*

novelty, at all events in this country, as maintained by persons professing to accept the Bible?" Has Mr. Oxenham never heard of Jeremiah White, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and chaplain to Oliver Cromwell; or of Peter Sterry, another distinguished Puritan of the same period; † or of George Rust, chaplain to Jeremy Taylor, and Dean of Connor; or of the famous Dr. Henry More, Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, one of the greatest scholars of his day; § or of the non-juror William Law, author of the "Serious Call," to whom, perhaps more than to any other, under God, England owes the revival of religion in the last century, whose "Address to the Clergy" is full of this doctrine; or of George Stonehouse, Vicar of Islington, a hundred years ago; or of Richard Clarke, Curate of Cheshunt about the same time; or of Dr. Newton, Bishop of Bristol;** or of Dr. Thomas Burnet, Master of the Charter House;tt or of the Chevalier Ramsay, with many others now forgotten; all of whom bore their unfaltering testimony to this truth of restitution, and whose works, though now little known, still remain to witness how clear and persistent has been the testimony on this subject?

And as to Mr. Oxenham's assertion-for it is but an assertionthat "Universalism disorganizes the entire structure of Christian doctrine" (p. 227), is not the fact exactly the reverse? The objection only proves the confusion of thought which passes current for sound doctrine, and how little the nature of the fall, and the redemption by Christ, are really understood. What the Scripture teaches is, that man by disobedience and a death to God fell from God under the power of death and darkness, where by nature he is for ever lost, as unable to quicken his soul as to raise again his dead body; that in this fall God pitied him, and sent His Son, in whom is life, to be a man in the place where man was shut up, there to raise up again God's life in man, to bear man's curse, and then through death to bring man back in God's life to God's right hand; that in His own person, Christ, the first of all the first-fruits, as man in the life of God, broke through the gates of death and hell; that those who receive Him now through Him obtain the life by which they also shall rise as "first-fruits of His creatures;" that "if the first-fruits be holy, the lump is also holy," and that therefore "in Christ shall all be made alive." Is not Sir

* Author of the "Restitution of all Things."

Author of the "Rise, Race, and Royalty of the Kingdom of God," and the "Revelation of the Everlasting Gospel Message."

Author of "Letter Concerning Origen," printed 1661.

Author of "Divine Dialogues," in Two Parts, printed 1688.

Author of "Universal Restitution a Scripture Doctrine," printed 1761.

Author of the "Gospel of the Daily Service of the Law," printed 1767.

Author of a Dissertation, "On the Final State and Condition of Men," in his Works, vol. iii. p 702, 1782.

tt Author of "Do Statu Mortuorum et Resurgentium," 1715.

‡‡ Author of the "Philcsophical Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion," 1749.

James Stephen therefore quite right in saying that the dogma of eternal punishment is at best "a mere isolated truth, standing in no necessary connection with the rest" (p. 227), but practically contradicting all that the Gospel tells us of Christ's work, and God's character? For if God is indeed love, and wills that all men should be saved, and doeth according to His will in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; if Christ indeed died for all, as "the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world;" the difficulty is to conceive how this can consist with any being for ever lost to God, or how Christian doctrine can be complete without some such conclusion as universal restitution. But here as elsewhere we only see what we have learned to see.

As to the supposed causes of the present unbelief in endless punishment, namely, first, the "idola fori," or "popular opinions and fancies as to the place and exact nature of this eternal punishment," as examples of which Mr. Oxenham cites Calvin's statement respecting "babes a span long crawling about the floor of hell" (p. 229), and the notion that the number of the lost will far exceed that of the saved (p. 230); and secondly, the neglect or denial by Protestants of the doctrine of purgatory and prayer for the dead (p. 234); does Mr. Oxenham really believe that these are the true causes either of the spread of the doctrine of universal restitution, or of the repugnance to the idea of never-ending torments? Is not the true cause this rather, that men instinctively feel that the doctrine of everlasting suffering,-not the "popular opinions or fancies" about it, as Mr. Oxenham suggests, but the doctrine itself as stated by the most learned of its supporters, such as Augustine, Jerome, or Dr. Pusey,-directly clashes with what the Gospel reveals of God, and further, is in direct opposition to certain portions of Holy Scripture, which, while in some places it threatens "æonial punishment," whatever this may be, most distinctly affirms the "restitution of all things" and the "reconciliation of all?" Can Mr. Oxenham really think that Origen, and Gregory of Nyssa, and all that large body of believers, of whom Jerome and Augustine wrote, who "though not denying Holy Scripture do not believe in endless torments," but "believe that after certain periods of time those who are condemned to the pains of hell shall be delivered out of that state," were led to their rejection of this doctrine of never-ending sufferings either by the "idola fori" which Mr. Oxenham speaks of, such as Calvin's "span-long babes crawling about the floor of hell," or by any Protestant denial or doubt as to a purification by fire to be accomplished after death, or the propriety of prayer for the departed? Did they not all hold both prayer for the dead and a

