Part VIII--Eschatology, or the Doctrine of Final

PART VIII.

ESCHATOLOGY, OR THE DOCTRINE OF FINAL THINGS.

Neither the individual Christian character, nor the Christian church as a whole, attains its destined perfection in this life (Rom. 8 : 24). This perfection is reached in the world to come (1 Cor. 13 : 10). As preparing the way for the kingdom of God in its completeness, certain events are to take place, such as death, Christ's second coming, the resurrection of the body, the general judgment. As stages in the future condition of men, there is to be an intermediate and an ultimate state, both for the righteous and for the wicked. We discuss these events and states in what appears from Scripture to be the order of their occurrence.

Rom. 8:24 —"in hope wen we saYed: bat hope that ts seen is not hope: for who hopeth for that which he seetfc?" 1 Cor. 13 :10 —" when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away." Original sin Is not wholly eradicated from the Christian, and the Holy Spirit is not yet sole ruler. So, too, the church Is still in a state of conflict, and victory is hereafter. But as the Christian life attains its completeness only in the future, so with the life of sin. Death begins here, but culminates hereafter. James 1:15— "the sin, when it is fall grown, bringeth forth death." The wicked man here has only a foretaste of "the wrath to come" (Mat 3:7). We may "laj np .... treasures in bearen" (Mat. 6 : 20), but we may also "treasure up for oorselTes wrath" (Rom. 2:5), i. e., lay up treasure In hell.

Dorner: "To the actuality of the consummation of the church belongs a cessation of reproduction through which there is constantly renewed a world which the church

must subdue The mutually external existence of spirit and nature must give

way to a perfect internal existence. Their externality to each other is the ground of the mortality of the natural side, and of its being a means of temptation to the spiritual side. For in this externality the natural side has still too great Independence and

exerts a determining power over the personality Art, the beautiful, receives in

the future state Its special place; for it is the way of art to delight in visible presentation, to achieve the classical and perfect with unfettered play of Its powers. Every one morally perfect will thus wed the good to the beautiful. In the rest, there will be no Inactivity; and in the activity also, no unrest."

Schleiermacher: "Eschatology Is essentially prophetic; and is therefore vague and indefinite, like all unf u Hilled prophecy." Schiller's Thekla: "Every thought of beautiful, trustful seeming Stands fulfilled in heaven's eternal day: Shrink not then from erring and from dreaming,— Lofty sense lies oft In childish play." Frances Power Cobbe Peak of Darien, 285--" Human nature Is a ship with the tide out; when the tide of eternity comes in, we shall see the purpose of the ship." See, on the whole subject of Eschatology, Luthardt, Lehre von den letzten Dlngen, and Saving Truths of Christianity; Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3 : 713-880.

L Physical Death.

Physical death is the separation of the soul from the body. We distinguish it from spiritual death, or the separation of the soul from God ; and from the second death, or the banishment from God and final misery of the reunited soul and body of the wicked.

Spiritual death: Is. 59 : 2 —" Bat your iniquiUea have separated between you and your God, and your sins hare hid bis face from you, that be will not bear "; Rom. 7 : 24 —" 0 wretched man that I am I who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?" Eph. 2 :1 —" dead through your trespasses and sins." The second death: Rev. 2: 11 —" He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death "; 20 : 14 —" And death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, even the lake of fire "; 21: 8 —" But for the fearful, and unbelieving, and abominable, and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, their part shall be in the lake that boraeth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death."

Julius M tiller. Doctrine of Sin, 2 : 303—" Spiritual death, the inner discord and enslavement of the soul, and the misery resulting therefrom, to which belongs that other death, the second death, an outward condition corresponding to that inner slavery." Trench, Epistles to the Seven Churches, 151—"This phrase ['second death'J Is Itself a solemn protest against the Sadducceism and Epicureanism which would make natural death the be-all and end-all of existence. As there is a life beyond the present life for the faithful, so there is a death beyond that which falls under our eyes for the wicked."

