EV.WMP.LEWIS.D.D ■ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. dljjap. Ckpijrigfit l^n. Shelf. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. \ I 6 sns^£s{y The Life to Come. BY \/ The Reverend William P. Lewis, D.D. Presbyter of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, m 8 1896) ^ ->/ PHILADELPHIA : George W. Jacobs & Company, 103 SOUTH 15TH STREET. 1896 N= Copyright, 1896, By Rev; Wm. P. Lewis, D. D. The Library of Congress washington READER KINDLY remember that this little Book, which you can read through in two hours, has taken the author a life- time to write. He may be criticised for the frequency of quotations. They are the result of study and discrimination, and have cost almost as much labor as the same amount of original matter would have done. Ju- dicious quotation is a sort of secondary composition. His effort is, to help you to think : not to do your thinking for 3 r ou. He may be asked, " Why write on a subject on which so much has been al- ready said ? " His answer is : Because he has something to say, which he is not aware that anyone else has said. But for this, he would not have written at all. 3 CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE The Case Stated 7 CHAPTER II. Historical Notes 35 CHAPTER III. The Oppositions of Scripture 71 CHAPTER IV. Propositions or Conclusions 85 THE LIFE TO COME. CHAPTER I. THE CASE STATED. In the Reminiscences of Bishop Clark, we read as follows : "I once told the Rev. Horace Bushnell I thought of preaching on a topic, which, forty years ago, we had not learned to handle as intelligently as we do now ; and I shall never forget how he brought down his hand, and said, " I would not preach on thatSubjectforTen Thousand Dollars." Notthathe was afraid to do it ; but he thought the time had not come, for its thorough ventilation : and if he once threw open the doors of his mind, it must be to let the wind circulate freely." The Bishop does not tell us what the subject was ; but when we reflect that it was just about the time of Maurice's expulsion from King's College, when this conversa- tion took place, is it unlikely that the subject which the great Congregationalist Divine refused to touch, was, — the Future of Sin ? Not more truly could the Jews say, ' ' Forty and six years was this Temple in building," than I can say, Thirty years has this Book been in writing. For years, this topic has appeared to me the most (7) 8 THE UEE TO COME. momentous of what is dryly called, "Systematic divinity." It comes up at many a funeral. It touches the fate of multitudes departed this life, who are far dearer to the survivors than life itself. It is raised by the news of every sudden, accidental, wholesale death. Fathers, mothers, brothers, sis- ters, husbands, wives, are comforted t or depressed according to the way in which it is treated. Can we help inquiring — "What do we know about it? What has God said about it ? Or (what is equally important), What has He ?wt said about it?" For ignorance is negative knowledge. A half century ago, the positions generally held as necessary to orthodoxy were these : i . That all the saving work of God upon human souls, ceased with this life. 2. That the souls of those who died unsaved were doomed at the moment of death to everlasting punishment, meaning by that endless penal torment, whether actively inflicted by God, or arising out of the man's own self. The Protestant theology held, and it was the doctrine of the Book of Homilies of the English Reformation, as I shall hereafter notice, that such souls went " straight to Hell," that is, to endless torture. This view was afterwards modified, so as to hold that these lost souls were detained in Hades, the unseen world, "the place of departed spirits," till the Day of Judgment ; but in a different part of that place the: case; stated. 9 from the souls of the righteous. At the last day they are to be brought up to receive the sentence of Endless Condemnation ; a sentence, however, which was potentially passed at death. The fate of every man was stereotyped at that hour. Now these tenets which, although expressing the ' ' popular ' ' ( !) theology, have been, as will be shown, challenged by a long line of deep thinkers in the Church, whose orthodoxy has never been attacked, have been seriously and increasingly questioned dur- ing the last fifty years. These are some of the grounds : i. They are not contained in the Nicene Creed, and "that which is commonly called the Apostles' Creed," which, according to Article VIII, of the 39, ought thoroughly to be received and believed.* The Statute 1 KHz. I: Sec. 36, enacts that "only that shall be adjudged to be heresie, which shall have heretofore been determined, ordered and adjudged to be heresie by the authority of the Canonical Scrip- tures, or by the first four General Councils, or any of them, or by any other General Council, wherein the same was declared heresie by the express and plain words, of the said Canonical Scriptures ; or such as shall hereafter be ordered, judged or determined to * Of course, in the corresponding anicle of the Church of England the Atha- nasian Creed is added. The difference is of little consequence, since by the common consent of English Theologians of the present day, the damnatory clauses are explained away. They have saved charity at the expense of logic. lO THE LIFE TO COME. be heresie, by the High Court of Parliament of this Realm, with the assent of the Clergy in their Con- vocation." This Declaration of Faith, we have inherited from the Mother Church, and it has never been altered.* By "the Authority of the Canonical Scriptures" is not meant the interpretation which any one man may please to put upon them ; but an official interpretation. The Lambeth Conference might have put such meaning upon them. Although not Ecumenical, it would be binding on the Anglican Communion. The first four General Councils are entirely silent upon the subject. No other General Council has declared the denial of the above positions to be heresy, by the express and plain words of the said Canonical Scriptures, that is, by citing in words, the passages of Scripture which uphold them.f And the "Articles * The Preface to the Prayer Book says " this Church is far from intending to depart from the Church of England, in any essential point, of doctrine, discipline or worship, or further than local circumstances require. Local circumstances, indeed, required to drop the provisions relating to Parliament and Convocation; but we should be departing from the Church of England, in an essential point of doctrine if we altered the test of' heresie.' " fin regard to the silence of the General Councils, I would quote the words of the Rev. H. H. Jeaffreson, in his essay on the Teaching of Origen, and his supposed condemnation by the Fifth General Council. (553)- It is appended to " Our Catholic Inheritance in the Larger Hope," by the Rev Alfred Gurney (p. 79). " I would entreat my readers to consider the significance of this silence of the Church's Councils. The doctrine of Restitution was pressed upon the Church's notice all through the period of the General Councils : — pressed upon it in a crude and extreme form, for so I must describe the doctrine of Origen — pressed upon it from many sides, and by theologians of eminence, and yet the Church (whom we believe to be the organ of the Holy Spirit), was restrained THE CASK STATKD. II agreed upon by the Archbishops and Bishops of both Provinces, and the whole Clergy, in the Convoca- tion holden at London, in the year 1562," are en- tirely silent on the subject. Nor is this all. An article which had been passed at a previous Convo- cation, condemning the tenet, that "all men shall be saved at the length," was omitted in this final Revision. And no utterance of the Anglo-American Church, has disturbed the subject. Whatever may have been the drift of thought, that does not make it Church doctrine. Men take up certain views, simply because those before them held, and those around them hold, those views. There is, and always has been a strong tendency with some Theologians, and with Parties in the Church, to harden opinion, into dog-ma, and then to insist upon the reception of that dogma, as a test of orthodoxy. This tendency needs to be carefully watched. It is pretty sure to succeed partially, and for a time, in spite of all watching : and the result from any condemnation of that doctrine. The Silence of the Holy Ghost is no less venerable than His Speech. We must be as jealous against addition to His teaching, as against diminutions from it. It is mere rationalism to say that a doctrine of such moment must have been decided. God, who was pleased lo leave for centuries unrevealed, His Own Tri-unity, His Method of Redemption, His Merciful designs for the heathen, may not improbably have left His Church without a doctrine de fidt , upon the future of the lost. His method seems to have been, not to define every possible doctrine ; but to lay down cer- tain ruling truths, by the help of which the Church and her children, should be guided in their further inquiries; where the Church has been silent it may be our duty to be silent too ; it cannot be our duty, to erect our own conclusions, how- ever probable, into articles of faith." 12 THE LIFE TO COME. is dangerous — He is as much a Defender of the Faith, who resists this tendency as he who cham- pions Articles which are de fide. The consensus of opinion is often worth nothing more than the con- sensus of the copies of a printed book. They have all been struck off from the same types. 2. It is urged, that there are multitudes, and many of them, by no means to be found among the outcast and degraded, who have never had, in this life, what can be fairly called, a ' ' probation. ' ' You might as well talk of the probation of a stu- dent, under an examination which is to determine his whole career, who has been deprived of the use of books, has wretched stationery, is suffering from a splitting headache, has had incompetent teachers, and must write his answers in the midst of a distracting din. 3. This theory reduces the state between death and resurrection, in which the great, and in every generation, increasing majority of the human race is to be found (if, in classical times abiit ad plures was the description of one who had just died, how much truer is it now) to a vast region of iner- tia and laziness, when there is neither employment nor improvement. On the contrary, it is natural to suppose, that it is a sphere of intense activity, where the work of the ministry, begun on Earth, shall go on, free from the obstacles, which impeded THE CASE STATED. 1 3 it here. Imagine S. Paul whiling away his time, doing nothing. For once, the veil has been lifted, and light thrown upon that which is behind it. The revela- tion may be rendered thus : " For even Christ suf- fered once for all, on account of sins, the just on behalf of the unjust, that He might bring us to God : being put to death in flesh, but receiving fresh life in the Spirit : in which (Spirit) going on a journey, He acted as Herald, even to the spirits in prison : who then were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God, waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was preparing." This is to be taken in connection with what shortly follows : ' ' For, to this end were glad tidings announced even to dead men ; that they might be judged according to men in the flesh : but live according to God in the Spirit." (i S. Peter iii: 18-20; iv: 6). Ingenious have been the attempts to explain these words away. And if this is not handling the Word of God deceitfully, what is ? To those who are willing to come to it, as if the)^ had never heard it before, these points are made : — (a) S. Peter here relates a fact, which, of course, he had learned from his Lord, with the same calm- ness and simplicity, with which any of the Evan- gelists detail any teaching of our L,ord, or any fact of His L,ife. 14 THE LIFE TO COME. (d) The last thing we heard of these spirits in prison, when they were on earth, was, that they were disobedient ; and it is implied, that, in this state of disobedience, they left the world. (V) They were disobedient, in spite of having the advantage of Noah's preaching. Not only was there the practical warning of the Ark preparing, before their eyes, which S. Peter implies was a preaching by action ("which sometime were dis- obedient, while the ark was a preparing"), but we are told (2 S. Peter ii: 5) that Noah was "a preacher of righteousness :" and that the flood was brought in "upon the world of the ungodly." They were far more blameworthy than the heathen, who never have heard the sound of the preacher's voice. (xHE ufe To Come. of his article: " Everlasting Life a dogma of the Catholic Church. Everlasting death an opinion, not a dogma." Of those which I have read, the one which best fulfils S. Paul's test, of "Commending itself to my conscience in the sight of God," is that by the Rev. Leonard Woolsey Bacon, D. D. This much is clear: i . There has been always in the Church a perfect liberty of thought on this subject. And there has been by no means that unanimity in holding the sterner view which is often taken for granted. The only two attempts to indict thinkers, who have used their liberty — Mr. Maurice and Mr. Wilson — have failed. I speak of the proceedings against Mr. Maurice as a failure, because although the right to teach was taken from him, the right to preach was not touched, nor attempted to be touched. 