* κόλασιν αἰώνιον.

Acts iii. 21, and Col. i. 20.

purification by fire after death, and yet with this, and because of this, believe in restitution, simply because Scripture distinctly taught that at last "God should be all in all," and would "reconcile all," and "have mercy upon all?"* It is this same testimony of Scripture, which has forced thousands in this day, slowly and in spite of all their early training, to give up the doctrine of everlasting suffering. They do not, as Mr. Oxenham says, reject the doctrine of endless punishment "because of its difficulties, which to them appear inexplicable" (pp. 432, 433), but because they believe that it is utterly irreconcilable with the revelation given by God Himself.

Nor will the Protestant denial of purgatory, any more than the other opinions which Mr. Oxenham refers to, account for the widespread unbelief in endless torments. The truth upon this point rather is, that the doctrine of Purgatory, properly so called, which gradually grew up from the fifth to the seventh century,† in contradistinction to the earlier view of purifying fire held by Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Ambrose, and others, was itself a natural result of the efforts of Augustine and others to silence the doctrine of restitution. The doctrine of a purifying fire runs, I believe, all through the Scriptures. Not only do the prophets speak of that "spirit of judgment and burning with which the Lord shall purge away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and cleanse the blood of Jerusalem;" the fulfilment of the vision of the "burning bush," which burnt and was not consumed because God dwelt in it; but both St. Peter and St. Paul speak of the "fiery trial which must try us," the "fire which must try every man's work," even that of believers, while "they themselves shall be saved, yet so as by fire." Our Lord Himself too speaks of the "fire which He came to cast into the earth," that "baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire," without which no fallen creature can be perfected. For "our God is a consuming fire," and to dwell in in Him we must have a life, which, because it is of the fire (for fire burns not fire), can stand unharmed in it. The believer, therefore, like the material world, must not only go through that baptism, which "is as the waters of Noah," but that other baptism of fire also, by which alone the final transmutation of the creature from corruptible to incorruptible can be effected. The early Fathers too have the same doctrine of "cleansing fire,"§ which

* 1 Cor. xv. 28; Col. i. 20; and Rom.xi. 32.

Hagenbach, after describing the earlier doctrine as to cleansing fire, says that "Gregory the Great may rightly be called the 'inventor of the doctrine of purgatory if we may call it an invention."-Hist. of Doctrines, vol. i. § 141, p. 407.

See Hagenbach, Hist. of Doctrines, vol. i. § 77, pp. 235-237.

§ The up κatápotov of Origen, Contr. Cels. v. 15, called by Clement of Alexandria Tup ppóviμov, Strom. vii. 6, and up owopovoûv, Cohort. § 47. I believe the expression, "ignis sapiens," which we find in Tertullian, Jerome, and others, originally was used in reference to the same cleansing.

should sooner or later try and perfect all, through which even the Blessed Virgin and Peter and the much-loved John would all have to pass, if they would be conformed to Christ; a fire which, whether in this present life or at the judgment, must, because God loves us, perform its work. But when instead of this, as time went on, and carnal conceptions grew in the Church, the doctrine of endless punishment was taught by many of the greatest Church teachers, there followed with it as a necessary result the Roman view of purgatory, giving men some hope for those loved ones, who, if not fit for heaven, could not be believed worthy of an everlasting hell. But on the change from the early doctrine of a cleansing fire to that of endless torments, and purgatory, properly so called, I cannot enter further here.

