Chapter VI.

“Adam which was the Son of God.”—S. Luke, 3:38.

Our next step is an important one, to shew briefly how universalism instead of disturbing the due proportion and harmony of christian doctrine is precisely the element which affirms and establishes both.

We shall find—and the fact is a striking confirmation of the larger hope—that the great verities of our Faith grow into a living unity in the light of the great Purpose of Restoration. Creation, Incarnation, Resurrection, Judgment, &c., thus assume their places as parts of one great whole, the ‘One thought of the One God,’—pp. 207-9. The Bible story opens with Creation, which the New Testament so closely connects with Restoration,—Col. 1:16-20. Heb. 1:2-3. As all created beings issue out of, so they return unto God—(p. 239) all are emphatically pronounced ‘Good,’ ‘Very Good’—Gen. 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31—pregnant words. But man is created in God’s very Image and Likeness. What does this involve? It is (1). God’s affirmation of universal Fatherhood. (2). God’s assumption of the holiest duties towards every man. (3). God’s investing every man with inalienable rights.

I contend that such a tie between God and Man can never be broken, that in the Origin of mankind Scripture bids us see their destiny, that God must realise finally that ideal which he traced in Creation. We are told God is not the Father of all men; He is only their Creator! What a total misapprehension these words imply of all that is involved in creating man in the likeness of God, in the image of God. Viewed thus, Creation contains the Gospel in germ; it involves universal Fatherhood. “Have we not all one Father,” asks the Prophet, why? “Hath not one God created us?”—Mal. 2:10. “O Lord, Thou art our Father * * we are all the work of Thy hand.”— Isa. 64:8. “The Protevangelium (the earliest gospel) is Gen. 1:26. ‘Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.’”—Westcott on Heb. 1:2. Indeed, we may perhaps say of Creation that it is fatherhood extended, it involves paternity and something more. For what do we mean by paternity and the obligations it brings?

The idea rests essentially on the communication of life to the child by the parent. Now paternity is for us largely blind and instinctive; but Creation is Love acting freely, divinely; knowing all the consequences, assuming all the responsibility, involved in the very act of creating a reasonable immortal spirit. “Dieu, dit on, ne doit rien a ses creatures. Le crois qu’il leur doit toute ce qu’il leur promit, en leur donnant l’etre. Or c’est leur promettre un bien, que de leur en donner l’idee, et de leur en faire sentir le besoin.”—Emile. It seems, then, very strange to seek to escape the consequences of the lesser obligation, by admitting one still greater; to seek, in a word, to evade the results of a divine universal fatherhood, by pleading that God is only the Creator of all. Hence a good Creator, freely creating for a doom of endless sin, freely introducing a dualism, is a profound moral contradiction. Can we even imagine a Good Being of His own free-will calling into existence creatures to hate Him for ever, or certainly creating those who will, as He knows, hate Him for ever, and sin for ever?^[1] Thus, in the awful yet tender light of Creation, the traditional creed shrinks and shrivels up—“Seeing then that the spirit comes from God,” * * says S. Jerome, “it is NOT JUST that they should perish eternally who are sustained by His breath and spirit.”—In Isa. lvii. 6.

I pass to consider the Incarnation. It is the great fact of Christianity. From it flow, and on it depend the Atonement, the Sacraments, the Resurrection; they are, as it were, results of the Incarnation, and extensions of it. Now there are many aspects of this mystery which I do not touch; content to note that one point is quite clearly admitted, that Jesus Christ became Incarnate as the second Adam. Therefore, to justify such a title, the Incarnation involves the idea of the unity, absolute and organic, of the race of man. “For what purpose is the history of our race traced to its earliest origin * * unless its fortunes were regarded as a whole, and it must stand or fall together.”^[2]—Wilberforce on the Incarnation. “To that old Creation is opposed the regeneration of man’s race, through its new Creation in the second Adam.”—Ib.

But this logically involves the salvation of the race, “which stands or falls together.” It is, to borrow a homely phrase, all or none (p. 71-3). If this were to be stated in the language of science, it would stand thus—Adam = x, where x represents all humanity. And so Christ, as the last Adam, sums up all humanity in the spiritual equation. The traditional creed, in fact, constructs an Incarnation of its own, not that of Scripture. Its Incarnate Son may be the Son of God, but is not the Son of Man (of humanity), not the second Adam. And as the Christ of the traditional creed is not the Christ of Scripture, so its human race is not the true humanity, for it teaches that the race is a collection of atoms, separable, inorganic. But Scripture affirms the reverse: it is quite true that every man bears his own burden of sin and suffering; but there is a truth higher still—the solidarity of the race, in the divine idea and plan. Says Westcott, “Our lives are fragments of some larger life.”—Rev. of the Father, p. 98. This is the truth, without which the Fall and the Incarnation are unintelligible. In the highest sense Christ does not deal with the units of humanity, for humanity itself is the divine unit in Redemption. Therefore I feel constrained to charge the traditional creed with making void the idea which underlies the Incarnation, the organic unity of mankind.

But a further point must here be noted: as we think of man’s Creation in God’s Image and Likeness, and all it involves; of the stupendous glory of the Incarnation; of the splendour of the Atonement, there comes of itself a conviction that no anticipations we can form are too magnificent of the destiny of humanity as such, i.e., as a whole: no ideals are too lofty. The traditional creed stands self-condemned when confronted with these noble facts; it bears the brand of utter meanness; its message of ruin without remedy, of eternal chaos, and darkness is a denial of the whole purpose and essence of Creation; it is a denial, no less, of the message of the Incarnation to humanity as such, an organic whole.

I pass to the Atonement. It is an Atonement made by Christ as the last Adam. Not alone, then, does Christ sooner or later draw to Himself all men, but He cannot draw less than all men if He be a new and better Adam. Therefore, I repeat, the traditional creed, while in words teaching, in fact denies the Atonement of the Bible. It asserts a universal salvation—but it really means a salvation that does not save universally—one in which Christ tries to save all, and is defeated. What is this but to dishonour the cross in its very essence: to deny that our Lord is truly the last Adam, and to treat Him as one who, in the face of assembled creation, in the sight of men and angels, has challenged the powers of evil and has failed?

Long familiarity has blinded us to the significance of the startling provision by which Adam is linked organically with the whole race in the transmission of guilt. This tie is formed universally, and independently of any volition. To call Christ the second (i.e., last) Adam is either to dupe men, or it is to assert a tie equally organic and absolute with the whole human race. But it is said, that, as men can shake off the heritage of Adam, so they may the grace of Christ: I reply (I.) so they may, if the grace of Christ be only as strong as the sin of Adam, which S. Paul clearly denies, e.g., Rom. 5:15-21, &c. (II.) Before men can shake off a heritage they must have received it. Hence, unless Christ replaces the race in paradise, He has not undone the evil of the Fall (a fact which is steadily denied, or ignored, by the traditional creed), and so is not the second Adam. (III.) It is an illogical process to say that because a partial failure took place (foreseen, and permitted for wise ends), therefore a new dispensation expressly designed to remedy that failure will itself fail. (IV.) In the highest and truest sense God never fails, never can fail.

And here it is right to point out that two very popular views of the Atonement lead, logically, (their truth I do not discuss) to the larger hope. One theory says that Christ died as the sinner’s substitute. But, if so, and if He, as is certain, died for all, then all have a clear right to salvation. If the substitute be accepted all have a right to go free. Similarly, if Christ’s death be the price paid for mankind’s redemption, then the acceptance of that price gives mankind a clear right to salvation. The substitute being accepted, and the price fully paid for all, is it wholly unfair to exact the penalty twice over, in any one case, in hell. These obvious conclusions are too often ignored. A few words may be added on a strange view not seldom held. An infinite Atonement pre-supposes, it is said, an infinite guilt, and an infinite penalty. An infinite Atonement, it may be replied, pre-supposes rather an infinite Love and an infinite Hope; and excludes the chance of failure, possible to a finite Saviour. I have shewn the illogical and unscriptural assumption involved in speaking of human guilt as infinite (p. 47 Note). But, even admitting that the penalty of sin is infinite (for argument’s sake), my argument as above is wholly untouched. Be the penalty infinite or no, you cannot equitably exact it twice over.

