness of the blessed God. However numerous the multitude destroyed, however few the eternally saved, the Judge of all the earth will do right. None has a claim upon Him for immortality; or can even plead that his sentient existence must afford him, of right, a preponderance of good. Life for ten years, life for eighty, is a free gift of God. Long or short, it comes of His bounty, and we all do well to thank Him for creation. Life used aright brings endless bliss; life perverted and misused issues in dreadful, though not endless misery. Let it be added, too, and carefully borne in mind, that life is as essential to suffering as to enjoyment, while destruction puts an end to both.
This, you are aware, is not the common view. According to that, destruction, in our text, means everlasting preservation in woe. And thus we are called to believe that a vast majority of the human race, creatures of the infinitely good God, will suffer this tremendous doom. There is no avoidance of such a conclusion, if we accept the common interpretation of the important term destruction. While the severe aching of a finger, nay, while the absence of ease through never-ending ages were an unutterably awful endurance, we must believe that there is in store for sinners one that is infinitely worse than this. It is indeed sometimes said, that the question whether few or many would be saved, was not determined by our Divine Teacher. But what language can be plainer than our text? We may of course reject it or contradict it, or we may put it away from our thoughts; but its meaning remains, however it be treated; and it is commonly accepted doctrine. It is taught both in our pulpits and in our nurseries:—
Broad is the way that leads to death,
And thousands walk together there; While Wisdom shows a narrower path,
With here and there a traveler.’
In the scriptural sense of the word Death, this is true: in the sense objected to, it seems to me a fearful impeachment of Divine goodness. Well might an able and deeply reflective man write: It amazes me to imagine how thoughtful and benevolent men believing this doctrine, can endure the sight of the present world, and the history of the past.’ I am,’ he adds, without pretending to any extraordinary depth of feeling, amazed to conceive what they do with their sensibility, and in what manner they maintain a firm assurance of the Divine goodness and justice.’
My own belief is that they maintain such assurance by, as I have intimated, not thinking of the doctrine; which is, in truth, practically to reject it. And yet what a resource is this! There is something in the government of my Heavenly Father to which I must shut my eyes. I may understand it some day, but I must not look at it now. It is too terrible to bear contemplation. Is there no escape from the need of such a course?
It is escaped by giving to our text its plainest, most natural, most obvious meaning. The more reverently we deal with our Lord’s words, the less difficulty do we find in believing them. We cannot, indeed, fasten upon the text the frightful and incredible dogma objected to, without a perversion of its clear import. Our Lord here sets before us the punishment of the wicked, whom He represents as numerous; and the reward of the righteous, who, He teaches us, are few,
The wide gate and the broad way figuratively show us how easy and common it is to pursue a course of sin; the strait gate and the narrow way, how difficult it is found, what exertion it demands, and, comparatively, how rare it is, to lead a life of true piety; such piety as He had been teaching in what is termed His Sermon on the Mount.: ‘ Wide is the gate,’ He says, ‘ and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction.’
The Greek term which is rendered ‘destruction’ is, confessedly, very accurately translated; and the question that at once suggests itself is, what is meant by the destruction of a man? I reply, the making an end of him as a man. Just as a tree destroyed (and this is the very illustration suggested by language in immediate connection with our text—that solemn declaration of Christ, that ‘every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, is hewn down and cast into the fire‘)—just, I say, as a tree destroyed has no longer the properties of a tree, so a man destroyed has no longer the properties of a man. His life, his consciousness, his feelings are gone. What becomes of his constituent parts, or, if I may so speak, his primary elements, we know not, any more than we know whither go the primary elements of a tree when it is cut down and burnt in the fire. The latter, we are aware, are not annihilated, although the tree, as such, is no more. So the body and spirit of a man may, for aught that is revealed, or discoverable, not be entirely brought to nothing; al-though the material form, and the attributes of life, thought, and feeling, may be totally and for ever gone.
There seems, indeed, to be an impression on many minds, that a spiritual entity, being, as it is said, a simple substance, cannot be destroyed; but, to pass over the fact that most of us regard as capable of destruction the faculty, whatever it be, whereby many inferior creatures think-, remember, hope, fear, hate, and love, and the equally indisputable truth that the power which could give conscious existence must be able to take it away, the plain warning of our Lord Himself, in this same gospel of St. Matthew, should suffice to preclude such an error. 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.’ It is indeed inferable from this language that the soul does not die when the body dies here; but it seems to be equally plain also, that in the case of the wicked and incorrigible, there will one day be an awful destruction of both. Indeed, those who deny such destruction must directly contradict our text, and several scores of other passages. Nay, if the wicked will never be destroyed, never perish, never die, never come utterly to an end, we must cast aside some hundreds of sentences as not to be received in their natural meaning: their natural meaning, that is, as either directly or implicitly expressed.
I charge no man with intending to do this; but I say for myself, that my choice lies between rejecting what appears to me the plain teaching of that Book on which all my hopes are founded, and believing that the wicked will be ultimately destroyed. Let others say that destruction means endless preservation m misery: I accept what God declares; and I am sure that His truth will better promote virtue than man’s error. Even if I did not see the evil of teaching discordantly with Scripture, I should believe that evil would result from it; but I do see it in various forms. The doctrine of eternal torments has driven some persons mad; causes many to reject the Bible, because they are taught that the Bible contains it; tends to render men harsh and severe; and, in former ages of the world, contributed in no small degree to occasion atrocious and unutterable cruelties. What was the burning of a few minutes to check heresy, which it was supposed would lead to everlasting burnings?*
I have said that ultimately the wicked will be destroyed; for a denial of their immortality is not, as some seem to understand it, a denial of their future existence. We must all,’ it is declared, appear before the judgment seat of Christ: that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.’ And, if there were no sufferings hereafter, we should not read of some being beaten with many stripes, others with few; ‘of a rich man tormented in hell’ (that is, in Hades, not Gehenna); of a day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; ‘ of indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil; ‘of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries.’ All that we can say, on the authority of Scripture, is, that they will be devoured, ’that their end is destruction.’ This, as it appears to me, we must believe, if we rightly accept the sacred volume.
While venturing, however, to say this, I desire much to avoid misconception. Belief is not knowledge. It admits of degrees. We know that light reveals; and we know that darkness hides. It is just as certain as that a square is not a circle; and nothing of which we are less sure is knowledge.
* It has often been said, and with unquestionable truth, that whatever be the character of the God who is worshipped, the worshippers will in some degree grow like him. They cannot contemplate him and do homage to him without; and this I believe will account for much that it is deeply humiliating to reflect on. We have, thank God, no martyrdoms now; but who is not amazed and horrified by crimes that are almost weekly announced to us? Perhaps, if men heard of a God more benignant, they might themselves become more humane.
But belief, on the other hand, may be endlessly graduated, from absolute confidence to faint persuasion. I believe that God is good, with absolute confidence; for not only is it plainly revealed; not only does my moral sense attest it; but it is evident that all good men agree with me; that none but an abandoned blasphemer would deny it.
I will not pretend that I have the same perfect confidence that some men will perish utterly. I simply affirm that this is my belief; and that this, in my unfaltering judgment, is the doctrine to be gathered from Scripture, rather than that of eternal misery, or of ultimate universal salvation. The latter doctrine I could readily accept, if I saw adequate proof of it in Scripture; (although there is certainly no presage of such an issue in the constantly descending moral progress, even to their last moments of many sinners in the present world;) but the evidence which is commonly relied on by its advocates appears to me slender to an extreme degree. Perhaps there is no doctrine which purports to be based on Scripture for which there is less to be adduced from that Volume. A few difficult and obscure passages may be quoted against a multitude that are plain, and which cannot be even plausibly reconciled with the doctrine of universal salvation. The contradiction between them is as complete as that between the two propositions, many shall be destroyed; and, all shall be saved.
Let me, in conclusion, urge you all to lay to heart the language of our text. The way of destruction is broad: the way of life is narrow. Many are called, but few are chosen. The disciples of Jesus are a little flock. Those only are of the number who set their affections upon things above, and live as seeing Him who is invisible. They are born of the Holy Spirit; they have eaten of the Bread of life; they are immortal as one with Christ. To their redeeming God and Savior they are indebted for all good—not simply for happiness in life; but for the life that He makes happy—immortal life, eternal life. The death of the body shall translate them only to a higher existence.
God give us all grace to shun death; to choose life; and in very deed to walk in that narrow but pleasant way which issues in the blessedness of heaven.
MATT. 7. 13, 14.
Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
ALTHOUGH, as stated in the previous discourse, the very essence of religion is love to God; although love cannot be yielded simply in obedience to a command; although it is undeniable that it can only be exercised towards one who is seen to be lovely—there are not a few persons who seem to feel that there can be no danger whatever of exaggerating the strictness or severity of the Almighty. All the danger, in their view, lies on the side of overstating His mercy. From such persons I am constrained to differ greatly. Kindness is the key to the human heart. There are few among the race of men who cannot be touched by the influence of love. The great difficulty is to persuade men that God really does love them; that He feels a paternal interest in them; that all which concerns them concerns Him; that He wills not that any should perish; that He will pardon them the instant they repent and turn to Him in sincerity of heart; and that to open a way for their salvation, compatible with the principles of His government, He in very deed and truth gave up His own dear Son to live on this earth in human form, and after much and varied suffering to die amidst scorn and contempt upon a cross. In fewer words, our main difficulty is, not to persuade men that God will punish the wicked according to the measure of their sinfulness, but to inspire them with a living faith in this most amazing of all truths: that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ Some amongst you will hardly give credit to it; but this I am persuaded is a fact, that, leaving all punishment out of account, it would come this day like a flood of light upon many souls in this church, could they simply believe that God loves them—tenderly, divinely loves them; that they occupy, so to speak, a place in His heart; that they are not lost and out of sight amidst the innumerable creatures of His hands; but that His eye is ever on them; and that no loving earthly father ever so welcomed a prodigal to his home, as God, the great Father, would welcome them, if they would truly turn to Him.
Doubtless, we must speak of punishment; we must tell men plainly, as Scripture does, that God will judge every man according to his works; for God is a Ruler as well as a Father. We must warn them that indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, await all impenitent transgressors; and, if we do not exceed the truth, denouncing everlasting misery, eternal woe, unending despair, of which the Bible says nothing, and of the like of which it says nothing, if we except two or three passages which the Old Testament sufficiently explains (and to which next Sunday I shall ask your attention), I say that if we warn wisely, and do not misstate what is written in Scripture, men, for the most part, will readily believe us; for conscience tells them, and they cannot deny it, that they do deserve heavy punishment. But, I repeat, our more difficult task is to convince them that after all God will remit such punishment, if they repent and believe the Gospel. It seems too amazing to be true, that still there is an open heaven before them, and that they, even they, may, if they will, dwell in it for ever.
Still, whether believed or not, we must proclaim the good tidings; and there is little hope—I grant that there is some—but there is little hope of those who are not thus won to godliness. For the sake of the sinners who do need terror, and, indeed, of the good who occasionally need it, we must declare that the Lord God is to the wicked ‘a consuming fire;’ not an eternally tormenting, but a consuming or destroying fire. Yet our delight must be, and our chief dependence must be, to set forth the truth that ‘God is Love;’ and that the very warnings of His wrath are, rightly apprehended, a proof of it. It was love, brethren, and nothing else, that prompted the utterance of the text before us. And, if it be properly understood, you will, without difficulty, believe this; but once give to the word destruction a meaning which it does not bear according to the custom of any language, and then to believe that God is love, and to trust Him, delight in Him, and praise Him unfeignedly, is too hard a task for the human spirit. True, men persuade themselves that they perform it; but, as I intimated on a former occasion, they profess to believe a frightful dogma; they honestly think that they do believe it; but the very fact that they will not think of it, that they find it too dreadful to think of, and, still more, that not a few of them can eat, drink, sleep, and be merry—all this is to me a proof that with the lips the doctrine is admitted, but in the depths of the soul it is rejected. Nay, let me speak out my whole heart. I believe that in countless cases flesh and blood could not sustain the clear, firm, undoubting conviction that the alternative before us is everlasting happiness in heaven, or everlasting misery in hell.
Of those who have had most faith in it, some have been oppressed and appalled, and some, dreading the temptations of the world, and taught by mistaken priests, have shut themselves out from all commerce with mankind: they have fled away from the sweet influences and kindly ordered discipline of home; to live where the heart withers, and nothing that is most lovely can flourish.
Hence I return to our subject; one of the most practical of all subjects, if true religion be love, and to love God we must know Him. ‘This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent;‘ and no pains that we can take can be too great to ascertain what God really is, and how He will deal with the children of men.
Those who are not sensible of this will, of course, feel little interest in any explanation of our text. I hope, however, better things of you.
Perhaps it is a subject well suited for today, on which we are reminded of the duty of self-denial. For be assured that there are men, to whom to eat, to drink, to sleep temperately is but a small matter compared with uttering at the impulse of conscience that which they know and painfully feel may greatly offend those whom they would gladly please, and whose approval and kindly regards they value and desire to enjoy.
But we must not forget that he who hath put his hand to the plough and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God. Natural feelings, worldly interests, all must be sacrificed to Truth and Duty. Truth and Duty have often required this; and probably they will to the end of time.