2. The writers quoted have not only differed widely one from another, but occasionally an author appears to differ from himself. 3. From Mr. Maurice down, while differing as to the annihilation of the wicked, they agree, with the possible exception of Mr. Gurney, in disclaiming Universalism. But they all lay stress on the work done in the intermediate state, bringing it into a prominence which has rarely been given to it since the Reformation. HISTORICAL NOTES. 63 A few remarks on one or two points will close this chapter. In Hymn 75 of our old Hymnal, ' ' Glory be to Jesus," one line was: ' * Who from endless torments Did the world redeem." I felt obliged to omit this verse in using the hymn. The new Hymnal has it: "Who from sin and sorrow Did the world redeem." As an offset to this improvement, however, the new Hymnal has introduced H. 621, containing the verse: " Mark us, whither are we tending, Ponder how we soon must go, To inherit bliss unending, Or eternity of woe. ' ' We are fortunately, however, spared the refrain, which stood in the first edition of Hymns, Ancient and Modern: "As the tree falls, so must it lie. As the man lives, so must he die. As the man dies, so must he be All through the days of eternity." * Is it not time that this poor, overworked text should have a vacation ? * After these pages were written I read with pleasure the London letter pub- lished in the Church Standard of November 30, 1895, containing an account of a sermon preached by Canon Wilberforce in Westminster Abbey, quite in the line of this work, and a comment on the omission of this refrain. 64 THE) LIFE TO COME. In the first Church Hymnal, in use in this country up to 1826, there was a Hymn containing these verses: "The living know that they must die, But all the dead forgotten lie; Their memory and their hope are gone, Alike unknowing and unknown. There are no acts of pardon passed In the cold grave, to which we haste, But darkness, death and long despair Reign in eternal silence there." Was it not time for a Reformation when such senti- ments were put into the mouths of Christian people, and the strains of ' ' Old Hundred " or ' ' Duke Street, ' ' were invited to give them a musical currency ? Yet they are a faithful rendering of Ecclesiastes ix: 5, 6. In the office for theVisitation of Prisoners in the Prayer Book (which office is not in the English Book but is found in the Prayer Book of the Disestablished Church of Ireland?)* occur two objectionable exhortations.)" * The following is the authorization of this office : By the Lord Lieutenant and Council of Ireland. Shrewsbury Ordered, that the Form of Prayer for the Visitation of Prisoners, treated upon by the Archbishops and Bishops, and the rest of the clergy of this Kingdom, and agreed upon by her Majesty's license, in their Synod, holden at Dublin in the year 1711, be printed and annexed to the Book of Common Prayer, pursuant to her Majesty's directions. Given at the Council Chamber, in Dubl'n, the 13th day of April, 1714. (Signed) Tho. Armagh, R. — McGarvey's " Liturgiae Americanae," p. 385. f I refer my readers to these documents, found in the office for the Visitation of Prisoners. They are omitted in order to avoid enlarging this book ; with the hope that the reader will have interest enough in the subject to induce him to turn to the Prayer Book. HISTORICAL NOTES. 65 i. Not only the one to be preached to the criminal under sentence of death, but the one addressed to any prisoner takes for granted that thej- are sinners above all men. Firmly believing that there are men on whom the law can never lay its hand, who are not only as bad as, but worse than, some that are in jail, I consider this tone of speaking as exagger- ated and untrue. 2. I have alluded to the state of the criminal law of the last century. The first exhortation might be addressed to a man who was merely innocently unable to pay his debts. The second was to be used alike to the man condemned to death for larceny over the value of twelve pence, which under certain circumstances was then a capital crime, and to the murderer of the deepest dye. 3. The whole drift of the address to the con- demned criminal is to produce repentance from the terror of the future. 4. This address takes for granted that he has been j ustly convicted. This was taking entirely too much for granted in the eighteenth century. It was one of the barbarities of the criminal law, reaching down into this century, that no counsel was to be allowed to prisoners, even when on trial for their life. 5. "God, Who, of His Endless pity, promiseth us forgiveness of that which is past. ' ' But presently he is told, "Since therefore you are soon to pass 66 THE IvIFK TO COME. into an endless and unchangeable state, and your future happiness or misery depend upon the few moments that are left you. ' ' In other words, this ' ' Endless ' ' pity is to die with the drop of the noose. I think there are many of my brethren who would decline to Exhort the Prisoner, either ' ' After this form, or other like." Sure I am that if our L,ord had addressed Publicans and Sinners in this spirit, they would not have drawn nigh unto Him to hear Him. On the other hand, this address is calculated to promote the delusion — and experience shows its danger — that a professed repentance, in sight of the gallows, or the electrical chair, is a passport to eternal happiness ; and still more, that a few tears or words constitute such a repentance. To guard against this danger, the Revised Prayer Book has wisely added the following Rubric : " It is judged best that the criminal should not make any public profession or declaration" — that is, at the time of execution. If man has it in his power to send his fellow-man to endless misery by one coup, there can be no question as to the unlawfulness of capital punish- ment : — nor of war. Note. — A few words may be added to this Chap- ter, upon the Kschatology of the Prayer Book : HISTORICAL NOTHS. 67 especially since the above Exhortations have been pressed, as proving that Endless punishment is its teaching. The Book is made up of several portions, which are by no means of equal Authority. There are, first, the Creeds, of Apostolic, or Ecumenical Authority. Second, The Offices, Sacramental or otherwise, including the Ordinal, the Order of Con- firmation, with its Adjunct, the Catechism. In these, the mind of the Church has been deliberately expressed : although (except in the Catechism) not in formal propositions. Third, We have the Articles of Religion : a Series of doctrinal proposi- tions : a Compend of Dogmatic Theology : having the Special imprimatur of the Church of England. Fourth, The Prayers and Collects, Embodying doc- trine, liturgically : assuming it : building upon it : making it the basis of appeal to God. Thus does it use the Trinity and the Incarnation. Fifthly, we have the sermonettes scattered throughout the books, as in the Sacramental offices; and the Ordi- nal, and those just quoted: compiled mostly at the Reformation, to supply the lack of preaching power of the majority of the clergy. The Creeds, as I have said, are silent as to the future of sin. The Sacramental offices imply that a benefit is conferred upon the worthy receiver, and that there is danger arising to the Soul, from their misuse or neglect. In the Catechism, this is implied 68 THE LIFE TO COME. in the expression, " Generally necessary to Salva- tion," and the darker side of the future is alluded to, in the expansion of the clause in the Lord's Prayer, "Deliver us from Evil," "And that He would deliver us from all sin and wickedness, and from our spiritual enemy, and from everlasting death. ' The candidate for the Priesthood is warned, "And if it shall happen that the same Church, or any member thereof, do take any hurt or hindrance by reason of your negligence, ye know the greatness of the fault, and also the horrible punishment that will ensue. (Is this an allusion to St. Luke xii: 46, where the unfaithful Steward is threatened, "The Lord of that servant will come in a day when he look- eth not for him, and a-t an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers ? ") There is a petition in the Litany, " From everlasting damnation, Good Lord, deliver us." The original is, "a damnatione perpetua." This word is certainly equivalent to "Endless," and those Greek words, which, as I shall show, are not used in the New Testament. The Collects speak with guarded, general language and with reserve. " We, who for our evil deeds, do worthily deserve to be punished." "Grant us so to pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal." Salvation is treated as a thing to be striven after, and which we may miss HISTORICAL NOTES. 69 and lose. But absolute silence is maintained as to the nature of the poena damni, or of the punish- ment. So, with the burial office. There is what one may call a Catholic abstinence from the Pro- testant tendency to "preach the funeral," and to " improve the occasion." In the English Book, after the words, " that we may rest in Him," it is added, "as our hope is, this our brother doeth." The prayer, "deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death," is quite consistent, with a belief in conditional immortality. The Articles, revised fifteen years after the Lit- any, obliterated, as we have seen, one, denouncing Universalism, which had been in the original Arti- cles. The Prayer Book is to be interpreted as one document, all its parts being taken together, and it is to be interpreted historically. We must not for- get the omission of the Article in interpreting the Litany. These points, with an occasional allusion to "Eternal Death," I believe exhaust the subject. The form of Family Prayer, in our Prayer Books, is not in that of the Church of England. It has the words, "according to the works done in the body, be eternally rewarded or punished." It was written by Bishop Gibson, of London, whose Episcopate extended from 1723 to 1748. There remain only the sermonettes of the Book. With regard to those in the Office for Prisoners, the 70 THE LIFE TO COME. Simple Question is, Shall we exalt — not the canons, but the preaching of a Provincial Synod, to the level of Ecumenical creeds, or Catholic liturgies ? Are they exempt from criticism ? Anything less Spurgeonesque than the eschatol- ogy of the Prayer Book cannot be found. I leave what has been said, to the Judgment of the Reader. The Prayer Book is not perfect. If here and there, we find an expression we would like to see removed, it is better frankly to avow it. CHAPTER III. THE OPPOSITIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 1 ' I turn again to the Scriptures, but I cannot find that I am able, even after every effort, to combine all these sayings naturally, and without any artifice of interpretation (what a happy phrase that is), into any one clear and determinate picture of the future life and its rewards and punishments. Rather I see many of their teachings, as I see the colors of a painter on his palette : they are all true colors; they will all be needed ; but I do not, now at least, see them combined and harmonized, as I shall hope to do, when the Divine Idealist shall have finished His picture of human history, and it shall be unveiled at last, in that Day of Revelation, ready for the Judgment." Such are the wise words of Professor Newman Smyth, and they are in line with the views that will now be expressed. I spoke of a criticism of part of Mr. Chambers' book. It is this: He has brought into strong light the passages which make for annihilation; but he has dismissed Universalism summarily, by the quota- tion of a few texts, culled, as he says, out of a very large number of passages, "Good were it for that man if he had never been born " (S. Mark, xiv: 21). (71) 72 THE LIFE TO COME. 1 ' He that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness" (S. Mark, Hi: 29). "He that believeth not on the Son, shall not see life" (S. John, iii: 36). The Apostolic writers threaten impenitent sinners, with Everlasting destruction (2 Thess., i: 9), and death unto death (2 Cor., ii: 16). Now, Universalists have not a few teachings of Scripture, which they contend make for their side; and we shall only retard the solution of the ques- tion by refusing to look at them. They may be divided into several groups: First, we have those which distinctly affirm, that the end