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THE CHRMTIAN VIEW
op
EETRIBUTION HEREAFTER.
A LECTURE,
DEtlTEllED IH
PARADISE STREET CHAPEL,

LIVERPOOL,

ON TUESDAY, MAY 7, 1831).

REV. HENRY GILES.

BEING THE TWELFTH OP A SERIE.S, TO BE DELIVERED WEEKLY, IN ANSWER TO A
COURSE OP LECTDRES AGAINST UNITARIANISM, IN CHRIST CHURCH, LIVERPOOL,
BY THIRTEEN CLERGYMEN OP THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

LIVERPOOL: ;
WILLMER AND SMITH, 32, CHURCH STREET.
LONDON:
JOHN GREEN, 121, NEWGATE STREET.

1839.

^-^rP

l\^^ ^ WiLtMEB and Smith, 32, Church Street, LiT;erpool.

In a few days will be Published,
CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT PRIEST, AND WITH
OUT RITUAL. Being the Thirteenth and last Lecture of
this Series, delivered in Paradise Street Chapel, on
14th May, by the Rev. James Martineau.

THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
OF
RETRIBUTION HEREAFTER.
A LECTURE, delivehed in
PARADISE STREET CHAPEL,
ERRATA
To the Twelfth Lecture, " The Christimi View of Jtetribntion hereaf/er."
Page 9, line 2, for veins read reins,
— 14, last line, for part read past.
— 1 9, line 29, for our eternal life commences read our eternal life commences here.
— 28, line 29, for is read are.
— 34, line 12, for was a generous lead as a general.
— 35, line 23, after the word salvation read it is objected,
— 42, line 9, for can read cannot.
; — 47, Une 12, for cause read curse,

LIVERPOOL:
WILLMER AND SMITH, 32, CHURCH STREET.
LONDON:
JOHN GREEN, 121, NEWGATE STREET.
1839.

^ .\jtj

THE CHRISTIAN VIEW

RETRIBUTION HEREAETER.

A LECTURE,
DELIVERED IN
PARADISE STREET CHAPEL,

LIVERPOOL,

ON TUESDAY. MAY 7, 1839.

REV. HENRY GILES.
BEING THE TWELFTH OP A SERIES, TO BE DELIVERED VTEEKLY, IN ANSWER TO A
COURSE OP LECTURES AGAINST UNITARIANISM, IN CHRIST CHURCH, LIVERPOOL,
BY THIRTEEN CLERGYMEN OP THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

LIVERPOOL:
WILLMER AND SMITH, 32, CHURCH STREET,
LONDON:
JOHN GREEN, 121, NEWGATE STREET.

1839.

WILLMER AND SMITH,
32, CHUUCII STREET, LIVERPOOL.

LECTURE XIL
THE CHRISTIAN VIEW OF RETRIBUTION HEREAFTER.

BY EEV. HENRY GILES.

' AND GOD SAID TO JONAH, DOEST THOU WELL TO BE ANGRY FOR THE
GOURD? AND HE SAID, I DO WELL TO BE ANGRY, EVEN UNTO DEATH.
THEN SAID THE LORD, THOU HAST PITY ON THE GOURD FOR WHICH
THOU HAST NOT LABOURED, NEITHER MADEST IT GROW ; WHICH CAME
UP IN A NIGHT AND PERISHED IN A NIGHT. AND SHOULD NOT I SPARE
NINEVEH, THAT GREAT CITY, WHEREIN ARE MORE THAN SIX SCORE
THOUSAND PERSONS THAT CANNOT DISCERN BETWEEN THEIR RIGHT
HAND AND THEIR LEFT '"—/oBaA iv. 9, 10, 11.

Pain affects us, as it comes near to us. The war or famine,
or any other calamity that afflicts a nation afar off, is but a
vague report or a distant rumour ; it may not pass unheard,
but comparatively it is unfelt. It requires that grief shall
touch and sting us in our selfishness; that we may know
fully and truly what it inflicts on others. And it is thus that
God at once rebukes and cures our insensibility, by bringing
loss and sorrow home to our own souls : the withered gourd
wrung tears from the surly and unamiable prophet : but the
prospect of Nineveh with her mighty population in ashes
had nothing with which to touch the fountains of his sorrows.
Admitting as I thus do that there is much of selfishness in
our nature, yet persuaded that there is also much of sympathy
and mercy in it, taking either the character of God, or that
of man as a criterion, I have long regarded the belief of eter
nal punishment as one of those moral paradoxes which you
cannot deny, and for which you cannot account. Most of
a2

4 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
human creatures, so far as they accord with their humanity,
shrink from inflicting or beholding pain ; and when they
can inflict it wantonly, or behold it without compassion, we
can pronounce on them no sentence of deeper reprobation
than to call them inhuman. We tread not knowingly on the
crawling worm ; we hear not insensibly the inarticulate voice
of the sick and dumb animal: and yet many of us who
would not look unmoved on the last spasms of an expiring
dog, can believe that God regards with ruthless sternness the
eternal tortures of numberless eternal spirits. We cannot gaze
without compassion on the tear in the infant's speechless eye,
and yet some of us can believe that God has created such
beings to look up through all eternity from hopeless torture.
We cannot think on the racks by which tyrant-man has tor
tured his brother-man — on the dungeons in which he has im
prisoned him, and shut out from him the sun of heaven and
the breath of nature, without a feeling of repugnance and a
sentiment of indignation, and yet Christians can believe that
God, whom they call " the good, the merciful," has con
structed for his creatures means of undying anguish and dun
geons of boundless darkness, where the smile of hope never
gleams, where the light of mercy never comes. We lament
war, and yet, if orthodox, we believe that God maintains in
his dominions regions of everlasting warfare ; we lament the
madness and abuse of passion, and yet, if orthodox, we must
believe that God aUows that madness and abuse to be eter-
nahzed in all their extreme malignity. We lament physical
and mental suffering ; except on the visitation of mercy none
of us would desire to go through the lazar house, where
despair and anguish lie low together, where the head is heavy
and the pulse is fevered ; or through those asylums which give
refuge to humanity in its last calamity, and its worst ; and
yet, if orthodox, we can believe that God perpetuates through
out everlasting ages the worst evils of the body, the fiercest
passions, and the most awful madness of the soul. And yet

OF RETRIBUTION. HEREAFTER. 5
this great, this glorious universe is his — is his workmanship-
it came not up in a night, it is not to perish in a night — the
earth is long to be green, and the heavens are to be bright.
Throughout the space that has no limit, throughout the time
that has no end, the stars are to shine, and systems are to
move onward in their unmeasured and their trackless glory.
And yet, if orthodox, we must believe there is an endless
hell whose smoke of torment must ascend for ever against
their brightness. These, the works of God's hands, are
marred — the majesty of his power defeated — Paradise is
made a wilderness, and hell is made populous. If we think
of the world with any degree of realising truth, we shaU feel
this result to be most tremendous, and we shall wonder that
God vpith infinite power should have created such a lovely
universe to be defaced ; that he should have peopled it with
such capacities for good, to be exercised for ever only in the
production of evil ; that he should have given them immense
and eternal capacities only to be immense and eternal ca
pacities for misery. This, if true, is the greatest miracle and
the greatest mystery unquestionably in the divine govern
ment. This subject committed to my charge I feel to be truly
solemn and awful. Next to the idea of a God, that of a
future state is the most important. The character we ascribe
to God operates on our own, or is created by it ; and so
our conceptions of the future life reacts on human conduct,
and human sentiments. We may see this painfully in the
mistakes and abuses with which harsh views of the future
life have clouded the Christian church, and poisoned the
heart of Christendom. These gloomy sentiments from many
robbed religion of solace, and the breast of peace. I have
seen beings maddened and convulsed by visions of Calvi
nism. I have heard them long for annihilation as a consum
mation most desirable— not in the remorse of sin, but in the
tortures of superstition.— I have seen them look forward with

6 THE CHBISTIAX VIEM'.
pleasure to the church-yard turf under which they were to
rest for ever from their troubles, and sleep in peace their
" eternal sleep." This sombre belief has at once desolated
and darkened earth. Faith it has turned to a boundless fear ;
the dread of the future it makes the bitterness of the present,
and is equally the parent of stern self-infliction, or of remorse
less intolerance. It was this that in older days drove the
ascetic to the desert ; that made nature and the face of his
fellow hateful to him ; that filled his ferocious solitude with
unearthly terrors ; that trained, instead of a saint, a theolo
gical savage : it was this which aroused religious wars ; which
infused into these wars a spirit of fury; that demonised hu
manity ; that made a most merciful nature a stranger to
mercy : it was this which brought man in nearest resem
blance to that vile and wicked being whom his worst and
blackest passions had formed : it was this belief that tore
out the heart of flesh and put in its place the heart of stone —
a heart which no appeal could soften, and which no appeal
could move. It was not until there was a hell without hope,
that there was a heart without mercy. I believe it to be
quite capable of proof, that no mere worldly wickedness has
ever cursed mankind with so many sufferings as the belief of
this doctrine ; that has ever heaped on them so many cruelties,
and made them agents of cruelties in return. Why have wars
for religion ever been the worst ? The reason is obvious :
the soldiers of religion are not soldiers of flesh; the sol
diers of religion enter into no earthly service; they enlist
under the god of battles and of vengeance. It is against the
hated, and the vile, and the accursed, and the lost, they carry
destruction ; they are but the executioners of the righteous
decrees of God, and theirs are the championship of piety,
and the chivalry of heaven. When the weak contend with the
weak, mutual need begets mutual mercy: but when the
natural ferocity of passion assumes the authority of God, and
clothes itself with the armour of the skies, the gulf in which

OP RETRIBUTION HEREAFTER. 7
all charity is buried, is broad and unfathomable as that which
is commonly placed between heaven and hell. This belief
was one of the main causes of the most horrible religious
persecutions. It was not until the generous and gentle sen
sibility of the religious nature was debased by coarse picturings
of physical tortures and of endless miseries, that the sacer
dotal arm became terrible as death, and the sacerdotal spirit
was drenched in wrath as dire and unrelenting as that which
they fashioned beyond the grave. Before priestly and popu
lar imaginations God became an awful punisher. They cre
ated in heaven a throne of inexorable judgment, and from
that throne the word of fate went forth which could but once
be spoken, and cut off hope for ever. They freed themselves
from human compunctions, and emulated the stern despo
tism which they preached or believed. Fear is the parent of
cruelty — and in religion, as in character, the slavish spirit is
ever the most unfeeling. The truth is, that whether in idea
or in act, familiarity with torture stupifies the heart and in
durates the senses. That frequent contemplation of pain
destroys sympathy, and that pain, when once it can be care
lessly seen, can be easily inflicted, are facts which observation
has placed beyond the need of argument, and experience
beyond the reach of contradiction.
In this Lecture I propose two objects : — First, to state my
views on moral retribution, which in essentials I apprehend
are those of Unitarians in general : Secondly, to examine the
arguments which are advanced in favour of eternal torture,
and to state my reasons for not believing them. I shall try
to the utmost of ray power to condense what I have to say,
but I hope for your indulgence in return, if on a subject of
such compass — on which so many volumes have been written
— there should be some omissions. The end of this or any
other lecture can never be to expound an important topic in
all its completeness, so much as to suggest and excite inquiry
concerning it.

S THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
I, I shall, in the first place, enter on the positive section
of my lecture ; and on this point, I am sorry to say that the
frequent re-assertion of mistakes regarding our doctrines will
put me to the painful necessity of much repetition.
1 , — I commence with a few remarks on the nature of sin.
One essential characteristic on which we have insisted — and
we believe what we have asserted — is, that sin is a deep
spiritual injury. The source of it is in the soul ; it is the
dark corruption of an evil heart. This I take to be one of
the greatest and profoundest revelations of Christ, one which
places him infinitely above aU other moral teachers, and which
makes Christianity the highest scheme of moral duty. False
religions and false philosophies have been aU at variance with
this inward sense of duty. They have contrived numberless
inventions as substitutes for it, or devised most ingenious
means to nullify it. Priesthoods, with most imposing autho
rity and mystical influence, have offered aU sorts of spiritual
panaceas to ease the wounded conscience. Ceremonies, with
all graceful gesture and solemn import, have presented their
beauty to the senses, and their spell to the fancies of super
stition. Sacrifices without number — from the turtle-dove to
the hecatomb ; from the scape-goat driven to the desert, to
the human being slaughtered to God ; from the blood of hfe
sweHing round a thousand altars of vengeance, to the flowers
and the fruits that were heaped upon the altars of mercy — all
these have been tried to make rehgion for the senses, to make
religion a flattery and delusion : but all were not sufiicient ;
conscience is stronger than rituals, and to that conscience, to
that spirit of God in the soul of man, Christ came ; to that
he was the Apostle and to that he preached. Christ went at
once into the soul; he pierced the veil of sophistries and
deceits by which men are ingenious to discover excuses to
cover their selfishness and their wrong doings ; he went to
the seat of the evil, and struck at once to the root of bitter
ness. Others baptized with water, cleansing merely the out-

OF RETRIBUTION HEREAFTER. 9
side, but he baptized with fire and the holy spirit, going to
the innermost thoughts of the heart and the veins ; — others
preached on the keeping of feast-days and fast-days, but he
taught of that God who is not the Lord of times or seasons,
but the God of life in every hour — the God of the whole
universe in every motion ; — others called men to go to the tem
ple, Christ called them to go into their closets and commune
with their hearts ; — others told them to wash their hands,
Christ exhorted them rather to cleanse their spirits ; — others
told them to fear men who could kill the body, Christ warned
them not to fear man who could only kill the body, but to
fear God who could kill the soul as well as the body. He was
truly the prophet of eternitj^ — the preacher for eternity. He
was truly the preacher of the invisible, and the herald of it —
he needed not that any should testify of man, for he knew what
was in man — he required no testimony, for he had the know
ledge of humanity in his own nature deep and true, but
guiltless — and he spake out of the fullness of his own full
heart : it was therefore that he spake as never man spake :
it was therefore that the common people heard him gladly —
for his words had power to those thoughts and affections
which are native to bosoms of all men ; it was therefore that
he spake with authority, and not as the scribes : for they
discoursed on the traditions of the fathers, but he appealed
to the inspirations of God — they spake of what had been
written on tables of stones, but he spoke of what had been
written on the fleshy tables of the heart. Others made sin
to consist in resistance to the priest or to the king — but
Christ showed it to be an alienation of the soul from God, the
apostacy of the conscience from its own sense of duty. It
is that which is within, he taught, that defiles the man ; a
man may wash his hands seven times a-day, but not once
cleanse his heart ; he may often wash his hands, and yet never
in innocency. He showed that sepulchres might be beautified
outside, and inside be only rottenness and corruption. — His

10 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
apostles learned of him this most profound, most divine phi
losophy, and so they preached it to the world. To be car
nally minded, says Paul, is death ; to be spiritually minded is
life and peace. Whatsoever, says the same apostle, a man
soweth, that shall he also reap ; he that soweth to the flesh,
shall of the flesh reap corruption, but he that soweth to the
spirit, shall of the spirit reap everlasting life. Lust, (or evil
desire,) saith Saint James, when it hath conceived, bringeth
forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
This is the gospel doctrine on the inwardness and spirituality
of sin; and we preach no other gospel, and we teach no other
doctrine, A solemn consequence attaches to our view which
is also powerfully enforced in the New Testament scriptures,
but which the vicarious scheme tends directly to subvert —
I mean the personal nature of transgression. Sin we hold to
be no transferable quality, and this was most lucidly proved
here by one of my brother lecturers. With the sinner him
self lies the guilt ; with him who contracts it it must lie ;
it cannot be acquired by imputation, nor can it be punished
by imputation. If one doctrine be more clearly taught in
scripture than another, it is this, that the offender shall be
answerable only for his own sins ; and for these, as surely as
there are a conscience, a future world, and a God, he must
be answerable. — Every man, our Saviour declares, shall be
judged according to his own works. Every one of us, the
Apostle Paul asserts, shall give an account of himself to God,
But no, saith orthodoxy, you must also be answerable for
Adam, and upon your head must be a guilt that darkened
the very dawn of creation ; and so upon this principle guilt
should descend from sire to son; the later we are in ex
istence, the more tremendous should be this growing moun
tain of imputation, until the last man should sink under the
burden of all the crime which had been from the first man to
himself, — We are told that Unitarians make light of sin. But,
I ask, what does orthodoxy make of justice ? And I further

OF RETRIBUTION HEREAFTER, H
ask, what does it make of scripture ? If there were a judge
on earth who decided as orthodoxy decides, he would be
scouted as a monster : if there were a code of laws which
contained such a standard, the common moral sense of man
kind would reject it; nay, there is not a tribe of savages
in the habitable world so blind to the idea of justice as not
to repel the dogma of imputed and eternal punishment. And
yet we are gravely told that God thus acts, and that the
Bible thus teaches ; we are constantly rebuked as wanting in
faith and humility, because we can find no such principles in
either providence or the Bible. The plain declaration of
the prophet Ezekiel contains the spirit of both, " The soul
that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity
of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the
son ; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him,
and the wickedness of the wicked shaU be upon him." As
certainly as we have a moral sense, as surely as we can dis
cern between right ( ind wrong, we are compelled to acknow
ledge the one and utterly to repudiate the other. Give but
the conscience justice, let common sense have but the slight
est voice in the decision, and you might as easily attempt to
gain a man's assent to the broadest of contradictions, even to
the admission that a part is equal to the whole, or that two
and two are five, as to feel guilty for another man's crime, to
feel remorse for another man's wrong-doing, to be penitent or
humble for that in which we had no participation, or to con
fess the justice of punishment by a sentence which made him
criminal before his existence. On the moral injuries of thus
forcing men to contradict the first dictates of their nature, of
destroying the personality of virtue on the one side by an im
puted righteousness, and the personality of sin on the other by
an imputed guilt, I intend not here to enlarge : but one evil I
will just allude to ; I mean the wrong it does to truth of senti
ment. Feelings in their real existence which are most excel
lent and most beautiful, it distorts and falsifies. There are no

12 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
virtues on earth that bring men nearer to heaven than humility
and repentance. To be humble with a true humility is to be in
the likeness of Christ ; to be penitent with a true repentance
is to be an object of rejoicing even to the angels of heaven :
but when we hear it said that we are to be of lowly mind on
account of inherited corruption, and penitent for imputed sin;
when we try to force ourselves into emotions which are not
native to the soul, unconsciously we undermine its simplicity
and sincerity, and instead of virtues which must be of spon
taneous growth, or not exist at all, we have sickly abortions
of sentiment that are false, because unnatural ; strained efforts
that are at eternal war with experience ; and high-sounding
phrases that are as empty as echo and as cold as the frozen
blast. Perversions like these are almost worse than vices,
for vices, though they mar the life, may leave the moral judg
ment its integrity. Where there is true conviction there may
be amendment, but- when the inward sense is itself diseased,
the case is aU but hopeless. Whatever be the evil of sin,
whatever be its punishment ; whether the evil be infinite or
lirhited, whether the punishment be eternal or temporal,
let us at least beware of weakening that sentiment on
which all morality is founded, the deep sense of personal
responsibility. Unitarian views are often described as
being unfavourable to spirituality; but if by spirituality I
am to understand the inward life of man, the activity of his
mental and moral energies, then I think these views eminently
spiritual. The spirit of man is their great subject, and the
spirit of God in the human, their great agency of salvation.
Within the soul itseff they place moral salvation or moral
destruction, and within the soul itself they place the elements
which constitute one or the other, the sense of guilt which
makes its hell, the conscious holiness which makes its heaven.
This inward power of conscience is the true distinction of
spiritual life ; and the righteous submission to it in our own
hearts, we maintain, is the faith which justifies : a faith which

OF RETRIBUTION HEREAFTER, 13
is an indwelling vitality which consists not in forming propo
sitions about God and Christ, and in enforcing them or sub
mitting to them, but in making God and Christ realities in
our secret thoughts ; in confidence on the worth of goodness,
in allegiance to duty, and in trust in the power and immor
tality of truth,
2, Next I affirm that sin is evil, and that sin is punishable ;
and our doctrines make not light of the evil, or disguise the
awfulness of the punishment. Sin is evil : we deny not that ;
how could we ? It is an eternal truth written on the heart
and life of man, proved with unequivocal and gloomy evi
dence in the whole history of the world. Sin is evil to the
individual; evil in the sufferings it prepares for him, and a
still greater evil when it hardens him beyond suffering.
Each one of us will judge this question for himself according
to his degree of moral sensibility, and according to the
circumstances of his moral history ; but whatever be that
sensibility, or whatever be that history, our moments of
most profound anguish have ever been those in which we
have felt the shameful consciousness of wrong thoughts or
wrong actions. Not, it is true, when the evil passions or evil
deeds held their tyrannical sway over us, but when the spell
was gone, when the mind's eye grew clear, and the hour of
reflection came with sorrow, and the sad pale light spread
over the hand-writing on the wall, from which conscience
might shrink but could not fail to read. The worst, the most
hardened, the most degraded of human creatures, those whom
the world may think have bidden farewell to conscience, have
moments in the dark silence of thouglit when the sword of
remorse with all its poisoned tortures sinks into their wounded
bosoms. And in such hours, it is not outward loss, or out
ward suffering, but inward agony that afflicts them most ; it
is not that they have sunk into the dregs of poverty ; it is not
that they have been reduced to dependence and exposed to
insult ; it is not that pride passes them with cold and wither-

14 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
ing scorn ; it is not that pity and hope seem banished from
their path ; that all appear to frown upon them ; that exter
nally for them there is no longer peace on earth or light in
heaven — it is, that the brightness and the freshness of their
own hearts are gone ; that sacred affections are a waste ; that
conscience, when not silenced into apathy, is enraged into an
accuser ; that their own respect is lost beyond recovery, and
no delusion, however self-deceiving, can again restore it. The
heart-consuming grief, the wrath and tribulation treasured up
in a life of sin, the righteous judge of the earth alone can
know. And these are aU the more bitter if that life had ever
been blessed with holier associations. There is a courage
which can repel the scowl of others ; there is a pride, a mad
ness, if you wiU, which can despise their opinions, or feel in
dependent of their esteem ; there is a fortitude which can en
dure physical suffering to its last infliction ; but there is no
thing in time, in place, or in circumstance, which can fortify
us against our own thoughts, against our own feelings, and
especially the feelings of the divinity within us, that struggle
to the last for empire over evil ; that come ever and ever to tell
us of what we had of good or might have had ; that haunt us
with reproach and sorrow when we have become traitors to our
better nature. Not to speak of conscience with its stinging
sense of violated conviction; not to speak of wasted time,ruined
power, and a wreck of hopes ; to say nothing of alienation
from God, and the fear of a future world, I can conceive of
memory dwelling on spots, which once were spots of light,
becoming the tormentor of a fallen soul, the vindicator of
duty and of God ; I can conceive of one looking back from
the bare desolateness of sin to a youth that once had been
pure, full of joy and full of virtue, to homes that had been
glad with every affection that sweetens Hfe, to sabbaths that
had repose for the stainless spirit, and prayer for unpolluted
lips ; gazing with breaking hearts and weeping eyes over a
part marked with vice and misery, that had been a future