Putting together all the passages which teach, either expressly or constructively, that the end of sinners is absolute destruction, the number, it is believed, may be counted by hundreds. Sometimes the word used is, as in the text, ‘destruction’ itself; and destruction, we say, cannot mean endless preservation in misery. Sometimes it is death; and death; we say, cannot mean eternal life in suffering. Sometimes it is being burnt up like chaff; and being burnt up like chaff, we contend, cannot mean being kept unconsumed, like the bush of old, in the flames. Sometimes it is ‘being devoured’ (as in the Scripture, ‘Judgment and fiery indignation shall devour them’); and being devoured, we assert, cannot rightly be thought to signify being kept whole and living to undergo suffering forever. So of several other expressions, such as to ‘perish,’ to be ‘slain,’ to ‘be killed,’ ‘to lose life,’ ‘to be consumed,’ ‘to reap corruption,’ to be ‘blotted out,’ to be ‘rooted up,’ to be ‘cut off,’ ‘to be cut down,’ to be ‘dashed in pieces,’ to ‘be lost,’ to be ‘ground to powder,’ to ‘be cut asunder,’ to be ‘cast away,’ to have ‘the house broken up,’ to be ‘torn in pieces,’ to be ‘put away as dross,’ to ‘melt away,’ not to ‘abide forever,’ to be as ‘nothing.’
Many of these are doubtless figurative phrases; but if they do not indicate finality, no language would suffice to do so. Add to all this the remarkable fact, that Satan is represented as a Murderer from the beginning; not one who keeps eternally alive to torment; and also as the Destroyer’ (‘Apollyon’); not one who preserves forever in misery. Jesus, on the other hand, is called our Life, as opposed to Satan the murderer. In the Syriac, which is the oldest copy of the New Testament, He is styled the Life-giver, a very significant and instructive title. Then He is also called our Savior, as opposed to Satan in his character of Destroyer; and similar remarks might be made regarding some other titles of our Lord.
In fact the doctrine for which I am contending especially exalts the Redeemer of men. We are not immortal independently of Him, and indebted to Him that we are immortal in happiness, instead of being immortal in woe; but for immortality itself, in other words, for eternal life, our only right trust is Jesus Christ. In the fullest sense that you can give to the declaration, He is our Life. We derive from Him Spiritual Life. And by Spiritual life I mean, life through His indwelling Spirit; holy, happy, eternal life; not holiness alone, nor happiness alone, nor simply holiness and happiness combined, but with this, life itself; never ending vital existence.
Those who differ from us give to the term Life a forced and unnatural meaning. To borrow the language of Dr. Whately, Life, as applied to the condition of the righteous, is usually understood to mean happy life. And that theirs will be a happy life, we are indeed plainly taught; but I do not think we are anywhere taught that the word " life " does of itself necessarily imply happiness. If so indeed, it would be a mere tautology to speak of a "happy life," and a contradiction to speak of a " miserable life," which we know is not the case according to the usage of any language. In all ages and countries "life" and the words answering to it in other languages have always been applied in ordinary discourse to a wretched life no less properly than to a happy one. Life therefore in the received sense of the word would apply equally to the condition of the blest and of the condemned, supposing these to be destined to continue forever in misery. And yet to their condition the words life and immortality never are applied in Scripture. [Scripture Revelations of a Future State.]
I ask your attention to this fact. Search the Bible from beginning to end, and nowhere will you find sinners addressed as immortal beings. I do not mean as beings who survive the grave, but as absolutely immortal, or endowed with eternal life. Common as it is to do so in sermons, they are never warned in Scripture as they value their immortal souls to shun sin; never warned there as they value their immortal souls to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. The Great Teacher who came down from heaven did on no single occasion address men as naturally imperishable; neither did any one of His apostles. How could they, consistently with the doctrine which is the very burden of the Gospel, that through faith we live forever; that he that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life? How could they, and preach at the same time that those only who believed in Christ should not perish but have everlasting life? If to perish is to be immortal, words have no certain meaning; and if to die is to live for ever, whether in suffering or in bliss, no language can be confidently construed. It is worthy, I think, of especial remark, that the Apostle Paul, who preeminently, after his Lord’s ascension to heaven, and the ampler effusion of the Spirit which succeeded that great event, wrote very copiously on the doctrines of the Gospel, never adverts to eternal suffering. Numerous as are his invaluable epistles, various as are the topics of which they treat, frequently as his arguments and earnest exhortations must have suggested a notice of the doctrine, if it had formed part of his faith, no one can point out a single sentence which either expressly or implicitly contains it. [There is the same silence upon it throughout the Acts of the Apostles.] Supposing that he held it, he kept it back; he thought it better to be silent regarding it; he counted it needless, and not to be disclosed till men should discover it when their destiny was fixed. But who will. believe this of him who, as he would be pure from the blood of all men, made it his purpose honestly and fearlessly to declare all the counsel of God? No one, surely, will affirm that Paul was a man of reticence or cautious reserve regarding sacred truth; and that he was this respecting a doctrine which if he knew it, and counted it true, it would have been recklessly cruel to withhold, is, we presume, too extravagant a thought to need that a moment should be spent in its refutation. This however is not all. Again and again Paul uses the common language, death, destruction, perish, and so forth. Indeed a careless reader of his words, looking too much to one class of passages, might even suppose he did not hold that the wicked would so much as know a resurrection; but that this would be a destiny peculiar to the righteous, who like himself watched and strove, if by any means they might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
Such a conclusion, however, would doubtless be erroneous. For another class of passages teach plainly that every one of us shall give account of himself to God; ‘ that we must 94 appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.’
All that we assert of Paul’s doctrine regarding the wicked hereafter is, that it was perfectly consistent with that of the other sacred writers, and knew nothing of eternal misery. As for such language as we find in Tertullian and others, some of which I shall adduce in a subsequent discourse, there is nothing to be found in his writings or addresses that bears even a remote resemblance to it: the difference, be it always remembered, between temporary and eternal anguish being in strictest speech infinite.
Now I think that if the argument rested here, if I could simply establish the fact, that the vast body of scripture passages teach the ultimate destruction or absolute death of the wicked, consistently with its doctrine that Satan is a Destroyer, a Murderer, and Jesus a Savior, a Life-giver, the conclusion would be easy to a sound reasoner, not misled by early education. Be it that in a large volume like the Bible, transmitted to us through strange and amazing vicissitudes, there may be found two or three sentences that seem out of harmony with its general teaching, and, more than this, seem to contain doctrines that represent God as immeasurably severe—are the hundreds of texts to yield to the two or three, or the two or three to yield to the hundreds? Say if you will that they are absolutely contradictory, that they cannot in any way be reconciled, what is the wise course, what is the reasonable course, for those who still hold to the Bible as a whole? Surely it must be to accept the many, and wait for a future explanation of the few.
But to my view there is no certain contradiction. The two or three texts in question may perhaps be reconciled with the multitude. And to those I shall soon ask your attention. I will only notice, at the present time, one or two of the few passages that are usually quoted for the common doctrine; but which, however, I do not regard as really presenting much difficulty.
One is the representation in the second chapter of Genesis, that man became a living soul. ‘God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.’
Now we need not spend much time on this. Turn either here or at your homes to a Bible containing the marginal readings, and look at the thirtieth verse of the first chapter of the same book of Genesis. You will there read, To every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and everything that creeps upon the earth wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat.’ Now the margin will show you that everything that creeps upon the earth wherein there is life’ might have been translated ‘everything that creeps upon the earth wherein there is a living soul.’ Then, for the phrase the ‘breath of life,’ you will not need any help from the margin. In the sixth chapter at the seventeenth verse you may read, ‘Behold I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh (not simply man, but all flesh), wherein is the breath, of life;‘ and the same language is used in the seventh chapter at the twenty-second verse, in reference, along with man, to fowl, cattle, and creeping thing.
There is another argument about as common, and hardly, I think, stronger, derived from the same book. In order to prove that all men, wicked and good, are immortal, the one immortal for misery, the other immortal for bliss, we are reminded that God made man in His own image.’
The argument of course is this: God made man in His own image. God is immortal, therefore man is immortal. Now, if that argument be good, this also is good, as every competent reasoner will admit. God made man in His own image: God is almighty, therefore man is almighty; or this, God made man in His own image: God is omniscient, therefore man is omniscient.
Those who feel not the force of this answer, perhaps would not be brought to feel it by any more lengthened or elaborate expression of it.
But for a moment let us suppose that man was made constitutionally immortal. Would this imply that God gave man eternal life, to be held thenceforth independently of Him; and that, let it be used as it might? Was the gift of life absolute; totally unconditional? This were inconsistent with the Sovereignty of Omnipotence.
We turn however to the language of Scripture. To man, though made in God’s image, death is threatened in case of transgression. The well-known penalty for eating of the forbidden tree is thus expressed: ‘In the day that thou eats thereof thou shalt surely die;‘ or, as it is in the Hebrew, and as the margin shows you, ‘dying thou shalt die,’ words of the most emphatic character. Now these words are interpreted to mean, dying thou, shalt never die. Just as destruction is taken to signify eternal preservation in woe; and being burnt up like chaff is taken to signify being kept unconsumed, like the bush in the flames, and that, unlike the bush, for ever; so, ‘as I have said, dying thou shalt die’ is construed as meaning dying thou shalt ‘never die. Death indeed is threatened, but then it is a living death;’ or, as a recent writer has called it, a deathless death.’
Where do we read of a ‘living death,’ or of a ‘deathless death’ in Scripture? Nowhere—nor of anything like it. In strictness, the words have no meaning. You might as well speak of a light darkness, or a white blackness, or a straight crookedness. True, in a kind of bold rhetoric, you may speak of a living death with a meaning which would be well understood. It is the language of hyperbole, or of figurative exaggeration. But to use such a phrase in close argument, or to construe after this manner the words of the Almighty in the original threatening to man, is in the highest degree unreasonable. Dying thou shalt die’ could not have signified either thou shalt never die, or thou shalt endure a living death.
You will naturally ask how it comes to pass that men can so interpret Scripture? They do it, however unintentionally, by what I must term a species of Rationalism. It is a new word, but I suppose it has some meaning; and, if it means anything, it must be reasoning against revelation; not of course reasoning itself, for it is through reasoning that the mind is satisfied that it must bow to the authority of Scripture; but reasoning against what Scripture says, and, confining our attention to the points before us, what it says plainly in numerous passages.
They first reach by a process of reasoning, provably as I think unsound, the dogma of the absolute immortality of all men (of which Scripture says not a word); and then, by a further process, they arrive at the doctrine of eternal misery for all who shall fail of eternal happiness.
The strongest among the natural proofs of the immortality of the human soul is, as it appears to me, the aspiration to it, which is common to the race. But then, to what do we aspire? Not, assuredly, to an immortality of woe, but to an immortality of bliss: and that this latter is attainable the aspiration itself is a most powerful evidence. It could not have been given us to delude and disappoint. There would seem to be a falsehood branded in our nature if we may not acquire eternal blessedness.
I must now, brethren, hasten to a close, although there is much to be said.
Again, everyone amongst us may choose between life and death. Once more the Savior says to us, ‘Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be that go in thereat; because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.’
Now, I say, take these words in their plain sense. Do not deal irreverently with Scripture, and reason away its plain import. They come from Him who is alike the Way, the Truth, and the Life; who is willing to quicken us with that life which He has in Himself; that life which alone is eternal, and without which we have no life in us; that is, no life which compared with that is worthy of the name. True, His words are very solemn, but the strait gate is as yet open; true, there is a broad way, but the broad way may still be shunned. Why will any of us choose destruction? Why will we refuse immortal life?
May the Author and Giver of all good incline us to take the narrow way. None ever tried it yet that did not find it a pleasant way. It is lit by the rays of Divine goodness; it runs by the river of life; the sweet flowers of hope and love bloom, and never wither, beside it; and if there be here and there some thorns and tangling briers, the bright prospect is still before us, and soon there is the paradise of bliss.
MATT. 7. 13, 14.
Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
TRUTH not seldom, as many have remarked, lies between two extremes: and there I believe that it lies in respect to the future punishment of sin.
Some, though a fast-decreasing number amongst intelligent and thoughtful men, hold that in a future state the wicked will suffer everlasting torments, or, as it is sometimes styled, everlasting misery. It matters little which expression we choose. An existence positively evil forever; an existence which is short of ease through endless millions of centuries, as a retribution of human sin, is a punishment equally contrary to reason and, in my judgment, to Scripture. Especially I reject it as contrary to Scripture, and I hope you will well observe that as yet all my arguments have been drawn from that volume. I am quite prepared to argue the question upon the ground of reason only; but at present our inquiry is, what is revealed in the sacred pages? We leave reason now out of the question, except so far as we absolutely need it to collate Scripture, and draw our conclusions.
Some think that they render the doctrine of eternal misery more credible, or less shocking to the reflective and benevolent heart, by maintaining that eternal misery is not simply a penalty for the sins of this world but that with eternal misery there will be also eternal wickedness. But then they hold at the same time that all probation ceases here; that there is no likelihood or even moral possibility of reform hereafter; but that the sinner grows worse and worse; whence practically the punishment is endless suffering and endless sin—endlessly increasing sin. So that what the Almighty will have in His universe in the course of some millions of ages is too revolting and terrible to reflect upon. He who can believe this must surely need thought rather than argument.