Although physical death falls upon the unbeliever as the original penalty of sin, to all who are united to Christ it loses its aspect of penalty, and becomes a means of discipline and of entrance into eternal life.

To the Christian physical death Is not n penalty: see Ps. 116 :15—"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints "; Rom. 8 :10 —" And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness "; 14 : 8 —" For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; or whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's "; 1 Cor. 3 : 22 —" whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, all are yours "; 15 : 55 —" 0 death, where is thy victory? 0 death, where is thy sting?" 1 Pet 4 : 6 —" For unto this end was the gospel preached even to the dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit"; cf. Rom. 1: 18—"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hinder the truth in unrighteousness"; 8:1, 2—"There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death "; Heb. 12 : 6 —" For whom the Lord ]oreth he chasteneth."

Dr. Hovey says that "the present sufferings of believers are in the nature of discipline, with an aspect of retribution; while the present sufferings of unbelievers are retributive, with a glance toward reformation." We prefer to say that all penalty has been borne by Christ, and that, for him who is Justified in Christ, suffering of whatever kind is of the nature of fatherly chastening, never of Judicial retribution; sec our discussion of the Penalty of Sin, puge &^r>4.

To neither saint nor sinner is death a cessation of being. This we maintain, against the advocates of annihilation:

1. Upon rational grounds. •

(a) The metaphysical argument. — The soul is simple, not compounded. Death, in matter, is the separation of parts. But in the soul there are no parts to be separated. The dissolution of the body, therefore, does not necessarily work a dissolution of the soul. But, since there is an immaterial principle in the brute, and this argument taken by itself might seem to prove the immortality of the animal creation equally with that of man, we pass to consider the next argument.

The Immateriality of the brute mind was probably the consideration which led Bishop Butler, John Wesley, and Louis Agassiz to encourage the belief in animal immortality. "If death dissipates the sagacity of the elephant, why not. that of his captor?" It is better, therefore, to regard this argument as simply showing the inconclusiveness of materialism, and as leaving the matter open for positive proof from revelation. See Bp. Butler, Analogy, part r, chap, i ( Bohn's ed., 81-91).

Mansel, Metaphysics, 371, maintains that all this argument proves is that the objector cannot show the soul to be compound, and so cannot show that it is destructible. Calderwood. Moral Philosophy, 259—"The facta which point toward the termination of our present state of existence are connected with our physical nature, not with our mental." John Fluke, Destiny of the Creature, 110—"With his illegitimate hypothesis of annihilation, the materialist transgresses the bounds of experience quite as widely as the poet who sings of the New Jerusalem, with its river of life and its streets of gold. Scientifically speaking:, there is not a particle of evidence for either view."

It may be further objected to our argument, that death is not, as we define it, a separation of parts, but rather a cessation of consciousness; and that therefore, while the substance of human nature may endure, mankind may ever develops Into new forms, without Individual Immortality. To this we reply, that man's self-consciousness and self-determination are different In kind from the consciousness and determination of the brute. As man can direct his self-consclousness and self-determination to Immortal ends, we have the right to believe this self-consciousness and self-determination to be immortal. This leads us to the next argument.

(6) The teleologies! argument.— Man, as an intellectual, moral, and religious being, does not attain the end of his existence on earth. His development is imperfect here. Divine wisdom will not leave its work incomplete. There must be a hereafter for the full growth of man's powers, and for the satisfaction of his aspirations. Created, unlike the brute, with infinite capacities for moral progress, there must be an immortal existence in which those capacities shall be brought into exercise. Though the wicked forfeit all claim to this future, we have here an argument from God's love and wisdom to the immortality of the righteous.

In reply to this argument, it has been said that many right wishes are vain. Mill, Essays on Religion, 294 —" Desire for food Implies enough to eat, now and forever? hence an eternal supply of cabbage?" But our argument proceeds upon three presuppositions: (1) that a holy and benevolent God exists; (2) that he has made man In bis Image; (3) that man's true end Is holiness and likeness to God. Therefore, what will answer the true end of man will be furnished; but that is not cabbage — it Is holiness and love, f. (., God himself.