Let us pass to the Sacraments. They are an extension of the Incarnation. “The influence of the Incarnation extends itself through that sacramental system, which binds all men to the head of the race”—Wilberforce, p. 14. “As there is a recapitulation of all, in heaven and earth in Christ, so there is a recapitulation of all in Christ in the holy sacrament.”—Bishop Andrew, Sermon of the Nativity. In the language of theology, the tie formed in Baptism (renewed in Holy Communion) with Christ is so close, that in the famous words of S. Leo, “Corpus regenerati fit caro Christi.” “The body of the baptized becomes the flesh of Jesus Christ.” But if so, it is impossible to believe that the very flesh of Christ can be sent into an endless hell. Can Jesus Christ cut off, so to speak, His own flesh and sever it from Himself for ever? or rather, to state the case fully, can Christ assign a portion of Himself to the society of devils for ever? Even Keble seems to feel this. When dwelling on these aspects of Redemption, the cruel theology to which he clings drops off; and rising to true catholicity, he bids us view “Christ’s least and worst with hope to meet above;” and says, in suggestive words, “Christ’s mark outwears the rankest blot.” Need I again point out how these words really involve universalism, for our Lord always teaches that those who have been brought nearest to Him and yet disobey, as do impenitent christians, will fare worse in the final judgment than those who have never heard of Him.

Next, let us pursue the Incarnation into another field of thought, and contemplate in its light the Resurrection. The Resurrection is—admitting fully its work for the body—yet essentially far more than this. “It is the new birth of humanity.”—Westcott, Gosp. of Res. It is the crown of Redemption. (I.) It is Life from Christ permeating the whole man, body and spirit. (II.) It is Life permeating the whole of humanity, through the last Adam. “As in (the) Adam all die, so in (the) Christ shall be made alive.” To a collective death in Adam is here opposed a collective life in Christ; to a fall, a rising again; to a loss, a gain; and that universal and absolute, one dealing with the race I say, a gain, necessarily; as is involved in the very idea of the Resurrection. For what is the Resurrection? It comes only through Christ, Who not merely gives, but Who is the Resurrection and the Life. It is thus the closest union with Christ: it is to share the “kingdom of God:” to bear “the image of the heavenly:” to draw from Christ the gifts of “life,” “power,” “glory,” “incorruption,” “immortality,” as S. Paul teaches. And to share all these is, necessarily, to share blessedness; a point I must press. By what imaginable process can death, and blight, and evil be the result of that Resurrection which IS Christ? Again, death is in Scripture a name under which are grouped the results of sin. Hence to abolish death, as the Resurrection does, is to abolish sin and its results. But by the Resurrection death is swept away, is, indeed, “swallowed up,” and Life in all its fulness of meaning, Life in Christ, Life which is Christ, is communicated.

Meantime, let us notice that this view of the Resurrection seems implied in our Lord’s words, S. John 6:39, 40, 54. There the Resurrection is contrasted with loss, and is stated as the result of believing: cfr. S. John 11:25-6: here notice our Lord’s rejection of the idea of a Resurrection deferred to the Last Day, as elsewhere He says, “Verily, verily, the hour now is, in which they that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and they that hear shall live.”—S. John 5:25. Here we have to guard against the common error, which destroys the whole force of Christ’s words, by severing this present Resurrection from that which is to come. To our Lord, no such division occurs: nay, to deny any such division seems His very object, and to teach that the true idea of the Resurrection is of a force essentially spiritual, ever acting; a leaven which, working here and now, shall one day transform and raise the whole man, body, soul, and spirit. Further, the idea of the Resurrection, as a gain from its very nature, seems in harmony with our Lord’s words—S. Matt. 22:30; Mark 12:25; Luke 20:35-6. The same conception underlies S. Paul’s teaching. “If the Spirit of Him, Who raised up Jesus from the dead, dwell in you, He that raised up Jesus from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies.”—Rom. 8:11. Here Resurrection is represented as flowing from the indwelling Spirit.

Thus, too, S. Paul preaches as good news the Resurrection—Acts 17:18: and connects the Resurrection and light.—ib. 26:23 (revised version), and significantly hopes for the Resurrection of the unjust,—Acts 24:15, i.e., hopes that the unjust, shall, with the just, share the benefit of the Resurrection. Doubtless there is (and we are glad to admit it), a Resurrection of judgment.—S. John 5:29. For judgment, as we shall see, is itself a part of the great scheme of salvation; and is curative, while, nay rather, because it is retributive. To this treatment of the impenitent dead, S. Paul seems to allude in saying, “But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s;” “Then cometh the end,” i.e., after the time necessary for the subjection to Him of all opposing creatures “when He shall have put down all rule, and all authority and power.”—1 Cor. 15:23-4. In other words all are to be made alive in Christ, but in due order and succession, vv. 22-3. The reign of Christ is to be prolonged until its aim is attained, v. 25, i.e., the aim just referred too of universal life, v. 22.

Such, broadly speaking, seems to be the view of the Resurrection given in Scripture. Taken narrowly, its statements may seem to conflict. Thus they describe the Resurrection as successive, 1 Cor. 15:23, and Rev. 20:6; and yet simultaneous, 1 Cor. 15:51-2; as present, S. John 5:25, and as future (in many passages). All becomes clear if we keep in mind the central idea of the Resurrection as a spiritual redemptive force exercised over the whole man—a force present and ever acting (as in the parallel case of judgment); a force which is successive, as it transforms individuals or classes of men; and yet future and simultaneous in some special sense, when the end has come, when the whole of humanity are “risen,” when the climax has been by all attained.

I have reserved for the last a more detailed examination of S. Paul’s great argument in 1 Cor. 15. Two points of the greatest moment are there taught: (I.) S. Paul is speaking of the Resurrection of the dead generally, i.e., of all humanity. (II.) He asserts in the case of all, the quickening, healing force of the Resurrection; he knows no other Resurrection than this healing, restoring process. (I.) That the Apostle is speaking of the Resurrection of all seems clear from his words, v. 22-3—“For as in the Adam all die, so in the Christ shall all be made alive.” Here he plainly describes a process co-extensive with the race, co-extensive with sin: again he proceeds to state clearly this universal reference by explaining that life does not reach all at once, but “every man in his own order.” He divides the all, taking first “they that are Christ’s,” v. 23, who obtain the Resurrection life at His parousia. Thence he passes to the mass of humanity, who are to be gradually “subjected” in the interval before “the end,” v. 24. Finally, everything whatsoever and wheresoever is to be subjected to Christ. (On this process, see notes on 1 Cor. 15:25-28; Eph. 1:10, 1:22; Col. 1:15-20; Phil. 3:21,—Chap. viii.)

The final result is summed up in very striking words—“And when all things have been subjected unto Him (Christ) then shall the Son Himself also be subjected unto Him (the Father) that did subject all things unto Him (Christ) in order that God may be all in all.” Observe the same relation subsists finally between the whole universe (whatsoever and wheresoever), as that between Christ and the Father—the same original word is used of both. The language of the Apostle admits of no exception at the end; of no death whatsoever, first or second, for all are made alive in Christ; of no annihilation, for all are restored; of no blot or stain of evil moral or physical. Finally, as the grand result—God is all and in all.