A second class who utterly reject the dogma of everlasting suffering, whether for sins committed here or for sins committed both here and hereafter, go to what I must call another extreme. They maintain that ultimately all will be saved. So far are they from believing that broad is the way which leadeth to destruction, they hold that there is no way which leadeth to destruction; but that final preservation awaits the whole race. The favorite and most eminent poet of our day appears to belong to this latter class. In a poem well nigh in every library we find, for example, these words:—
Behold we know not anything:
We can but trust that good may fall
At last, far off, at last to all,
And every winter change to spring.
On this I will only say, that, pleasing as such a prospect would be, the hope of ultimate good for all is quite inconsistent with the text before us, and, so far as I can see, with the general teaching of the Bible.
Hence if such error be widely afloat, and if it be, as I believe it is, adverse to the highest interests of men; if it be quite impossible to adopt it, and receive Christ’s words in their natural sense, then I say that the minister of the Gospel has much need to deal with the subject, and to deal with it copiously, not slightly, as touching the chief verities of our faith.
The difference between a God who will torment forever, and one who at last will save all, is, I need not tell you, infinite. And if neither of these doctrines be true, bearing as they do on the character of the Supreme and His dealings with the children of men, it is of the highest importance that we should know it.
The truth, as I have intimated, appears to me to lie between these two extremes. None will suffer eternal misery; all will not at last be saved; but each will be judged according to his works; and, as our text teaches, the broad way issues in destruction, the narrow way in life everlasting.
This, in two former discourses, I have endeavored to prove from Scripture; and now we have to consider the few passages that are by some supposed to contradict it.
But first I must just repeat, and the rather because some are present to-day who were absent when I last discoursed on the subject,* that putting together all the texts which teach either directly or constructively that the end of sinners is absolute destruction, the number is several hundred. Sometimes the expression used is, as in the text, ‘Destruction’ itself; and Destruction, we say, cannot mean endless preservation in misery. Sometimes it is ‘Death;‘ and Death, we say, cannot mean everlasting life in suffering. Sometimes it is being ‘burnt up like chaff;’ and being burnt up like chaff, we contend, cannot signify being kept unconsumed like the bush of old in the flames. Sometimes it is being ‘devoured’ (as in the threatening ‘judgment and fiery indignation shall devour them’); and being devoured, we affirm, cannot denote being kept whole and living to undergo suffering for ever. Sometimes it is perish; ‘ and perish, we assert, cannot signify live to feel pain for endless ages.
* I might have said also with truth, because experience has fully taught me, that, in popular addresses especially, repetition of main arguments is absolutely indispensable if we would convince. Nothing is done effectually without it. My own aim was to convince, and therefore I did not scruple to repeat; nor did I care to vary my language.
For reasons also which I need not state here, I think it desirable that each sermon should appear substantially just as it was preached. So of several other expressions; such as to be slain,’ to be killed,’ to lose life,’ to be consumed;’ to reap corruption,’ ‘to be blotted out,’ ‘to be rooted up,’ ‘to be cut off,’ ‘to be cut down,’ ‘to be cut asunder,’ to be dashed in pieces,’ to be lost,’ to be ground to powder,’ ‘to be cast away,’ ‘to have the house broken up,’ to be put away as dross,’ to be torn in pieces,’ to melt away,’ not to abide forever,’ ‘to be as nothing.’ I have also reminded you of the names of Satan, the ‘Murderer from the beginning,’ not one who keeps for ever alive to torment, and the Destroyer’ (Apollyon), not one who preserves for ever in woe. I have adverted likewise to the designation of Jesus, our Life,’ or, as in the Syriac copy of the New Testament, the Life-giver,’ as opposed to Satan, the Murderer; and also to the title Savior as opposed to that of Satan, the Destroyer.
Then, after noticing the meaning of the word life, and asserting the undeniable truth that life is as essential to suffering as to enjoyment, I observed that if the argument rested here, the conclusion, as it seemed to me, would be plain. The hundreds of passages must overbear the few, even if the few seemed to conflict with them. But I think we shall find that they may be reconciled.
I proceed now to the first passage, the very first in the whole Bible, that can with the faintest colour of reason be quoted to prove the common doctrine; not to prove that the wicked suffer hereafter, for that is not denied; but that they suffer for ever hereafter; not to prove that they never enter heaven, for that is admitted; but that they live eternally in hell.
And where do we find this first passage? Certainly not in either of the five Books of Moses. There is not a line in one of these about everlasting misery; not a line that it can be alleged contains that phrase, or similar words, or any that bear such a meaning. And the history embraced in those five books is commonly reckoned to extend over a period of about 2,500 years. The same silence on endless misery prevails in all the various intermediate books between the first five and the Psalms. It is the same in the Psalms themselves; the same in the three books between the Psalms and the Prophets. We then come to the book of the Prophet Isaiah; we proceed more than half through it, and at length appears the passage I shall quote. But first let me ask you to observe well that before we have reached this passage in Isaiah we have passed over about 1,000 years more in the history of the human race. So that of all the many millions of mankind who had lived and died from the day of creation during this long period, not one had heard from inspired lips a syllable about endless suffering. They were all, according to the common doctrine, not only by nature immortal creatures, but all destined to spend eternity either in happiness or in woe; yet the great and good God who created them never on one single occasion gave them any intimation of this. For more than 3,000 years there was no whisper of it to the human race. They possessed life Ander this alternative—this amazing and tremendous alternative —but no man received the faintest warning of it.
But the case is yet stronger than this representation of it. Not only had the millions of men who had dwelt on this earth, and passed away during more than 3,000 years, never heard of eternal misery, never heard of immortality in suffering, but those who possessed the sacred books had constantly read in them what was contrary to such a doctrine. In these they were warned, again and again, that the wicked would perish—perish for ever; that the wicked would be destroyed—be destroyed for ever. All that these books contained regarding the future destiny of sinners was in strict consistency with our text, and with such words as these, ‘When the wicked do spring as the grass, and all the workers of iniquity do flourish, it is that they shall be destroyed for ever,’ —not, as we have said, be preserved for ever to suffer either more or less, but be destroyed for ever. The Psalms especially contain many passages kindred in their meaning to this. If you say that all these passages respect only temporal judgments, you do not abate the difficulty, you only increase it. There are none stronger, none more explicit; and therefore you suppose the great Ruler of men to threaten only temporal judgments, but to intend, without threatening, to inflict what were infinitely worse.
Passing, now, to the first text that can be quoted for the ordinary doctrine, it is this: The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? (Is. 33. 14.) These are the terms in which we must believe God first announces to the human race that dinners are immortal for evil, or that they will live for ever in woe.
Now observe, first, that the words supposed to contain the doctrine are an exclamation of the sinners themselves, not a solemn announcement from heaven of a great and terrible decree never yet heard of from the day of creation. No one can pretend that the words come upon us as if this were their amazing character; but some sinners in Zion, we know not whom, nor the nature of their sins, except that they were hypocrites—some sinners in Zion being under great terror, from causes not plainly expressed, nor easily discovered with certainty; these sinners in their terror exclaim, ‘Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire?’ and then, after the bold manner of Eastern speech, the same devouring or consuming fire is styled everlasting burnings. Now the ablest and best commentators on Scripture differ very widely indeed as to what this passage refers to; but the most common opinion is that it respects the dire destruction which God threatened to Sennacherib’s army, compared to the effects of devouring or consuming fire. The sinners in Zion when they see this executed are supposed to give utterance to the words in question, enquiring who amongst them could endure such wrath, who could live on, who could abide among such devouring flames? How utterly consuming they were may be learnt from the immediately preceding context, in which we read that the people shall be like thorns cut up and consumed in the fire —so rapid, so complete would be the destruction of the Assyrian army. This text has no relevance, none whatever, to the punishment of sinners in a future world; and even if we assumed the contrary, it speaks of fire that as much consumes as flames consume thorns cut up.
Such, then, is the first text in the Bible which it can even be pretended teaches the doctrine of Endless Misery. I refer to it not as one of the two or three which do present some difficulty, but as one that is frequently adduced. It might not unfairly have been left unnoticed; but I desire to evade nothing—to show you the utmost that can be said, either with real or apparent force, in favor of the common tenet. I must leave other texts for a future occasion.
I will ask you, in conclusion, to weigh this fact. It is commonly supposed that to deny the doctrine of Eternal Misery is to imperil the morals of society—to open, indeed, the very floodgates of iniquity. Whether men will believe it or not (and very few sinners do believe it, as all experienced ministers could attest, especially those who are most conversant with the alleys and courts of our large towns)—whether men will believe it or not, it must, many persons think, be preached from our pulpits, and taught in our tracts, lest wickedness should be still more rife than it is. This is the honest and earnest conviction of tens of thousands in the present day. And yet God, who knows what is in man, left the world without the doctrine up to at least the time of Isaiah. Assuming, that is—what I deny—that Isaiah did teach the doctrine, certainly it was never taught before. Not a line can be quoted by a reasonable man in refutation of this assertion.
I do not pause again on the phrase dying thou shalt die; because, to suppose that this meant dying thou shalt never die, but live in everlasting misery, is too extravagant to need that we should revert to it. But, leaving this out of account, I say, that never till the time of the chief prophet did the world hear of immortality in woe.
The world, then, does not need the doctrine; nay, it will never believe it; and, unhappily, being taught that it is in Scripture, not a few, it is quite certain, cast away Scripture and the doctrine too.
And now, brethren, my chief object in the series of brief discourses which at present engage ns, is at one and the same time to confirm your faith in Holy Scripture, and to increase your love to that Savior who brought life and immortality to light. For what persons He brought it to light effectually might be shown in a large number of passages; sufficient, if we said nothing more, to occupy the time of one discourse. But search and examine the Scriptures for yourselves. If Jesus brought immortality to light, you will find it in His own words; and where else can you find it, save in that large multitude of texts which teach us that He is the Life of men? He does not inform us that all men are immortal, but those He represents as thus distinguished, who trust, love, and follow Him. This is emphatically the prominent doctrine of the simple and sublime Gospel of St. John. It abounds more especially in its fifth and sixth chapters, bat it prevails throughout the whole.*
* The language of those who are styled the Apostolical Fathers strikingly agrees in this respect with the language of Scripture. Clement, for example, in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, writes thus: How blessed and wonderful, beloved, are the gifts of God; life in immortality, brightness in righteousness, truth in full assurance, faith in confidence, temperance in holiness! and in the immediately subsequent paragraph, ‘By Him’ (Jesus) God would have us taste the knowledge of immortality.’
Ignatius, in his Epistle to the Ephesians, writes: For this cause did the Lord suffer the ointment to be poured on His bead, that He might breathe the breath of immortality into His Church. Why do we suffer ourselves foolishly to perish, not considering what the Lord has truly sent to us? and at the close of the Epistle, ‘Breaking one and the same bread, which is the medicine of immortality, our antidote that we should not die, but live for ever in Christ Jesus.’ It is absolutely undeniable that Ignatius here represents immortality, or living for ever, as peculiar to those who are in Christ Jesus. With him the two expressions are equivalent, and, this once granted in the language of Jesus and His Apostles, the question here discussed is settled. In St. John’s Gospel especially, let eternal life’ be regarded as denoting immortality, and who will possess immortality is clear beyond question.
In his Epistle to the Magnesians, Ignatius writes: ‘Should He have imitated our works, we had not now had a being.’ No language could more unambiguously express utter destruction than this. Addressing Polycarp in a brief Epistle, he thus encourages him: ‘Be sober as the combatant of God: the crown proposed to thee is incorruptibility and eternal life.’ The language of Barnabas, in his Catholic Epistle, is equally explicit on the same point: ‘He who does such things shall be glorified in the kingdom of God; but he that chooses the other part shall be destroyed together with his works.’ What kind of destruction is this? What is the glorification which is thus contrasted with it? More will be found on the teaching of the Fathers in the last discourse of this series.
Everywhere we find immortal life to be the gift of Christ to His people. Nowhere in the Bible is it brought to light for the wicked, and certainly not through the Gospel. It were the strangest of all propositions, that the doctrine of Eternal Misery, not revealed in the Old Testament, was first brought to light in the Good Tidings. Life and death are again set before us. Happy is he who chooses life!
MATT. 7. 13, 14.
Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
HE who has duly tried the effect of habitual kindness and well-timed praise in the government and education of the young, will easily believe that Divine rule is exercised on similar or analogous principles. To him it will be quite credible that encouraging promises, gracious gifts, and the approving voice of conscience, God’s vicegerent in the human soul, are infinitely more promotive of love and obedience than terrible threatenings or severe punishments.
It is not of course meant to deny that God does use threatenings and punishments, but assuredly the measure of either of them is beyond expression less than that of His great promises and gifts. He menaces punishment to incorrigible sinners; and He very plainly reveals that He will not keep them for ever in His universe. The end of the persistently rebellious is destruction. But He promises to the good, and He grants to the good, even in this present life, blessings vast, various, manifold; and, beyond this present life, joy unspeakable and full of glory through everlasting ages. The worst punishment, though dreadful, is measured: the best reward is eternal in duration, and, in a sense, without limits.