The argument, however, is valuable only In its application to the righteous. God will not treat the righteous as the tyrant of Florence treated Michael Angelo, when he bade him carve out of Ice a statue which would melt under the first rays of the sun. In the case of the wicked, the other law of retribution comes in — the taking away of "«Ten that which he hath " (Mat 25 : 29). Since we are all wicked, the argument is not satisfactory, unless we take luto account the further facts of atonement and justification —facts of which we learn from revelation alone.

But while, taken by itself, this rational argument might be called defective, and could never prove that man may not attain his end in the continued existence of the race, rather than in that of the Individual, the argument appears more valuable as a rational supplement to the facts already mentioned, and seems to render certain at least the immortality of those upon whom God has set his love, aud in whom he has wrought the beginnings of righteousness.

(c) The ethical argument.—Man is not, in this world, adequately punished for his evil deeds. Our sense of justice leads us to believe that God's moral administration will be vindicated in a life to come. Mere extinction of being would not be a sufficient penalty, nor would it permit degrees of punishment corresponding to degrees of guilt. This is therefore an argument from God's justice to the immortality of the wicked. The guilty conscience demands a state after death for punishment.

This is an argument from God's justice to the immortality of the wicked, as the preceding was an argument from God's love to the immortality of the righteous. "History defies our moral sense by giving a peaceful end to Sulla." Louis XV and Madame Pompadour died in their beds, after a life of extreme luxury. Louis XVI and his queen, though far more just and pure, perished by an appalling tragedy. The fates of these four cannot be explained by the wickedness of the latter pair and the virtue of the former. Since there is not always an execution of justice here, we feel that there must be a "judgment to come," such as that which terrified Felix (Acts 24 : 25).

This argument has probably more power over the minds of men than any other. Men believe in Minos and Rhadamanthus, if not in the Elysian Fields. But even hero it may be replied that the judgment which conscience threatens, may be, not Immortality, but extinction of being. We shall see, however, in our discussion of the endlessness of future punishment, that mere annihilation cannot satisfy the moral Instinct which lies at the basis of this argument. That demands a punishment proportioned in each case to the guilt incurred by transgression. Extinction of being would be the same to all. As it would not admit of degrees, so it would not, in any case, sufficiently vindicate God's righteousness.

But while this argument proves life and punishment for the wicked after death, it leaves us dependent on revelation for our knowledge how long that life and punishment will be. Kant's argument is that man strives equally for morality and for well-being; but morality often requires the sacrifice of well-being; hence there must be a future reconciliation of the two in the well-being or reward of virtue. To all of which it might be answered, first, that there is no virtue so perfect as to merit reward; and secondly, that virtue Is its own reward, and so is well-being.

(d) The historical argument.—The popular belief of all nations and ages shows that the idea of immortality is natural to the human mind. It is not sufficient to say that this indicates only such desire for continued earthly existence as is necessary to self-preservation; for multitudes expect a life beyond death without desiring it, and multitudes desire a heavenly life without caring for the earthly. This testimony of man's nature to immortality may be regarded as the testimony of the God who made the nature.

Testimonies to this popular belief are given in Bartlett, Life and Death Eternal, preface: The arrow-heads and earthen vessels laid by the side of the dead Indian; the silver obolus put in the mouth of the dead Greek to pay Charon's passage money; the furnishing of the Egyptian corpse with the Book of the Dead, the papyrus-roll containing the prayer he is to oiler and the chart of his journey through the unseen world.

But it may be replied, that many universal popular impressions have proved false, such as belief in ghosts, and in the moving of the sun round the earth. While the mass of men have believed In immortality, some of the wisest have been doubters. Cyrus said: "I cannot imagine that the soul lives only while it remains in this mortal body." But the dying words of Socrates were: "We part; I am going to die, and you to live; which of us goes the better way is known to God alone." Cicero declared: "Upon this subject I entertain no more than conjectures;" and said that, when he was reading Plato's argument for immortality, he seemed to himself convinced, but when he laid down the book he found that all his doubts returned.