sought to be effected by Our Lord's Mission, was the salvation of the World. They declare, that "He taketh away the Sin of the World" (S. John, i: 29); that "He is the Saviour of the World" (1 S. John, iv: 14) ; " The propitiation for the sins of the Whole World" (1 S. John, ii: 2); "the Saviour of all men, especially of them that believe" (1 Tim., iv: 19); that "the Grace of God hath appeared, bringing Salvation unto all men" (Titus, ii: 11); that "He came to seek and to save that which was lost" (S. Luke, xix: 10); " Who will have all men to be saved" (1 Tim., ii: 4). If it be objected that this Will of God may be frustrated by man, He says, " I, if I be lifted up from the Earth, will draw all men unto Me" (S. John, xii: 32). So, "Having made known unto us the mystery of His will, THE OPPOSITIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 73 according to His good pleasure which He hath pur- posed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times, He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in Heaven, and which are in earth" (Eph., i: 9-10). Can this Divine purpose and will be defeated ? Another passage, which we may fairly quote, is this: "He shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you, whom the Heavens must receive until the times of restitution of all things ' ' (Acts, iii : 20-21). The noun translated "restitu- tion," is used nowhere else in the New Testament, and the only place in which the verb is used is in S. Mark, xvii: 10, " Elias truly shall first come and restore all things." The word is defined a "restitution or restoration of anything to its former state, hence, change from worse to better ; melioration, introduction of a new and better era." It has its parallel in the new Heaven and the new Earth of 2 S. Peter, iii: 12. "It does not necessarily involve, as some have thought, the final Salvation of all men, but it does express the idea of a state, in which righteousness, and not sin, shall have domin- ion over a redeemed and recreated world." But this is not their strongest point. That, it has always seemed to me, is to be found in the Epistle to the Romans (v. 18-21). We must insert the definite article "the," before the word "many," 74 THE LIFE TO COME. and must remember that "the many" means all men — all mankind. " But not as is the offence, so also is the free gift. For if, through the offence of one, the many be dead, much more the Grace of God, and the gift by Grace, which is by One man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto the many. Therefore, as by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men, unto condemnation, even so, by the righteous- ness of one, the free Gift came upon all men, unto justification of life. For, as by one man's disobedi- ence, the many were made sinners, so by the obedi- ence of One, shall the many be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abotcnd ; that, as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ, our Lord." The " all men " of verse 18 are evidently the same as " the many " of verse 19. He is establishing the relation between the sin brought into the world by Adam, and the counteracting salvation effected by our Lord ; and his point plainly is, that the restora- tive effect of the latter, so far from falling short of the ruinous effect of the former, exceeds it. " Much more shall the Grace of God abound unto the many." Finally, "And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him, that put all things under Him, that God THE OPPOSITIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 75 may be all in all " — all things in all men. (i Cor., xv. 28). Enough has been quoted to show that the Univer- salist has much to say for himself. If these words of S. Paul had nothing to oppose them, I should say they were final. But we must read not only the Scriptures that look the other way, but also the book of human life ; and, so reading, I, for one, cannot say that the question is settled in favor of Universalism. We stand in a much better position for the even- tual ascertainment of the truth, than did our fathers. Fifty years ago, had a theological professor been lecturing to his class, the exigencies of his position would have required him to dispose of these texts. His orthodoxy would have been impeached, had he not done so. He dared not take an all- around view. He would have been forced to read endless punishment into them ; just as the Prince- ton Professor, of whom Bishop Clark speaks, read Calvinism into the text, "He is the Propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world," Making it mean, "He died not only for the Elect among the Jews, but also for the Elect among the Gentiles." On this principle, as Bishop Butler says, "Anything can be made of anything." Now there are two ways of treating this opposition. ~6 THE LIFE TO COME. The first is that of Bishop Westcott, who, under the Article of the Creed, the life everlasting, in his work, "The Historic Faith," writes thus, "But two thoughts, bearing upon the future, find ex- pression in the New Testament. The one is, of the consequences of unrepented sin, as answering to the sin ; the other, of a final unity, in which God shall be all in all. We read of an Eternal sin, of a sin which hath never forgiveness, in this world, nor in the world to come; of a debt incurred, of which the payment, to be rigidly exacted, exceeds all imagina- ble resources of the debtor; of eternal destruction, of the worm that dieth not and the fire that is not quenched. And, on the other hand, we read of the purpose, the good pleasure of God, to sum up all things in Christ, and through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, whether things on the earth, or things in the heavens, of the bringing to naught the last enemy, death, and the final subjection of all things to God. " Moreover, it must be added, these apparently antithetical statements, correspond with two modes of regarding the subject from the side of reason. If we approach it from the side of man, we see that, in themselves, the consequences of actions, appear to be for the doer, like the deed, indestructible ; and also that the finite freedom of the individual appears to include the possibility of final resistance to God. THE OPPOSITIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 77 And again, if we approach it from the Divine side, it seems to be an inadmissible limitation of the Infi- nite Love of God that a human will should forever refuse to yield to it, in complete self-surrender, when it is known as love. "If we are called upon to decide which of these two thoughts of Scripture most prevail, we can hardly doubt that that which is most comprehensive, that which reaches farthest, contains the ruling idea, and that is the idea of a final, Divine unity. How it will be reached, we are utterly unable to say ; but we are sure that the manner, which has not been revealed, will be in perfect harmony with the justice of God, and the obligations of man's responsibility. More than this we dare not lay down. But that end the end rises before us, as the strongest motive, and the most certain encouragement in all the labors of the life of faith." The other method of viewing these diverse utter- ances is that of the Danish theologian, Martensen, as quoted by Plumptre. The Dean says: "As regards this further question, whether we may look beyond this possibility of change to the actual restoration of all moral beings, Martensen' s language is singularly calm and temperate. He says: "The Church has never ventured upon this inquiry. The Christian consciousness of salvation, in all its fullness, would lose its deepest reality, were the doctrine of eternal 78 THE LIFE TO COME. condemnation surrendered. It must, however, be allowed that the opposite doctrine of universal resto- ration has been espoused at various periods in the history of the Church; and, moreover, that it too finds some foundation and sanction in the language of Holy Scripture; that it has not always sprung from levity, but from a deep conviction of humanity; a conviction growing out of the very essence of Christianity. We have full warrant for saying, therefore, that the more deeply Christian thought searches into this question, the more does it discover an ANTINOMY, i.e., an apparent contradiction between two laws, equally divine, which it seems cannot find a perfectly conclusive and satisfactory solution in the present stage ; the earthly limits of human knowledge." Now, of these two ways of looking at this ques- tion, it appears to me that the latter is the sounder. Bishop Westcott's view is, in fact, though he does not use the word, Universalism; it is giving the same effect to Universalist authorities as if there was nothing to oppose them. It is making Universal Restoration not the ruling, but the only, idea of Scripture. It is the Aaron's rod which swallows up all the rest. It is the applying that narrowness of interpretation to Scripture which, taking certain passages to the exclusion of the rest, is, and always has been, a fruitful source of error. It is committing, THK OPPOSITIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 79 on one extreme, precisely the same error which the damnatory Eschatology was guilty of on the other. In the very Epistle to the Romans which contains this unqualified parallel of salvation and condemnation, we also find a line of argument, which, taken by itself, supports the strictest decrees of Calvinism. "As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say then ? Is there unrighteousness with God ? God forbid. For He saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy; and I will have com- passion on whom I will have compassion. So then, it is not of him that willeth, or of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. For the Scripture saith unto Pharoah, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up: that I might show my power in thee, and that my Name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth " (Rom.ix: 13-18). The Calvinist has just as much right to say that this is the "ruling idea" of S. Paul, and that his prediction of an Universal Restoration is a subordinate idea, to be governed by it, as he has who lays exclusive stress upon this prediction to say the reverse. Bishop Westcott says: "If we are called upon to decide, which of these two thoughts of Scripture must prevail?" Herein seems to me to be the So THE LIFE TO COME. mistake — we may say the double mistake, i. It is unsound philosophy to say that of two facts or truths, each admitted to be such, one must prevail. 2. To assume that we are "called upon to decide " the question at all. The fact is, that these oppositions of Scripture are not exceptions to the laws, which are laws both of mind and matter, but are illustrations of them. Every truth, it has been well said, has its counter- truth. Every truth has its positive and its negative pole. Every truth is an hemisphere, and seeks its companion hemisphere before it can be made perfect. The variant language of S. Paul and S. James with reference to faith and works is a Scriptural il- lustration. ' 'What shall we say, then, that Abraham, our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found ? For if Abraham was justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, but not before God. For what saith the Scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness " (Romans iv : 13). " Was not Abraham, our father, justified by works when he had offered Isaac, his son, upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made per- fect. And the Scripture was fulfilled, which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness, and he was called the Friend of God. Ye see, then, how that by works a man is THE OPPOSITIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 8 1 justified, and not by faith only." (St. James ii : 21- 24). The very same words are used by S. Paul to prove that Abraham was not justified by works which S. James employs to show that he was justified by works. Can we say that either of them has the ruling idea ? The apparent opposition between God's predeter- mination and man's free will may be cited. Sanday, commenting on Romans ix., says : " If we follow this train of thought, then it would certainly appear that God, or the chain of natural circumstances set in motion and directed by God, made him what he is. In other words, he is elected and predetermined to a certain line of conduct. This is the logic of one set of inferences. On the other hand, the logic of the other set of inferences is just as strong : that man is free. "There is an opposition irreconcilable to us with our present means of judging. We can only take the one proposition as qualified by the other." Indeed, we may find an illustration in the manner in which the highest mystery of the Christian Faith, the Incarnation, is spoken of by our Lord Himself : " I and my Father are one." (Substance) : " My Father is greater than I." If we strike out the for- mer we deny His Eternal Godhead. If we cancel the latter we deny that He is " inferior to the Father 82 THE LIFE TO COME. as touching His Manhood." We cannot say that either is the ruling idea. Sb it is in mechanics. We have the centripetal and centrifugal forces. We have attraction and repulsion. We could not think of saying that the revolution of the earth round the sun was the ruling idea of its motion, which must eventually overcome its rotation on its axis; or that day and night, the result of the latter, is a motion inferior to summer and winter, the effect of the former; or that in some way unknown to us the former is to swallow up the latter. If the rotation were to cease, and either day or night be no more, we should soon give up this way of speaking. Nothing is better known in mechanics than the resultant of two opposing forces. Now then, it appears to me, we are to wait for the revela- tion of the resultant of these opposite forces of salva- tion and condemnation. Our predecessors have committed the mistake of ignoring the former. Let us not fall into the opposite error of silencing the latter. Or may it be that we have a picture made up of the ideal and the actual. The Scripture writers sometimes idealize. The first eight verses of S, Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians present a picture of the ideal Church, the remainder describe the actual— a. very different one. The fiftieth Psalm, THE OPPOSITIONS OF SCRIPTURE. 