This conception of the Resurrection as a spiritual force, conveying blessedness, we find asserted by many early writers. The first traces of this teaching are perhaps in the works of those Fathers, who seem to teach the extinction of the wicked and to confine the Resurrection to the righteous. See Clemens (Romanus) quoted p. 94. They contradict the gift of God die “in their wrangling,” says S. Ignatius. “It would have been better for them to love, so that they might rise,” i.e., obtain the Resurrection.—Ad Smyr. vii. See also Ad Trall. ix. “He who raised Christ from the dead, will raise us up also, if we do His will,” says S. Polycarp.—Ad Phil. ii. So, too, apparently, “The Teaching of the Apostles” (p. 94). Theophilus of Antioch teaches that those keeping God’s commandments “can be saved, and obtaining the Resurrection, can inherit incorruption.”—Ad Aut. ii. 27; and Irenæus (p. 95) very probably takes the same view. Arnobius asks “what man does not see that, that which is immortal * * cannot be subject to any pain; and that, on the contrary, that cannot be immortal which does suffer pain?”—Adv. gen. ii. 14. Passing on from these Fathers, we find abundant early evidence to support the view, which makes the Resurrection a process of restoration from its very nature.—See Athenagoras, p. 108; Methodius, p. 111.

Again, S. Hilary speaks thus: “When the only begotten Son was about to reconcile to God all things in heaven, and on earth * * when death * * should come to an end * * by redeeming man from the law of sin—by making God an object of praise to all, and through all the eternities, by the gift and dignity of our immortality. Now all these things the virtue of the Resurrection accomplished.”—In Ps. lxix., p. 834 (Paris, 1652). S. Gregory of Nyssa abounds with such teaching as the following: “The Resurrection is the restoration of our nature to its pristine state.”—De an. et Res. ii., p. 684. “Therefore, like a potter’s vase, man is resolved once more into clay, in order that * * he may be moulded anew into his original form, by the Resurrection.—Cat. orat. ch. viii. “Lest sin adhering to us should last for ever, the vessel is, by a kindly providence, dissolved by death for a time, in order that * * mankind should be remoulded; and restored, free from the admixture of sin, to its former life. For that is the Resurrection, namely, the replacing of our nature in its former state.”—In fun. Pulch. ii. p. 955. S. Ambrose teaches that: “The Resurrection was given by death sin should end.”—De bono mort. ch. iv. “The Resurrection is that by which all the bonds of the enemy are loosed.”—In Ps. xli.

So, too, the Ambrosiaster. “On the abolition of sin, the Resurrection of the dead takes place.”—In Col. ii. “The Resurrection,” says an early author, “is the remoulding of our nature.”—De Sacr. ii. 6. “Not to sin,” says Gennadius, “belongs to the immortal and impassible nature.”—In Rom. vi. 12. In the same tone speaks Clement of Alexandria.—See Pæd. iii. ch. 1. The school of Antioch strongly insisted on this view of the Resurrection. Diodorus has been quoted—p. 137, and Theodore—p. 142-3. From the latter I add here: “Christ gave the Resurrection in order that, placed in an immortal nature, we should live free from all sin.—In Rom. v. 18. “The Apostle proves at length that those who are mortal serve sin, but those who become immortal are set free from it.”—ib. viii. 3. “The Resurrection of the dead (is) the final (greatest) good.”—ib. xi. In the same spirit Theodoret says—“In the future life the body, when made incorruptible and immortal, cannot admit the filth of sin.”—In Col. ii. 11. “For after the Resurrection, when our bodies become incorruptible and immortal, grace shall reign in them, sin having no place left for it. For when sufferings (passions pathon) are put an end to (by the Resurrection), sin will have no place.”—In Rom. v. 21. Viewed thus, surely a clearer light falls on the Saviour’s words, “I am the Resurrection and the Life,” words re-echoed in our Creed—“I believe * * the Resurrection of the dead, and the Life everlasting”—the Resurrection as bringing to all Life everlasting.

From the Resurrection, let us pass by an easy transition to consider those texts which speak of “death” and “destruction” and “perishing” as the portion of the ungodly. To ascertain the true meaning, let us enquire what is meant by death. There are two answers commonly given. First comes that of the popular creed, which says death in the case of sinners means living for ever in pain and evil. The recoil from such teaching has produced the second view of “death” as meaning “annihilation,” now maintained by some. I have already spoken of this view, pp. 8-10; what follows will shew how completely it seems to me to contradict the true Scriptural idea of death.

First, I would ask, in the words of Mr. Jukes, “are any of the varied deaths which Scripture speaks of as incident to man, his non-existence or annihilation? Take as examples the deaths referred to by S. Paul, in the sixth, seventh, and eighth chapters of the Epistle to the Romans. We read (ch. vi., 7), ‘He that is dead is free from sin.’ Is this ‘death’ which is freedom from sin, non-existence or annihilation? Again, when the Apostle says (ch. vii. 9), ‘I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.’ Was this ‘death,’ wrought in him by the law, annihilation? Again, when he says (ch. viii. 6), ‘To be carnally minded is death,’ is this death non-existence or annihilation? And again, when he says (ch. viii. 38), ‘Neither death, nor life, shall separate us,’ is the ‘death’ here referred to annihilation? When Adam died on the day he sinned (Gen. 2:17), was this annihilation when his body died, and turned to dust (Gen. 5:5), was this annihilation? Is our ‘death in trespasses and sins’ (Eph. 2:1-2) annihilation? Is our ‘death to sin’ (Rom. 6:11), annihilation? * * Do not these and similar uses of the word prove beyond all question, that whatever else these deaths may be, not one of them is non-existence or annihilation?”

But if death be neither living for ever in pain, nor annihilation, what then is it? Death is, in its narrower aspect, bodily dissolution; it is for man ‘a separation from some given form of life which he has lived in;’ it is the way out of one state of being into another. Thus understood, how should it shut out hope in any case? Nor is it really opposed to life, in fact it is, when viewed in a truer and higher aspect, a pathway to life; nay, the very condition of life. ‘Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but, if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.’ S. John 12:24. Is there not here a great truth hinted at, of universal application? Is not the connection a very real and vital one between dying and life? and so the Apostle says that ‘he that is dead is freed from sin,’ Rom. 6:7, i.e., is alive to God. Must it not be that this death threatened against the ungodly is, after all, the way, however sharp, to life even for them? as S. Paul, Rom. 11:15, asks, ‘what shall the reconciling of them be but life from the dead?’ On the view generally held these words, so significant, lose all real force. A tradition, wholly unwarranted, has spread almost universally, which regards death as the close of our training; as assigning a limit beyond which Christ Himself has no power or no will to save the obstinate sinner.

I reply that in both the letter and the spirit, this view contradicts at once the deductions of reason: the teachings of the early church: and the express language of the New Testament. Indeed, to teach truer views of death seems one of the essential objects of the Gospel. Death is, in fact, the crossing from one stage of our journey to another. It is not an end; it is a transit; it is an episode in life, and not its goal. It is not really a terminus, but a starting point. It is “that first breath which our souls draw when we enter Life, which is of all life centre.”—Edwin Arnold. “Death is the shadow, the dream, and not life, as we hastily judge who measure being by our senses.”—Westcott, Rev. of the Father, p. 94. The day of death was by a true instinct named in the early church the day of birth. To teach that our training ends at death, is to say that a child’s education ends with the nursery.