OP RETRIBUTION HEREAFTER. 15
glorious with promise ; all this I can conceive in connection
with even the felon in his cell, or with some wretch whose
cough, Hke a knell of despair, awakens the midnight silence
of the street, whose latest pang is spent in some hidden re
treat of filth and sorrow, of sin and loathsomeness,
I need not say that sin is a great social evil. The fact is
urged upon us with too painful a pressure, both from history
and observation. Take the history of governments and na
tions ; wars and bloodshed stain the record over its whole ex
tent. And whence are these, but from the struggle and
rivalry of selfish and sinful passions ? From whence, says
the apostle James, come wars and fightings among you;
come they not hence, even of your lusts ? From these we
have had the oppression of strength against right. From
these we have had the tyrannies and cruelties with which they
surrounded their thrones of iron despotism ; with which they
made the glory of self the affliction of milHons ; with which
so far as their power extended, they have been the scourges
and the curses of mankind. From these we had the hatred
one nation against another, men arrayed against each other
to hew each other down, doing all iniquities, when interest or
ambition called for them, enslaving one another, and seUing
one another, unmindful of all the claims of fraternity in the,
din of faction, and losing the sense of their common hu
manity in the difference of clime or the colour of the skin.
Take the history of laws, I shaH not allege those of the
criminal code which until very recently made even Christian
and enlightened countries vast arenas of legalised assassina
tion : which spread a reign of terror over the face of empires,
making the scaffold and the gibbet their principal symbols of
civilization, and multiplying to enormous extent the very
crimes, which, pretending to punish, they only publicly au
thorized and exemplified. I speak here more particularly of
the spirit of partiality, injustice, selfishness, and rapacity in
which much of legislation has been conceived and executed :

16 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
classes of men turning the laws to their own purposes and
leaving those unprotected who most required protection;
commonly preying most on those who least could bear it.
Except where the general sentiment of human right has been
too strong for narrow passions, we may see in the long course
of ages, principle sacrificed to personal interests, the good of
masses betrayed or despised, the poor scorned, the ignorant
neglected, the privileged orders hedged about with all sorts ^
of protection, the classification of crime and criminals most
unfairly adjusted, the distribution of penalties most unrighte
ously allotted; this I ascribe to selfish and evil passions.
Once more, take the history of religion, and you have all the
anger of faction made more stern with the rivalry of Creeds ;
the ambition of earthly dominion more aspiring by the addi
tion of spiritual rule also ; the powers of this world made more
fearful by the powers of the world to come; both the visible
and invisible existence subjected to priestly empire, and made
tributary to priestly aggrandizement ; the sword of the civil ma
gistrate which had been sharp enough with one edge to deal the
vengeance of man, receiving another edge from ecclesiastical
authority, to vindicate the judgments of God, Thus we are
compeUed to read history, and thus in aU its departments
we are compelled to witness the dark traces which sin has
left upon its pages. When we turn to the world around
us, these evils are not the less glaring. Many sufferings,
no doubt, are to be ascribed to our natural wants and weak
ness, but they scarcely deserve to be called evils, when we
compare them with those which spring from moral de
rangements. Poverty is not so great an affliction as an
all-devouring love for gain ; sickness is not so great a mis
fortune as an insatiate desire for pleasure ; and the ills of
poverty and pain together, are not as fatal as the irritalile
wish for distinction which rules so widely in the world, with
its fierce blood of turbulent passions. To these there are to
be ascribed the worst social miseries that grieve the best

OP RETRIBUTION HEREAFTER. l7
hearts, and to remove or ameliorate which the finest spirits
have ever directed their labours. To these we are to ascribe
the covetousness which closes the hand of bounty, and shuts
up the bowels of compassion ; which becomes insensible both
to justice and mercy ; to these we are to ascribe all forms of
sensuality, and all the abuses of passion ; to these we are to
ascribe all vices, material or malignant : and who, though he
had the capacious mind of an archangel, caa count the mi
series which in all shapes spread contagion through society ?
Independently of those evils which no human eye can reach,
those which present themselves on the very surface of obser
vation are sufficiently extensive and fearful; intemperance,
ignorance, grossness, hatred, strifes, with aU their gloomy ap
pendages ; of unhappy homes ; of loud and laughing and
blushless infamy ; of mad licentiousness, and late despair ;
of lost health, lost honesty, lost reason, which respectively
close their career in the hospital, the prison, or the lunatic
asylum. 3, As to evidence, then, for the existence of guilt, as to
its extent and its evil, I think I can go as far as any Cal-
vinist, I see the fact, and I have no wish to disguise it ;
it startles, but it does not subvert my faith. I grant sin
to be evil — evil in the inward spirit — evil on the outward
life — evil to the individual — evil to the species — evil in this
world — evil in the next. In a certain sense, I am not pre
pared to deny that it leaves injurious consequences, which
may be eternal; that the loss of innocence, that subver
sion of moral tastes, may implant habits which, for aught
I know, shall be an everlasting injury to the soul, not ut
terly to destroy its happiness, or stop its progression, but to
deprive it of advantages and advancement which a purer moral
state would have given it. The evils of sin I hold to be
terrible ; the penalty of sin I hold to be inevitable — to be
removed by no sacrifice, to be washed out by no expiation —
to be escaped only in the criminals rising out of the corrup-

18 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
tion by experience and wisdom, to a purer moral state. The
punishment of sin I believe to be not only inevitable, but
also enduring, enduring in proportion to indulgence and ma
lignity. Thoughts, I admit, which have wrought themselves
into the very texture of the intellectual nature ; feelings which
have rooted themselves into the heart ; habits that have
grown into instinct, are not speedily to be destroyed. Moral
punishment, in my idea, is identical with moral discipline,
and moral discipline I consider to be such an arrangement of
circumstances in the providence of God as shall lead us to
self-correction ; such a process of spiritual training as leave
us the consciousness of our own liberty, but yet accomphsh
God's wise ends by God's boundless power. In building,
then, the structure of our character, our Creator works not
by miracle, but by experience, and this experience may be
slow and painful. I believe most sincerely and profoundly
in a future punishment ; not vindictive, but corrective — for
aU wise punishment is, and must be, corrective. That the.
dispensations of God are not completed in this life, I think
all the moral aspects of things here below make most mani
fest, and all analogies intimate, if Scripture had not expressly
declared, that after death there is to be a more distinct exhi
bition of the divine government. That the results of cha
racter formed in the present hfe are to be carried into the future,
and to influence it, I conceive our whole nature argues. Our
existence, as spiritual beings, is properly connected and con
tinuous ; one state prognosticates another ; and no two are
absolutely distinct and separate. Our spiritual life consists
of thought united to thought, and feeling to feeling, one ope
rating on the other, or producing it, of a mysterious chain of
consciousness, bound from link to link by successive memo
ries, preserving unbroken the identity of our existence. Man
hood is the growth of our youth, and immortality is the growth
of our manhood ; and the impressions of character pass from
one stage to another, along the line of succession and

OF RETRIBUTION HEREAFTER, 19
sequence. There are no extremes, except to our outward ob
servation. Looking at one stage of life, and then, after a
long interval, seeing in the same person the apparently op
posite characteristics, we take those things to be antagonists
which are bound together by the inevitable connexion of
cause and effect. The dreamer of youth becomes, perhaps,
the misanthropist of age ; the prodigal of youth, it may be,
grows into the miser of age; the principle of action may in
each case be the same — vanity or self-love ; the passion is iden
tical in principle, and changed only in form, from a change
in circumstances. If we should meet an honest rustic in his
peaceful fields,innocent and contented ; if we should afterwards
by accident behold him on a scaffold, it would be to us a
seeming and terrible incongruity. But why ? The two events
are in our minds in naked contrast: could we, however,
pierce the Spirit and trace the life of that unfortunate —
watch it from the first intrusive evil thought successively
dwelt on ; from actions slightly wrong, unceasingly reiterated
and darkening with every repetition, until the last deadly vo
lition, and the last awful deed, we should have an analysis of
sad consistency and of profound interest. There is something
subUme in the reflection, that every human creature who
treads the earth and breathes the air, has an inward history,
a history unread by every eye but God's; a history of solemn
import, that has definite impression on the concerns of
the universe, and is to live for ever in the annals of eternity.
In ordinary phraseology, we speak of our existence as if
death made a chasm in it ; but temporal and eternal are but
distinctions of imagination ; our eternal Ufe commences, and
our earthly is but the first stage, the infancy of that awful
and endless existence. If I see in our nature that which can
survive change, I see that also in it which can take materials
of joy and sorrow along with it. The faculties that make
our life here must be those which shall make that which is
to come. Memory then wiU be there, which is but the re-
B 2

20 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
surrectlon of our by-gone experience ; and whether for good
or evil, it will call up the spirits of buried deeds, and as the life
has been, will be an angel of heaven or a minister of hell ; —
imagination, which may have been the nurse of piety or the
slave of passion, — intellect, which may have had the glow of
the seraph or the malice of the demon : accordingly, then, as
these powers have been properly directed or abused, every
instinct of our moral nature tells us must be the joy of a
righteous soul, or the agony of an evil heart. What treasure
will the good man find he has laid up for his immortal life,
when the past arises to him in the lustre of a new world : the
consciousness of good thoughts and good actions, the peace
of assimilation with God, and of union with the best of men :
the immortal love of those with whom he had companioned
in his earthly journey, the gratitude of many from whose eyes
he had banished tears, and from whose bosoms he had plucked
out despair ; who has been true to the claims of his nature,
and accomplished the work of a disciple of Christ, and a child
of God, and a brother of man. On the other side, what are
to be his feelings, who awakens in eternity with emotions of
isolation and repulsion, condemned in his own conscience,
who now discovers he has all to learn which can fit him for
the society of noble spirits, whose expanded faculties flash
shame and sorrow on his guilty soul, and show him that his
whole course was folly : the sensualist, who stultified his rea
son and profaned his affections : the hypocrite, that toiled but
for the outward, betrayed his convictions, and was a living and
incarnate lie ; before his fellows, a whited sepulchre ; before his
God, a corrupted mass of falsehood: the profane man, on whose
lips prayerrarely dwelt, but to whom cursing and bitternesswere
famiUar : the persecutor, who finds at last that he has hated
or tormented others for a falsehood, or a sound : the man of
wild ambition, who, despising the true glory which comes from
God, and consists in doing right, spreads terror around him,
in pursuing a phantom : the worldling, whose spirit was en-