83 and the. first chapter of Isaiah, call Israel God's peo- ple, and proceed to accuse them of the most flagrant sins. Thus the universalism of the Bible may describe the ideal future. That may require to be qualified by the sterner side before we reach the actual. Look at these two verses of the Book of Proverbs, standing side by side : " Answer not a fool accord- " Answer a fool according ing to his folly, lest thou be to his folly, lest he be wise like unto him." — Prov. xxxi: in his own conceit." — Prov. 4- xxxi: 5. Prefaced to many of Lord Bacon's Essays is a series of " Antitheta," or opposite maxims on the sub- ject of the essay. Being thus opposed to each other, we are put upon inquiry as to the Restcltant. Here are a few : Riches. Pro. Con. Riches are despised by Riches are neither more those who despair of obtain- nor less than the baggage of ing them. While philosophers are de- bating whether virtue or pleasure be the ultimate good, do you provide yourself with the instruments of both. It is by means of wealth that virtue becomes a public good. virtue, for they are at once necessary and inconvenient appendages to it. Many who think that everything can be bought with their own wealth have been bought themselves first. Wealth is a good handmaid, but a bad mistress. 8 4 THE LIFE TO COME. Nobility. Pro. High birth is the wreath with which men are crowned by time. We reverence antiquity in lifeless monuments, how much more in living ones. Nobility withdraws virtue from envy and commends it to favor. Con. Nobility has rarely sprung from virtue, virtue still more rarely from nobility. Persons of high birth oftener resort to their ances- tors as a means of escaping punishment than as a recom- mendation to high posts. Such is the activity of new men that men of high birth seem statues in comparison. In running their race men of high birth look back too often, which is a sign of a bad runner. Since writing this chapter I have come upon the following words of Bishop Wordsworth, of S. Andrew's, Scotland ijwt of Lincoln), which are a fitting conclusion : ' ' Perhaps a careful study of the Gospels and Epistles teaches one to think that there are, if I may so say, two parallel lines of revelation, which can never meet in this world, but will meet, we humbly trust, in the world to come." The ques- tion really amounts to this : Is sin an episode in the history of the world, or is it a fixed fact? CHAPTER IV. PROPOSITIONS OR CONCLUSIONS. The reader may be disappointed at the caution and the want of positiveness which have been shown in the preceding chapters, and may think that I have nothing definite to set before him as the result of all. I shall now show that what has been said leads to definite conclusions. In some cases they will be merely stated. In others there will be com- ment or enlargement upon them. The remark is eminently applicable to this subject that not only the intimations of Scripture, but the principles of justice and right, which are written by the Finger of God in the human heart, are an authority on this as on all questions. We ought not to be called to "go to the Bible" for proof of them. They are features of the Image of God, in which He made man, and they need no authority of a Book. When some doctrine is pressed upon us, on the authority of the Bible, which is at variance with our fundamental moral ideas, we may be sure that the Bible is misused. Faith, as under- stood by some persons, means the assent to a tenet which shocks and outrages our sense of right ; and the greater the shock, the greater the faith is (85) 86 THE LIFE TO COME. supposed to be. The principle is sanctioned by our Lord Himself: " Yea, and why even of yourselves, judge ye not that which is right." i. Reason, Scripture, and analogy go to show, that this life, and the intermediate state, form parts of one system ; and that the work of acting upon human souls goes on behind, as well as before the veil. Time and History do not come to an end, until the Day of Judgment. 2. Although this life is the probation for the next, and therefore " the deeds done in the body " are of prime importance in determining, and in some cases are probably conclusive in determining man's condition hereafter, yet, in many cases, owing to defective education, or environment, or from physi- cal causes, there has not been in this life any fair trial of what a man is, or opportunity of developing his moral powers. This imperfect condition cannot in justice determine the issues of endless happiness, or misery. 3. A man may, by the life he has led, or the errors he has entertained here, sustain an irreparable loss hereafter, and yet he may be saved : " Yet so as by fire " — that is, as one is saved who escapes for his life out of a burning building. (1 Cor. iii : 11-15. We cannot quit this point without saying some- thing of the so-called "Parable of the Rich Man PROPOSITIONS OR CONCISIONS. 87 and L,azarus. ' ' There are many difficulties of detail in its interpretation, partly arising from the fact that it uses the Jewish traditions of the day, as the organ of instruction, and partly, no doubt, from the Divine depth of meaning. There is a sharp dividing-line between the inter- pretation of the old school of commentators, such as Wordsworth and Alford, and the advocates of the larger hope. The former represent the condition of Dives as hopeless, and consider that condition to be the vestibule of Gehenna. Kingsley, Gurney, Chambers, and presumably Maurice, represent him as undergoing purifying suffering, and as eventually to be saved. If we are frightened at the word ' ' Pur- gatory ' ' there is an end of the matter. So long as people will be terrified by a word, and refuse to look at the thing, the case is hopeless. After anxious consideration it appears to me that he was suffering the inevitable repentance of those who hereafter feel the irreparable loss of opportunity here; that without presuming to give this as the explanation, such repentance might well be described as being tormented in this flame; that good had not by any means died out within him; that his desire to send Lazarus to warn his brethren is evidence of the awakening of such good; that out of this, that moral change, which is Salvation, is in Course of Evolution, but that he never can be saved 88 THE LIFE TO COME. as the rich man is saved who has used his riches and the power given him for the good of his fellow men and the glory of God. I do not see that this is an attractive picture nor an encouragement to any living Dives to act, as did his predecessor, now in Hades. And the number of those who are sharing his fate, or are on the way to share it, is, it is to be feared, not small. Translated into plain English it means all those who are living a life of selfish enjoyment. Of course, there may come a time when, by the continuance of this life, all capacity for good is lost; and then, even the Sal- vation of Dives cannot be hoped for. The interpretation which has been received by a cer- tain school, and which was once mentioned to me with as positive an assurance as if it had fallen upon the interpreter from the skies, was this: " Do you know why the rich man desired to send Lazarus to warn his brethren? It is because he knew their presence would increase his own suffering." Upon this I have no comment to make. My own interpretation, I am given to understand, was, in substance, that of the late Rev. Dr. Mahan — very high authority indeed: — " clarum et venerabilc nomen." It is but fair, however, to mention that there is no analogy in Rabbinic writings to the statement that " there is a great gulf fixed," between the two. So says Edersheim. PROPOSITIONS OR CONCLUSIONS. 89 4. But, I think that a man by a course of deliber- ate selfishness, which is the root-sin, but takes many shapes, as covetousness, lust, lying and causing others to sin, may so harden himself in this life as to become " past feeling" and actually to extinguish all sense of the difference between right and wrong, the light that is in him having become darkness. There is a mysterious law known as " the enhance- ment of sin." " If a man shall have so sundered himself from the stock of his humanity as to join himself to the evils against which he was called into being to contend, then it is reasonable to believe that his lot will be the same as those with whom he has so joined himself." May not this loss of the sense of difference between right and wrong be the sin against the Holy Ghost which hath never forgiveness ? It hath never forgiveness because the sinner has deprived himself of the power of repent- ance, and he cannot repent, because, by his own act, he has deprived himself of the power of seeing his sin. ' ' We have nowhere, ' ' says Mr. Chambers, ' ' taught in these pages that one who has persistently closed his eyes to truth and, in opposition to conscience, resolutely practiced evil, will be capable of Salva- tion after death." No victory was ever gained in this world's bat- tles without loss of life. Are we not led to think it 90 THE LIFK TO COME\ probable that the great and final victory over evil will not be achieved without an analogous spiritual loss ? Nevertheless 5. Endless existence in penal suffering, which is what is commonly meant by " Everlasting Punish- ment," is not "An Article of the Christian Faith as contained either in the Apostles' or Nicene Creed/' not being included in nor deducible from the Life Everlasting (Eternal) of the former, or the Life of World to Come of the latter. 6. The " iEonian " controversy, as it is called, turns on the question whether the word, sometimes translated Everlasting and sometimes Eternal (in S. Matt, xxv : 46, it is the same word in the original, " These shall go away into Everlasting punishment, but the righteous into YiizEtemal") denotes Endless- ness. Etymologically, it certainly does not. The "aeon" is the period of existence of any person, thing or institution. The hills and mountains are called everlasting, although there was a time when they were not, and there shall come a time when they shall cease to be. The "aeon" of the ephe- meron, the insect of a day, is the one day which sees it born and sees it die. God said of circumcision, ' ' My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlast- ing covenant, ' ' where the same word is used in the Septuagint, as in the Gospel, yet we know that circumcision has long been abolished. PROPOSITIONS OR CONCLUSIONS. 9 1 The word does not and cannot of itself de- note endlessness. I will go further and say that it has been used for this very reason. I base this statement upon the fact that there are words which do have this meaning, unmistakably. Is it too much to say that they have been avoided ? The use of any one of them would have settled the question in regard to the endlessness of punishment. Such words are ai'Sto?, artipavfof, axa?d%vto$. The first is used in Romans i: 20, " His eternal power and Godhead." The second in 1 Tim. i: 4, "Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies" (the word signifies that beyond which there is nothing). The third is used in Hebrew vii : 16, where our L,ord is said to be made, not after the law of a carnal com- mandment, but after the power of an endless (indis- soluble) life. I do not, however, consider this as a question of prime importance. The matter can never be settled by a word. But thus much the discussion can accomplish: to show that philology lends no countenance to the opinion of the endless- ness of punishment, but leaves the question to be determined on other grounds. 