Hence this life of probation is a boon for which none can be thankful enough. There is no exposure to an infinite evil; there may be attained an infinite good: a truth which resolves numerous difficulties that can be resolved in no other way. What life would be in a sinful world, if it could issue in eternal misery, is a question not hard for intelligence to answer.
Let no one be alarmed at what has been said, as if the belief of it would be perilous to morals. What men want is scriptural doctrine in which they are able to exercise belief, not grievous misconstructions of Scripture, which sinners cast aside as incredible. Faith in what is true and revealed is all that is needed to regenerate the world.*
* I have often endeavored to enforce this, in common with several writers upon the subject, by reference to human legislation; and I find the following passage in a work that has appeared (or, at all events, which I have read) since this discourse was preached—a work, I believe, of unanswerable force on the main point, however open it may be to exception upon others -It was long an axiom with politicians, that if any particular species of crime became dominant, the method to be adopted for its repression was unique—namely, an increase of the penalties annexed. Should such increase prove insufficient, a further addition was to be imposed, and so on, until the highest penalty which the law was able to inflict became annexed to the prevailing offence. This theory tinged all our penal legislation for years; but its fallacy, so far as temporal government is concerned, has been long recognized; and its practice, in Great Britain at least, has been consequently abandoned. We should never dream of hanging a man for cutting down a cherry-tree, or stealing a shilling, no matter how common either of these crimes might become. But it is curious to notice how the long-exploded fallacy still lingers in theology.’—Eternal Punishment and Eternal Death, by J. W. Barlow, M.A. (Longmans.)
The same truth had been enforced by the Rev. Edward White, one among the earliest and best of the writers of this century on the subject; though his volume, as was almost inevitable at the period when he engaged in the controversy, was not wholly free from error. The gist of all recent arguments may be found there; and I acknowledge with deep gratitude my own obligation to it. Although I only accepted confidently, after long study, his general conclusion, I shall never forget how much light his earnest pages threw upon my faith, and the great relief that I derived from their perusal. The volume was written by Mr. White in early life, and he would probably modify much of its argumentation now; but published with admirable moral courage, and a noble disregard of temporal interests, it has done good service in the cause of Truth. The title of his volume is Life in Christ.’ (Jackson & Walford.)
That the doctrine of Eternal Misery is not needed for moral purposes, I aimed to make evident in my last discourse; adhering, as my object demands, to that which is revealed in the Scriptures as we have them, and not discussing other matters.
Now, I believe it is not revealed that there is any being in the universe capable of tormenting for ever, or of inflicting misery for ever: of course, I mean morally capable. And if men had never believed that there was, they might less have tormented one another than they have, and less numerously have rejected in practice that sacred and blessed volume which they have been taught contains the doctrine. Most persons too much fix their attention upon a few texts of the Bible, regardless of its general teaching, respecting the future punishment of the wicked. Many far too little consider the context of the passages they quote concerning it, and very few take the pains of ascertaining from the Old Testament what was the meaning in Jewish speech of various expressions that we are familiar with in the New. They read, for example, of ‘unquenchable fire,’ and ‘fire that shall not be quenched;‘ and if they carefully searched the Old Scriptures, they would learn from them that such language meant fire that utterly consumed that which was exposed to its action. Take one or two proofs of this out of many that I might adduce; remembering that our question is still, not what saith human reason, but what saith divine revelation on the subject we are now discussing?
In the twentieth chapter of the prophecy of Ezekiel you may read these words: ‘Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face toward the south, and drop thy word toward the south, and prophesy against the forest of the south field: And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the Lord; Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour’ (mark, devour, or, as we read in other places, consume)—’ it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein: And all flesh shall see that I the Lord have kindled it: it shall not be quenched.’*
* I give texts in full rather than references to them; because it is a simple fact that such is the indifference of many to the great question here discussed, that we cannot make too easy the means whereby they may acquire information on it.
Ezekiel when uttering this prophecy was in the northern part of Chaldea, and consequently Judea lay to the south of him. The forest of the south was highly figurative language, like that generally employed by the Prophets. It imaged the people of that southern land, who in various ways were offending God, and had proved so incorrigible that they must be cut off. Mercies, judgments, all had been tried; and not once nor twice only, but many times: and now came the dreadful threatening. The people should be as forest-trees devoured by fire that could not be quenched; that is, as the words mean, could not be extinguished till its work was done.
Take another proof from the seventeenth chapter of Jeremiah: But if ye will not hearken unto me to hallow the sabbath-day, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath-day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour’ (mark again devour, or, as I said before, consume)—’ it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.’ Does anyone suppose that the palaces of Jerusalem would burn on, and burn forever, because it is said the flame shall not be quenched? No; it is plain the meaning is, that nothing should stay the destructive flame until it had consumed utterly.
Now this language, and much more like it, was well known, you will remember, to the Jewish people, who were subsequently addressed by our Incarnate Lord. They had heard it from their childhood: it was constantly read in their synagogues: many of them doubtless knew it by heart. Whenever our Lord quoted Scripture to them, we find them, so to speak, quite at home. They never asked Him where the passage was; they never for a moment hesitated to accept it as being in their sacred writings. Hence, when our Lord employed the figurative language that was so familiar to them, they, whatever we might do, might well be expected to regard it (although, it is true, they often misunderstood Him) as signifying absolute destruction, that destruction which we read of in my text: Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction.’ To place this matter still further beyond question, we find that the poet Homer, of whom you have all heard, uses the Greek for unquenchable’ in the same limited sense.* [* Iliad, bk. 8.169, and bk. 16.123.]
Add to this, that the well-known historian Eusebius, who wrote in the latter part of the third century and the beginning of the fourth, presents us with evidence equally to our purpose. In recording the martyrdom of four Christians he writes: ‘Cronion and Julian were scourged, and afterwards consumed with unquenchable fire.’ And, in another passage: ‘Epimachus and Alexander, who had continued for a time in prison enduring innumerable sufferings from the scrapers and scourges, were also destroyed with unquenchable fire.’ What can show more conclusively the customary meaning of this language? The martyrs were consumed: therefore the fire was unquenchable. [Eccl. Hist. book 6, chapter 41.]
Let this then suffice (though similar proof might be quoted from the Apocrypha) for those few passages that are usually adduced in favor of the common doctrine, because they contain the words ‘unquenchable fire,’ or ‘fire that shall not be quenched.’
Of the words ‘Where their worm dies not,’ the common explanation seems quite sufficient. It is evidently a quotation from that portion of Isaiah where we read—’They shall go forth and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me; for their worm shall not die; neither shall their fire be quenched.’ The prophet is generally acknowledged to be referring to the dead bodies of malefactors, which, with various refuse, were exposed in the valley of Hinnom: whence is derived the word Gehenna. This valley lay close to Jerusalem, on the south-east. It was the place where the idolatrous Jews celebrated that horrible rite of making their children pass through the fire, that is, of burning them in sacrifice to Moloch. To put a stop to, this abominable practice, Josiah defiled or desecrated the place by filling it with human bones (2 Kings 23.), and probably it was the custom afterwards to throw out the carcasses of animals there, and it became the common burial-place for the poorer people of Jerusalem. [Lowth on Isaiah 66.]
It has been supposed that fires were constantly burning there, while the worm might be seen preying on corruption. Such was the dread image of Hell, in other words, the Gehenna of fire! And here let it be specially remarked, there were not in this valley of Hinnom the same bodies kept unconsumed, but a succession of bodies preyed upon by worms and quenchless flames, and by such means utterly destroyed. The place alone remained: the carcasses passed away.
Then, as respects the expression ‘everlasting fire,’ it is quite clear that in Jewish phraseology this, when used in relation to future punishment, had the same meaning as unquenchable fire. Let me here also furnish you with the means of testing what I say for yourselves.
Matthew and Mark both give us an account of precisely the same discourse, a very solemn discourse of Christ, in which He tells men what to do if their hand, or their foot, or their eye offend them. He uses language which no man construes literally, but the meaning of which is sufficiently evident. According to Matthew, Christ’s words were, as far as respects the point in question, into the everlasting fire; according to Mark, into the ‘unquenchable fire,’ or, the ‘fire that shall not be quenched,’ showing that to their apprehension the words were coextensive in meaning. They used them, we should say, interchangeably or indifferently.
The sense which the phrase properly bears in Scripture is of course its true sense in the Athanasian Creed. (See Art. 6.) The Homilies arc only generally accepted by the clergy. (Art. 35.) The two chapters I quote from are the eighteenth of Matthew and the ninth of Mark.
Observe, further, that Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them, are spoken of by Jude as suffering ‘the vengeance of eternal fire.’ No one supposes that Sodom and Gomorrah and the other cities are at this time burning; we simply conclude that the fire spoken of did utterly consume or destroy them. A prophet might have spoken of them as brought to shame, or brought to everlasting contempt; eternal disgrace rested on their memory. [Compare Dan. 12.2 with Jer. 23.39, 40.]
But then, it will be said by some, we read in the fourteenth chapter of Revelation of certain worshippers of the Beast and his image who ‘shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: And the smoke of their torment ascended up for ever and ever.’ Now no person of common intelligence, and assuredly no recognized commentator, interprets these words literally; no man worthy to be listened to believes that it will be part of the happiness of heaven to witness the sufferings thus awfully represented as inflicted on the worshippers of the Beast and his image!
The language is evidently in the highest degree figurative. All are agreed upon this. And the simplest, the easiest, the most satisfactory- way of ascertaining the true meaning of the words in it which affect our present question, is just to ascertain what similar words mean in other prophetical book s of Scripture.
At the outset it seems very improbable that here, in the last book of the Bible—here in its most symbolical and beyond question most difficult book, we should find either the first or the best proof of the deeply awful doctrine we are discussing. Plainly, if it is not elsewhere, none could anticipate that we should find it here; and least of all would they anticipate it, who know in how endlessly various a manner much of the language of this chapter has been construed. It would doubtless greatly amaze any one to peruse all the pages that have been written upon these words. I shall content myself with one quotation out of many that I might adduce in illustration of the phraseology in question, when used, as it frequently was, by the prophets.
In the thirty-fourth chapter of Isaiah judgments are denounced against the land of Idumea; and the prophet employs this language: It is the day of the Lord’s vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion: and the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever; from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever.’
Now here again no one construes literally; no one supposes that the streams of Idumea have been turned into pitch, or the dust thereof into brimstone, or the land thereof into burning pitch. No one supposes that flames have been kindled in it that have not been quenched night nor day; nor that the smoke thereof is going up at this time, much less will go up for ever. There is no land upon the face of the earth to which such language literally applies, or to which any one would think of so applying it.
What, then, is its real meaning? There can be but one opinion upon the point. Its real meaning evidently is utter desolation and ruin, or, in a sense, destruction. There, the prophet adds in the context. ‘There where the flame shall not be quenched, there where the smoke shall go up for ever, The beasts of the desert shall meet also with the wild beasts of the island . . . and the great owl shall make her nest.’ Surely, when this language so closely corresponds with that which we find in the Revelation of St. John, no one should ever quote the latter to prove the eternal torments of the lost; especially when the plain, less figurative parts of Scripture tell us, as my text does, that the wicked shall be destroyed.
The remarks which have now been made will apply to every text of Scripture that can even be supposed to teach the doctrine of everlasting misery, with the exception of one passage (Matthew 25.46), on which I purpose to discourse next Sunday. That in my judgment is the portion of Scripture which presents the most serious difficulty on our subject; but I think we shall see that it can be reconciled with the large number of other passages, which either directly or by implication teach that the end of the wicked is destruction. Of course, the parable of the rich man in Hades (not Gehenna) shows plainly that there will be future punishment; but that parable reveals nothing as to the eternity of the sufferings endured: and this alone you will remember is the point to which we have been giving our attention. The same may be said of those few texts which speak of sins that are never forgiven.’ He who is at last forgiven would not fail utterly of eternal life. Bat this, of course, will never be attained by those who shall literally perish.*
* It has been asserted, repeated, and reiterated, till many persons regard it as an unquestionable truth, that our faith in the eternity of the reward of the righteous rests upon precisely the same ground as the doctrine of the eternity of future misery. The Archbishop of Canterbury (whose statement I impugn with deep reluctance), in his Pastoral Letter of March 14, 1864, writes thus in support of the common tenet:— I am sure you will beware of giving any other interpretation to the word "everlasting," in the passages of our formularies which relate to the punishment of the lost, than that of "eternal" in the sense of "never-ending." For whatever be the meaning of the word in these passages in the case of the lost, the same must be its meaning in the case of the saved; and our certainty of never-ending bliss for penitent believers is gone if the word hears not the same signification in the case of the impenitent and unbelieving.’ On the whole, let me say in a word that looking simply to the language of Scripture, I find nothing to shake my conviction that the Almighty is morally incapable of inflicting on any creature misery for ever.
We see here the immense importance of keeping constantly in mind what is the real question at issue, except with those who are styled ‘Restorationists’ or ‘Universalists.’ It is not whether sinners will be eternally lost, but whether they will be kept eternally in woe.