Aristotle, Nic. Ethics, 3 : 9, calls death "the most to be feared of all things for It

appears to be the end of everything; and for the deceased there appears to be no longer either any good or any evil." .-Eschylus: "Of one once dead there is no resurrection." Catullus: "When once our brief day has set, we must sleep one everlasting night." Tacitus: "If there is a place for the spirits of the pious; if, as the wise suppose, great souls do not become extinct with their bodies." "In that (/," says Uhlhorn, "lies the whole torturing uncertainty of heathenism."

The most that can be claimed for this fourth argument from popular belief is that It indicates a general appetency for continued existence after death, and that the Idea is congruous with our nature. W. E. Forster said to Harriet Martineau that he would rather be damned than be annihilated; see F. P. Cobbe, Peak of Darien, 44. But it may be replied that there is reason enough for this desire for life in the fact that it ensures the earthly existence of the race, which might commit universal suicide without it. There is reason enough In the present life for its existence, and we are not necessitated to infer a future life therefrom. This objection cannot be fully answered from reason alone. But if we take our argument in connection with the Scriptural revelation concerning God's making of man in his image, we may regard the testimony of man's nature as the testimony of the God who made it.

We conclude our statement of these rational proofs with the acknowledgment that they rest upon the presupposition that there exists a God of truth, wisdom, justice, and love, who has made man in his image, and who desires to commune with his creatures. We acknowledge, moreover, that these proofs give us, not an absolute demonstration, but only a balance of probability, in favor of man's immortality. We turn therefore to Scripture for the clear revelation of a fact of which reason furnishes us little more than a presumption.

Dorner: "There is no rational evidence which compels belief in immortality. Immortality has its pledfre in (tod's making man in his linage, and in God's will of love for communion with men." Luthardt, Compendium, 289—"The truth in these proofs from reason Is the idea of human personality and Its relation to God. Belief in God is the universal presupposition and foundation of the universal belief In immortality." Strauss declared that this belief in immortality is the last enemy which is to be destroyed. He forgot that belief in God is more Ineradicable still.

Hadley, Essays, Philological and Critical. 373-379—"The claim of immortality may be based on one or the other of two assumptions: (1) The same organism will be reproduced hereafter, and the same functions, or part of them, again manifested in connection with it, and accompanied with consciousness of continued identity; or, (2) The same functions may be- exercised and accompanied with consciousness of identity, though not connected with the same organism as before; may iu fact go on without interruption, without tieing even suspended by death, though no longer manifested to us." The conclusion is: "The light of nature, when all directed to this question, does furnish a presumption In favor of immortality, but not so strong a presumption as to exclude great and reasonable doubts upon the subject."

For an excellent synopsis of arguments and objections, see Hase, Hutterus Redivivus, 278. See also Uowen, Metaph. and Ethics, 417-441; A. M. Fairbairn, on Idea of Immortality, in Studies in Philos. of Religion and of History; Wordsworth, Intimations of Immortality; Tennyson, Two Voices; Alger, Critical History of Doctrine of Future Life, with Appendix by Ezra Abbot, containing a Catalogue of Works relating to the Nature, Origin, and Destiny of the Soul.

2. Upon Scriptural grounds.

(a) The account of man's creation, and the subsequent allusions to it iu Scripture, show that, while the body was "made corruptible and subject to death, the soul was made in the image of God, incorruptible and immortal.

Gen. 1: 26, 27 —" Let us make man in oar image "; 2:7 —" and the Lord God formed nun of the dnst of the ground, and breathed into hie nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul"— here, as was shown in our treatment of man's Original State, It is not the divine image, but the body, that Is formed of dust; and into this body the soul that possesses the divine image is breathed. In the Hebrew records, the animating soul is everywhere distinguished from the earthly body. Gen. 3 : 22, 23 —" Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now. lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and lire for ever; therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden"— man had immortality of soul, and now, lest to this he add immortality of body, be is expelled from the tree of life. Bed. 12 : 7—" the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit return unto God who gave it"; Zech. 12 : i —" The Lord, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layelb the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him."