7. "The annihilation of the wicked after the Day of Judgment, by the Second Death, commonly called 'conditional immortality,' has arguments in its favor of no small force, but it lacks the conclusive- ness of proof." 92 THK UFK TO COME:. So I had written eight years ago, and the words are allowed to stand, for the very reason that I am about to modify them. It is an illustration of the tentative, gradual way in which one's mind is led on about this deep subject. It appears to me more and more likely to be true. It is remarkable how writers differ on this point while agreeing on some others. Dean Plumptre disbelieves it entirely, argues against it elabor- ately, and concludes : " Whatever support this view may derive from a narrow and almost servile literalism in its interpretation of Scripture, it must be rejected as at variance with the intuitive beliefs which all God's revelation pre-supposes ; at variance also with the meaning of Scripture, when we pass beyond the letter to the truth which it repre- sents." And Mr.Gurney, in the same strain : " The theory of annihilation, or conditional immortality, is one which I do not care to discuss, for I feel persuaded that it will never commend itself to the mind and con- science of the Spirit-bearing Church. A few men, both earnest and able, in ancient and modern times, have adopted it. I cannot think they would have done so had they not been driven into it as a means of escape from the popular teaching about hell, and under the impression that the Gospel of Restitution is too good to be true." PROPOSITIONS OR CONCLUSIONS. 93 On the other hand, Prebendary Row, as we have seen, practically upholds it. But its ardent cham- pion is Mr. Chambers, who comes to the conclusion unqualifiedly as the alternative to universalism, which, as we have seen, he dismisses peremptorily. His whole discussion of the subject is very interest- ing (pp. 133-144). I^et it be considered : (a) Setting aside all questions of the tenet of the inherent immortality of the soul being derived from the Platonic philosophy, we fall back on S. Paul, who teaches us that God only hath immortality (deathlessness), (i Tim. vi : 16) ; hath it, that is, inherently, essentially. (b) We come to this point with the traditional interpretation, which makes the passages cited in favor of annihilation to mean deathless existence in misery, so rooted in us that it is very hard for us to biing our minds into an impartial attitude. We must first learn to think that it is possible before we can receive proof that it is. (c) If it be said that we have no evidence of any immaterial entity, like the human spirit, being destructible, it may be replied that the soul of the brute, although a lower order than man, is imma- terial, and it is generally believed that it does not survive death. And S. Peter (2d Ep. ii : 12) com- pares sinners to ' ' natural brute beasts made to be taken and destroyed," 94 THE LIFE TO COME. (d) Consider the drift of passages such as these : "The ungodly are like the chaff which the wind driveth away." (Ps. i : 4.) " Consume into smoke ; consume away." (Ps. xxxvii : 20.) "As the whirl- wind passeth, so is the wicked no more." (Prov. x : 25.) Much stronger, " He shall burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." (S. Mat. iv : 12.) "Who- soever shall say thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire." (S. Matt, v: 22 ; see also v : 29.) Now Ge- henna is the valley of the Son of Hinnom, once infamous for the horrid worship of Moloch, and afterwards polluted with every kind of filth, as well as the dead bodies of malefactors and carcasses of animals. In order to consume these, and so avoid the pestilence which such a mass of corruption would occasion, constant fires were kept burning. It was "eternal fire." What is thrown into such a receptacle is thrown, not in order that it may con- tinue to exist in its corruption, but that it may cease to exist altogether. Such, too, is the natural lesson of the Parable of the Wheat and Tares. " Gather ye together first the tares in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn." (S. Matt, xiii : 30. ) No one who brought his mind to such a parable without pre-possession could think that it meant that the tares were to continue to exist in the fire. But Mr. Chambers has left unquoted the strongest proof of all. It is that derived from S. Jude 7 : "Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities PROPOSITIONS OR CONCLUSIONS. 95 about them in like manner, giving themselves over unto fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." To suffer that vengeance is not to be kept alive in that fire, but to be so completely annihilated by it that not a vestige remains. And we are clearly to infer that the fate of the sinful city is a parable of the fate of the sinful inhabitants. Brick and mortar, or their ancient equivalents, have no souls; and S. Jude never would have mentioned them, un- less as a parable of spiritual things. This consideration is greatly strengthened by 2 S. Pet. ii: 6. " Turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, making them an example to those that after should live ungodly." Here we are distinctly taught that the fate of the material Sodom and Gomorrah is a symbol of the fate that should befall the ungodly. It would be no symbol at all if they are to be kept alive in penal misery. {e) But by conditional immortality is not meant the annihilation of the wicked directly after death. Being is not extinguished then. Those who hold it maintain that the lost soul continues to exist in suf- fering after death, and the " certain, fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour (note the word, eat up, it means,) the adversa- ries." Says Mr. Chambers: "The Old and New 96 THE UKE TO COME. Testament alike proclaim that at the Judgment some will pass into a place or condition of punishment for sin. This punishment is expressed in the Greek New Testament by the word ' Gehenna,' and in the English by ' Hell.' Closely associated with this condition of Hell, but quite distinct from it, is a subsequent experience, called in the Bible the Second Death. This latter is the outcome of the former, and bears the same relation to it that bodily dissolution does to the mortal physical suffering which precedes it." Some object to the annihilation of the wicked on the ground that it would be a blessing to them. They share the feeling of Justin Martyr: "Our souls are not immortal, nor uncreated ; yet I say not that all souls die ; for that indeed would be a god- send to the wicked." It cannot be too often re- peated that the question to be asked is not " What are the results of truth?" but "What is truth?" But the way in which different minds look at im- mortality is very different. Some prefer endless existence in hell to the being blotted out. And there are good Christians to whom the idea of an immortal existence is simply intolerable. We must have a standard other than these varying feelings. (/") There is no reason why those who once never had a being should not cease to be ; why that which came into existence should woi go out of existence. PROPOSITIONS OR CONCLUSIONS. 97 (g) It seems the natural and just punishment that they who have misused existence should be punished by forfeiting the existence which they have misused. Lastly (Ji) Nowhere in the Bible is the soul spoken of as an immortal soul, or as having any natural, in- herent immortality. In i Cor. xv: 53, we have ' ' This mortal must put on immortality. ' ' The word is in sound as well as sense to "endue." The whole drift of the argument goes to show that S. Paul is speaking throughout only of the resur- rection to life everlasting, and his words mean "This mortal must be endued with, immortality," which carries out the argument of those who hold conditional immortality, that it is the gift of God to the saved. Archbishop Whately — a master of logic — teaches that in every discussion it is of first importance to determine on which side the burden of proof lies. Now I submit that the assertion that ' ' God only hath immortality," puts the onus probandi on those who assert the immortality of any creature. Proof of this derived immortality is fully furnished in regard to the saved. My contention is that it is not furnished with regard to the lost. I leave this point by quoting some remarkable words of Professor Godet of the Theological Faculty of Nuchatel, Switzerland: "It is possible 98 THE LIFE TO COME. that there are still in this mysterious matter hidden sides, on which we can yet scarcely look. When the glass, having passed from the hand of the work- man, once cooled off, has taken its fixed form, if this does not answer to his intention, he can no longer change it. But he does not therefore look on the material as lost. Instead of throwing it away as vile refuse, he puts it back in the furnace, and after having recast it, he seeks to give it the new form which shall answer to his thought. Can one not imagine something similar with regard to the man who has refused to fulfil his destiny ? May there not be at the bottom of this ruined personality an impersonal human existence which God can take back into His hands to draw from it by a subsequent development a personality which shall answer to his thought? We know so little what being is, and what relation there is between the verb being and the substantive a being. The most profound thinkers have exhausted themselves on this prob- lem. . . . It is perhaps at the bottom of this abyss that there is hidden the solution of the for- midable problem which has occupied our attention." 8. Men who leave this world in a state of salva- tion, that is with the elements of the character which God will accept at the Last Day, depart in very different degrees or states of preparation; from the man who has repented an hour before his death PROPOSITIONS OR CONCLUSIONS. 99 up to the Christian who has served God for a life- time. Popular theology, while too severe in one aspect, is too lax in another, ignoring the fact that a man may die saved, and yet carry away with him much evil, the removal of which is a moral neces- sity. Dismissing, as both unreasonable and un- scriptural, the idea that death effects a sudden preparation, we must lay stress upon the work which is done in the intermediate state, of fitting the departed for heaven. The " good work " has only been "begun" here; it must be "performed until the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil, i: 6). That day can only mean the Day of Judgment. And upon the amount that has been done here will depend the amount that remains to be done there. If the former has been great the latter will be less, and vice versa. Not only this ; not only must incomplete good be completed, but that which is bad must be unlearned. The Christian teacher or priest who has taught error, or a false system, must there awaken to a sense of the truth, for there can be no deception there. The persecution of the truth, in the milder modern form as well as in the coarser way, must then be fully realized. Prejudice and warped judg- ments can no longer be indulged there. Acts of injustice (testamentary ones for instance) must be seen in their true light, when there is no power of recalling them. Failure of duty must be brought IOO THK UFE TO COME. home to the disembodied spirit, Wrongs, unkind- nesses, uncharitableness, in all which not alone the ''ungodly" offend, done in the body, must stand out. I^et the word Purgatory be given up, on account of the associations connected with it, but let us remember that the early Christian writers, and many of later date, unite in asserting the necessity of discipline or purification of some sort beyond the grave. Archdeacon Farrar and Mr. Chambers, neither of whom can be suspected of a leaning toward what Article XXII. calls "the Romish doctrine of Purgatory," unite in maintain- ing this. Farrar and Pusey are at one in holding that "short of the sin which hardens finally, there may be countless cases of seeming failure, heresies, unbelief, that arise from ignorance, prejudice, enfeebled and stunted capacities, which yet do not exclude men from salvation, and leave them as possible subjects for the purifying education, which leads up to it." And Mr. Chambers has these wise words. After speaking of the mediaeval corrup- tions on the subject, he continues, " The foundation is Scriptural and good ; but upon that foundation men have reared a superstructure of rubbish. If it were not so, if there had been no foundation of truth, the doctrine of Purgatory would long since have ceased to be believed. There are thoughtful men to-day who do believe it, though not perhaps PROPOSITIONS OR CONCLUSIONS. IOI in its coarser mediaeval representation. And how it becomes possible for them to do so, is, that, underlying a very great amount of