A sermon has recently been published on Everlasting Punishment, in which the writer argues sometimes for eternal death, sometimes for eternal suffering, sometimes for both, as if they were one, often against restoration alone, until the whole question is lost in confusion.
Let it be well fixed in our minds that the dogma denied is that of immortality in misery; and then there is only one text that presents any grave difficulty; and that text we can meet with hundreds.
As for the statement that the evidence for eternal happiness is not stronger than the evidence for eternal woe, it is a serious and deplorable, though of course wholly undesigned, misrepresentation of the case.
Let the word Greek, as many have shown, be blotted from the New Testament, and the evidence for the immortality of the righteous would remain unshaken. A considerable number of well-chosen passages in illustration of this position are given by different writers; but every one who can read the original language will find no difficulty in adding to the selection.
Amongst them may be classed various passages which represent believers as one with Christ; as being quickened and kept alive by His Spirit; as having within them His Life, so that when He who is their Life shall appear, then shall they also appear with Him in glory; as being given to Him by the Father, and not to be plucked out of His hand; as being, in a sense, possessed of all things, whether things present or things to come. See also especially, Rom. 8. 38, 39; 1 Pet. 1. 4; 1 Thess. 4. 17, and 1 Cor. 9. 25.
And this, I repeat, is the whole question: not whether there will be future suffering, but whether there will be suffering that shall never end.
And now, will any of you choose destruction? Will you refuse eternal life, or in other words, a blissful immortality? Do you need terror rather than hope to turn you from the broad way into the narrow It is not so in temporal matters. Is the merchant or manufacturer so diligent and earnest, because there is in him a dread of a bankruptcy? No; but because he hopes for a fortune. Is the youthful student so assiduous and persevering, because he is afraid of disgrace? No; but because he hopes for distinction. Is the laborer in humble life so unremitting in his daily toil, because he apprehends a workhouse? No; but because he wisely seeks a comfortable livelihood in the evening of his days. I say not that no fear ever blends with the more powerful and happier impulse; but I say that all of us are very far more creatures of hope than creatures of apprehension. Jesus knew this: His Apostles felt it: and hence, though they withheld not warnings and threatening, their delight was to promise and encourage.
Come, then, whosoever will, and drink of the water of life freely. God wills you should live forever, and life everlasting is offered you without money and without price. You are not compelled to Accept it; for you are not mere machines. You have a will of your own; you are free moral agents; or God could not love you with higher love than that which He feels for His lowest creatures.
0 then be wise while it is called to-day. Exercise your powers for good everlasting. Doubt not that if ye ‘seek for glory, and honor, and immortality,’ ye shall find them. Christ invites you; Christ will receive you; and to whom else can you go? He has the words of eternal life.
In that well-known work The Christian Year, there is, I think, a verse more to be regretted than the statement in the Pastoral Letter; and that because the volume is in all hands, and may be, perhaps, for centuries to come. It runs thus, in the Piece for the Second Sunday in Lent:—
‘That name by which Thy faithful oath is past, That we should endless be for joy or woe:
And if the treasures of Thy wrath could waste. Thy lovers must their promised heaven forego.’
Where the record of this oath is found by the gifted and venerable author of these lines I venture to submit that it would be difficult to show. I cannot but think that the lovers of God (for surely such persons have much love besides) would little enjoy the prospect of the heaven they anticipate, if they duly reflected on what they suppose themselves to believe.
MATT. 25.46.
These shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal.
WE have now before us the chief text that is commonly urged at the present day in proof that the wicked will be miserable for ever. It is one, too, that remarkably molds the language that is now used regarding it. No one even moderately acquainted with the current theology of our times, can have failed to observe that many phrases abounding in works of a past period, are now rapidly falling into disuse; especially in the writings of the most thoughtful, the most intelligent, and the best informed. The phrase everlasting torments,’ for example, is now, I believe, hardly ever employed, except by a class of persons who, however well meaning, and however useful to many, would not be listened to by educated men. Eternal misery, too, and endless pains, are now phrases not commonly employed by those who occupy the pulpits of our Church, although they are not wholly abandoned. The prevalent language is these two words, which occur just once in the whole Bible—’everlasting punishment.’
Let this fact be remarked at the outset. While death, destruction, perdition (from perdo, to lose), consumed, devoured, burnt up, and several other kindred and equivalent expressions, are the common language of Scripture respecting the future doom of sinners, the words everlasting punishment’ are at present the selected phrase.
Before we examine them, observe also what is the real state of the question. We must either give a forced, unnatural meaning to several hundreds of apparently plain texts, and so make them harmonise with this one; or we must so interpret this one as to reconcile its meaning with that of the hundreds; or else we must admit that the texts are discrepant; utterly inconsistent one with another: a difficulty only to be solved by assuming that there has been some textual corruption, or some mistake in the minds of the sacred writers.
If corruption be assumed, then, of course, the question must be, which is the more likely to have been corrupted?—the vast majority of texts that teach one doctrine, or the solitary text which teaches another?
For myself, I confess, that whatever one single passage, or even two or three, might express respecting any disputed doctrine, I should adhere to the general tenor, or the evident drift, of the sacred writings; especially where I must otherwise accept what seemed in itself an incredible dogma; a dogma rejected by that moral faculty, or that Reason applied to moral subjects, which is, after all, our ultimate dependence.
‘Reason,’ says the great author of the Analogy, is the only faculty we have wherewith to judge concerning anything, even Revelation itself;’ and Reason, he teaches, may fitly enquire, in relation to Scripture, not whether it contains things different from what we should have expected from a wise, just, and good God; but whether it contains things plainly contradictory to wisdom, justice, or goodness; to what the Light of Nature teaches us of God.’
Guided, as I think, by that Light, I regard it as plainly contradictory to goodness, that God. should form any creatures foreknowing that they would incur everlasting misery. I could as readily believe of the Supreme Being, that He is capable of injustice or of untruth. I can hardly imagine two propositions more discordant one with the other, than that Almighty God is love, and that He will torment sinners forever.
It is indeed sometimes said that the existence of evil at all, the sad consequences of sin falling upon those who, like infants, have no personal guilt, and other facts which are plainly indisputable, present to our reason quite as great difficulties as the doctrine of eternal misery.
I can but answer for myself in this matter. They do not present such difficulties to me; nor any that for a moment will bear to be compared with them. Before them all I can humbly bow, well knowing that I see as yet but dimly, and looking forward to a day of clearer light. It may be, that, to borrow Butler’s language again, there is an impossibility in the nature of things that there should be an equal degree of good in the universe without some measure of evil. We ourselves can see plainly that some virtues (such as patience, compassion, forbearance and others) could not be exercised, if evil had no being.
But, however this may be, what I see, and cannot deny, bears in my view no comparison with what I am told and think I can refute. Before I could believe the dogma of eternal misery, I must utterly distrust my best faculties, admit that I have no conception of what goodness is in my Creator, and feel that I am wholly incompetent to offer to His acceptance intelligent praise.
In the case of any individual creature, temporary suffering, all must admit, may be balanced, or outweighed; but of woe everlasting this is impossible. It is an evil, in fact, on which we cannot reflect, without at once finding ourselves in darkness deeper than that of the shadow of death.
It is not, be it observed, disputed that there may be for ever in the universe of God what Scripture represents as a place of punishment. The very fact that there is such a place now, God being infinitely good now, manifestly forbids the denial that there may be such a place in His universe always: for plainly no reason can be given why we should have fallen on a period alone characterized by such a phenomenon. But that the same individual sinners should be for ever suffering in it, this is an infinitely different matter—far more different than the existence of a prison in an empire, where those committed to it suffer for various periods, and that of one where all the inmates, whatever the crimes of which they have been guilty, suffer indiscriminately for life. The one kind of incarceration the most benevolent might employ; the other would be used by tyranny alone. It is due to myself to say that this reply to Mr. Mansell occurred to me, and was noted down when I first read his volume. It is simply amazing that Dr. Salmon cannot see its force, as employed by Mr. Barlow.
Proceeding now to the passage before us, I observe, first, that a better translation of it would be, These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into everlasting life.’ The difference may seem slight, but the meaning of the text gains clearness by the change.
We see at once that whatever the punishment, it is not life of any kind. The particle ‘but’ would be forceless if it were. Yet life it must be, and life everlasting, if it be everlasting suffering; for to suffer for ever, there must be feeling for ever; and to feel for ever, there must be life for ever.
Let us for a moment suppose that the text had been These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into everlasting light: clearly we should conclude that the punishment was not light of any kind, but darkness.
So, from the text in question we should infer that the punishment, not being life, must be death, especially when so many other passages teach us that death is the punishment of the wicked, and life the very blessing that is peculiar to the good. The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life, through ‘Jesus Christ our Lord.’
Now death, as I understand it here, is equivalent to destruction; and destruction, it is contended by some, cannot be designated everlasting punishment. I venture to ask why not? The sinner is destroyed in retribution of his sin. He might have lived for ever in bliss. Everlasting life was offered to him. He rejected the offer; he sinned on; and God, who will not through all eternity keep in his universe the incorrigibly rebellious, executes on him the threatened penalty. He in very deed destroys him, with such sufferings as his wickedness deserves. And who shall say bow awful may be the sufferings preceding or attending the destruction of a soul, or how long such sufferings may endure? It is evident that on this latter point nothing should be definitely asserted. Scripture is very obscure regarding it; and we must leave it in that dimness in which, for wise reasons, it is there involved.
Nothing that pertains to a future state can we fully explain or comprehend. The very nature of time alone, after we leave this present world, where much that we are familiar with marks its progress, utterly baffles human thought.
Still we can accept three propositions: that the wicked will be judged according to their works; ‘that they will suffer tribulation and anguish; and that their end will be destruction.’
If we attempt more than this, we shall soon find ourselves as entirely at fault as we should be in any attempt to realize with precision the Resurrection that awaits our race, or the nature and proceedings of the Day of judgment.
The above argument may be put very briefly. Granted the undeniable truth that an irretrievable failure of happiness in requital of sin is a punishment, it is simply affirmed that every punishment must be either temporary or eternal, and that the failure in question, not being a temporary punishment, must necessarily be an eternal one.
If it suffices to reply to this that a man nonexistent cannot be punished, it might by the same reasoning be proved that an eternal loss of heaven is no worse evil than a temporary loss, because the man who has incurred it is no more: nay, it would be hard to prove, if we allow such an argument, that creation to happiness is a good. On one, it might be said, not in being, no good can be conferred.
It may not be useless to add to this that the phrase punished with everlasting destruction’ is employed in the second Epistle to the Thessalonians; where we read, ‘It is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; and to you .who are troubled rest with us, when 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 of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power.’ That is, as the original probably signifies, by the presence of the Lord and by the glory of His power; just as we read in the same epistle: ‘The Lord shall destroy with the brightness of His coming.’ (See Lev. 9. 23, 24.)
Now, if such destruction can be called everlasting, the punishment which it constitutes can be so called; for in both cases it is the effect, not the act which lasts eternally. I ask you to weigh this argument. Let a tree be burnt to ashes, and it is destroyed. Then, although it can never as a tree be touched again, it is still destroyed forever, because the result is forever. So, let a man be punished by destruction; let him be reduced to non-existence as a man, and so be no longer a sentient creature, he is yet punished for ever, because the result is forever. ‘When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish, it is that they shall be destroyed forever.’
I offer this as the best solution that occurs to me of what is, beyond question, a difficulty. There is, however, another explanation, which is by no means without force, but which is of a more strictly philological character than is well suited to this place.
One further thought must be added on the text. Suppose we interpret it in the common mode, and take everlasting punishment’ to mean everlasting misery, who are the sinners that we are taught in this chapter shall be thus severely dealt with? Are they the tyrants who have tortured their thousands? Are they the cruel persecutors of Christians, who have gloated over the agonies of their victims? Are they murderers, robbers, liars? Are they licentious, abandoned men, who would gratify their passions at any cost and without any restraint? Are they profane, blaspheming transgressors, defying alike both God and man? Are these, or any of them, the classes to be everlastingly miserable, to suffer in some sort forever? The previous context supplies us with the answer. The persons to be thus punished are those who have not visited the saints, and helped them, and comforted them in the time of their affliction. Their sins are what are termed sins of omission rather than of gross perpetration. Inasmuch as ye did not this kindness to ‘one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it not to me;’ and these, it is added, shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into everlasting life.’
Now we need not for a moment attempt to extenuate such a neglect of Christian charity. In God’s sight it is a dark offence, as might be easily shown from Scripture; shown, indeed, by passages remarkably numerous. But the question that we are engaged in is, whether it will be visited with endless sufferings; whether, after countless centuries shall have elapsed, these neglecters of kind offices towards the believers in Jesus Christ shall have an existence that is not good but evil.
Surely some hearts will be thankful that Scripture demands not so hard a faith; that in no way can we come to entertain it but by strangely misconstruing the plainest language.
Many, however, do entertain it, or, at all events, are loud in professing it; and, strange to say, some of these are persons who never in their whole lives showed kindness to a Christian sufferer because he belonged to Jesus Christ. They do not so much as understand the feeling of benevolence to the household of faith.