OF RETRIBUTION HEREAFTER. 21
slaved to those treasures for which he wasted life, and which
he has left behind him in the dust. The sense of right and
wrong is powerful and eternal ; and when bad men resist it,
it may be safely trusted to effect its own Work, both of cor
rection and of punishment,
II. I shaU here review some of the arguments pleaded for the
eternal misery of the wicked, and state briefly the grounds on
which I reject it.
When we consider the mild and merciful spirit of the Gos
pel, — when we reflect on it as a revelation of divine love
made manifest in the most perfect form of human love, — we
are at first sight astonished that so tremendous an idea as
that of an infinite and eternal heU could ever have been con
nected with it, or so wretched a one as a seclusive, and com
paratively all but an unpeopled heaven. And truly this
could have never been, had the doctrine of immortal life
been apprehended in the full spirit of Christianity. But the
fact of man's immortality made manifest in the Gospel has
not generally been so apprehended, it has had from the
first to contend against darkening and perverting influences.
Converts to the faith of Christ brought with them many of
the prejudices and errors of their former training, and what
in the early ages of the church was the result of ignorance,
in later ones became sanctified into the testimony of faith.
Those who came from heathen superstitions to the religion
of Christ, brought with them minds filled with material
images; their worship or their age left no means for any
others; and their belief in a future existence of necessity
became shaped by these associations. A sacrificial worship
symbolized their gods of wrath, and what they had attri
buted to many, they were unable to dissociate from one;
physical pains and pleasures comprehended their whole no
tion of retribution and reward, and these their Christianity
made eternal. Their hell and their heaven were therefore
fashioned from the rude conceptions of their previous super
stitions, and from the symbolic language of the Gospel

22 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
crudely understood. The everlasting hell which thence grew
out of the mistakes of the vulgar, and the speculations of
the learned, it was too much the interest of priests to main
tain, not to receive the sanction of the church with an ear
nest and zealous promulgation. Connected with other doc
trines, what immense power was thus placed in the hands of
ecclesiastics ! With what deep and gloomy awe it shrouded
the character of the priest ! Once in the place of his minis
try, he stood there not as the simple teacher of his brethren,
and his equals, not as the mere expounder of his master's
gospel, but as the commisioned delegate of heaven, autho
rized by God to denounce his everlasting wrath on the guilty,
to wield the thunder of an eternal vengeance. We cannot
estimate the power with which such a doctrine would invest
the hierarchy, and we are not therefore surprised that it is
the last which any orthodox priesthood would be willing to
resign, — one of those prime doctrines, to deny which has
ever been stamped as heresy, from Origen to Servetus, If
even in these times, w^hen protestantism and other causes
have done so much to take away the reverence with which
the ministry was once surrounded, highly-wrought pictures
of endless misery give men not deemed to have any super
natural authority such influence over the minds of their
hearers, such despotism over their feelings and their con
sciences, what must it have been when superstition bent
down the votaries before the church in prostrate submission,
when the servants of her altar were regarded as the direct mes
sengers of God, — as those ordained to stand between hell and
heaven, with the key of both ; to announce glad tidings, or
empty the vials of indignation ; to distribute God's grace, or
to proclaim his malediction. Many causes have been assigned
for the growth of ecclesiastical supremacy, but this doctrine
I am persuaded was the greatest of aU ; the priestly throne,
which raised its ambition to the stars, was girded around by
the lightning and tempests of eternal terrors. The doctrine
of eternal torments derives much strength from ecclesiastical

OF RETRIBUTION HEREAFTER, 23
interest ; and it is further sustained by aU the logic of theo
logical subtlety. Many writers on divinity seem to find a
strange and morbid pleasure in describing the tortures of the
wicked, both in nature and duration, exhausting all analogies
to illustrate the incomprehensible ; and aU modes of thought
and expression to explain the infinite. On this doctrine
the transition from Romanism to Protestantism has impres
sed no change. If the Reformation broke some bonds that
enslaved the freedom of religion, it removed no cloud which
obscured its heaven : the fierce teachings of Augustine were
only made more complete and systematic by the still fiercer
doctrines of Calvin; and the dark sketch of eternal repro
bation drawn in its outlines by the Carthaginian monk, re
ceived its last touches from the Genevan master : what in
the olden church was broached only in the cautious reason
ings of the schools, has in Protestantism been made the
staple materiel of theological declamation.
These doctrines have not only done much to obscure men's
minds as to the condition of the wicked in a future state, but
also to mislead them in an equal degree on that of the
righteous. This we observe in many of the popular notions
of heaven. To millions, heaven seems to be for the soul
what the grave is for the body — a place of mere repose. If
something more than this, an elysium for indolence, a kind
of region of complacent idealism, where the faithful and
elect are to enjoy ecstacies and prayer, musings and melo
dies, which the coarse struggles of earth forbade, in which
the cares of the world left no time to engage; — the clear
skies and still waters of paradise, the golden harps, the in
cense, and the music of angels, to relieve from weariness,
strife, and pain, toil-worn and time-worn spirits. Nor is
such view of heaven ungrateful, tried as we are here with sin
and tired as we are with labour ; but this must not exhaust
our thoughts of future bliss. Our highest happiness, even
in heaven, must consist in highest action : no other happi-

24 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
ness can exist for a moral and intellectual being than that
which calls his faculties into energy, and suppUes both with
materials and objects on which to engage them. Our ideas
in general of heaven are too much those of negation or con
trast. We are here in sojourn, we think only of home there ;
we are here in conflict, we think only of peace there ; we
are here in labour, and there we only picture our rest; we
forget that all these are worth nothing but as means to
higher purposes, unsuitable as final conditions to creatures
who bear within them the life that is henceforth to go on
with that of the All-creative God,
I may just observe here, and it is pleasant to be able to do
so, that the opinion against which this Lecture is directed,
is an illustration of the fact that tenets die out practically
before they are renounced theoretically. It is well known to
all who hear recent orthodox preaching, or who read recent
orthodox works on practical piety, how little compared with
former times is the space now occupied in them by Satan
a.nd damnation. The imagination is not tortured as it once
was, with all horrible and hideous representations of human
suffering, which taste and devotion alike reject. Why, even in
the Lecture of my reverend and respected opponent, though
directly on the subject, all the repulsive features are lost in
a most moderate and temperate exposition. Such errors let
alone will gradually of themselves expire.
1. In support of the doctrine of eternal torments, it is in
the first place pleaded that Scripture expressly declares it.
This conclusion is founded principally on the words and
phrases correspondent to our "ever," " everlasting," " for ever
and ever," &c. That in numerous passages they imply dura
tion without end or limit, we readily admit. It is needless
to point them out. We are then told that this must be their
invariable meaning, except some evident fragility in the ob
ject to which they are appUed impUes the contrary. To
assert that they have the highest force when connected with

OF RETRIBUTION HEREAFTER. 25
future punishment, is to assume what is to be proved ; for
the nature of the object is the very question in dispute. If
we can show that the words have not unvarying Uteral appli
cation, then the subject is at least open to discussion ; but if
it be asserted they must mean endless duration, because future
punishment is in its nature endless, the point is dogmatically
decided, and there is no further possibility of argument. If
every phrase of Scripture is to be taken as a rigid definition,
then we are to beUeve that Christ held himself in his own
hands when he said, " this is my body." Now the instances
in the Bible, in all parts of it in which phrases disputed be
tween us and our opponents indicated Umited duration, and
only that, are numerous beyond counting :* — sometimes, not
longer than a man's Ufe, as when after certain conditions of
compact, the slave is said to serve his master for ever. In
other cases it is more extended, but still temporary ; as when
the land of Judea is called an everlasting possession; the
law an everlasting covenant ; the nation a people established
for ever ; the hierarchy an everlasting priesthood. As to the
last, the writer to the Hebrews tells us, that " the priest
hood being changed there is made a necessity of change also
of the law ; for there is verily a disannulling of the com
mandment going before for the weakness and unprofitable
ness of it,"
Aiu)v (the principal word in the Greek original), Mr, Simp
son in his Essay on the duration of future rewards and punish
ments (p. 17) asserts, occurs about a hundred times in the
New Testament, in seventy of which at least it is clearly used
for limited duration. In the Septuagint translation of the
Old Testament it is even repeated, and several times it is
repeated twice, and in two instances signifies no longer a
period than the life of one man only, " It is," says the same
critic, " an observation of the utmost importance, that when
* See Ex. xxi. 1—6. Eccles. i. 4. 1 Cor. viii. 13. Gen. xvii. 8, 13, 19,
Numb. XXV. 13.

26 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
aiwv, or aiiovtog, are applied to the future punishment of the
wicked, they are never joined to life, immortality, incorrup
tibility, but are always connected with fire, or with that
punishment, pain, or second death, which is effected by
means of fire. Now since fire, which consumes or decom
poses other perishable bodies, is itself of a dissoluble or
perishable nature, this intimates a limitation of the period
of time," The phrase, " everlasting fire," is plainly a meta
phor, a metaphor which the Jews would be at no loss to
understand : the associations which they derived from the fire
in the valley of Hinnom would render it sufficiently intel
ligible. The phraseology was familiar in the Old Testament, Fire
unquenchable, fire not to be quenched, is used in many places
in which it cannot be literal. Thus Jeremiah (xvii, 27-)
threatens the Jews, in the name of God, for their breach of
the sabbath, " then will I kindle a fire in the gates (of Jeru
salem,) and it shaU devour the palaces thereof, and it shall
not be quenched," So Isaiah (xxxiv, 9, &c,), speaking of
Idumea, " and the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch,
and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof
shall become burning pitch. It shall not be quenched night
nor day : the smoke thereof shall go up for ever," — While
on this part of the subject, I shall just allude to a remark
made on Mr. Grundy's view of the text in which it is said of
the wicked that their worm dieth not, and their fire is not
quenched. After quoting a passage from Mr. Grundy's Dis
course, and making some comment on it, the lecturer went
on to assert, " In a note moreover, we are informed that the
foregoing criticism is founded on the assumption of the pas
sage really referring to future punishment, which, however,
the preacher affirms it does not. For, he adds, we have before
showm, the worm has been long since dead, and for ages has
the fire been quenched." The impression which this use of
Mr, Grundy's language had a tendency to leave, is one wholly

OF RETRIBUTION HEREAFTER. 2?
foreign to his meaning ; for it would seem to imply that Mr.
Grundy asserted the extension already of retributive penalty
in the future life. The plain import is, that our Lord used
a metaphor taken from perishable things, which have, in fact,
perished — and thence it cannot be proved that he referred to
an eternal state of suffering. The allusion, as is well known,
is taken from the close of Isaiah, where, of the worshippers
going to Jerusalem, it is said, they shaU look upon the car
cases of the men that have transgressed, for their worm shall
not die, neither shall their fire be quenched. It is plain that
here it means not eternity, and though applied by Christ to
future punishment, it does not follow from the language that
he means to imply unending punishment. Archbishop New-
come's language is as strong as Mr, Grundy's ; for he also
says, " in the valley of Hinnom, the worm died when its
food failed — aud the pile on which human sacrifices were
burnt to Moloch was often extinguished." To the writer of
the lectures which have been referred to, we are all deeply
indebted for an example set us in times and under circum
stances of which we can but little now estimate the diffi
culty ; we owe him the tribute of our respect for an honest
and fearless advocacy of truth, of mental and religious free
dom, at the expense of painful and personal sacrifices.
Thus, while none of these passages that I have referred to
prove this doctrine, there are many scriptures at utter variance
with it, God is again and again caUed the father that created
us. We are taught that he is good, and that his tender mercies
are over aH his works, God is love. He wiU not always chide,
we are told, neither wiU he keep his anger for ever ; that he
wiU not cast off for ever ; that he hath not shut up his tender
mercies in anger. Finally, almost in the close of the sacred
volume, we are informed that there shall be no more death,
neither sorrow, neither crying, neither shaU they suffer any
more pain ; for the former things are passed away. Both these
cannot be true. It is a moral contradiction to conceive a