error, is the truth, that, in the Hades life there is a woik of perfecting and developing. If the word 'Purga- tory ' be used only to denote a purging out of sin and imperfection, I know of nothing objection- able in it. Our Church of England has not a word to say against it. What she condemns in her XXII. Article is, ' the Romish doctrine concerning Purgatory' " (p. 104). I add the words of Mr. Maurice in his statement of what he did not hold : ' ' Not to invent a scheme of Purgatory, and so take upon myself the office of the Divine Judge. Not to deny God a right of using punishments, at any time, or anywhere for the Reformation of His Creatures." I venture to quote a few sentences from a sermon of my own. They state the question and leave it, where God has left it, unsolved in detail. The subject is " Heaven : " " But there is one difficulty on this subject which we ought to face. We read of a home in which all is purity. We are told that there shall enter in nothing that defileth." The rule has no exception. "Without holiness, no man shall see the IyOrd." In order to enter Heaven there must be nothing in a man in which the eye of God can detect a blemish 102 THE LIFE TO COME. or a flaw And these are they, who, as it is said, expect to go to Heaven, and to endure a look, and to be happy while it reads them through and through, which will draw out of man the faintest sin, and make him blush at the smallest speck of wrong within. It is character which determines our going to Heaven ; nay, it is charac- ter which is Heaven, and what is our character ? The laborer carried off suddenly in his working clothes, from the clod and the plough, to a court reception, would not be more ill at ease, than would be many a Christian in Heaven. Is it in this earth that the fine gold is to be found? Is this the material of saints in glory ? " But w 7 e know that there are dead who die in the Lord, who, from the moment of their death, rest from their labors. An4 we know too that our strug- gle after purity is not an useless one, for when S. Peter bids us give all diligence that we may be found of Him in peace, without spot and blameless, he teaches us that such diligence will not be in vain. . . . Let all such take courage. He will, in His own way and time, rid them of all trace of sin ; and when they awake up after His likeness they shall be satisfied with it." What then, it will be asked, is this " doctrina Romanensium," which the article condemns; and wherein does it differ from what has now been ad- vocated ? PROPOSITIONS OR CONCLUSIONS. 103 Some of my readers may have read Tract No. 90 of the Oxford Tracts. They will recall how the future Cardinal Newman, the author of it, claims that in condemning the Romish doctrine of purga- tory, Article XXII. by implication admits that there is a doctrine of purgatory which it does not con- demn. The article is as follows: "The Romish doctrine concerning purgatory, pardons, worshiping and adoration, as well of images, and relics, and also invocation of saints, is a fond (foolish) thing, vainly invented and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the word of God. ' ' Pardons are the same as indulgences. This tract raised a storm of indignation, and was the occasion of the discontinuance of them. The calm and judi- cial Dean Church, in his history of the Oxford movement, thus comments : ' ' Nothing could exceed the scorn poured on the interpretation of the twenty- second article ; that it condemns the Roman doc- trine of purgatory, but not all doctrines of purgatory, as a place of gradual purification beyond death. But in our days a school very far removed from that of Mr. Newman, would require and would claim to make the same distinction." I trust the foregoing pages show that the distinc- tion is well-founded. It will appear the more so if we try to get some idea of the points in which the Romish doctrine differs from it. It does so in these : 104 THE UFE TO COME. i. The popular belief, I take it, is that the fire which purifies souls is a material one. It has not been so pronounced ex cathedra, but such a theolo- gian as Bellarmine holds that the fire is corporeal. A belief, this, not so objectionable as that of Mr. Spur- geon, as quoted in Chapter I. of Endless Flames. 2. The Romish doctrine holds to a Quantitative Satisfaction for sins committed in this life : with the " superfluous ' ' merits of the saints, those which were more than enough to secure their own salvation, ap- plied to the remission of the sins of others. It is thus connected with works of supererogation which Article XIX. condemns. It will be seen what a ten- dency this has to bring in that invocation of saints and worshiping of images and relics which the article condemns. The following passage from Shakespeare explains a " quantitative " satisfaction. It is taken from the prayer of King Henry V, just before the battle of Agincourt : 4 • Not to-day, O Lord, 0, not to-day, think not upon the fault My father made, in compassing the crown. 1, Richard's body have interred new And on it have bestowed more contrite tears Than from it issued, forced drops of blood. Two hundred poor I have in yearly pay, Who twice a day their withered hands hold up Toward heaven, to pardon blood : and I have built Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests, Still sing for Richard's soul. ' ' PROPOSITIONS OR CONCLUSIONS. IO5 Then he changes into a truer strain : 1 ' More will I do, Though all that I can do is nothing worth, Since that my penitence comes after all, Imploring pardon." — Act iv., scene /. 3. The system of indulgences in remission of the temporal penalties of sin, including in the word ' ■ temporal ' ' those of a purgatory between death and resurrection, Bishop Browne, on the articles (p. 503) quoting Cardinal Bellarmine, says : "It is held that the Bishop of Rome has a store or treasure of the merits of Christ and of the saints, which for sufficient reasons he can dispense, either by himself or his agents, to mitigate or shorten the sufferings of penitents, whether in this world or the world to come ; meaning by ' the world to come ' the period between death and resurrection. ' ' In other words, a system of suffering is created for the purification of the sinner, and then an elaborate system is built upon it for the deliverance of the soul from that suf- fering, and so for the frustration of the very object of it. A Prayer, issued by authority, is worth more, as a proof of actual practice, than an abstract decree of a Council. It bears the ( ' Reimprimatur " of the late Archbishop Wood, and is taken from the "Vade Mecum." 106 THE LIFE TO COME. PRAYERS FOR OBTAINING PLENARY INDULGENCE. PREPARATORY PRAYER. Almighty and Everlasting God, I trust, that by Thy Mercy, I am absolved from all my sins, and delivered from Eternal damnation ; yet since I am still obnoxious to the temporal punishment due my sins, and my own works are not sufficient to make satisfaction for them, I fly to the inexhausti- ble, treasury of the merits of Thy Only-begotten Son, and of the saints, that by their abundance my defects and infirmities may be supplied. I cheer- fully offer myself to do all those things which are appointed for this End. Receive them, O Father of Mercies, in union with the Passion and Death of the same, Thy Son, and make me, although unworthy, partaker of this plenary indulgence. Our Father. Hail Mary. There is the following foot note to this Prayer : " For obtaining the Indulgences, it is sufficient to to say with devotion, five Our Fathers, and five Hail Marys, but the following are the forms com- monly used. They are applicable, either to those who use them, or to the Souls in' Purgatory ; and may be said, either at the time of the Jubilee, or any other occasion." I add this Preface to a Prayer in the same con- nection : "Prayer, to which is annexed a plenary PROPOSITIONS OR CONCLUSIONS. 107 indulgence applicable to the souls in Purgatory, which all the faithful may obtain, who, after having confessed their sins with contrition, receive the Holy Communion, and pray for the intentions of the Sovereign Pontiff, shall devoutly recite it, before an image, or representation of Christ crucified." Much of the contents of this little book is admir- able, but from these extracts, there can be no doubt what its doctrine of Purgatory is. 9. This last topic brings us closely up to that of Prayers for the Dead. Let us look at the subject historically. The history, with which the Second Book of the Maccabees deals, is that of nearly two centuries before Christ. It is the history of the resistance of the Jews, under their Maccabean leaders, to the idolatrous tyranny of Antiochus Kpiphanes. Here, for the first time, we meet the belief in what we find in the Canonical Scriptures only occasionally, and in faint hints; but which, in its clearness of expres- sion, anticipates almost the very words of the Chris- tian creed, "A Resurrection unto Everlasting I^ife." The sudden emergence of this truth is striking, indeed startling. It is said of one of the seven brethren who were martyred for refusing to eat swine's flesh, And when he was at the last gasp, he said, Thou, like a fury, takest us out of this present life, but the ' *Ki7ig of the world shall raise us up who have died Io8 THE LIFE TO COME. for His law unto everlasting life.'' 1 2 Mace, vii : 9. And this hope was enough to sustain them under the most horrible tortures. No one of the Saints of the Old Testament speaks in this way. It is not in my line to discuss the reason of this sudden clari- fying of the future. But what I do want to impress is this, that, along with this firm faith in the Life of the World to Come, the belief also comes, "that that life is not shut out from fellowship with this." The defenders of their country, under the leader- ship of Judas Maccabees, were slain in battle. And, with the Jew, patriotism was religion. But it was found that ' ' under the coats of every one that was slain were things consecrated to the idols of the Jamnites." The temptation had been too great for them. They had given their lives for God and their country, and yet, in the act of doing so, had broken His Commandment. Good and Evil were mingled in them, as they are in us all. What then ? All men, praising the Lord, the Righteous Judge, who had opened the things that were hid, besought the Lord, that the sin committed, might be wholly put out of remembrance. For if he had not hoped that they that were slain, should have risen again, it had been superfluous and vain, to pray for the dead, 2 Mace, xii : 40-44. In other words, and what can be more important — the first clear statement in fewish History of a belief in the Resurrection of the PROPOSITIONS OR CONCLUSIONS. 109 Dead, is accompanied by a belief in the efficacy of Prayers for the Dead. If it be said, that this is not Canonical Scripture, I answer : That does not in the least invalidate the Historical argument. And this belief, thus held nearly two hundred years before the birth of our Lord, was in full force in His time. Yet while He withered, with the breath of His mouth, all the corruptions and super- stitions that were current in His day, He never said one word in rebuke of this, which was the belief of all, except of the Sadducees who believed, that there was no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit. Even the Jewish training of S. Paul would prompt the prayer for his friend Onesiphorus (who, the whole passage, plainly shows, had died). "The Lord grant unto him, that he may find mercy of the Lord, in that day." (2 Tim. i : 18.) It would have seemed as strange a thing to the Early Christians to reject Prayers for the Dead, as it does to many in the present day, to make use ol them. It is not necessary to enlarge upon the dis- favor, which they encountered at the Reformation, on account of the abuses which were associated with them. They are retained in the Eucharistic and Burial offices of the First Prayer Book of Edward VI — that marvellous Book, which, yielding to no reactionary outcries, retained what was truly Cath- olic, rejecting the additions to, and corruptions HO THE LIFE TO COME. of it. The Protestant recoil, combined with politi- cal motives, are sufficient to account for the effort to remove these Prayers altogether from the Second Book. Yet it ought to be borne in mind, that in the draft of the Articles of 1552 (the date of the Sec- ond Prayer Book), prayers for the Dead, which had been included with Purgatory, in the condemnatory language of Article XXII. were omitted from cen- sure on that Revision. The more deliberate judg- ment of the framers of that Article was, that it was not expedient to identify them with Purgatory, nor to declare them to be ' ' repugnant to the Word of God." There have not been wanting those (as the Com- mentator on the Liturgy in the Annotated Prayer Book), who see in the clause of the Prayer for the Church Militant, " beseeching Thee to give us grace so to