I have now said all that seems needful on our text. If it has been inadequately explained, then it remains a single text, against not only scores, but hundreds.
I shall notice very briefly one passage more.
Considerable stress has been laid by two or three recent writers on the solemn assertion of Christ concerning Judas, ‘that it had been good for that man, if he had not been born;’ and perhaps it is not too much to affirm that, if its strict meaning be the true one, it is the most awful declaration in the Bible. I should regard it in this light, not simply because it is conclusive, so far as one passage can be, against the ultimate reception of sinners into heaven, but because it seems to indicate that there are some dark cases in which existence itself is an evil, or, differently to express it, creation has been a curse. Well weighing the words I use, and knowing how widely their import sweeps, I say that I find it hard to believe this confidently; and that, if I do not mistake, any punishment in a future world which would outweigh all enjoyment in this, would be a far more terrible infliction than a careless or hasty thinker might suppose. Men fret, and pine, and murmur, as if life were not worth the thanking for; but miserably indeed has he spent it who has made it to be nearly so bad as this.
In seeking the meaning of the words in question, it must not be forgotten that the language of our Lord was not seldom what, speaking reverently, may be fitly termed bold—in other words, highly hyperbolical. Various reasons may be conceived for this, and some possibly valid and the true ones; but the fact itself is beyond denial. The Sermon on the Mount abounds in such language. Perhaps few discourses that have ever been delivered have more demanded for their right interpretation the exercise of our natural moral faculty, or of soberly-applied reason, with prayer for the aid of the Holy Spirit.
We will take, however, now a passage closely akin. to the one we are considering: Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths of the sea.’ Construe this language strictly, and it signifies unquestionably that it were better for such a one to sink into the miseries of hell at once than to abide any longer upon earth. This meaning we can only accept on the assumption that his sufferings in the future world would be less severe than his sufferings in this; or that the man who could commit such a sin would certainly grow worse and worse, and so by prolonged life here would only increase his condemnation hereafter. I cannot admit either assumption, and therefore I take this text, just as I take the other, to be but an instance of that forcible mode of expression which, for, doubtless, wise reasons, was adopted by Him who knew what was in man, and needed not that any one should tell Him how best to address him to his profit. Judas was a sinner of no common order; his name has been branded for ingratitude and treachery; he effected his cruel, and base purpose with words of reverence and a kiss of affection; and, therefore, whatever be true literally, it may with propriety be said rhetorically, It had been good for that man if he had not been born.’
Asserting for others nothing confidently, this is for me a sufficient explanation.
Thus I believe no text that bears with any force upon our question has been left unnoticed in these discourses.
I conclude with a few words on a singular fact.
Some persons shrink from the doctrine that the incorrigible sinner will be destroyed, who apparently admit readily that his punishment will be everlasting torments. They seem to count the former more shocking than the latter. They cannot, it would seem, believe that God who bestowed the gift of life will on any consideration revoke it.
Let me ask such persons to consider this truth. We destroy some criminals to the utmost extent that we can; and that, though the life which we take away was given by Another, not by ourselves. We feel that they deserve such punishment; we look upon it as a social necessity; and we should none the less put them to death, if we believed that such death would
be the end of their sentient existence: probably we should do so only the more readily. Yet, who amongst us would be willing to torture them during a period of twenty years, much less to send them to anguish forever? And anguish assuredly there must be in any condition known to be eternal, and felt to be worse than non-existence. Such a punishment could not be slight; and yet, it will be remembered, our Lord declared that some sinners would be beaten with few stripes.
Doubtless the principle of punitive justice is a sound principle. Something is due for the violation of right beyond a merely deterrent, or reclamatory, or exemplary penalty. Right itself must be rightly vindicated; and, without expressing here any opinion on capital punishment, I say, with others, that the principle of justice in man is an image of the principle of justice in God; and nothing felt to be ‘unjust will or can influence us for good.
This must not be understood as implying that God cannot fitly punish far more heavily than his creature, man. I am merely replying to those persons who are revolted at the thought of a sinner’s destruction, but feel, it would seem, small difficulty in allowing the doctrine of eternal torments.
For myself, I am unable to perceive why a brute should be destroyed utterly, and a man who resists all efforts to reclaim him from rebellion must be preserved everlastingly. The difference between them appears to be this: the one does not possess high endowments, the other does possess and willfully abuses them. In respect of innocence it cannot be denied that the willful and irreclaimable transgressor is lower than the ox which knows his owner, or the ass which knows his master’s crib.
Hence, while ‘precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints,’ and ‘they shall awake, nor die any more,’ it is written again—and it is solemnly instructive—'that He puts away the wicked like dross.’ If the being human entitles to immortality, or renders immortality certain, let it be proved from the sacred pages. As yet it has not been proved, but assumed; and then endless misery, as Hooker justly says, follows ‘easily after it.’
I purpose in my next discourse to enquire into the origin and progress of the common doctrine; after which I shall gladly leave this solemn subject with Him who, whatever it be, will render His own Truth in due time triumphant.
And now may He incline our hearts to trust, love, and follow Him. Then, as surely as the Lord lives, we shall be all ‘children of the resurrection, equal unto the angels,’ and, partaking of that life which He has ‘in Himself, children of the Living God.’
MATT 7. 13, 14.
Enter ye us at the strait gate; for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
THE beginnings of things are hidden in obscurity, and that of the doctrine that the great and good God will torment for ever any creature of His hands is no exception to this rule. We know not who it was whose dark mind first conceived a thought so horrible, but it is certain that there is no trace of it, even our opponents being judges, for three thousand years of the world’s history. A passage in Isaiah is the very first that can be even misconstrued into any intimation of the doctrine. I, as you are aware, deny that the Bible, rightly interpreted, contains it; and venturing to assume that this denial has been justified, I proceed to trace so far as we can, within the restricted limits of a sermon, the origin and progress of the error.
The writings of what are styled the Apostolical Fathers, with the narratives of the martyrdoms of Ignatius and Polycarp, were all produced, we have reason to believe, within about the first century and a half of the Christian era. In not one of them is there a passage more undeniably containing the doctrine in question than any to be found in the sacred volume. I do not, you will observe, assert that it was not held or taught by any Christian before the close of the period mentioned. I simply affirm that we have no proof to the contrary, no clear, unambiguous proof. We find the words eternal punishment’ used thrice in these writings: once in the second (questionable) Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, and twice in the Epistle of the Church at Smyrna, which gives an account of the martyrdom of Polycarp. In addition to this we read in two places of the unquenchable fire; ‘and in one of them the undying worm’ is mentioned in immediate connection with the fire. In each, however, of these passages we have, it is evident, but the language of the Bible, and that has been explained in a previous discourse. Altogether, there are five passages which some would regard as countenancing the doctrine of eternal suffering; but which, of course, in my view are capable of the explanation already given.
The common language of the primitive Fathers teaches plainly that death’ awaits the wicked. I do not say eternal death, because (with one exception, occurring in the Epistle ascribed to Barnabas,) there is no such phrase either in their writings or in Scripture. And strictly we can no more speak with propriety of eternal death than of eternal birth. Each is a change or transition, neither a state that can endure for ever. Dying, it is conceivable, might so endure, though few sober minds would entertain the thought of it; but death is the extinction of life, and it is only the effect that is eternal. As distinguishing, however, the death intended from what is sometimes called temporal death, the phrase, perhaps, is free from objection.
Let it now be observed that, during the period which gave birth to the writings adverted to, the followers of the crucified Jesus were exposed to terrific persecutions. Living at a time when cruelty abounded, when the favourite diversions of men and women, however highly born and cultured, were marked by atrocious barbarities, such as, could they now be enacted amongst us, would awaken deep horror in every breast, Christians were counted choice victims to gratify the passions that craved such indulgence. A Christian amidst lions was an attractive spectacle, and hardly less so if encircled by flames; and there were worse enormities than these.
Commonly the sufferers themselves bore calmly, meekly, and resignedly, all that fanaticism and malignity could inflict. And not a few died like Stephen, or rather like a greater than Stephen, praying for their inhuman murderers. But the Brethren who witnessed or heard or read of these things, whatever their sincerity as believers in Jesus, were not always equally patient. They were men of like passions with ourselves, they did not all suddenly reach a high standard of Christian long-suffering, and it is not to be wondered at, if, after a while, some feelings of wrath and vindictiveness, combined with a strong sense of the wickedness they witnessed, deepened their picture of that hell, which, not much weighing the meaning of eternity, they honestly believed such atrocities deserved.* Besides, it was not unnatural that, thinking as many do now, the more frightful the penalties threatened, the more deterrent they would be from crime, and aiming by such means to protect themselves from well-nigh unendurable barbarities, they should use violent and unmeasured language in denouncing the vengeance of a future day. It is quite impossible to read what remains to us from the third and several succeeding centuries without seeing that the feelings which prevailed were such as these observations indicate. On the one hand there were vindictive sentiments blended with a sense of what was deserved; on the other there was a strong desire to terrify, with a view to self-protection, their savage and remorseless persecutors.
Passing over Justin Martyr, whose mind seems to have wavered on the subject, the first Christian author of note, whose writings are extant, that denounced unambiguously eternal torments, is the well-known African, Tertullian of Carthage. He wrote in the close of the second and the beginning of the third century, and certainly his meaning is not to be mistaken. Neither, I think, can we fail to perceive in it some plain signs of the feelings I have mentioned.
* This argument is well treated by Mr. Barlow, in the sixth chapter of his volume.
‘You are fond,’ he says, ‘of your spectacles. But there are other spectacles. That day which is disbelieved, derided by the nations, the last and eternal day of judgment when all ages shall be swallowed up in one conflagration, what a variety of spectacles shall then appear! how shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many kings and fallen gods in heaven, together with Jove himself groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness! so many magistrates, who persecuted the name of the Lord, liquefying in fiercer flames than they ever kindled against Christians! so many sage philosophers blushing in raging fire, with their scholars whom they persuaded to despise God, and to disbelieve the resurrection, and so many poets shuddering before the Tribunal, not of Rhadamanthos, not of Minos, but of the disbelieved Christ. Then shall we hear the tragedians more tuneful in the expression of their own sufferings; then shall we see the dancers more sprightly amidst the flames; the charioteer all red hot in his burning car; and the wrestlers hurled, not upon the accustomed lists, but upon a plain of fire.’*
This teaching came not from above; Paul, Peter, John, knew nothing of it. No heathen hatred, no heathen cruelty could have wrested from either of them such language. Truth disowns it, as an impeachment of divine goodness, and every heart enlightened by the Spirit revolts from it with loathing and horror.
* De Spectaculis, c. 30.
Tertullian sometimes taught differently. Harsh and severe, however, in natural temper, and violent even for his own day, he inclined commonly to the fierce and terrible rather than to the persuasive and alluring. He knew the dark side of the hearts around him, but he knew not the key wherewith to open them, nor how to pour into them the light of Heaven. However unconsciously and undesignedly, he taught men that their Creator was cruel; and failing, of course, by such means to make gentle and loving Christians, he roused a deep spirit of hatred in their enemies. A wiser, truer, holier doctrine would have won its way faster among the heathen, and brought men more to resemble that God whose tender mercies are over all His works. There cannot, I think, be a reasonable doubt that very much which Christians have had to endure has been partially occasioned by their own false teaching; while a serious obstacle to faith in the Gospel has been, by the doctrine of eternal torments, thrown in the way of the ablest and most thoughtful.
The point, however, here most important for our argument is, that the first considerable Christian writer who taught the doctrine of everlasting misery, appears to have been singularly wanting in those gentler virtues of Christianity which are preeminently its distinguishing characteristics. The mental power and much besides that many have admired in this eloquent African need not be denied or questioned. We simply assert that in his feelings towards enemies he violated the spirit that his master inculcated. He did not perform the will of God. And to perform that will is essential, we are told, to the highest knowledge. If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God.’ He shall receive Divine light, both as a reward of his piety, and, so to speak, as a natural consequence of his growing conformity to the image of his Maker. Walking with God, he shall more and more know Him; for God, we are taught, will not hide Himself from His friends. The path to the best knowledge lies through the heart.’ It is emphatically the pure in heart,’ who most clearly see God.’ And. nothing is so essential to such purity as love; while how intimately love is connected with the profoundest apprehension of Truth, is well taught us by that Apostle who was never perhaps surpassed in this heavenly virtue. Beloved,’ he says, let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone that loveth, is born of God, and knows God.’ He knows Him by virtue of that principle to which St. Paul directs our thoughts in one of his profoundest enunciations. The Spirit, he says, searches all things: yea, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knows no man but the Spirit of God.’ Just as a man, through his own spirit, knows what pertains to himself; so through a higher Spirit informing his own, he becomes acquainted with his Maker. Not otherwise than through His Spirit can God be known to any creature; and as those who may be represented as full of the Holy Ghost are sure at the same time to be full of love, they above all others know that Creator whose name is Love.
It was here, it would seem, that Tertullian was wanting; and hence his appalling picture, drawn with apparent pleasure, of the Divine vengeance upon sinners.