28 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
gracious and merciful God, creating beings with immortal life,
and then rendering them eternally wretched : we have but
one alternative, either we must renounce our faith in these
declarations, or we renounce it in the benevolence of God.
There are but two texts, one in Daniel, and the other in Mat
thew, in which there is any remarkable force. In these it is
said that the wicked go away into everlasting punishment, but
the righteous into life eternal, and on these two phrases the
tremendous doctrine is built up. The duration of both are
urged to be equal, and we are told, that if we deny eternal
damnation, we deny eternal life. No such thing. Reason,
feeling, nature, justice, moral sentiment, the belief of a per
fect God, and the force of scriptural evidence, coincide with
the one and are repugnant to the other. There is not a single
proof which can be urged in favour of a future life, which is
not an irrefutable argument against future perdition. If you
deduce the ideas from the goodness of God, from his truth,
from his wdsdom, it is essentially subversive of this dark
dogma. If you deduce the idea from the nature of man, it
comes to the same purpose ; if you conclude he is to live
for ever, because of his infinite and progressive faculties of
reason and of conscience, you must by the same argument infer
that he is to live to a better end than to be cast eternally into
hell. If he was worth creation, he is worth preserving ; if he
is worth preserving, he is worth being made good and happy.
If a great multitude of immortals are to endure infinite pain,
so far as they are concerned, the existence of a soul and the
being of a God are infinite evils.
The spirit and the letter of Scripture is in favour of this
glorious doctrine. Every Scripture which proves that God
is good and not mahgnant is in favour of it ; every Scripture
which proves that God is a restorer and not a destroyer is in
favour of it ; every Scripture which proves that God has more
the desire to pardon than to punish proves it. To this effect I
might quote passages to greater extent than the whole of this

OF RETRIBUTION HEREAFTER. 29
lecture occupies ; the selection must therefore be Umited, not
by the want of matter but by the want of space, " God is
love : and he so loved the world, that he gave his only begot
ten son, that whosoever beUeveth in him should not perish,
but have everlasting Ufe : for God sent not his son into the
world to condemn the world, but that the world through him
might be saved."* " Jehovah is fuU of compassion, slow to
anger and of great mercy. Jehovah is good to all : and his
tender mercies are over all his works. AU thy works do
praise thee, O Jehovah : and thy saints shaU bless thee." We
are exhorted to " taste and see that the Lord is good."
" The goodness of God," we are told, " endureth continuaUy,"
" The Lord God," we are assured, " is merciful and gracious,
long suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping
mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and
sin." "The Lord your God is gracious and merciful, and
will not turn away his face from you if ye turn to him,"
" The Lord is merciful and gracious ; slow to anger and
plenteous in mercy: he hath not dealt with us after our
sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities : for as the
heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy towards
them that fear him ; as far as the east is from the west, so far
hath he removed our transgressions from us : Like as a father
pitieth his children, so hath the Lord compassion on them
that fear him : for he knoweth our frame ; he remembereth
that we are dust." And from our earliest prayer to our
dying hour, we are taught in the simplest and sublimest of
all supplications to open our address to God thus ; " Our
Father who art in heaven," We read evermore in Scripture
that God's is not an everlasting anger ; as such passages as
the following testify : " His anger endureth but for a mo
ment," " He will not always chide, neither wiU he keep his
anger for ever," " Hath God forgotten to be gracious ; hath
» 1 John iv. 16; John iii. 16, 17.

30 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
he in anger shut up his tender mercies ?" "I will not con
tend for ever, neither will I be always wrath : for the spirit
should fail before me, and the souls which I have made."
Correspondent with the doctrine of these expressions, and
with the spirit of the whole Gospel, is a passage that I quote
from a book which Protestants in general declare not to
be canonical. " Thou hast mercy upon all ; for thou canst
do all things, and winkest at the sins of men, because they
should amend. For thou lovest all things that are, and ab-
horrest nothing which thou hast made : for never wouldst
thou have made any thing if thou hadst hated it. And how
could any thing have endured, if it had not been thy will ; or
been preserved, if not called by thee ? But thou sparest
thine, for they are thine, O Lord, thou lover of souls. For
thine incorruptible spirit is in all things ; therefore chastenest
thou them, by little and little, that offend, and warnest them
by putting them in remembrance wherein they have offended,
that leaving their wickedness, they may believe on thee, O
Lord. For thy power is the beginning of righteousness ;
and because thou art the Lord of all, it maketh Thee to be
gracious unto all. But thou, O God, art gracious and true :
long suffering, and in mercy ordering all things : for if we
sin, we are thine, knowing thy power ; but we will not sin,
knowing that we are accounted thine." *
Once more, whatever theoretical view we may happen to
hold on the redemption of man by Christ, the end and glory
of that redemption requires as the only consistent consumma
tion, the ultimate happiness and virtue of mankind. To this
purport I shall adduce one passage of Scripture and quote a
commentary. The passage is Rom. v. 12 — 21, and the com
mentary is by Dr. S. Smith. " As by one man sin entered
into the world, and death by sin ; and thus death hath passed
* Ps. xcv. 8, 9, 10 ; Vs. xxxiv. 8 ; Ps. Iii. 1 j Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7 ; 2 Chron. xxx. 9 ;
Ps. ciii. 8, &c. I Matt. vi. 9 ; Ps. xxx. 5 ; Ps. ciii. 9 ; Ps. Ixxxvii. 7 ; Isa. Ixvii. 16 ;
Wisdom of Solomon, xi. 23— 26.

OF RETRIBUTION HEREAFTER. 31
upon all men, inasmuch as all have sinned : (for until the
law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed, where
there is no law :) nevertheless death reigned from Adam to
Moses, even over those that had not sinned after the simiU-
tude of Adam's transgressions, who is a figure (a type) of
him that was to come : (yet the free gift likewise is not so,
as was the offence : for if through the offence of one, many
have died, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace,
which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.
Neither is the gift so, as it was by one that sinned ; for judg
ment was of one offence to condemnation, but the free gift is of
many offences unto justification. For if, by the offence of
one, death reigned by one, much more those who receive the
abounding of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign
in life by one, even Jesus Christ :) so then as by the offence
of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation ; so
likewise by the righteousness of one the free gift hath come
upon all men to justification of life. For as by the disobedi
ence of one many were made sinners, so likewise, by the
obedience of one, many shall be made righteous. Moreover,
the law entered that sin might abound: but where sin
abounded, grace did much more abound. That as sin hath
reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through right
eousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ, our Lord."
" In this passage all men are said to have been made mortal
by the offence of Adam, and here the phrase ' all men' must
necessarily be understood to signify every individual of the hu
man race. Though the style of the apostle in this passage is re
markably intricate and perplexed, yet his meaning is clear, and
scarcely to be misunderstood. He affirms that death entered
into the world by Adam, and that in consequence of his offence,
death passed upon all men, or all men became mortal. Thus
many were made sinful or mortal by one. In this sense Adam
was a type of Jesus Christ : for as all mankind became subject

32 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
to great privation or suffering in consequence of the offence
of one, namely Adam, so the greatest privileges and blessings
are bestowed on all mankind in consequence of the obedience
of one, namely, Jesus Christ. But it is only in this single
circumstance that aU suffer and all are benefited by one, that
there is any analogy between them : for in every other respect
there is the greatest possible difference between Adam and
Christ. The act entailing such important consequences upon
the whole human race, was, on the part of Adam, an act of
transgression, on the part of Christ an act of obedience.
And there is a still further disparity between them ; for the
calamities resulting from the act of transgression were the
legal punishment of the offence ; but the blessings accruing
from the act of obedience were not such as could be claimed
by law, but were the free, unpurchased unmerited gift of
God, And the consequences of the act of transgression and
the act of obedience may be placed in still more striking
contrast : for the act of transgression was but one, and yet
death, with all the calamities connected with it, passed upon
the whole human race ; while the act of obedience provides
justification for many offences : nor is this all ; for the bless
ings procured for all mankind by the obedience of Christ
are unspeakably greater than the calamities brought upon
them by the offence of Adam,"
" This is undoubtedly the argument of the Apostle. Not
withstanding all the obscurity and perplexity of his language,
whoever reads the passage with attention, must perceive these
were the ideas which were in his mind. And in the whole com
pass of Christian truth, there is no doctrine more important
or more glorious than that which is thus disclosed. It is a di
rect and positive declaration, that the blessings, provided by the
obedience of Christ, shall, in number of persons who partake
them, be co-extensive with the calamities produced by the
offence of Adam, and in their magnitude and value greatly
exceed them. This is sufficient ; this is decisive ; these ideas

OF RETRIBUTION HEREAFTER. 33
were in the mind of the apostle ; this is the doctrine which
he plainly and indisputably teaches, and nothing more is
necessary. For, even though it should be proved that he
illustrates his doctrine by a fanciful allusion to what was
itself only an allegory ; that his reasoning is not in every
respect complete, and even, that he did not himself fully
comprehend all the glorious consequences of the sublime
truth he disclosed, that truth would be neither the less im
portant nor the less certain. The great fact itself, the fact
which it was his object and his office to teach, and in which
he could not be mistaken, was, that the blessings produced
by the obedience of Christ shall be as extensive as the evils
occasioned by the offence of Adam ; that all who suffer from
the one shall partake of the benefits of the other, while these
benefits themselves shall infinitely exceed and overbalance
the calamities entailed on mankind by the first transgres
sion. The conclusion is inevitable, that the whole human
race shall ultimately be restored to virtue and happiness.
By one passage of Scripture then, at least, the doctrine
which it is the object of this work to establish, is posi
tively and expressly affirmed ; and this is decisive," *
To sustain this doctrine we hear analogy also pleaded.
Pain, it is said, has no tendency to correct. This is not true.
Pain often does correct — and many are led back to virtue by
means of a sad experience. Pain physicaUy and morally is
the great instrument of warning. But though it were fuUy
granted that pure pain were not a corrective agency, it may,
in connection with other influences, bring healing to the soul.
We never see it unmixed in this world, and we have no
just ground to conclude it will be so in another. How often
is it the means of drawing forth a mercy and a grace from
others that softens the stony heart of the transgressor. How
often, when the sinner is laid low — yea, and by the very
* Dr. Southwood Smith on the Divine Government.
C

34 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
effect of crimes, will a kind look or word, an instance of
forbearance or forgiveness, work a regeneration on his nature.
How often will the son who plagued his parents' life, and
whitened their hair with sorrow, when driven by misery to
seek again the shelter of a home, be sweetened into meekness
by a mother's love, and be raised again to dignity by a father's
generosity. If pain then, by making us feel the goodness of
others, wiU so frequently incite us to deserve it, are we to
conceive that an experience, with clearer knowledge of God's
love, shall be entirely ineffectual ? It is said, that men grow
more heardened in sin the longer they continue in it, I
allow it was a generous truth : and yet the thought of a mo
ment — the visit of one pure memory, may suffice to change a
life of crime. But our argument is, that men will not con
tinue in sin ; and it wiU not be asserted, that if reformation
is at all possible, God will refuse the means, and make crime
eternal. It is further stated that the wicked, by force of num
bers and society with each other, grow increasingly worse :
it is to be proved, which it is not and cannot, that in a future
existence there is any such distribution either local or moral.
This doctrine is not only unfounded in analogy, but contra
dicted by it — there must be either destruction or renovation :
so it is in the natural -world, and so it is in the moral.
Nothing can sustain continued existence in a state of extreme
disorganization; a certain amount of consistency and har
mony is an essential condition of every being — without this,
there must be dissolution and destruction. Sin being then con
fusion in the soul and in society, an eternal state of progres
sive sin is inconceivable. Pain, being in like manner dis
organization in body or mind, an eternity of growing pain is
equally inconceivable. Continued and extreme pain there
fore must either destroy its subject or destroy itself; and
then on this argument alone we perceive that eternal torture
is a theological figment ; a nonentity and impossibility.
The belief is further pressed upon us on grounds of moral