follow their good examples, that with them, we may be partakers of Thy Heavenly Kingdom," a Prayer for the Departed. I cannot think so. In the First Book, the Title of the Prayer was, "Let us pray for the Estate of Christ's Church." And the Comprehensiveness of the Title was justified by the fact, that it contained a Prayer for the Departed. Nothing could be more significant than the change of title in the Second Book, "Let us pray for the whole state of Chris f s Church Milita?it here in Earth. ' ' The body of the Prayer carries out the Title, by PROPOSITIONS OR CONCLUSIONS. Ill omitting the petition for those who are gone. We must remark also, that the Prayer of the First Book runs, ' ' We and all they that be of the Mystical Body of Thy Son. ' ' When the Book took its present shape, in the Prayer Book of Charles II (the present Book of the Church of England), we find the word " with," instead of "and." "That we with them may be partakers." It appears to me that the change would not have been made had it not been with the intention of altering the meaning. It would be uncandid to evade these considera- tions ; but there are certainly four places in the Prayer Book, which either escaped observation or being observed, were allowed to remain. One of them, indeed, could not have been erased. Two are in the Iyitany. " Remember not, O Lord, our ini- quities, nor the iniquities of our forefathers." It may be said, that we mean by this to deprecate the effects of the sins of our ancestors, being visited on us, their descendants. It will then mean, "Re- member the sins of our forefathers, for the purpose of punishing them : but forget them, when it comes to visiting them upon us. ' ' If any can put up such a prayer, I must leave him to offer it alone. "That it may please Thee to have mercy upon all men." Can we confine this to the fraction of the human race now living in the world ? Or, can we say, that if we begin a prayer by a dying bed, 112 THE LIFE TO COME. and before we have ended it, the spirit has left the body, our petitions must be silenced, and become useless, if not indeed, sinful ? * Again, in the Communion office, we pray "that we and all Thy whole Church, may obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of His Passion." Beside, the "and" being used, epithet is piled upon epithet in order that no portion of that Church may be shut out from the benefit of those Prayers. It is not "Thy Church," but " All Thy Church." Not only "All Thy Church," but "All Thy Whole Church." Language is exhausted, in order that the Church in Paradise may be included in those Prayers : which are especially in place when offered in connection with the sacrifice of the altar. And lastly : We cannot banish Prayers for the dead, unless we exclude the Lord's Prayer. So long as we put up the petition, " Thy Kingdom come," we pray that God would hasten His kingdom: S. Peter bids us hasten (not hasten unto) the coming of the Day of God. We pray for the Church ex- pectant, or waiting in Paradise, that He would * O, mother! praying God would save Thy sailor, while thy head is bowed, " His heavy-shotted hammock shroud, Drops in his vast and wandering grave." Tennyson's " In Memoriam." In Kingsley's " Two Years Ago" the heroine, standing on the seashore and looking at the wrecked corpses, muses thus, " Strange that it was a duty to pray for them yesterday, and it is a sin to pray for them to-day-" PROPOSITIONS OR CONCLUSIONS. 113 shorten the time of their waiting. There is a strange hint in the Book of Revelation, of some pious souls, who have suffered much in this world, actually be- coming uneasy and impatient, at the delay of their triumph. They are described as being "under the altar," not a place surely, indicative of final and completed happiness. "And when he had opened the fifth seal I saw, under the altar, the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O L,ord, Holy and True, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth ? And white robes were given unto every one of them ; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants also, and their brethren, that should be killed as they were should be fulfilled" (Rev. vi: 9-11). This imagery surely represents the martyrs as by no means perfect : for they are crying out for ven- geance on their earthly enemies, having therefore a very important lesson yet to learn ; by no means sharing the prayer of dying Stephen, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge," dissatisfied with their present condition, and comforted and pacified by God, by the gift of white robes. (Since writing these words, I have listened to a grand interpreta- tion of Hamlet. It is worthy of notice, that when 1 1.4 THE LIFE TO COME. the Ghost of Hamlet's father appears, the prominent thought of the revenant is revenge upon his murder- ous brother.) The sound of "Thy Kingdom Come," wafted to them from their brethren on earth, is surely the most welcome message that can reach their ears. It is singular, that in the Kad- disch of the Rabbis, or prayers for the soul of the deceased, occur the words, "May His kingdom come quickly." As the Lord's Prayer is the seed of all prayers, this petition is surely neglected, if it is not ex- panded into prayers for the departed. What has been said by us of some of the views maintained in this book, namely, that they are not less, but more sol- emn than those which have passed current, is eminently true of this point. "The whole tone of the prayers of the earlier burial office presents a marked contrast, in its trembling humility, its blended tone of hope and fear, to the almost unmingled confidence and assurance of that which has been in use in the English Church since 1552." Consider the variety of characters, over whom we are, I suppose, obliged to read this service ! and contrast it with such a prayer as this: 11 O God, we humbly beseech Thee, whatever this, Thy servant, may have contracted of evil, contrary to Thy will, by the deceit of the devil, or his own PROPOSITIONS OR CONCLUSIONS. 1 15 iniquity and frailness, Thou, in Thy pity and com- passion, wouldst wash away by Thy clemency, and command that his soul may be borne by the hands of Thy holy angels, where grief and sorrow and sighing flee away, and the souls of the faithful are in joy and felicity;" or, take this: "Do Thou now look upon this Thy servant, whom thou hast chosen and received into another state, and forgive him, if voluntarily or involuntarily he has sinned." "Here also," says Dean Plumptre, "the argu- ment from the universality of the practice, to its primitive antiquity is absolutely irresistible. . If the Liturgies of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Rome, Carthage, Gaul, agreed in this respect ; if there was no difference between the Orthodox and the Heretics, as regards these prayers, we cannot avoid the conclusion that they must have been found in the original type of Liturgy, of which all these were, each with special variation, natural developments, and which can hardly be assigned to a later period than the age of the Apostles, or that which immediately succeeded it. I cannot resist adding these words of Mr. Cham- bers (p. 83), " Is any reader shocked at the mention of prayers for the dead ? They are not prayers for the dead, but prayers for the living ; for has not our Lord said, 'All live unto God ?' . . . Can there Il6 THE LIFE TO COME. be found one passage in God's word, which says that we must not pray for our dear ones, when once they have been separated from us ? What an inexpressible sadness there is in the false idea that it is wrong to utter such prayers. Up to the moment of death, we may plead ever so earnestly with our Heavenly Father for a dear one and an instant later we must not. What an inconsistency, when we profess to believe that that one is still living, and has but changed his locality. On the other hand, what an immeasurable conso- lation and mitigation of the pang of separation is it, if we think our prayers may go with and follow him into the intermediate life. I know of nothing that will make that life so much a reality to us, and which will bring home to our mind the truth, that there will be reunion and recognition there, as this remembrance of the departed at the throne of Grace. Instead of the bond which has hitherto existed between us and them being rudely snapped asunder by death, such prayer does but strengthen it, by associating it the more closely with God. And instead of the former love and sympathy between us resolving themselves into fading memories connected with a receding past, both are preserved, and gather intensity as the time of reunion approaches While PROPOSITIONS OR CONCLUSIONS. 117 that truth bridges, as nothing else can do, the terrible gulf of separation ; and so becomes one of the grandest of influences for diverting our gaze from things temporal, and fixing it upon things eternal. What a chilling vacuum this is in our religion, if, when once the breath has left the|body, supplications must cease. How contrary to the dictates of charity, if accord- ing to some, we may only pray for the "faithful departed." Thus far Mr. Chambers. There is a trio often joined together, as approving of prayers for the departed. They are Luther, Dr. Johnson and Bishop Heber. In regard to Mr. Chambers' last point, namely, the inclusiveness of prayers for the dead, it may be well to quote Bishop Heber. He speaks of prayer for departed friends as ' ' neither unpleasing nor unavailing." "The earlier Chris- tians, most of them, believed that the condition of such persons {both classes of souls in Hades) might be made better and a milder sentence be obtained for their errors and infirmities from the Almighty Judge, by whom the doom of all creatures shall be finally settled." It may be asked, "What shall we pray for, on behalf of the departed ? ' ' When we understand the mystery of prayer for the living, we may hope to Il8 THE LIFE TO COME. comprehend that of prayer for the departed. * ' Pour out your hearts before Him," whatever be the subject : I answer in the words of S. Paul, "In everything by prayer and supplication with thanks- giving, let your requests be made known to God." And we have good reason to believe that the word "thanksgiving," eucharist, was a veiled way of speaking of the Sacrament of the Altar. It would be at once understood by those initiated in the Holy Mysteries, but would be dark to those outside, and if these letters fell into the hands of the heathen, it would prevent pearls being cast before swine. If this be so, it is a strong endorsement of Eucharistic prayer. Says S. Paul, " Likewise the spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." (Rom. viii : 26.) While we dislike the system of "proof texts," it is hard always to avoid it. And there may be quoted on the other side 1 S. John, v: 16-17 : " If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death he shall ask, and He shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death. I do not say that he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin ; and there is a sin not unto death." PROPOSITIONS OR CONCLUSIONS. Iig Now this does not mean that death draws a line, on one side of which it is lawful to pray for the sinner, and on the other not. I have tried to emphasize the fact that it is possible, by a course of sin, so to harden the soul before death as to make salvation, humanly speaking, impossible. It is sin unto death— in close proximity with death. But more than this, S. John uses a different word from that which is rendered "he shall ask," when he says " I do not say that he shall pray for it." In the former case it is Our Lord's word, when He says, " Ask and it shall be given you." But in the latter it is, "I do not say that he shall e7iquire or ask questions concerning this." We cannot possibly be certain that the object of our prayers has committed this sin, therefore he delicately hints, " You had bet- ter leave it out of the account. Ask no questions about it ; pray without reference to it." His language is singularly guarded, and thus explained, we see why it is guarded. Thus understood, his direction has reference to the living, as well as to the dead. Hear the Puritan Milton, untheologically follow- ing a natural instinct, in an ode on the death of a lady : " Gentle lady, may thy grave Peace and quiet ever have, After this life of travel sore, Sweet rest seize thee, evermore," 120 THE LIFE TO COME. And I add this poem, which I think will go to the heart of some reader : BEYOND. I have a friend, I cannot tell just where, For out of sight, and hearing he has gone ; Yet now, as once, I breathe for him a prayer, Although his name is carved upon a stone. O blessed habit of the lips and heart, Not to be broken by the night of death, A soul beyond seems how less far apart If daily named to God with fervid breath. If one doth rest in God, we well may think He ever hears the prayers we pray for him, . Our Father — let us keep the sacred link ; The hand of Prayer love's holy lamp doth trim. Were the dear dead one, heedless of God's will, Needing our pra3 T ers that he might be forgiven Against all creeds, that prayer uprises still With the dim trust of pardon and of heaven. In many instances, the dead are not only out of sight, but out of mind. The phrase, " A month's mind," "a year's mind" that is, reminder, has a deep meaning. Even if we take the strictest view of probation ceasing at death, we may ask this question : If a son, after years of opportunity of study, has gone in to pass a final examination, whose result is to make or mar his life, when would, or could, his PROPOSITIONS OR CONCLUSIONS. 