Cyprian was an ardent admirer of Tertullian, and the very fact that he held him in such honor prepares us to expect that he would imitate him in his teaching; for partly by design, partly unconsciously, we always grow, in some degree, like those whom we sincerely admire.
I am speaking, you will observe, of these remarkable men with especial reference to one doctrine, not of their teaching on other points of faith.
There is much, doubtless, in the writings of both very instructive, and deservedly valued; but this renders it only the more requisite to point out their error in the dogma we are treating.
The following is Cyprian’s frightful expression of it: “Gehenna, ever burning, will prey upon the damned, a devouring punishment of burning flames; torments that can have no respite or end. Their souls will be preserved with their bodies for the pain of endless tortures. Then shall he who made a brief spectacle of us be himself a spectacle for men, and the transitory joy of cruel eyes in our persecutions shall be repaid with a perpetual vision, according to the Holy Scripture which saith, Their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be a spectacle to all flesh." [Ep. ad Demetrianum, c. 24.]
It is, I think, clear beyond question, that Cyprian believed while thus writing that the perpetual vision of tortures experienced by the enemies of the Church would be to him a gratifying requital for the wrongs which those enemies had so largely inflicted. He felt that he could enjoy such a spectacle. That he did not know his own heart we may be sure; for the veriest tyrant that ever breathed might have had, we cannot doubt, too prolonged a sight of torture; but there was, at all events, that in Cyprian which did not preclude this delusion. He derived present comfort from a prospect so dreadful. And the fact that he did not know himself makes it more probable that he did not know his Maker.
In his case, however, there was a measure of the same hindrance to this latter kind of knowledge, as we have noticed in the case of Tertullian, for we must repeat, It is he that loveth, who is born of God and knows God.’
It would be at once a very irksome and an entirely useless task to multiply greatly quotations like the foregoing. It cannot be denied that from century to century, after the second, up to the one in which we live, the doctrine of eternal torments has been generally taught, and in word accepted. Here and there dissentients might be found, and some, like Origen, had many followers; but the avowed rejectors of the doctrine have been, doubtless, a small minority.
From writers of a comparatively recent date, two or three quotations shall be added.
In his discourse on the ‘Pains of Hell,’ we have this from the pen of Jeremy Taylor: ‘We are amazed at the inhumanity of Phalaris, who roasted men in his brazen bull: this was joy in respect of that fire of hell, which penetrates the very entrails without consuming them.’ Husbands shall see their wives, parents shall see their children, tormented before their eyes.’ The bodies of the damned shall be crowded together in hell like grapes in a winepress, which press one another till they burst.’ Every distinct sense and organ shall be assailed with its own appropriate and exquisite sufferings.’ Here is a picture of the future doings of Him who is called by inspired men the God of hope, the God of peace, and the God of all comfort! Yet the multitude listening to such language counted it doubtless quite orthodox, and being familiar with barbarous laws, which owed perhaps their origin in a great degree to false views of the great Creator, did not wonder to hear Him represented as One beyond all limits severe—nay, we may fitly say, cruel.
Another great writer, Isaac Barrow, asserts that Our bodies will be afflicted continually with a sulphureous flame piercing the inmost sinews.’
Jonathan Edwards, a high authority with many, apparently without a doubt or a scruple, writes in these horrible terms: The world will probably be converted into a great lake or liquid globe of fire, a vast ocean of fire in which the wicked shall be overwhelmed, which will always be in tempest, in which they shall be tossed to and fro, having no rest day or night, vast waves or billows of fire continually rolling over their heads, of which they shall for ever be full of a quick sense within and without; their heads, their eyes, their tongues, their hands, their feet, their loins, and their vitals shall for ever be full of a glowing, melting fire, enough to melt the very rocks and elements; also they shall be full of the most quick and lively sense to feel the torments—not for one minute, not for one day, not for one age, nor for two ages, nor for a hundred ages, nor for ten thousand of millions of ages one after another, but for ever and ever, without any end at all, and never, never be delivered!” Works, volume 8, p. 166.
The author of this hideous passage wrote a well-known book on ‘The Religious Affections,’ and it does not appear even to have occurred to him that this was not quite the way to promote filial love to the Almighty. Neither does he seem to have asked himself what was credible: enough if he could paint the horrible! Terror was to promote that obedience which a wiser writer taught was utterly worthless without charity, or love. You have only to imagine a listening congregation of men, women, and little children, of whom some believed what was said, and you will cease to wonder that what is termed religious madness’ is by no means a rare and unheard-of disease.
For myself, I ascribe to such teaching a large. portion of the evils of Christendom, and especially its frightful cruelties. Men, not by nature singularly amiable, who were familiar with such thoughts, and sincerely with reflection accepted them as true, could hardly fail to be cruel.
A writer of distinguished powers, now in communion with the Church of Rome, uses equally revolting language. Indeed, it were bard to conceive anything more horrible or more incredible. I will cite it, and leave it, with all else that is like it. In a sermon on ‘ Neglect of Divine Calls and Warnings,’ we have this from the pen of John Henry Newman: Oh, terrible moment for the soul, when it suddenly finds itself at the judgment-seat of Christ; when the Judge speaks and consigns it to the jailers, till it shall pay the endless debt which lies against it! " Impossible! I a lost soul?—I separated from hope and from peace for ever? It is not I of whom the Judge so spoke! There is a mistake somewhere. Christ, Savior, hold Thy hand; one minute to explain it. My name is Demas—not Judas, or Nicholas, or Alexander, or Philetus, or Diotrephes. What! eternal pain for me! Impossible! it shall not be! " And the poor soul struggles and wrestles in the grasp of the mighty demon which has hold of it, and whose every touch is torment. "Oh, atrocious!" it shrieks, in agony, and in anger too; as if the very keenness of its infliction were a proof of its injustice. A second! and a third! I can bear no more! Stop, horrible fiend! give over: I am a man, and not such as thou! I am not food for thee, or sport for thee. I have been taught religion; I have had a conscience; I have a cultivated mind; I am well versed in science and art; I am a philosopher, or a poet, or a hero, or a statesman, or an orator, or a man of wit or humor. Nay, I have received the grace of the Redeemer; I have attended the sacraments for years; I have been a Catholic from a child; I died in communion with the Church; nothing, nothing which I have ever been, which I have ever seen, bears any resemblance to thee, and to the flame and stench which exhale from thee, O enemy of man! ‘Then, after much of what men were saying respecting this sinner while the fiend has hold of him, the passage concludes with these words: His soul is in hell, O ye children of men! While thus ye speak his soul is in the beginning of those torments in which his body will soon have part, and which will never die.’
Now, no one can dispute the dramatic power of this writing: and had we simply to express the terrible without regard to what could be believed, we should count it a model for tremendous warning. If men would only credit such teaching they would, one might well suppose, be utterly deterred from outward acts of sin (and some be made maniacs at the same time); but how far it would promote that holiness of which love is the chief element, is a question I think not hard to resolve.
Happily, men in general are so constituted that they do not, will not, cannot believe it. Such doctrine, they feel instinctively, casts mercy and pity to the winds. If it be in the Bible, they will reject the Bible. Nothing shall persuade them that in human courts of judicature duration of suffering shall be graduated by guilt, but that in the court of heaven duration shall be deemed of no account, and woes everlasting be the general award to all who have walked in the broad way.
It avails nothing to reply to this that sin is an infinite evil, because committed against an Infinite Being, and therefore it deserves an infinite punishment. The obvious and quite conclusive answer, and one that has often been given, is that no finite being is, capable of perpetrating an infinite evil; that the faculties and circumstances of the sinner must be regarded in measuring his guilt, as well as the greatness of the Being he has offended. Could this be refuted, it would be true that an infant who struck a monarch in the face would deserve to be punished quite as severely as a man who committed the same act. Besides, as it has been well argued, if sin may rightly be estimated by the character of the Being sinned against, a deed of goodness must be rated by the same rule; and then it would have infinite worth—a position which it is presumed none will maintain.
It is with much violence to my own feelings, and not without fear of misconception (to say nothing of a charge of presumption), that I have ventured to cite the foregoing passages. In the authors of them, all will recognize much to be admired, and much to be imitated—not least their zeal and devotedness—and of their high intellectual powers there will be, it is probable, but one opinion. Their language, however, on future punishment, to whatever extenuating causes it be ascribed, is, as it appears to me (and I must say it, to whatever I may be exposed), deeply to be deplored, earnestly to be condemned, and carefully to be shunned.
I have but a few words to add in conclusion:—
It is one of the most painful necessities of this controversy that we cannot oppose the error of excess regarding the nature and desert of sin, without appearing to be insensible to its really malignant and. perilous character. I can but disavow so grievous a mistake. I claim to feel strongly that whatever is opposed to the righteous will of the Supreme Being, is to be shunned both with hatred and with dread; that it is to be the one business of life, pursued with unceasing effort and prayer, to attain to a state of perfect holiness; and that nothing could exceed the evil of inspiring men with any belief which was calculated to diminish their abhorrence of transgression, or their fear of its commission. It is my own unfaltering conviction that the views which I have advocated are favorable to holiness: first, because they are themselves credible, and, as such, are adapted to remove a serious obstacle to faith in the Scriptures; next, because, if believed, they would be sufficiently deterrent from sin to creatures more influenced by hope than by terror; and thirdly, because the worship of a being seen and felt to be infinitely good is beyond everything else fitted to promote growth in goodness.
Plainly, however, the one question is, what is revealed in the sacred pages?—in other words, what is true? Divine truth will promote virtue better, immeasurably, than human error.
SINCE the foregoing discourses were prepared for publication, several recent works on the subject of which they treat have fallen under my notice; one of which induces me to add a few pages on its chief arguments.
In an ‘Essay on Future Punishment’ Mr. Sherlock writes thus: The word Death when applied to the body does not mean annihilation. If, when used of the soul, it is applied analogously, it must mean a moral or spiritual corruption and decay.’
Then, in a subsequent page, placing the words eternal death within inverted commas, as he frequently does, and arguing, like many other writers, as if it were a scriptural phrase, he proceeds to say, I do not think it would be difficult to find in the expression " Eternal Death " an argument against what they [his opponents] consider its equivalent; viz. annihilation. Death, as we know, has no such meaning. It signifies corruption and decay, the image of horror and loathsomeness. Add the word " eternal," and you only make it perpetual, endless corruption, and are no whit nearer the idea of annihilation.’
It will be remembered that, so far as respects the preceding discourses, I need say nothing on the term ‘annihilation,’ for I have carefully avoided the use of it; and that in designed obviation of such an Objection as Mr. Sherlock urges. Waiving, however, that point for a moment, I observe that death, ‘when applied to the body,’ does not, in my view, mean ‘corruption and decay,’ but rather the departure or extinction of life, which is followed by corruption and decay; with, of course, utter senselessness. If, when used of the soul, it is applied analogously,’ we must not imagine totally dissimilar results.
Strictly, death, as already intimated in these pages, is not (any more than birth) a continuous state, like life, but a transition or change effected at once.
Hence we can say fitly of a dead man that he died at such a moment, and his death is a thing past; but we cannot say of a living man that he lived at such a moment, and his life is a thing past.
This may be one reason why we read in Scripture constantly of eternal life, but never of eternal death; the single word death being sufficient to denote what our Divine Teacher and the sacred writers, meant to express.
On the other hand, in their view, so essentially was life in its highest sense—the sense, that is, wherein they continually employed the word—a thing of everlasting duration, that again and again they use the expressions, life,’ and eternal life,’ indifferently or interchangeably.
What life the impenitent man possesses is, to one familiar with the idea of eternity, not worthy of the name of life. It is less than the moment spent in dying physically as compared with a million of years, or with any conceivable limited duration. In fact the difference is infinite between a temporary and an eternal life; and hence a sinner’s life—to say nothing of its moral character—is, as contrasted with a believer’s, worthy of no better a name than death.
The error of supposing that death, as applied to the sinner, denotes ‘moral or spiritual corruption,’ exclusively of its more natural meaning, is occasioned, I believe, in part by a mistranslation of Scripture. We find in our English version the words, ‘Dead in trespasses and sins.’ (Eph. 2. 1.) This I have long been persuaded is an erroneous rendering of the Greek; and, as it is one of the passages adduced by Mr. Sherlock and many others, to establish the view for which they contend, some examination of it seems desirable.
The words that immediately follow the passage might lead us to suspect an error of some kind. Read together they run thus: ‘You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked.’ There seems to be some incongruity in speaking of walking in the sins wherein they were dead.
It is worthy, too, of especial remark, that when St. Paul meant to express moral or spiritual corruption’ he used obvious and natural words. For example, in his Epistle to the Colossians, after enumerating many serious kinds of transgression, he says, In the which ye also walked sou: e-time when ye lived in them;’ not, when ye were dead in them, but when ye lived in them.
Now, it is difficult to suppose that St. Paul used life in sin and death in sin to express precisely the same thing.
I believe that he never did. And I am happy to be able to adduce here the authority of the late Dr. Burton, the well-known Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford. His opinion is the more valuable, because, of course, on the point in question, he cannot be suspected of forcing language to support a theory.