And here, in passing, a word as to Mr. Oxenham's view of the eternal perdition of unbaptized infants. These children, he tells us, "are indeed damned,' in the sense that they cannot attain to the Beatific Vision But it is no conscious loss to them. Still less does it imply any suffering of body or soul. On the contrary, it is consistent with the highest enjoyment of natural beatitude and with a natural knowledge and love of God. They are in what would have been Adam's condition if he had neither fallen into sin nor been endowed with original justice. Balmez thinks this principle may be extended to the case of adults, especially in heathen nations, who die with their moral and intellectual faculties so imperfectly developed that they may be regarded as, in responsibility, children." (P. 230.)

Eternal perdition, therefore, does not imply "any suffering of body or soul," but "on the contrary is consistent with the highest enjoyment of natural beatitude and with a natural knowledge and love of God, in what would have been Adam's condition if he had not fallen into sin."* Let us suppose for a moment that this explanation of Mr. Oxenham's is satisfactory. It is still open to one objection, namely, that it contradicts, and if is true overthrows, all that he says a little lower down on the words aiovios and kódaσis. For alúvios, he tells us, "conveys the full idea of everlasting," and Kóλaσis is not a "corrective chastisement," but torment (pp. 725, 726). But all the lost suffer this aivov Kóλaσi: unbaptized children and the heathen are lost: so while they are in "everlasting torments, with quenchless fire, and the undying worm," for Mr. Oxenham tells us that the expression aivos Kóλaσis is "strictly synonymous" with this (p. 726),—they yet are not only without "any suffering of body or soul," but on the contrary in the "highest enjoyment of natural beatitude and with a natural knowledge and love of God." But even this does not agree

How widely different this doctrine is from that generally set forth for Roman Catholics may be seen by consulting a pamphlet, entitled, "Hell opened to Christians, from the Italian of the Rev. F. Pinamonte, S.J.," illustrated with woodcuts, portraying the tortures of the damned, published by James Duffy, Wellington Quay, Dublin, and Paternoster Row, London.

with what he again tells us further on "is meant by the dogma of eternal damnation: it means in one word leaving the sinner to himself" (p. 433). Where I ask does it mean this? Does it mean it in the words just quoted, as to "quenchless fire," and the "undying worm," and the "shut door," and "many stripes." Certainly it does not mean this in the Fathers, as countless passages from Augustine and Jerome would prove. And all this is advanced by a writer who objects to Universalism because it does such violence to the language of Holy Scripture.

As to the other alleged "misapprehension," "which," Mr. Oxenham tells us, "has probably done more than all other misconceptions put together to prejudice men's minds against the doctrine" of endless punishment (p. 230), viz., that more are lost than saved, his reply is that this opinion though "widely held,” “has not, as far as he is aware, ever found place in the creed of any Christian. community, and certainly neither does, nor possibly could, appertain to the doctrine of the Catholic Church" (p. 231); while "Lacordaire, who has devoted a volume of his Conférences,' 'on the Results of the Divine Government,' to an elaborate and minute. examination of the subject, comes to the conclusion that the great majority of mankind will be saved" (p. 234). Yet, when this selfsame argument is applied to the question of eternal death, for certainly no creed or canon of the Church received by East and West declares it, Mr. Oxenham's reply is that "the belief of the Church is not to be collected solely from creeds and definitions of Councils" (p. 617). The omission, therefore, of an opinion or doctrine in the Creed has a bearing on the question of the comparative number of the saved or lost, but no bearing whatever on the question of everlasting woe. Meanwhile the apparent evidence of Scripture is perfectly overwhelming as to the fact that the many shall be lost and only the few saved; while "the immemorial belief of the Church" (p. 222), which Mr, Oxenham so often appeals to, is in the same direction, the greatest authorities having laid it down as unquestionable that the vast majority of men will certainly be damned. That this teaching of Scripture asserts that the majority are lost for ever is, as I have endeavoured to show elsewhere, simply a misapprehension of its meaning; the truth being rather that the few who find the narrow way are the "first-born or "first-fruits," the elect seed, in whom all the kindreds of the earth shall one day be blessed; while the many who are lost are those whom I may call the later-born, who are only brought back to God by the ministry of the elect through the judgment of the

*This is scarcely correct. Lacordaire has not "devoted a volume of his 'Conférences," but simply one single "Conférence" (the 71st) to this "examination." It is worth reading, if one wishes to disagree with the Abbé's conclusions, as is also the next (the 72nd), which attempts to prove on philosophical grounds the endlessness of misery. † See Corn. à Lapide, in Num. xiv. 30, and Apoc. vii. 9.