121 father possibly put up more earnest prayers on his behalf, that he might stand the ordeal, than just at the very moment when probation was over and judgment was at hand ? There was in the first Prayer Book of Edward VI. an order for the celebration of the Holy Com- munion at the burial of the dead. The Introit was Ps. xlii. The collect was, "O Merciful God, the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ' ' (which is still called the collect in the English "Burial office). The Epistle was I Thes. iv : 13-18. The Holy Gospel was S. John vi : 37-40. All students of the re- vision which produced the present English Prayer Book, know what high authority Bishop Cosin is, and I quote him: "It would be known why this prayer is named the Collect more than the rest. The Collect is to go before the Epistle and Gospel, and then the Communion, or the Sacrifice of the Church, is to follow. Thus it was appointed in King Edward's service (before Calvin's letter to the sacrilegious Duke of Somerset got it yielded) that there should be a celebration of the Sacrament at the burial of the dead. And the name of the Collect standing still, with such reference thereunto, I know no reason but that we might take the advan- tage, and to show that our church is not to be ruled by Calvin, use the old custom still, and after the burial of any] man, go to the Sacrament, since, it 122 THE LIFE TO COME. was the ancient order 'of all Christians so to do. Whether it were to confirm Christians the better, in hope of our certain resurrection after death, signified by that Sacrament, or to offer up the Sacrifice of the Church unto God, to apply the effect of Christ's sacrifice]unto the party deceased, for his resurrection again at the last day, and receiving his perfect con- summation both of soul and body, in the Kingdom of Heaven, as in the prayer before, which, but for the virtue of Christ's death, nor he that is dead, nor he that is alive, can have any hope to enjoy.* I will quote the sentence immediately following that already given from Dean Church : " And so, with the interpretation of the ' Sacrifice of Masses.' It was the fashion to see in this the condemnation of all doctrine of a sacrifice in the Eucharist, and when Mr. Newman confined the phrase to the gross abuses connected with the mass, this was treated as an affront to common sense and honesty. Since then, we have become better acquainted with the language of the ancient Liturgies, and no instructed theologian would now venture to treat Mr. Newman's distinction as idle. There was in fact nothing new in his distinctions on these two points. They had already been made in two of the preceding tracts, the reprints of Archbishop Usher on Prayer for the Dead, and the catena on the Eucharistic sacrifice *See note at the end of chapier. PROPOSITIONS OR CONCLUSIONS. 1 23 and in both cases the distinctions were supported by a great mass of Anglican authority." It was natural, and inevitable that there should be a reactionary wave at the Reformation, and that it should entail this loss, but — what a loss ! At the General Convention of 1889, one of the Liturgical Improvements proposed by the House of Bishops, and sent down by them to the House of Deputies, was the restoration of this identical altar service for the Burial of the Dead, excepting that Ps. xxiii, "The Lord is my shepherd," was substituted as the Introit. The clerical vote by dioceses was 34 for ; 14 against, with 3 divided. The lay vote was 18 for, 18 against, with 6 divided. Previous to the vote being taken a Collect was prepared in place of the old one. So, by the non-concurrence of the laity the matter was dropped, the House of Bishops not asking, as they did in many cases of disagree- ment, for a committee of conference. But, in that future review of the Prayer Book, which certainly not the writer, nor many of his readers, will live to see, it will be taken up again, with a different fate. 10. Thoughtful men, such as Paley and Isaac Taylor, have remarked on the fact, that Our Lord predicts that mankind at the last shall be divided morally into two and only two classes. He includes all under the wheat and the tares, the good fishes 124 TH E LIFE TO COME. and the bad, the sheep and the goats. There is no shading off. A sharp line is drawn, and all are either on one side or the other. So, in the Book of Kings, they are divided into those that did evil and those that did good or right in the sight'of the Lord, there is no middle or neutral zone. Such thinkers ask, How shall we reconcile the fact that there shall be at the last, two and only two divisions of man- kind, with the mixture of good and evil we con- stantly meet in the same man? S. Paul does indeed assure us, that justice shall be done to the good and bad, that is in every man. " For we must all 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" (2 Cor. v : 10) But he does not tell us how it shall be done. The truth is, we judge only by outward actions, by doing ; but God penetrates below this, to being. Mere actions are far from an unerring test of charac- ter. As the Germans speak of a Tendenz- Schrift , or writing with a drift, so the life of each man, in spite of apparent inconsistencies, we may believe, has this drift upward or downward. 11. Our Lord has given us hints of the ground of condemnation at the Last Day, few but significant: 1 ' Depart from me all ye that work iniquity. I know you not." "I am ashamed of you." In other PROPOSITIONS OR CONCLUSIONS. 1 25 words, it is moral unlikeness to Him, and conse- quent antipathy on His part, which will ensure rejection. 12. We find in Scripture an exact adaptation of punishment to sin, which shows how accurately it is adjusted. Thus, in Hosea viii : n, "Because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin, altars shall be unto him to sin." That is, he has built many idol altars in his own land; he shall be carried captive into Assyria, where he shall have ample scope for his idolatry. There are two striking instances of this in the New Testament, although they are concealed by the authorized version. In Romans i : 28, " Because they refused '(ova edodfiaaav) to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a refuse (addntfiov') mind." The other is i Cor. iii : 17, " If any man destroy (e/). 13. In considering any work, its paramount object should never be lost sight of. Now, the object of the Gospel is, not the damnatio?i } but the salvation of men. It may seem a truism to state this, but it will not appear to be such, when we consider the views which have been held. There- fore, as long as there is salvability in a man, we trust that he is not shut out from salvation, and God is the only judge when that salvability ceases here or there. 126 THE LIFE TO COME. 14. It has been a reproach brought by the advo- cates of the Larger Hope against the sterner school, and not without reason, that the latter bring into the strongest light those passages of Scripture, which make for their side, and either pass over in silence or explain away, those that tell against them. For instance, what Our Lord says about the ser- vants who shall be beaten with many or few stripes, in proportion to their knowledge or ignorance, does not teach that any shall be beaten with ttnending stripes, but rather implies the reverse. Many im- plies an end, however far off that end may be. Yet these words have been held by Bishop Wordsworth to teach different degrees of endless misery. Whereas this is precisely what it does not teach. The con- trast is not one of quality, or degree, but of number. 15. The instance which follows is my contri- bution to that opening up the meaning of passages of Scripture by individuals, of which Bishop Butler speaks. How many sermons have been preached on the text, ' ' Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone' ' (Hosea iv : 17), taking the ground that Ephraim was finally forsaken and abandoned, entirely over- looking the fact that almost the last words of the book are (xiv : 8) " Ephraim shall say, what have I to do any more with idols. I have heard Him, PROPOSITIONS OR CONCLUSIONS. 127 and observed Him; I am like a green fir tree. From me is Thy fruit found. ' ' 16. The ultimate idea — the last analysis — of salva- tion, is, that it is deliverence from sin itself. "Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins" (S. Matt, i: 21). My task — not an easy one — is done. If any word has been spoken that is not true, may God annul it. If what has been said is His truth, may He impress it. S. Paul's consolation is mine : " For we can do (accomplish) nothing against the truth, but for the truth." Note. — Since writing I have read a notice from a well-known pen, of the lectures of Dr. Denny, a Presbyterian divine. I quote from it : " Real prayer for the dead, i. e. , intercessory, as distinct from commendatory prayer, he thinks un scriptural, and to be also deprecated as unreal, on the striking ground, that prayer is not real, unless it is the so.ul of effort ; we do not truly intercede for a man, unless we put ourselves at God's disposal, for that man's service, undertake to plead with him, love him and help him. When death puts him beyond our reach, the time for intercession comes to an end, with the possibility of active ministration to him." 128 THE LIFE TO COME. Every fallacy is "striking," and this one very striking indeed. For ist, the distinction between intercessory and commendatory prayer is unreal. They are in- deed convertible terms. Take the commendatory prayer in the office for the Visitation of the Sick. " We humbly commend the soul of this Thy servant .... into Thy hands, as into the hands of a faithful Creator, and most merci- ful Saviour, beseeching Thee that it may be precious in Thy sight." Is not this an intercessory prayer ? 2. While it is true that prayer without action, where action "can be had," is unreal; — as the prayer for the success of miss : ons by one who will not give to them — it is also true that there are many cases in which prayer for the living can- not be accompanied with effort for the object of that prayer. For instance, Prayer for those at Sea. We have no control of the vessel, winds, currents, officers or crew. Yet we pray. When President Garfield was hanging between life and death, prayer went up through the whole land for his recovery, on the part of those who could not minister to him, nor do him personal service. 3. The case of Elijah is given by S. James as an illustration of the effect of prayer, pure and simple, PROPOSITIONS OR CONCLUSIONS. 1 29 the energized prayer of a righteous man (v : 17, 18). When S. Peter was delivered from prison (Acts xii : 5-11), it is stated " Peter, therefore, was kept in prison, but prayer was made without ceasing of the Church unto God for him." And S. Paul writing to Philemon says, " But withal prepare me also a lodging, for I trust that through your prayers I shall be given unto you" (Phil, v: 22). Yet neither the Church at Jerusalem nor Philemon could do anything to open the door of the prison in which the apostle was confined. It is not every Christian minister who commends the departing soul into the hands of a "faithful Creator and most merciful Saviour." We may notice also the expression "that whatsoever defile- ments it may have contracted — being purged and done away, it may be presented pure and without spot before Thee." This prayer stands on the boundary line between two worlds. Its outlook is to the world beyond. Note to pagk 47. — I do not forget the profound wisdom of Kcclesiastes ; nor its maxims of religion and morality. And the close of it passes into " the better temper, which sees in doing good as far as in our power, the golden rule of life." But the key- note is given by the opening words: " Vanity of vanities saith the Preacher, all is vanity." Its 9 130 THE LIFE TO COME. religion is the religion of reformed Solomon, when he turned from idolatry, polygamy, and sensuality : not of the young and tender lad, to whom God appeared in Gibeon by night. Viewed in this light, I repeat, no lesson can be more solemn than that which the Book teaches. THE END. \ Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: August 2005 PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724)779-2111 ■S . I I