OF RETRIBUTION HEREAFTER. 35
influence. This is but an additional argument against it, for
it either has no effect or a bad one. It has no effect, from its
vagueness and its incomprehensibleness. It does not fasten
on the moral feelings — it sinks dead by its own ponderous-
ness. It has no effect from its in6^,»sistency with human
nature ; there is no affinity between a finite being and bound
less torture ; and thence from the want of truth there is also a
want of power. It has no effect, because there is an instinc
tive abhorrence in the heart against it ; and there is an in
stinctive justice which repels it ; the imagination reels before
it — the mind retreats from it, and finds that it is too odious
even to be looked at. That it has no effect raay be seen to
a vast extent : millions in all countries profess to believe it,
and among these have been, and are, many of the most aban
doned that ever brought shame upon their nature ; and yet a
faith in hell gave them no fear of vice. So far as it has in
fluence it is of a bad kind ; because it familiarizes the mind
with coarse images; because it breathes into obedience a
spirit of slavish fear ; because it makes terror an instrument
of religion ; because it throws darkness on the ways of provi
dence ; because it undermines filial confidence in God, and
puts a limit either to his power or his love. The doctrine of
ultimate and universal salvation lowers the sanctions of
righteousness. But what is the true motive to goodness,
what is the spirit of it — that which unites us most to God ?
Love, not fear ; not fear of hell ; and in the sense of terror not
even fear of God himseff. Fear is mere submission to force,
not the wilUng service of heart-felt appreciation ; the crouching
of a slave in outward show to the despot whom in his soul
he thoroughly detests. Now as we cannot love by constraint,
what ideas of God are most likely to move our affections,
and consequently produce in us the true spirit of obedience ?
Evidently his benevolence, his purity, his disinterested good
ness, his fatherly nature — to be drawn to him with the cords
c2

36 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
of our hearts, we see him in the clear light of his moral beauty.
It is rather paradoxical that these doctrines on the power of
fear, the righteousness of vindictive punishment, and the
limits of moral reformation, should be propagated in our
times, when all the practical tendencies of society are in con
tradiction. The influence of conviction and not of force, the
influence of mind and not pain, is the growing spirit of the
time, and a faith, which puts no bound to hope ; for the love
of man is a motive deepening ever in the great social heart.
This is the blessing of our day, — it has enUghtened education,
and softened the rigour of instruction; it is mingling the gentle
ness of mercy with the austerity of punishment ; it is working
to restore the criminal and not to destroy, tempering discipline
with wisdom, believing that corrective amelioration is most use
ful and most just ; in the same believing spirit it is sending a
vast spiritual agency into every realm of vice : while thus phi
losophy and philanthropy labour in the trust they shall leave
men better than they found them, exploding the errors which
had been the greatest curses to mankind, these are the very er
rors which theology sanctifies, which it is heresy to deny : whilst
a moral and merciful civilization is exerted to exalt man, theo
logy continues to deface the image of God ; the one scatter
ing beauty on mortality, and the other spreading darkness on
eternity ; the one removing pain, and the other preaching it.
The doctrine we oppose is further defended on the ground
that sin is an infinite offence, that man is therefore an infinite
offender; and that an infinite offender deserves unending
punishment. The assertion, that man can be an infinite
offender, is whoUy inconsistent with the views which the
orthodox themselves present of man. To be a transgressor
in any degree, implies the possession of a noble nature, much
less to be an infinite transgressor ; but with the miserable and
contemptible creature which Calvinism describes as man, it is
impossible to associate any idea that is either noble or in-

OF RETRIBUTION HEREAFTER. 37
finite, for good or for evil. We may assume another mode
of reasoning. The obedience of the law is righteousness, the
transgression of the law is sin. These are correspondent de
finitions. By every rule, therefore, of logical deduction, if a
single act of sin is an infinite evil, a single act of obedience is
an infinite good; and on the same grounds of justice by
which one man is doomed to an everlasting hell, the other
merits an eternal heaven.
But to speak of man at all as an infinite offender, is to set
common sense at defiance. Whence can be the infinitude of
his offence ? Not in its origin, not in its effects, not in its
duration : not in its origin, for it is produced in limited facul
ties ; not in its effects, for the errors of a created nature,
counteracted by an uncreated omnipotence, can never be in
finite, can never be irremediable ; not in its duration, for the
life of one man, the lives of all men to the end of human ge
nerations, are but a point in the universe and government of
God, Sin is either a state of mind or a state of action ; but
whether as one or the other, it must of necessity be limited.
Were the career of man extended to that of Methusalem, and
his powers as capacious as his years were many ; were the
whole of that existence a succession of crime, uncheered by
a solitary virtue ; were the energy of the mightiest intellect
devoted to contrive guilt, and the efforts of the most inge
nious sinfulness given to its execution ; were every creation
of fancy a vision of impurity, every instinct an impulse to
cruelty, every emotion a movement of malignity, yet even
thus horrible, we could not with truth call man an infinite
offender. Neither in desire nor in action can he be such.
Not in desire, for there is no man that wishes, there never
has been the man that wished, absolute, unmingled, endless
evil ; not in action, for there is no man, whatever the malig
nity of his intention, has unlimited power of execution. If
sin is an infinite offence, then all sins are equal, for infinity
has no degrees ; if sinners are infinite transgressors, then

38 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
criminals have no distinctions ; transgression has no grada
tions, and the whole moral space is annihilated between him
who stands on the very margin of heaven, and him who is
already plunged into hell ; the same impassable gulf which
exists between their conditions, exists also between their
characters. Man is not an infinite offender, nor yet is he an incor
rigible one. There is nothing in his nature or history which
justifies the conclusion. There is no point of moral baseness
so low that we can mark it as a hopeless condition. He is
not immutable ; and as change is possible, changes for the
better may be looked for, as weU as changes for the worse.
Such changes have been ; the painful experience of evil and
wrong-doing, however slow and vacillating, always drives to
wards them ; aU observation, therefore, is in favour of our
expectation. We look not on the deepest, the deadliest, and
the worst instance of human depravity, as beyond correction,
beyond improvement, beyond the power of Almighty God ;
we look upon no ignorance that may not be enlightened;
upon no vice that may not be removed ; upon no human
countenance so scarred with the traces of depravity, as to
leave nothing visible but the hand-writing of reprobation;
God forbid that we should behold any human being with hu
manity's capacities, destined, beyond amendment, to hopeless
corruption and to incorrigible misery, I deny not the exist
ence and the delusion of vice, I deny not the abuse of the
noblest faculties, or the perversion of the best affections, but
I do deny that the human soul is ever so wrecked or lost as
to become utterly hopeless. The man of pleasure may turn
from joy to joy, and coUect nothing for his home but weari
ness and disgust; the man of ambition may sacrifice health
and repose, honour and probity ; the covetous man may, du
ring a long life, drudge away days of labour, and toss through
nights of care, to die in the possession of what he never en
joyed ; the indolent and the prodigal may live as if there were

OF RETRIBUTION HEREAFTER, 39
no tomorrow; the vicious and profane may reel on,recldess of
a future existence and a future judgment. We have aU seen
every human passion making havoc upon virtue ; but we
have also seen the passions, carrying with them their own
sting and their own punishment, and in that sting and pu
nishment, to a certain extent at least, they have contained
their own amelioration and amendment. That human beings
have been raised from their lowest debasement, that they
have been emancipated from the worst of moral bondage, that
they have been purified from the deepest of pollutions, we
have raany consolatory evidences. In every nation of earth
that now enjoys the blessings of religion, of liberty, of arts, of
moral and social refinement, we have proofs, that by gradual
and progressive improvement, these human beings may be
deUvered from the very worst estate of ignorance, vice, desti
tution, and brutality. For what are the nations that we now
glory to acknowledge, but instances the most undeniable, that
man is not only an imperishable, but also an improvable crea
ture ? I have seen beings in their thoughtlessness, the vic
tims of their own vanity, sink miserable and despairing into
the terror which they had prepared for themselves : but must
I say, that they shall never throughout eternity discover the
littleness of the objects they desired, nor abstain from
chasing the phantoms that misled them ? I have seen men
insanely and foolishly toil for all that makes life a trifle, at the
loss of all that makes it a glory ; I have read in history, and
I can recal by memory, the experience of those who spent aU
they had of energy or misused aU they had of goodness to
obtain that which at last they felt their torture ; I have seen
the turbulent nature soften into peace, the thoughtless
awakened into wisdom and action, the profane elevated into
reverence, the impious bending to pray, the angry subdued
into meekness, the proud converted to the wisdora of hu
mility, the hard-hearted melted to the goodness of mercy.
Should it be said that this argument is too narrow, and

40 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
appeals only to immediate feeling, let us then take a wider
sphere, and try the principle by a larger test. Call to your
attention the varieties of raankind, of their present and
past condition, of their present and past circurastances.
Many raiUions exist on the wide surface of the globe,
among whom the elements of moral redemption have
never had operation, on whose benighted souls a ray of
Christian light has never dawned, hearts which have never
felt the bliss of holy liberty, and bosoms that have never
burned with heavenly fire. Take up a map of the world ;
cast your eye over its boundaries and divisions, from pole to
pole, and from meridian to meridian ; conceive the myriads
of rational beings who swarm along that surface ; reflect on the
wonderful diversities in their conditions and their training;
pass over the dreary frosts of one country, and the deadening
heat of others ; wherever you turn, humanity meets you under
different forms, and in various circumstances — with habits
more or less corrupted, with morals raore or less pure, with
religion more or less enlightened or absurd ; let me then ask
any enlightened thinker, any one who has studied human na
ture, whether aU these are to be arranged under one general
classification. Consider the tribes around the arctic, bu
ried in darkness; pierce into the unexplored regions of
Africa; go over the deserts of Arabia; walk among the
tents of its predatory and pastoral populations ; traverse
Persia, India, Tartary, the islands that dimly gleam through
the Southern Ocean, and wherever you go, raankind are
in various raoral positions, and consequently under various
terms of moral probation, ShaU then that all-seeing Creator,
to whom every heart is open, place all these motley tribes
under one system of judgment ? It cannot be. Shall beings
born in regions of darkness be condemned for want of light —
beings who had never breathed but of impurity, for not being
sanctified — beings bred amidst idols, for being idolatrous ?
Taking thus into view the populations of the earth, we have be-