Therefore, let me ask, on what authority is the common doctrine taught, unknown to antiquity, unknown to Scripture? Who commissioned any to teach, that to die is to pass into a state beyond the reach of Christ’s grace? If so, why are we told, so significantly, the story of Christ’s evangelising the spirits in prison? Why are those especially selected for evangelisation who had been in life disobedient, and had so died? Why does the Apostle tell us that the Gospel was preached even to the dead?—1 Pet. 4:6, a fact obscured in the authorised version. Why these repeated and exultant questions, “O grave where is thy victory?” “O death where is thy sting?” Why has the New Testament, with such varied illustrations, pressed on us this fact (as of special moment) that Christ has destroyed death, if death is ever to put a stop to His power to save? How could Christ be the Conqueror of death, if death can in any case reduce Him to impotence? Can death disarm its victor? So far from this, S. Paul invokes the analogy of nature, as shewing that death is the condition of life. “Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die,”— in fact

• “There is no gain except by loss,
• There is no life except by death”

Who shall limit this truth in its operation? It certainly does hold good in the spiritual order—of that we are assured. S. Paul, in a passage already quoted, speaks of death as freeing from sin. Let me quote further. “If we be dead with Him, we shall live with Him.”—2 Tim. 2:11. “We which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be manifested in us.”—2 Cor. 4:11. And so our Lord declares that “He that loseth His life shall save it.”—a statement more than once repeated in the gospels. And the Apostle adds, Rom. 8:13, “if ye mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” Thus, too, the Psalmist^[3] strikingly prays, “that the wicked may perish, in order that they may know that God reigns over the earth.”—Ps. 83:17-8. See, too, the verse, “When He slew them then they sought Him.”—Ps. 78:34. On these words Origen comments, “He does not say that some sought Him after others had been slain, but He says that the destruction of those who were killed was of such a nature that, when put to death, they sought God.”—De prin. ii. ch. 5, iii. So, too, Elam is to be first consumed and then restored.—Jer. 49:37-9. So is Ammon to be restored after perpetual desolation—Zeph. 2:9 and Jer. 49:6. So the dead bones are made alive.—Ez. 37., and Israel comes up out of her graves.—ib. v. 13. cf. 1 Samuel 2:6.

We thus learn how death becomes the very instrument by which God quickens the sinner, and that in two ways. (I.) By the death of the body, which takes a man out of the present age into a state more fitted to rouse and to save. (II.) By the death of the spirit, i.e., its being searched through and through by God’s fiery discipline—by His sharp surgery—till it die to sin and live to righteousness. In all this subject of death, there is an extraordinary narrowness in the views held generally, as though the fact of dying could change God’s unchanging purpose; as though His never failing love were extinguished because we pass into a new state of existence; as though the power of Christ’s Cross were exhausted in the brief span of our earthly life. So far from this, has not Christ abolished death? Is He not Lord of the dead? Did He not evangelise the dead? Has He not the keys of death? On the popular view, what depth of meaning can you possibly assign to these words?

But it may be said, is there not “the second death?” Yes, assuredly. But though it were not the second merely, but the thousandth death, yet it is but death: and death absolutely, in every degree and power, is destroyed, is blotted out, or there is no real meaning in S. Paul’s song of triumph (1 Cor. 15:55). No true victory has been won by Christ if the second death is too strong for Him. Will our opponents explain how “death” can be “swallowed up” in victory, and yet survive in its most malignant form, i.e., the second death? As Martensen well puts the case, “When S. Paul teaches that death is the last enemy that shall be conquered, evidently in this death he comprehends the second death, else there would still be an enemy to conquer.”—Dogm. Chret.

A vast body of early opinion affirms that the sinner’s “death” and “destruction” is the Great Artist remoulding^[4] His own work; is the Physician healing, not annihilating. To pulverise the sinner, to destroy, to slay, all mean reformation. Such is the testimony of a crowd of illustrious names, to most of whom the language of the New Testament was familiar as the language of their every-day life. So Clement asserts that the law in ordering the sinner to be put to death designs his being brought from death to life.—Strom. lib. vii. p. 707. Origen has been already quoted. S. Methodius asserts that the custom of Scripture is to call destruction that which is only a change for the better.—Ex. Epiphan. Adv. hær. ii. tom. i. § 32. Irenæus speaks of death as ending sin.—Adv. hær. iii. 23-6. S. Gregory of Nyssa is full of similar teaching. “They who live in the flesh ought, by virtuous conduct, to free themselves from fleshly lusts, lest after death, they should again need another death, to cleanse away the remains of fleshly glutinous vice that cling to them.”—De anim. et Res., ii. p. 652. This seems to shew the healing agency of even the “second death.” “When the Psalmist prays, let sinners and the unrighteous be destroyed, he is (really) praying that sin and unrighteousness may perish.”—De orat. Or. i. p. 719. The passage continues thus—“And if there be found any such prayer elsewhere (in the Scriptures), it has exactly the same meaning, viz., that of expelling the sin, and not destroying the man.” For S. Gregory of Nazianzus, see p. 118, and for S. Basil, p. 120. Hilary has been quoted to the same general effect. So have Eusebius and Rufinus, Macarius Magnes, Titus of Bostra, Clement of Alexandria, Chrysostom, and Cyril of Alexandria; to these I may add Maximus and Didymus: and Ambrose, pp. 129-30. It would be hardly possible to adduce a stronger chain of testimony. I now turn to S. Jerome (see p. 136). “All God’s enemies shall be destroyed, His enemies shall perish and cease to exist, but perish in that wherein they are enemies.” S. Jerome even seems to assert the salvation of the “Man of sin,” for the passage proceeds thus—“Just as S. Paul writes to the Thessalonians (of the Man of sin), whom the Lord shall slay with the breath of His mouth. (So) this slaying signifies not annihilation, but the cessation of the evil life, in which they formerly used to live.”—In Mic. v. 8. From the Ambrosiaster I take the following, on the words, “They shall perish.” “They perish * * while they are being changed for the better.”—In Heb. i. 11. And so in the Sibylline Books, the wicked first perish and afterwards are saved.—lib. ii. vv. 211, 250-340.

And what is true of “death” as threatened against the sinner, is true no less of “judgment,” even in its most extreme form. We are not without very distinct teaching in Holy Scripture on this point. “Everywhere,” says S. Basil, “Scripture connects God’s justice (righteousness) with His compassions.”—In Ps. cxvi. 5. Doubtless in a certain sense judgment may be opposed to mercy, and contrasted with it (S. James 2:13), but this is on the surface rather than in essence. As, to take an illustration, death is often contrasted in Scripture with life, and yet is the very pathway to life. (See pp. 185-8). Whenever judgment comes, it comes on Love’s errand, if it comes from God. Here is the spiritual watershed between the two theologies. There is the popular theology that says, God loves His enemies, till they die His love then turns into hate and vengeance. His love is in fact, a question of chronology, or, if one will, of geography, i.e., bounded to this world. And there is the truer theology that teaches with the Bible, that God is Love—Love unchanging and eternal in all His ways.

In the first judgment recorded in Scripture, mercy goes hand in hand. If Adam is to die, mercy follows; the serpent’s head is to be bruised. So, too, even the vengeance of eternal fire on Sodom ends in her restoration.—Jude 1:7.; Ezek. 16:53-5. We thus understand the striking juxtaposition of mercy and judgment in God’s revelation of Himself to Moses.—Exod. 34:6-7: the same connexion we shall find in Deut. 32:35 and 39: (cf. Rom. 12:19-20.) Thus, too, Israel’s Judges were Saviours.—Judg. 3:9: Obad. 1:21. Few more beautiful illustrations of the view I am urging can be found than that afforded by the story of Achan, stoned by a terrible judgment with all that he had, in the Valley of Achor—Josh. 7:24-25: for if we turn to Hosea 2:15 we shall find this promise, “I will give her the Valley of Achor for a door of hope,” words pregnant with suggestion.