In his Greek Testament there is this note on Ephesians 2. 1— ‘GREEK, in consequence of your sins. See Romans 6. 2.’ Turning to Romans 6. 2, where the translation is, ‘How shall we that are dead to sin (GREEK) live any longer therein?’ We find this note on GREEK, By sin, as in verses 10, 11. See other instances at Gal. 2. 19. It was sin which caused all men to suffer the punishment of death. St. Paul’s argument is: If sin is such a dreadful thing as to have exposed us all to the punishment of death (which was suffered for us by Christ, and from which His death alone has freed us), how can we think of continuing in it any longer?’
At Ga1. 2. 19, the received translation is, I through the law am dead to the law (GREEK): Dr. Burton’s note is, GREEK, not to the law, but by the law. The law denounces death. . . . In consequence of the law I was condemned to death by the law, that I might be restored to life by God.’ He adds numerous instances of a similar mistranslation of the dative case; a case which, as every Greek scholar knows, is constantly put for the instrument or means whereby a thing is done, or comes to pass.
Returning for a moment to Romans 6. 2, a brief examination of a few words in the chapter immediately preceding it, will serve to show us how certainly it ought to be translated ‘Dead by trespasses and sins.’ In the latter portion of the fifth chapter the apostle had stated, that as sin and death came by Adam, righteousness and life came by Jesus Christ. By death he evidently did not mean moral or spiritual corruption;’ otherwise sin and death signify sin and sinfulness.
In the twelfth verse he says, ‘By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin (GREEK): There the translation is correct. Next, in the seventeenth verse, he writes, ‘By one man’s offence death reigned by one (GREEK).’ There also the translation of the noun is correct; that being in the dative case. Then we proceed to the sixth chapter, and to is employed instead of by in rendering precisely the same case.
Thus the words have no force in connection with the apostle’s previous reasoning, which the word then’ (‘What shall we say then?’) makes it evident he has in view. He has shown what we have incurred by sin; and immediately he is made to ask, How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? ‘
Dr. Macknight does not scruple to say, The common translation is absurd.’ And the more we examine it, the less perhaps we shall be surprised at his language.
It is precisely the same case, as already observed, that is mistranslated in Eph. 2. 1. Only there we have the preposition in, instead of the preposition to. ‘Dead in trespasses and sins.’ Let both be translated aright, by, and then they agree precisely with our Lord’s teaching, that, until renewed by His Spirit, we have ‘no life in us; we have died through sin.’ In Romans 6. 10, 11 (referred to by Dr. Burton), the translation is, ‘In that He died, He died unto sin once: but in that He lives, He lives unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.’
How, it may be asked, could Christ die to sin, who had never lived to sin? But render the dative aright, and the sense is plain. In that He died, he died by sin once (that is, by means or in consequence of man’s sin, which He expiated. for He was wounded for our transgressions): but in that He lives, He lives by God (that is, ‘by the power of God,’ 2 Cor. 13. 4): agreeably to what we find in the seventh chapter, ‘If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you;‘ and in St. Peter’s first epistle, ‘being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.’
This quickening indwelling Spirit is the source or author of everlasting life. All who have it not are, in the language of Scripture, dead; dead in consequence of trespasses and sins.
Even believers are sometimes represented as dead through sin; crucified with Christ; with whom also they are declared to have risen again; and surely no one will contend that, when so applied, the term dead denotes their 4 moral or spiritual corruption.’
Two passages on this point out of a considerable class will suffice. ‘If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.’ (Rom. 6. 8.) Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our Life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.’ (Col. 3. 3, 4.)
Another text quoted by Mr. Sherlock is— ‘She that lives in pleasure is dead while she lives.’ This, I apprehend, means that though she has one kind of life, she is devoid of the highest life. She is of the world that passes away, not one that doeth the will of God and abided; for ever.’ (1 John 2. 17.) Certainly she is not dead in sin, however dead she may be to holiness. To sin, though not of the. darkest character, she is especially alive.
Let the words of St. John last referred to be here well marked and weighed. They appear very plainly to imply that he that doeth not the will of God, will not abide forever. Being of the world, he will pass away. How different is this doctrine from the common one, as applied to the mere votary of pleasure! Not a few of such persons know well that they are ‘ unworthy of everlasting life,’ and deserve heavy, though limited, suffering; but, seeing nothing between this and eternal torments, which they do not feel could be justly inflicted, nor believe that God is capable of inflicting, they live on, despite of all warnings, in a vague, fluctuating, baseless hope.
It is readily allowed that many ancient writers use the word death in a very forcible manner regarding a person still living; but they never, I think, so employ it as to lose sight entirely of its natural meaning.
To die to a thing or person is to have nothing further to do with it or him; but to be dead IN either, in the sense of being peculiarly alive to either, is a phrase nowhere, I believe, to be found. These words occur in Plautus (Clitell. 3: 1, 20), Nihil mecum tibi; MORTUUS TIBI SUM ‘I have nothing to do with thee; I am dead to thee.’ And so a mere sensualist might be spoken of as a man dead to virtue. Many similar passages might be quoted.
I pass on to another text cited by the writer in question, ‘To be carnally minded is death.’ (Rom. 8. 6.)
Let St. Paul explain his own words. ‘If ye live after the flesh ye shall die.’ (Same chapter, v. 13.) ‘He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption (GREEK); but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.’ (Gal. 6. 8.)
For the one ‘ This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality: so when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.’ (1 Cor. 15. 53, 54.) For the other there is no victory. Death is the very evil he incurs; for ‘sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.’ He has not sown to the Spirit: therefore he shall not reap life everlasting, but he shall reap corruption.
Schlensner gives as the meaning of GREEK in this passage (Gal. 6. 8), the punishment or ruin consequent on sin; that is, everlasting destruction. On its general meaning, see also Passow.
I have only to notice two further texts adduced by Mr. Sherlock on this point.
One is in John 5. ‘He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation but is passed from death unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live.’
These words immediately precede the very passage in which Jesus speaks of having life in Himself, as the Father bath life in Himself; and surely no one can read the chapter and doubt that this is the life of which He by His Spirit communicates to those who are born of incorruptible seed,’ made ‘ partakers of the divine nature,’ and are ‘ one spirit with the Lord.’
It follows that the dead (GREEK) are those who are devoid of this life. And here again I refer the reader to Dr. Burton.
The sole remaining passage (excepting indeed Rom. 7. 9, which I leave to the same commentator), quoted by the author in question—and doubtless he chose the most suitable he could find—occurs in St. John’s first epistle (chap. iii.), ‘He that loveth not his brother abides in death’ (GREEK). The whole verse with the following one is, ‘We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abides in death. Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.’
How was it possible for Mr. Sherlock to cite this passage as corroborating his argument? It seems to me manifestly against it. He adduces it to prove that death means ‘moral or spiritual corruption,’ apart altogether from its sense as opposed to vital existence. The apostle teaches, beyond dispute, that he that abides in death is one that hath not eternal life abiding in him; and this eternal life he had represented in the previous chapter as abiding forever. Why this reference to duration, if the chief sense present to St. John’s mind was a moral condition, or a state of heart?
In the second chapter of the same Epistle he had written: —’ This is the promise that He hath promised us, even eternal life;’ and ‘Everyone that doeth righteousness is born of Him.’ The hater of his brother is not born of Him. He has not received the new life, but still abides in death.
Thus St. John’s language is in strict harmony with that of his Divine Master: ‘ God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.’ And again:
My sheep hear my voice, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.’
Will it be said that such life, thus distinctly opposed to perishing, is simply or mainly the converse of ‘moral or spiritual corruption,’ because we read elsewhere, ‘This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou halt sent?‘ (John 17. 3.) It appears a sufficient reply, that knowledge and life cannot be identical.
We know not indeed what life, whether of the highest or of the lowest kind, is; but that it is not knowledge of any sort seems to be abundantly plain.
Probably the words mean, according to a common form of speech, that the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ is the sure consequence, the necessary result, of that eternal life which belongs to all who are born of the Spirit. Those who are thus renewed, already know God and His Son, as they are not known ,by the world; and they will know them more and more, until, in some sense, they know as they are known.
I incline to this interpretation, because we have from the same pen an exactly similar form of expression, which seems to demand a like mode of construction. ‘This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments.’ (1 John 5. 3.) Here the meaning cannot be that the holy affection and practical obedience are exactly the same thing; but that the one necessarily flows from the other. Keeping the commandments is a sure result and proof of love. He that hath my commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loveth me.’
If, however, we take the common interpretation of the former passage, namely, that eternal life is the fruit or result of knowing aright God and His Son, the view of course remains unaffected that life is not itself a moral or spiritual quality; but vital existence, whatever that may be; something represented again and again as distinguishing those who shall not perish. It is doubtless attended with holiness and with happiness, but it is not identical with both or with either.
Only one further remark on the error we are combating seems to be necessary.
Even if we could assent to Mr. Sherlock’s assertion, that death, as applied to the sinner, signifies moral or spiritual corruption’ (and we especially ask his attention to this), what would he say of destroyed, consumed, devoured, slain, and various other terms already adverted to? Destroyed in trespasses and sins, consumed in trespasses and sins, slain in trespasses and sins, and so forth, would hardly be admissible or intelligible language.
As respects the word ‘slain,’ even if it occurred (which is by no means the case) only in a parable, as in Luke 19, it would still deserve to, be weighed in this argument. It is indeed sometimes said, ‘Theologia parabolica non est argumentative.’ But, perhaps, there is less wisdom in this proposition than is commonly supposed. Olshausen, in commenting on Rom. 5. 12-21, makes, as I think, a just remark upon it. Men are wont to say, that parables prove nothing. Nevertheless, comparisons often teach by depth of meaning infinitely more and better than all abstract arguments, seeing they are derived from nature, the mirror of the glory of the unseen God, living demonstrations, as it were, of the Most High God Himself.’
The sum of what I would urge on the common phrases, ‘spiritual life,’ and ‘spiritual death’ (language unknown in Scripture), is this: that if we would use those phrases consistently with the teaching of the sacred volume, we must mean by spiritual life, the state of those who have been quickened by the Spirit and so ‘have everlasting life;’ and by spiritual death, the state of those who have not been so quickened, and who, remaining impenitent, will pass away,’ will not ‘abide forever,’ or, in one word, will ‘perish.’ Turning for a moment to another point, Mr. Sherlock writes:—'Long before the express teaching of the New Testament, the Jews were familiar with eternal suffering as the fate of the impenitent.’ (P. 88.)
That some among the Jews held the doctrine, and especially that the Pharisees held it (particularly as it bore upon the Gentiles), along with a large number of errors, need not be denied or questioned. The point of importance is, the ground of their faith. Did it rest on Divine revelation? Was immortality for the wicked ‘brought to light’ in the Old Testament?
The Pharisees, in the time of Christ, were doubtless an influential class; but there is little in the New Testament to encourage reliance on their teaching.
Our Lord did not deal much with their errors, serious and extravagant as some of them were. He taught what men needed to know in a wiser, more direct, and more compendious manner, than through the refutation of false teaching; but He gave this warning in various forms, ‘Beware of the doctrine of the Pharisees.’
Not for a moment suspecting Mr. Sherlock of any but the purest motives, it is, I think, much to be regretted that he has concentrated his attention on a very small portion indeed of his opponents’ arguments.
Strange to say, too, he assumes as beyond question that Scripture is against us in this controversy. So confessedly, he says, is this the case, that ‘it reduces us to an apologetic tone, which is content for the most part to explain away the weight of Scripture language’ (p. 84). Mr. Liddon makes a similar statement,* and then commences his argument with the passage from Isaiah referred to in these pages (p. 32), and finds the next in Daniel, also noticed here (p. 47). These are the first two, and the only two, he can adduce from the Old Testament. His few others are from the New Testament. So that as respects the wicked, unless the former passages are clear, ‘endless woe’ was that immortality which was fully brought to light in the glorious gospel of the blessed God.
* The Whole Counsel of God, p. 20.
I have no other remark to make on the above allegations, save that I think they are unfair, and that I am persuaded their authors would have abstained from them, had they been better acquainted with what has been written on this question. There are, as it appears to me, various other errors than those which I have noticed, in Mr. Sherlock’s volume. But on these it is surely needless to dwell.
Few persons, I presume, will believe, that if the infliction of eternal sufferings be infinitely cruel, the infliction of temporary sufferings must also be cruel (p. 29). They will see that there may be all the difference between them, that lies between injustice and justice. Few, again, will admit that no punishment for sin can be too severe, so that we are only warned of it and have it in our power to escape it (p. 34). Most of us know how such a principle would fare, if asserted for a moment in our national legislature.
Further, what need can there be to refute such an amazing proposition as this? ‘The same argument that pleads for annihilation pleads against the creation of finite fallible beings at all’ (p. 77): as if we were able to discover all God’s purposes in the creation of any beings!
Or, yet further, this? (which is impliedly asserted) That maxims of justice forbid the infliction of temporary punishment before annihilation, but do not forbid the infliction of eternal misery (p. 94): in which it seems to be maintained that if a creature sin ever so enormously, he cannot justly be preserved for any punishment, unless he is preserved to suffer for ever.
I leave errors of this nature to the common intelligence that they will have to encounter. I have been content to enquire what we are taught on future punishment in our only sure guide, the Sacred Volume.