OF RETRIBUTION HEREAFTER, 41
fore us an infinity of moral conditions ; and yet the differences
are not greater between the extremes of them than those we
might select in a single country or a single city ; than those, in
fact, which we know to exist. Respecting the terms of pro
bation, a New Zealander is not at a greater distance from an
Englishman, than some Englishmen are from others. When
we think then how many are ignorant and suffering by the
very necessity of destiny, and by the same fate vicious and
depraved, if the passage of a breath end aU hope of amend
ment, our faith must cease in divine justice, as weU as divine
wisdom, and our perplexity be turned to despair.
We look on raan, not as a raeraber of a sect, but as a child
of God ; and once raore, we ask, if he is not an infinite offender,
nor yet incorrigible, is he not worth the correction ? If his
purity and happiness be within the bounds of possibility, if his
eternal raisery by any degree of energy can be averted, are we
to believe that a God who has infinite benevolence wills hira to
perish ; are we to believe that a God who has infinite power
will exert none of it to save the most glorious of his works
from utter destruction ? Can we suppose that God, omni
potent and most w*^ise, would reverse eternally such capacities
for goodness and happiness, and instead of training them to
be instruments of boundless utility, would condemn them to
be agents of eternal evU ? Will not God rather choose to
sow the field of everlasting Ufe with seeds of holiness and
bUss, than to scathe it to a ruin and a wilderness ? I would
not strip the future of its awe ; no terror can be equal to the
truth ; it is the most solemn anticipation that can ever come
upon the mind, and I maintain that nothing the most fearing
imagination conceived in its wildest apprehensions ever
equalled the reaUty : but, for God's universe and for God's
creatures, there is always hope ; in God's power and wisdom
there are limitless raeans, and at last there will be universal
peace and universal emancipation. If creatures are not ul
timately and universally happy, it must be either from the

42 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
want of ability in God, or the want of inclination ; and this
difficulty pressing itself on the mind of a powerful and
pious orthodox writer, he chose, in accounting for the
loss of souls, to suppose that theologians had mistaken in
their theories the nature of divine omnipotence; that love
and power have distinct offices ; but if he were to circum
scribe either attribute in God, it would be power and not
love. On the ground of an eternal perdition, such attribute
as a moral omnipotence can truly be ascribed to God. The
able writer to whom I have aUuded has seen to the bottom
of the difficulty, and beUeving as he does most sincerely in
eternal suffering, believing also as he does with equal sin
cerity in the infinite love of God, he is compelled so far as
the human wiU is concerned to circumscribe the sphere and
action of divine omnipotence, or rather to deny it altogether.
" The truth is," he says, " that the only rational conclusion we
can arrive at in the matter, is that in the nature of things no
such attribute can exist. And until the cloud, which its sup
posed existence throws on every procedure of divine provi
dence, is dissipated, we must either not think at all, or think
amiss on that subject in comparison of which aU other sub
jects are unimportant, namely the character of God : I know
that many raay, at first sight, be startled at the assertion, that
the power of God can in any sense be limited. In this, as in
various instances, they will object to the same truth as a dis
tinct proposition, which they will freely assume and take for
granted in aU their reasonings. These very persons wiU speak
of Providence as devising means and moving by gradual ad
vancement to the accompUshraent of an end. If asked, why
not decree the end without the raeans ? they answer, be
cause it could not be attained, at least so well, without them.
If then, the term could not, be at all admitted, (and how freely
is this term applied to God in Scripture !) no such thing as
unrestricted omnipotence exists. It is not that there is any
limit in God. God forbid that I should dare to say so. It

OF RETRIBUTION HEREAFTER, 43
is, that power in its own nature is limited. It can act only
on possibilities  Even power itself is
but a vague and unintelligible notion, unless displayed to us
as triumphing over difficulties, and rising superior to obstacles.
A sweeping omnipotence, which could by one sovereign act
of will, decree that in the nature of things neither impedi
ment nor resistance should exist, leaves no field even for power
itself to act on. Omnipotence such as this, at least supplies
no materials for man to comprehend or adore. No : we are
constructed otherwise. Our faculties are so framed as to cor
respond with the truth and reaUty of things. The power
that fiUs the soul with wonder and with praise is that which
the Scripture of truth exhibits ; that power in which God
arises that his enemies may be scattered ; that omnipotence
by which he produces good out of evil, and subdues the most
unyielding substances and stubborn elements into himself.
But still more, as it respects the wisdom of God, is it neces
sary to dismiss the notion of an absolute omnipotence before
the former attribute can shine forth in its true glory. For
surely, according to our conceptions, it would be raore wise
to arrive at once, if that were possible, at all that raeans, and
contrivances, and processes can accomplish, than to prefer
elaborate and circuitous courses, merely for the sake of going
round about to do what could be done as well in the twinkUng
of an eye. And yet in what does the divine wisdom as ap
prehensible by us consist ? What are the views and disco
veries which lead us, with the apostle, to exclaim, ' Oh, the
depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of
God ?' Is it not in those very procedures which if un
bounded power existed would be folly and not wisdom, that
aU the treasures of the infinite mind are manifested? in
adapting means to ends, in pursuing the path of light amidst
surrounding darkness, in harmonizing discordant principles,
and bringing order out of confusion ?"
After a few other remarks, the author proceeds to maintain

44 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
his position by the testimony of Scripture, — " To quote
Scripture," he observes, " as fully as I might upon this sub
ject, would be, in a measure, to transcribe the Bible, I shall
content myself with producing three passages, which, though
not of the directer kind, bear, I think, irresistibly on the
point. The first is Ezek. xxxiii. 11, ' As I live, saith the
Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked ;
but that the wicked turn from his way and live : turn ye,
turn ye, from aU your evil ways ; for why will ye die, O
house of Israel?' The second is Isa. v. 3, 4. 'And now,
O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I
pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What could have
been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it ?
Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes,
brought it forth wild grapes.' The last which I shall quote
is Matt, xxiii. 37, 38. ' O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that
killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee,
how often would I have gathered thy children together, even
as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye
would not ! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.' "
" Is this, then, I would ask any fair and candid person,
who looks as if the All-gracious being who employs it,
had any relief or remedy in reserve for those who wilfully
reject the mercies he has freely offered them ? Are these
like the expressions of one who could bestow salvation in
any other way, or any other terms ? Do they not resemble
rather the tender complaints and anxious warnings of a pa
rent who had done all he could do, and proposed all that he
had to propose, to rescue his child frora ruin, and who must at
last, with agonizing reluctance, give up that child, if he would
stiU pursue those courses whose end is inevitable destruc
tion ? And if such be the characters in which God has been
pleased to reveal himself; if such be the words which he has
actually spoken, are we to be wise above what is written ? Is
it honouring God to say he uses a language to work upon our

OF RETRIBUTION HEREAFTER. 45
feelings, which language is in reality a misrepresentation of
the truth ; a misrepresentation, nevertheless, so ill contrived,
that, after all, it does not deceive us ? Or is it exalting his
great name, to magnify the mere natural attribute of his
power, above those moral attributes in which consist at once
his essence and his glory ? No. If it be indeed reverence
to God, to dismiss him altogether from our rainds, then all
such considerations are set at rest for ever. But if it be our
duty, not only to think of him, but to bear hira in all our
thoughts, then in all around us we see this truth inscribed,
that there is a limit in power or a limit in love. In which
shall we place it ? — In power ? Then we place it not in God,
but in his lowest attribute. — In love ? Then indeed we place
the limit in God himself — ' God is love.' " *
The reasoning of this passage is most cogent, the dilemma
is inevitable. If there be eternal sin and eternal perdition ;
if there be not ultimate and universal regeneration, limit
there must be in love or in power : but holding as we do the
doctrine of progressive discipline, we place limit in neither,
and we glorify both. Strange it is, that while thus magni
fying God in the highest of his attributes, in the harmony
and perfection of his nature, while thus trusting him with
the faith of children, notwithstanding raany things in his
providence mysterious and inexplicable, in despite of the
sin and misery that surround us, fiUing the human raind and
huraan destiny with painful and perplexing probleras, we
believe hira to be aU-powerful as he is all-good ; yet in thus
believing we are set down by Trinitarians as rebels against
heaven, and blasphemers of our Creator. If reverence to
God demand us to believe that the smoke of eternal tor
ment from the depths of an unfathomable hell is an incense
well pleasing in his sight, or an evil which he must endure
but has no power to remove, then that is an honour we do
* Essays, &c., by the Rev. Henry Woodward: Essay xv. On the Nature of
the Divine Omnipotence.

46 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
not and we cannot give : that is not the God we worship;
that is not the God we can love : and if to believe in -God be
to think him such as Calvin and others have pictured him,
then at once take not only the name of Christians from us,
but in addition stigmatize us with that of atheists.
III. To limit the power of God in order to justify his love,
is the struggle of a humane and benignant nature against a
dark and stern theology ; but writers in orthodox divinity,
whom it would be too tedious to catalogue, have not scrupled
to go the whole length along the line of fearful consequences
to which their system led them. They have not hesitated to
plead for the eternity of hell's torments the glory of God;
strange idea indeed of the glory of God, to contemplate him
as the author of everlasting pain and everlasting sin. We
think that every attribute of God, in every manifestation, is
directly against this doctrine. His omniscience is against it.
He must have known from all eternity the destiny of the
lost : and with this knowledge, on the orthodox theory, he
made creatures with the direct foresight of their everlasting
misery and everlasting destruction. His omnipotence is
against it. I have shown by the long extract I have before
quoted, that the profound and consistent theological reasoner
who beUeves in eternal perdition cannot beUeve in a moral
omnipotence. An aU-powerful being must be either infinitely
malignant or infinitely benevolent. If God were the one, he
could find delight only in the suffering of his creatures ; and
he wills not to reUeve them, because he does not wiU thera to
be happy. But this idea is utterly repugnant to the first
principles of reUgion. If God be, as we beUeve he is, the
other, he can have no raotive to make his children, the work
of his own hands, endlessly wretched ; and having the power,
he has also the will to redeem them, A progressive universe
is, therefore, the only true solution to God's providence, and
God's prescience. Divine justice, it is said, demands it.
What, then, is divine justice ? Is this divine justice identical

OF RETRIBUTION HEREAFTER. 47
with vengeance ? Is it divine justice, to make the everlasting
torture -of a race — for the saved are but the gleanings — a
sacrifice to boundless self-glorification ? Is it divine justice
to array all the force of infinite attributes against a limited, a
weak, and erring creature ? Is it divine justice to meet the
offence of ephemeral mortality with the agony of deathless
torture and of resistless wrath ? If this be divine justice, we
have reason to rejoice that it is not human justice. Such
justice is but naked malignity ; and this view of it is the raore
firraly estabUshed when we further consider that, by the ortho
dox theology, all is the result of a foregone conclusion, the last
terra of a dark progression, the execution of a cause uttered
in the black worab of eternity, for which the wretches are
prepared by the inheritance of a corrupt nature in a corrupt
world, and lest all natural causes should be insufficient, by an
exposure to the unseen snares of a Satan profound in cunning,
raighty in raalice, and, by himself and his agents, all but
omnipotent and omnipresent. This argument from divine
justice is urged so frequently and earnestly, that I shall here
transcribe a few remarks from a writer who has treated the
subject with equal force of logic and fervour of eloquence.
" Justice and goodness," he observes, " are the same. Jus
tice requires no more punishment for sin than goodness :
goodness requires the same as justice, but the manner in
which benevolence manifests itself under the form of good
ness and of justice is different, and, therefore, requires a
different appellation, A person who forgives an offence
upon repentance and reformation is good : this is one modi
fication of goodness, which, by way of eminence, is often
called goodness itself, or more strictly mercy: the person
who visits an offence which is neither repented of, nor
amended with a proper degree of pain, is also good : this is
another modification of goodness to which the term justice
is applied, Mercy and justice, therefore, do not differ from
each other in their nature, since they equaUy arise from be-