If now we turn to the Psalter, we may note that the fact of God’s coming to judgment is a matter of deep joy—Ps. 67:4; nay, the Psalmist (Ps. 96:11-3; 98:4-9) bids the sea to roar, the floods to clap their hands, the hills to sing for joy, at the prospect of judgment (as being a part of the great scheme of redemption). And so he hopes in God’s judgments (Ps. 119:43), and comforts himself with them—ib. 52-62 (compare Ps. 97:8). Of Ps. 2:8-9 I have already spoken. It would be interesting to know how the traditional creed can fairly reconcile Christ’s taking the heathen as His inheritance, with the terrible judgment inflicted on them, “breaking them in pieces.” The more we study the Bible the more clear does the fact become, that salvation is essentially linked with the divine judgments. And so, conversely, there is an awfulness even in the divine compassion. There is mercy with Thee, therefore Thou shalt be feared.—Ps. 130:4. And in this spirit we read the suggestive words, “Thou, Lord, art merciful,” says the Psalmist, “for Thou renderest to every man according to his work.”—Ps. 62:12. Here is the essence of the question—retribution is mercy; judgment means salvation. “The thought,” says Maurice, “of God’s ceasing to punish is the real—the unutterable horror. Wrath is not the counteracting force to love, but the attribute of it.” So Ps. 67:1-4 presents to us the picture of God as judge, in connection with His saving health reaching all nations. So in Ps. 72:1, 2, 3-17, judgment leads to a reign of universal righteousness. Again, in Ps. 99:8, forgiveness and vengeance go together; so Ps. 101:1, combines mercy and judgment, and Ps. 33:5, judgment and loving-kindness. And so we read, “Thy judgments are a great deep, O Lord, thou preservest man and beast.”—Ps. 36:6.

The Prophets are full of similar teaching. Note Isaiah connecting the words of comfort and pardon to Israel with her having received “double for all her sins.”—Isa. 40:1-2. So it is said, “Zion shall be redeemed with judgment.”—Isa. 1:27. “When thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.”—Isa. 26:9. “Princes shall rule in judgment, and a man shall be an hiding place from the wind.”—Isa. 32:1-2. “I will make my judgment to rest for a light of the people. * * My salvation is gone forth.”—Isa. 51:4-5. “Therefore will he be exalted that he may have mercy * * for the Lord is a God of judgment.”—Isa. 30:18. So again, “He hath filled Zion with judgment * * and there shall be abundance of salvation.”—Isa. 33:5-6. “The Lord is our Judge * * He will save us.”—Isa. 33:22. We may note how this connection of judgment and salvation runs through the Bible,—see Isa. 45:21-2, where God is described as a just God and a Saviour; and the passage proceeds to invite all the ends of the earth to look and be saved. Compare with this, Zech. 9:9, “just and having salvation, and 1 John 1:9, “He is * * just to forgive us our sins.” So do we read of judgment in connection with the future setting up of God’s kingdom of peace and love.—Isa. 2:2-4. Nor should we overlook the connection in Christ between God’s rule and salvation,—Isa. 40:10-11; 9:7, so Ps. 103:19-22. And let us note the juxta-position of the “helmet” of salvation, and “garments of vengeance.”—Isa. 59:17. So the “day of vengeance” and the acceptable year are linked together.—Isa. 61:2. And in Isa. 42:1-12 (applied to Christ in the New Testament) we find Him described as setting judgment on the earth (v. 1), but the issue is salvation (v. 7-12). Again, speaking of Christ as the branch, another Prophet tells how “He shall execute judgment * * in the land. In those days Judah shall be saved.”—Jer. 33:15. And “I will betroth thee unto Me for ever * * in judgment^[5] and in mercy.”—Hos. 2:19. So in Dan. 7:10-14, the universal dominion promised to Christ is closely connected with the Judgment Day. So in Ezek. 24:13-4, it is said of Israel, “Thou shalt not be purged of thy filthiness any more, till I have satisfied My fury upon thee.”

The passages just quoted (and those that follow) may be compared with those already cited to illustrate the Scriptural meaning of death and destruction. It will also probably help our attaining a true view of judgment if we remember that, in a sense most real, judgment is present and continuous. “Les grandes assises de la vallée de Josâphat commencent pour nous chaque soir.”—Mad. Swetchine. “The world,” says Emerson, “is full of judgment days.”—Spirit. Laws.

Let us now pass to the New Testament: there we shall find ample proof worthy of our closest study, and shewing the true meaning of judgment, alike here and hereafter, as conveying salvation. Take for instance the context, so often overlooked, of our Lord’s famous words, S. John 12:32— “Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me,” i.e., the judgment of the world is the salvation of the world, is the drawing of all men to Christ. Thus, if it be objected that we are told Christ came not to judge, but to save the world,—S. John 3:17, we can point to the above passage, and to the express statement, “For judgment came I into this world.”—S. John 9:39. But all difficulty ceases when we remember that primarily salvation is Christ’s object, but in practice this salvation is attained very often through judgment. Thus note S. Matt. 12:18-21, where the bringing of judgment unto victory is stated as our Lord’s object: and again, note the connection of judgment and quickening in S. John 5:21-2.

Very striking are the words of S. Paul, which refer to the last Judgment, and seem to shew conclusively that, that great day brings salvation to all who are judged. Turn to Rom. 14:10—“We must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ,” must each render his account to God. But that is far from being the only object of that judgment. Its main and essential purpose is salvation. To shew this is easy. For note, that to illustrate the purpose of God in judging, S. Paul here quotes from Isa. 45:23, which runs thus—“Look unto Me and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth, for I am God * * I have sworn by Myself that unto Me every knee shall bow. * * The word is gone out and shall not return;” it must be fulfilled, i.e., God’s purpose of salvation must reach effectually the entire race. But this prophetic assertion of an universal salvation is here quoted by the Apostle, and is linked with the Day of Judgment, which, according to him, it describes.

In that Judgment, S. Paul sees not the final damnation of any man, but the fulfilment of the prophetic promise—a pledge that salvation shall reach every soul of man. Pause, and realise the full significance of this. Beyond the grave, we have S. Paul looking on to the closing scene; to that Judgment which winds up the great drama of Life, and Sin, and Redemption. And as the Apostle looks he sees in the very Judgment[†] a process of salvation, he sees a picture bright with hope for every human soul—a picture which he can only describe in terms of the joyful outburst of the prophet, “Look unto Me and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth.”

Bearing all this in mind, a light, clear and distinct, falls on those words of S. Paul (so unintelligible on the ordinary view), where he declares the gospel to be “the power of God unto salvation, * * for therein is the wrath of God revealed.” Note salvation and wrath linked together; salvation because the wrath of God is revealed against all sin—Rom. 1:16-8—a connection obscured by the arrangement of the text in our translations. Note, too, the teaching of Rom. 12:19-21, which surely implies that true divine

†So the Creed, “He shall come to judge the quick and the dead, Whose kingdom shall have no end.” Thus judgment leads to the setting up of Christ’s universal empire: and so (suggestively) the Judge sits on a white throne (sign of amity).—Rev. 20:11.

vengeance is the overcoming evil by good, by kindness: and Deut. 32., which is there quoted refers to the healing character of God’s vengeance, v. 39. Consider next what S. Paul says of the case of Hymenæus and Alexander—1 Tim. 1:20. They had sinned. He thereupon hands them over to satan. You can hardly imagine a more desperate state—thrust by Apostolic authority out of God’s Church, and handed over to God’s enemy, and that after having made shipwreck of their faith. But what follows? It is that they may learn not to blaspheme. As an old Father puts it, “Sinners are handed over to the devil. Wherefore? That they may perish eternally? And where then is the mercy of God? Where is the tender Father? What the Apostle says is this, I have handed over sinners to the devil, that, tormented by him, they may be converted to Me’’—In Ps. cviii. 9 (in S. Jerome). Another equally striking instance is furnished by the case of the incestuous Corinthian. I have judged already * * to deliver such an one unto satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved.”—1 Cor. 5:3-5.

And so, as it has been well put, this wretched Corinthian was delivered from the power of the devil, by being delivered into the power of the devil. Few more suggestive passages exist in the New Testament. Here is a man delivered by Apostolic authority —in the name of Jesus Christ—to satan, handed over to satan. But mark the object and the result. It is to end not in death but in life—say rather in life attained by means of God’s awful judgment. “O mon âme sois tranquille, et attends en paix le jour des vengeances éternelles, c’est le jour de Christ, et ce sont les vengeances de Christ. C’est donc un jour de salut, et ce sont des vengeances d’amour.”—G. Monod, Le judgment dernier, p. 28. In this connection, as shewing how the utmost conceivable severity of the divine judgments is consistent with final salvation, I ask you next to remember how S. Paul tells of Israel that “wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.”—1 Thess. 2:16. The wrath of God to the uttermost, and yet the same Apostle tells us that all Israel shall be saved. Weigh well these words. It is as though God had exhausted all His vials of anger, and left Himself no more that He could do. And even then does all this wrath mean that hope is at an end, that salvation is impossible? It means the very reverse. Salvation to the uttermost (for all Israel shall be saved)— is the end of wrath to the uttermost.

Quite as striking, perhaps even more significant, are S. Peter’s words, as he tells the story of the preaching of Christ to the spirits in prison. The spirits are specially described as those of the disobedient dead. And mark what follows: “For this cause,” he adds, “was the gospel preached even to the dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit,” i.e., in order that even those who had died in sin might have the benefit of judgment, and so live to God. Here we have (I.) judgment bringing to the sinner not condemnation, but life (II.) salvation by judgment extended beyond this life (III) extended to those who neglected, while living, the greatest light then available; and died impenitent. All this involves a precise contradiction to the common view of the future of the impenitent dead. The thoughtful reader will note further that the “times of restitution of all things” come when Jesus returns, Acts 3:21, but He returns to judge the quick and the dead. Let us finally quote, “I saw another angel, having the everlasting gospel to proclaim * * and he said, fear God and give Him glory, for the hour of His judgment is come.”—Rev. 14:6-7. Note the everlasting gospel proclaimed—how? By God’s judgments.

This view of Judgment is precisely the teaching of ancient catholic Fathers, which I shall here give. Take in proof S. Jerome’s striking comment on Zeph. 3:8-10.^[6] There, speaking of the Day of Judgment and its terrors, he says: “The nations, even the multitude of the nations, are gathered to the Judgment, but the kings, i.e., the leaders of perverted dogmas are led up for punishment, in order that on them may be poured out all the wrath of the fury of the Lord. And this is not done from any cruelty, as the bloodthirsty Jews fancy, but in pity, and with a design to heal * * For the nations being assembled for judgment, and the kings for punishment, in order that wrath may be poured out on them: not in part but in whole, and, both wrath and fury being united (in order that) whatever is earthy may be consumed in the whole world.” The object aimed at (and gained) being that (as the passage proceeds) every one may lay aside his error, and every knee bend in Jesus’ name. Need I point out the extreme significance of these words? They are unhesitating in their frank recognition of, nay, in the emphasis laid on “the wrath of the fury of the Lord,” “the whole mass both of wrath and fury.” But this is a means of salvation. The great Day of Wrath that is to burn like fire, and to consume the adversaries of God, burns up only what is earthy, bringing to every sinner salvation.

Again, we have S. Jerome commenting on Rom. 1:18. “Therein is the wrath of God revealed against all ungodliness,” “where wrath is revealed it is not inflicted; it does not smite, but it is revealed in order that it may terrify, and may not be inflicted on the terrified.”—In Hab. iii. Writing on Micah 7:17, he compares the wicked to serpents, who, as they creep over the earth, drag along with them earthly matter. So the wicked, “shall be troubled so long as the sinful matter clings to them.” But when (by the judgment) this has been cleared away, they too shall end by fearing God.

Equally forcible and clear is the teaching of S. Gregory of Nyssa. “Therefore the divine judgment does not * * bring penalty upon those who have sinned, but * * works good alone by separating from evil, and drawing to a share in blessedness.” In other words, the penalty is the cure—the unavoidable pain attending the removal of the intruding element of sin.—De an. et Res. ii. p. 659. And again: If this (sin) be not cured here, its cure is postponed to a future life. As sharp remedies for obstinate cases, so God announces His future judgment for the cure of the diseases of the soul, and (note these words) that judgment is a threat to the frivolous and vain, “in order that, through fear, * * we may be trained to avoiding evil; but by those who are more intelligent, it (the judgment) is believed to be a medicine,^[7] a cure from God, Who is bringing the creature, which He has formed, back to that state of grace which first existed.”—Cat. orat. ch. viii.

It will be interesting to compare with them the following from S. Basil: “Fear edifies the simpler sort.”—Deus non est auct. mali, and from Didymus: “For although the judge at times inflicts tortures and anguish on those who merit them, yet he who more deeply scans the reasons of things, perceiving the purpose of His goodness, Who desires to amend the sinner, confesses Him to be good.”—De Sp. Sanc. ch. 44. Again, S. Gregory says that the wrath of God, which is to swallow up the sinful, is not wrath at all. “In the case of God, His wrath, though to sinners it seems wrath, and is so called by them, is nothing less than wrath (i.e., is not wrath at all), but as though (it were) wrath comes to those who, according to God’s justice, call it a retribution * * (but) God Himself is not really seen in wrath.”—In Psalmos Tract ii. ch. xv. p. 359. Origen goes quite as far. “When thou hearest of the wrath of God, believe not that this wrath and indignation are passions of God: they are condescensions of language, designed to convert and improve the child. * * So God is described as angry, and says that He is indignant, in order that thou mayest convert and be improved, while in fact He is not angry.”—In Jer. Hom. xviii. 6. So an old commentator on the Psalms (in S. Jerome) says on Ps. vii., that God “awaits the day of vengeance with a quasi-wrath, in order that He may correct (amend) by fear the sinner.” To the same general effect write S. Basil, p. 120; S. Gregory of Nazianzus, p. 118; and Clement, p. 107; and S. Hilary, on Ps. lxvii. 3-4, who says that the cause of the nations’ joy arises from “the hope of eternal judgment, and of the nations (Gentiles) directed into the way of life.” To bring such teaching home, let us suppose one of our Archbishops were to declare that God’s Judgment may terrify simple souls, but that the intelligent see its real ena to be the cure of sin; or imagine a very eminent Bishop asserting that the eternal fire purifies sinners.

Again, how shallow is the common view of “fire” as only or chiefly a penal agent. “Fire, in Scripture, is the element of ‘life’ (Isa. 4:5), of ‘purification’ (Matt. 3:3), of ‘atonement’ (Lev. 16:27), of ‘transformation’ (2 Peter 3:10), and never of ‘preservation alive’ for purposes of anguish.” And the popular view selects precisely this latter use, never found in Scripture, and represents it as the sole end of God’s fiery judgments! If we take either the teaching of Scripture or of nature, we see that the dominant conception of fire is of a beneficent agent. Nature tells us that fire is a necessary condition of life; its mission is to sustain life; and to purify, even when it dissolves. Extinguish the stores of fire in the universe, and you extinguish all being; universal death reigns. Most strikingly is this connection of fire and life shewn in the facts of nutrition. For we actually burn in order to live; our food is the fuel; our bodies are furnaces; our nutrition is a process of combustion; we are, in fact, “aflame to the very tips of our fingers.” And so it is that round the fireside life and work gather: when we think of home we speak of the family hearth.