48 THE CIIRISTIAN VIEW
nevolence, and they differ in aspect only according to the
moral condition of the being with regard to whora they
are exemplified. This account of divine justice explains,
in the most satisfactory raanner, the principle on which
Deity rewards and punishes mankind. Did men never
violate the laws of rectitude, he would raake thera invariably
and completely happy. But there is no person who is free
from fault : the moral state of every individual is, in some
respect or at some period, such as it ought not to be.
Every bad disposition, and every improper habit, must be
rectified before happiness can be enjoyed. It is necessary,
therefore, that the moral governor of the world should vary
his conduct according to the character of the person whora
he has to treat ; that he should visit the good with favour,
and manifest his disapprobation of the wicked; for, if he
were to make happiness compatible with sin, it could not be
corrected. The effect of pain is to make us dislike and
avoid that which causes it. It is for this reason pain is an
nexed to sin. Sin is an evil which it is necessary to remove ;
pain is employed as the instrument of its destruction;
and that principle by which Deity has established this
constitution of things, by which he so regulates events
as invariably to secure the ultimate reward of good
ness, and the punishment of wickedness, is distinguished
by the term justice  Were it necessary
to add any thing more to show that divine justice is not in
consistent with the attribute of goodness, but a part of it, the
consideration of the design of its inflictions would afford
further evidence of this truth. Every violation of the law of
God involves the transgressor, sooner or later, in suffering ;
and of this constitution of things, by which pain is insepa
rably connected with deviation from rectitude, the Supreme
Being is the author. Why did he appoint it ? Why did he so
dispose the whole tendency of his moral government as to en
sure this consequence ? Why does he, who is a being of un-

OF RETRIBUTION HEREAFTER. 49
erring wisdom and infinite benevolence, never suffer any
offence which is unrepented of to escape punishment ? Since
his very nature is love, and since he created all his inteUigent
offspring in order to raake them happy, it can be no gratifi
cation to him to involve them in suffering. Their groans
can be no music to his ear. If he afflict them, it must be,
not for his own gratification, but for their benefit 
. , . , Viewing then the attribute of justice, which has
been supposed to require the endless misery of the greater
part of the human race, as that very principle which is de
signed to prevent this terrible consequence, (a man) feels
himself capable of relying with implicit confidence on the de
cisions of the judge, both with regard to himself and aU man
kind. He is satisfied that he will treat even the most crimi
nal with perfect equity ; that he will place them in circum
stances the best adapted to their unhappy condition ; that
his discipline will ultimately accomplish its end, and extirpate
sin and misery from the creation." * If the doctrine of eternal
torment be contradictory to God's justice, much more is it to
his wisdora : for surely it is not wise to create only to destroy ;
— to perpetuate endless moral conflict — not only to destroy
and confuse, but to destroy and confuse the best and noblest
of his works — to inflict undying anguish on capacities suited
for undying happiness, to ruin every faculty and to blast
every hope. Nor is the doctrine less opposed to his holiness
than to his wisdom. Improved ideas on the phflosophy of
our spiritual nature, and on the real purport of raoral retri
bution, with the penalties of sin, imply the continuance of
sin. A material heU or a material heaven by the thinking
portion of aU sects is in general exploded. Sin carries with
it and creates its own punishments : if sin then be eternal
and progressive in its sufferings, it must also be eternal and
progressive in its existence and its evils. HeU is not merely
a region of unutterable horror, where wretches writhe in eter-
* Illustrations of the Divine Government, by T. Southwood Smith.
D

50 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW
nal torture, but also a region of boundless sin, of malignant
wickedness, of hopeless corruption, of vilest affections, of
basest passions. What shall we then say of an infinite holi
ness, enlightened by infinite wisdom, armed with infinite
power, allowing this condition to exist ? If the doctrine of
eternal torment be true, no such attribute as divine mercy can
have being : if this doctrine be true, a God of goodness is
a fiction of imagination, the creation of a brain-sick enthu
siasm, the dream of amiable but unfounded hopes. It is of
no purpose to qualify in these things : there is no room in
the same universe for a good God and an eternal hell: if this
doctrine be true, the past is a wreck, and the future a curse.
To such a condition of existence annihilation were a prefer
able alternative. It were better the brain should at once
moulder with the thoughtless sod, than be tortured with the
wilderings of everlasting contradictions ; it were better the
affections should perish with the last earthly sigh than throb
through an eternity of agonized or selfish existence. On
the orthodox supposition, either man must lose his iden
tity and go to heaven without remembering whom he knew
and loved in life, or he must lose his sympathy, become
apostate to all his better feelings, and see without pain or
pity many given over to despair with whom on earth he walked
in dearest friendship. Instead of the big tear which would
have burst from his eye in the years of mortality at the
thought even of a partial separation ; instead of the affec
tionate and instinctive anguish which would have torn his
breast, as he saw the last vision in the sun, and the last flut
ter in the breeze of the sail which was wafting his friend to
another clime ; he must approve the sentence, nay, some
maintain, he must see its execution with triumph, which may
consign his nearest and dearest to endless damnation, — If the
belief could be habitually and practicaUy realized, that human
souls were every minute over the wide earth dropping into
hell, that amongst the sighs of death with which the world is

OF RETRIBUTION HEREAFTER. 51
filled, the greater number are the knells of infinite perdition,
that the graves on which the mourners weep, which to us
aU, at one tirae or other, make earth a vale of tears, are so
many raonuments of irreparable wreck, the silent witnesses
of God's anger and man's despair ; if any one, I repeat, could
constantly, and in very truth, beUeve that souls were thus
quitting the present scene, souls with enlarged capacities, but
enlarged for eternal sorrow, and ever smile again, he might
wear the form of his species, but he should have the heart
of a fiend. Faith in such a doctrine should kill at once the
Ufe of joy; every sound should be funereal, brightness or
beauty there should be none. Each of us, like Job, should
curse the day of his birth, but with a more terrible earnest
ness ; the exclamation of Jeremiah would be in every mouth
an appropriate utterance, " Oh that my head were waters,
and my eyes were fountains of tears !" Is there the human
being that could feel joy in the midst of an hospital, could
laugh in a city of the plague, while death went from couch
to couch, while mirth was banished from each hearth, and
the grass of desolation growing in the streets? But how
rauch more should aU delight be banished from the soul, if
in the Creator's universe there be a dark and measureless
region, filled with hideous abominations and unexpiring tor
ments ! If thus it be, let there, I repeat, be no look of
happiness, let there be no voice of sweetness ; let garment of
praise be changed for the spirit of heaviness ; let aU heads
be bent in grief, and aU eyes dim with weeping, in lamenta
tion for the sorrows of the universe. But be it not so —
leave us at least a gleam of light from heaven,
" Cease every joy to glimmer o'er my mind,
But leave, oh ! leave, the light of hope behind."
Oh no ! God has no pleasure in the death of a sinner, no
glory in the pain or punishment of his creatures : it is the
progress towards universal blessedness, and its final consum-
D 2

52 THE CHHISTIAN VIEW
mation, that truly shows forth the glory of God, and mani
fests the grandeur of his name and nature — more sweetly
than the earth, more majestically than the heavens. It shows
forth his justice : he punishes, terribly, it may be, but not
cruelly or hopelessly ; he punishes, but he amends ; he chas
tises, but he purifies. It shows forth his wisdom : for uni
versal holiness and universal happiness are the mightiest
objects which infinite wisdom could select, the highest pur
poses in which infinite wisdom could be manifested : It shows
forth his power, not in a blasting malediction, but in a crea
tive and aU-dispensing love ; not in the thunder of destruc
tion, but in the hand of a Father full of gifts and fuU of
blessings : — subduing evil, distributing happiness, drawing
out of apparent confusion order and harmony, more fair and
beautiful than the worlds he has called out of darkness ;
" moving ujjon the face of many a stormy wave, and blending
into calm what seemed only the chaos of contending ele
ments." It is marvellous that we can think seriously on existence
or on providence, that we can reflect on human nature or
survey human life, Vidthout feeling the need as well as the
truth of the doctrine of the full mercy of God, and of his
universally benignant designs for aU his children. True,
creation is fair, and much of existence is happy ; but still
there are evils and miseries which ever perplex us for solu
tion. If the view of God's government which we receive,
does not solve all the difficulties, at the very least it softens
them ; if there are inscrutable things in the providence of
God which it cannot explain, there are atrocities ascribed by
other systems to this character which it does not involve.
We may mourn over the wrongs, sufferings, and sins, which
exist with fatal abundance in our present state; we raay
wonder and think why they exist at all ; but to what an ex
tent of perplexity and pain are we driven, if we are to be
lieve that aU these evils are to be for ever, and to have no re-

OF RETRIBUTION HEREAFTER. 53
medy. When I see those who bear want and sorrow through
raany and heavy years, I rejoice that there is at last a home
and refuge for thera in their father's kingdora nvhere they
who were poor shall be made rich ; where those who mourned
shall be comforted : when I hear the sigh of pain, when I
behold the power of death ; when I know, as all must, in
how raany huraan dwellings grief sits lonely on the hearth, I
am saved from a fearful and dangerous distrust by the belief,
that in times to corae, and in regions which we know not of,
there is a balm for every grief and a remedy for every sin.
None are unaware of the physical and the raoral evils that
hang over and around this existence ; and both from the felt
experience of our own hearts,, and the recorded experience of
many others, we can judge the infinite complexity of moral
struggle, the subtleties of sin, and the miserable consequences
of evil doings ; and we cannot think that a good, a holy, a
just, and merciful God can ordain such a state to be per
petual and eternal. We know, moreover, how raany are
in the thick darkness of barbarism, each having vnthin a
universe of infinite and improvable capacities ; we know
what miUions are in the dens of indigence, of crime, and
ignorance, for whom earth is barren and life a burthen : and
in what thought are we to take comfort, in what sentiment are
we to find hope, if we beUeve not there is a God who does
not forget his orphan children in their worst estate ; that as
here they have received their evil things, there is a heaven
where they have their good ? And when we observe in this
Ufe so much of antagonist passions ; so much war and strife ;
so much of bitter and hopeless alienation, our tired spirits
wish for a retreat of peace ; and with the Psalmist we long
for the wings of a dove that we might flee away and be at
rest ; for a calm sky after a heated atmosphere ; for a union
of heart and charity which no mistakes could again divide.
We have no need to fear that our high aspirations for the
future shall make us proud or presumptuous ; for we have

54 THE CHRISTIAN VIEW, ETC.
aU enough in our present lot to keep us humble. When we
look within, we find a melancholy strife between our nobler
and our higher existence, which we can never entirely over
come : when we cast our gaze over the face of the world, and
the inequalities of life, and there in the strong-holds of sin
and selfishness see so many causes of wickedness and pain,
which the most believing and the most hoping can never hope
entirely to overcome ; when we regard our feeble powers and
our short existence ; our desires ever growing and wants ever
deepening, and our passions ever craving ; when we think
of the knowledge we longed for, and could not have, the vi
sions we dreamed of that never came, the good we resolved
on and never did, the felicity we sought and never found,
the wishes that were as empty as the echo in the desert, the
ideas, the plans, the aspirations, and the purposes that vainly
struggled for life, but found in our breasts their prison and
their grave ; we shall be in no danger of thinking of ourselves
more highly than we ought to think.
Blessed and beautiful doctrine is this, of universal redemp
tion and restoration, which pours such a radiance over our
groping obscurity, which gives our troubled hearts such peace,
which softens grief and glorifies affection, which corrects the
perverse and dignifies the lowly, which nourishes whatever
in our nature is great or god-like, renders religion transcen
dent and lovely, and opens before the rejoicing eye of faith
the grandeur of a renovated and an emancipated universe.

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