And what Nature teaches, Scripture enforces in no doubtful tone. It is significant to find the Great Source of all life constantly associated with fire in the Bible. Fire is the sign, not of God’s wrath, but of His being. When God comes to Ezekiel there is a “fire unfolding itself”—ch. 1:4, 27, and “the appearance of fire”—ch. viii. 2. Christ’s eyes are a flame of “fire”—Rev. 1:14. And seven lamps of “fire” are the seven Spirits of God.—ib. 4:5. So a fiery stream is said “to go before God,” His throne is fiery flame, its wheels are burning fire.—Dan. 7:9, 10. His eyes are lamps of fire—ib. 10, 6; He is a wall of fire.—Zech. 2:5. At His touch the mountains smoke.—Ps. 104:32. And God’s ministers are a flame of fire—Ps. 104:4; Heb. 1:7. It is not meant to deny that the divine fire chastises and destroys. It is meant that purification, not ruin, is the final outcome of that fire from above, which consumes—call it, if you please, a paradox—in order that it may save For if God be love, then by what but by love can His fires be kindled? They are, in fact, the very flame of love; and so we have the key to the words, “Thy God is a consuming fire,” and “Thy God is a merciful God.”—Deut. 4:24-31. So God devours the earth with fire, in order that finally all may call upon the name of the Lord.—Zeph. 3:8-9 (words full of significance). So Isaiah tells us of God’s cleansing the daughters of Zion by * * the spirit of burning (ch. 4:4) —suggestive words. And, so again, “By fire will the Lord plead with all flesh.”—Isa. 66:16. And Christ coming to save, comes to purify by “fire.”—Mal. 3:2.

Let us note, also, how often “fire” is the sign of a favourable answer from God: when God appears to Moses at the Bush it is in “fire:” God answers Gideon by “fire;” and David by “fire.”—1 Chron. 21:26. Again, when He answers Elijah on Carmel, it is by “fire;” and in “fire” Elijah himself ascends to God. So God sends to Elisha, for aid, chariots and horses of “fire:” So when the Psalmist calls, God answers by “fire.”—Ps. 18:6-8. And by the pillar of “fire” the Israelites were guided through the wilderness, and in “fire” God gave His law. And in “fire” the great gift of the Holy Ghost descends at Pentecost.

These words bring us to the New Testament. There we find that “fire,” like judgment, so far from being the sinner’s portion only, is the portion of all. Like God’s judgment again, it is not future merely, but present; it is “already kindled,” i.e., always kindled: its object is not torment, but cleansing. The proof comes from the lips of our Lord Himself. “I am come to send fire on the earth,” words that in fact convey all I am seeking to teach, for it is certain that He came as a Saviour. Thus, coming to save, Christ comes with fire, nay, with fire already kindled. He comes to baptize with the Holy Ghost, and with fire. Therefore, it is that Christ teaches in a solemn passage (usually misunderstood, S. Mark 9:43) that every one shall be salted with fire. And so the “fire is to try every man’s work.” He whose work fails is saved (mark the word saved), not damned “so as by fire,” for God’s fire, by consuming what is evil, saves and refines. The ancient tradition that represents Christ as saying, “He that is near Me is near fire,” expresses a vital truth So Malachi, already quoted, describes Christ as being in His saving work “like a refiner’s fire.” And so, echoing Deut. 4:24-31, we are told that “Our God is a consuming fire,” i.e., God in His closest relation to us: God is love: God is spirit: but “Our God is a consuming fire” —a consuming fire, “by which the whole material substance of sin is destroyed.” When, then, we read—Ps. 18:12-3 that “coals of fire” go before God, we think of the deeds of love which are “coals of fire” to our enemies.—Rom. 12:20. Thus we who teach hope for all men, do not shrink from but accept, in their fullest meaning, these mysterious “fires” of gehenna, of which Christ speaks (kindled for purification), as in a special sense the sinner’s doom in the coming ages. But taught by the clearest statements of Scripture (confirmed as they are by many analogies of nature), we see in these “fires” not a denial of, but a mode of fulfilling, the promise—“Behold, I make all things new.”

Abundant quotations might be made from the Fathers in support of the above view. S. Ambrose, on Ps. i., says: The fiery sword at the gate of Paradise shews “that he who returns to it comes back by fire.” Origen says, As bodily diseases require some nauseous drug * * or actual cautery, how much more is it to be understood that God, our Physician * * should employ (for healing) penal measures of this kind, and even the punishment of fire. * * The fury of God’s vengeance is profitable for the purgation of souls. That the punishment, which is said to be applied by fire, is applied with the object of healing, is taught by Isa. 4:4.”—De prin. ii. x. 6. S. Jerome says: “Fire is God’s last medicine for the ten tribes, and for heretics, and for all sinners,” that after God has tried death and destruction, and they have not even then repented, “He may consume them as He did Sodom and Gomorrah; that when consumed, and when the divine fire shall have burned up all that is vilest in them, they themselves shall be delivered as a brand snatched from the burning.”—In Amos iv. 11. “Therefore (i.e., to effect a cure) the world which ‘lieth in the evil one’ is burned with divine fire in the Day of Judgment, and the bloody city is laid upon ‘coals of fire.ʼ”^[8]—In Ezek. xxiv. “When they perish in fire * * or are destroyed in the fire of their prince the devil, or certainly are burnt in the fire of which the Lord said, ‘I am come to send fire on the earth,’ and are (thus) brought back from their former ways and do penance, the whole earth shall be full of the glory of the Lord.”—In Hab. ii. 12. Indeed, S. Jerome is full of this teaching, see, e.g., his remarks on Mal. 3:2-3; Hos. 4:13; Joel 2:1; Amos 7:4, &c., &c. “Finally, after tortures and punishments, the soul brought forth from the outer darkness, and having paid the very last farthing, says, I shall behold His righteousness. * * Now he who after God’s wrath, says that he sees God’s righteousness (justification) promises himself the sight of Christ.”—In Micah vii. 8. So the old commentator (in S. Jerome), speaking of God, says, “He is fire, that He may expel the devil’s cold.”—In Ps. clxvii. 18. To the same effect much might be quoted from S. Gregory of Nyssa. The evil man after death will not become “a sharer in the divine nature, till the cleansing fire shall have removed the stains mingled with the soul.”—Orat. de mort., ii. p. 1067. And again, “Thus * * the soul which is united to sin must be set in the fire, so that, that which is unnatural and vile * * may be removed, consumed by the eternal fire.”—De an. et Res. ii. p. 658. Here the eternal fire cleanses.

There remains for our consideration a very important class of passages, supposed, erroneously, to favour the popular creed. These passages are those that speak of the “elect,” and their fewness; of the “many” called, but the “few” chosen. That God’s election is a doctrine clearly revealed in Scripture, no impartial reader can doubt: although unfortunately, around few subjects has the battle of controversy been so furiously waged. One party has, in affirming God’s election—which is true, so affirmed it as to make Him into an arbitrary and cruel tyrant—which is false. But the truer and deeper views of God’s plan of mercy through Jesus Christ—now in the ascendant I trust—teach us to affirm distinctly the doctrine of the divine election of “the few:” and just because we so affirm it, to connect it with purposes of universal mercy. For what is the true end and meaning of God’s election? The elect, we reply, are chosen, not for themselves only, but for the sake of others. They are “elect,” not merely to be blessed, but to be a source of blessing. It is not merely with the paltry object of saving a few, while the vast majority perish, that God elects; it is with a purpose of mercy to all; it is by “the few” to save “the many;” by the elect to save the world. “If you go to Scripture,” says Dr. Cox, “you will find this its constant teaching.

Even in those early days when one man, one family, one nation, were successively chosen, to be the depositories of divine truth, when, therefore, if ever we might expect to find the redemptive purpose of God disclosed within narrow and local limitations; when unquestionably it was much fettered and restrained by personal promises, and by national and temporary institutions; the divine purpose is for ever overstepping every limit, every transient localisation and restraint, and claiming as its proper share, all the souls that are and shall be.”—Salvat. Mund. This admits of easy proof. Take a typical case to shew what God’s election really means. Take the case of Abraham, the father and founder of God’s elect people. What was the promise to him? ‘That in his seed should all the families of the earth be blessed.’ This was of the essence of God’s election. And to this effect S. Paul speaks with perfect clearness. And thoughtful readers will remark that it is precisely the Apostle who lays most stress on the divine sovereignty, who most clearly teaches universal reconciliation. The promise to Abraham was, S. Paul tells us, that he should be the heir of the world, Rom. 4:13; words most expressive, and yet without meaning on the common view of election. In other words the Jews, as God’s elect, have, as their inheritance, all lands, all peoples. In the same Epistle S. Paul points out how close the connection is between Israel and the world. Three times over he asserts their very fall to be the riches of the world, and asks if so, what will not the reconciling of Israel be (to the world). In short, on God’s elect people hangs the lot and destiny of mankind—see Gal. 3:8, and Acts 3:21-5; the latter passage is very interesting, for S. Peter there asserts the connection between an universal restoration, and the promise to Abraham, i.e., his election.

A further admirable illustration of this may be given (furnished by Holy Scripture) from its teaching as to the “firstfruits,” and as to the “firstborn.” Israel, as God’s elect, is the “firstfruits”— Israel the “firstborn.” But the “firstfruits” imply and pledge the whole harvest; the “firstborn” involve and include, in the divine economy, the whole family. Hence the promise that “all Israel shall be saved” implies the world’s salvation. “The firstborn and firstfruits are the ‘few’ and the ‘little flock;’ but these, although ‘first delivered from the curse,’ have relation to the whole creation, which shall be saved in the appointed times by the firstborn seed, that is by Christ and His body.”—Jukes. It is thus clear that we, so far from denying the election of the few, lay stress on it as essential to God’s plan of mercy for all. It becomes indeed a corner stone, in the edifice of the world’s salvation; for His “elect” are the very means by which our Father designs to bless all His children— designs to work out His plan of universal salvation. “The sovereignty by which God reigneth is eternal love.”— P. Sterry, Rise, Race, &c. “The Lord is King, the earth may be glad thereof.”—Ps. 97:1.

A few closing remarks are needed here, to indicate the principle that is really at stake in these questions. For that principle is vital, and fundamental. It is no less than the Unity of the Godhead; no less than the first article of the Creed, “I believe in one God the Father Almighty”—in God Who is ONE, not in nature alone, but in purpose and in will—One and Unchanging. But in place of this God, the popular creed presents us with a Being Who fluctuates between tenderness and wrath,^[9] One Who has ever-changing plans, and a will that is divided, and baffled. For half His creatures His love is in fact momentary, and His vengeance endless. For the other half, His pity is endless, and His wrath transient. “The God we have preached has not been the God Who was manifested in His Son Jesus Christ, but another altogether different Being, in Whom we mingle strangely the Siva and the Vishnu.”—F. D. Maurice. This God is not even Lord in His own house; for the worst and feeblest of His creatures can finally defeat His most cherished plan; can paralyse the Cross of Christ. In such a God I cannot see Him, Who is Almighty and unchanging, Whose property is always to have mercy; Whose love, though always punishing sin, never ceases to help the sinner, for “love never faileth;” never to all eternity. Against the popular caricature of God, this chapter is thus a special protest—that caricature which represents eternal love as turning to hate, as soon as the sinner dies; which vainly talks of an Eternal Father, Whose judgments mean salvation in one world, and change to damnation in the next; of eternal love, whose fire purifies and refines in time, and then beyond the grave turns to mere (purposeless) torture. What wonder if unbelief abounds, when we invite it by such teaching?

Against this mass of contradiction stands the view here given of “Death,” “Judgment,” “Fire,” “Election.” The old truths remain on a basis firmer than before, in harmony and no more in conflict, because they rest ultimately on the Unity of God—unity of essence and unity of purpose. God’s essential unity is destroyed when we assign to Him conflicting actions, as though his Love demanded one course of action, and His Justice another; as though God the Saviour were one person, and God the Judge a wholly different one. Or, again, when we blindly teach that, if His judgments now mean salvation, they at the Great Day mean endless damnation. God, I repeat, in His “judgments,” in His “fires,” in “death,”^[10] in “election;” God in time and in eternity is one and the same God (Heb. 13:8), and has, and must have to all eternity, but one unchanging purpose —is and must be for ever God our Saviour. The divine Unity is no merely abstract question: it reveals not the laws of number, but of spirit and will. When Zechariah says, “The Lord shall be king over all the earth,” he adds, “in that day shall the Lord be one, and His name one.” And S Paul, in declaring that God “will have all men to be saved,” bases this not on God’s love but on His unity, “for there is one God,” He Who is One in All, and All in One, Who will finally bring back His entire creation to that unity from which it started. Thus, elsewhere, S. Paul contrasts the unconditional unchanging promises of God in the Gospel with the Law, by laying emphasis on this divine unity—“For God is one.”—Gal. 3:20. (See Lightfoot in loco.) To sever God’s action into love and harshness is, says S. Gregory of Nyssa, but madness, nay, “the madness of babblers!” At the bare idea that God can be really hard or cruel to His enemies (see note on S. Luke 6:27, ch. viii.), and loving to His friends, he exclaims with a scorn (most rare in his writings)—“Oh, the madness of these babblers! for if God is unmerciful to His foes, He will not be truly kind even to thee His friend.”—De orat. 1.

1. “The Church,” says Newman, “holds that it were better for the earth to fail and for all the many millions who are upon it to die of starvation in extreme agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit ONE VENIAL SIN.”—Angl. difficult. p. 190. But, if so, how inconceivable does it become that God should freely create millions of beings whose destiny will, to His certain knowledge, be an endless existence in evil hopeless and aggravated, evil rotting, festering for ever and ever. (↩)
2. These statements from the pen of one who teaches that a part of the human race is severed for ever from the second Adam, are remarkable. They illustrate what has been said (p. 67) of the virtual untruth which runs through our traditional theology. (↩)
3. True, in the Old Testament the threatenings of “death” and “destruction” are mainly temporal. But the same principle underlies God’s dealings in both dispensations, and renders the quotations of this chapter strictly relevant. (↩)
4. So, in heathen mythology the same deity, Apollo, is the Healer and the Destroyer. (↩)
5. And we may note a remarkable reading in the Septuagint, “I will set judgment unto hope.”—Isa. 28:17. (↩)
6. S. Jerome adds that it is possible to understand this passage of Christ’s first coming, but he evidently adopts the view above given. (↩)
7. S. Gregory does not mean to deny the terror of the Judgment Day. Hear his words: “All creation trembles, who is without fear? —In verba Fac. hom. Orat ii. (↩)
8. See Isa. 47:14-5, quoted by many Fathers, where the Septuagint has a remarkable reading—“Thou hast coals of fire, sit upon them, they will be to thee a help.” (↩)
9. Thoughtful readers may consider how far anger and resentment can be strictly predicated of God, Who changes not. (↩)
10. The remarks on death, p. 188, lines 3 and 4, should be compared with what is said, p. 22. (↩)