Mat. 10 : 28 —" And be not afraid of them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell "; acta 7 : 59 —" And they stoned Stephen, calling upon the Lord, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit"; 2 Cor. 12 : 2— "I know a man in Christ fourteen years ago {whether in the body, I know not; or whether out of the body, I know not; God knoweth), such a one caught up even to the third heaven "; 1 Cor. 15 : 45, 46 —" The first man Adam became a living soul The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; then that which is spiritual" = the first Adam was made a being whose body was psychical and mortal—a body of flesh and blood, that could not inherit the kingdom of God. So Paul says the spiritual Is not first, but the psychical; but there is no intimation that the soul also was created mortal, and needed external appliances, like the tree of life, before it could enter upon immortality.

Hut it may be asked: Is not all this, in 1 Cor. 15, spoken of the regenerate—those to whom a new principle of life has been communicated? We answer, yes; but that does not prevent us from learning from the passage the natural immortality of the soul; for in regeneration the essence is not changed, no new substance is imparted, no new faculty or constitutive element is added, and no new principle of holiness is infused. The truth is simply that the spirit is morally readjusted. For substance of the above remarks, see Hovey, State of Impenitent Dead, 1-27.

(6) The account of the curse in Genesis, and the subsequent allusions to it in Scripture, show that, while the death then incurred includes the dissolution of the body, it does not include cessation of being on the part of the soul, but only designates that state of the soul which is the opposite of true life, viz., a state of banishment from God, of unholiness, and of misery.

Gen. 2 :17—"in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shall sorely die"; c/. 3 : 8—"the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the lord God "; 16-19 —the curse of pain and toil; 22-24 — banishment from the garden of Eden and from the tree of life. Mat. 8 : 22—"follow me; and leave the dead to bury their own dead "; 25 : 41. 46 —" Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire ..., These shall go away into eternal punishment": Luke 15 : 32—"this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found"; John 5 : 24 —" He that heareth my word, and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgment, but hath passed out of death into life ": 6 : 47, 53, 63 —" He that believeth hath eternal life Except ye eat

the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ve have not life in yourselves the words that I have spoken unto

you are spirit, and are life "; 8 : 51 —" If a man keen my word, he shall never see death."

Rom. 5 : 21 —"that as sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life"; 8 :13—"if ye lire after the flesh, ye most die; but if by the Spirit ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live "; Eph. 2 :1 —" dead through your trespasses and sins "; 5 :14 —" Awake, thou that sloepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee"; 1 Tim. 5 : 6—"she that giveth herself to pleasure is dead while she liveth"; James 5 ; 20—"he which converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins"; 1 John 3 : 4 —"We know that we have passed out of death onto life, because we love the brethren "; Rev. 3 :1 —"I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead."

We are to interpret O. T. terms by the N. T. meaning: put into them. We are to interpret the Hebrew by the Greek, not the Greek by the Hebrew. It never would do to interpret our missionaries' use of the Chinese words for "God," "spirit," "holiness," by the use of those words among" the Chinese before the missionaries came. By the later usage of the N. T., the Holy Spirit shows us what he meant by the usage of the O. T.

(c) The Scriptural expressions, held by annihilationiste to imply cessation of being on the part of the wicked, are used not only in connections where they cannot bear this meaning (Esther 4 : 16), but in connections where they imply the opposite.

Esther 4 :16 —"if I perish, I perish "; Gen. 6 :11 —"the earth also was corrupt before God"— here, in tho Ijcx, the word «^iiap»j, translated "was corrupt," is the same word which in other places is interpreted by annihllationists as meaning extinction of being. In Ps. 119 .176," I have gone astray like a lost sheep" cannot mean " I have gone astray like an annihilated sheep." Is. 49 :17 —"thy destroyers [annihilntorsV ] and they that made thee waste shall go forth of thee"; 57:1, 2—"The righteous perisheth [ is annihilated ? ] and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come. He entereth into peace: they rest in their beds, each one that walketh in his uprightness "; Dan. 9 : 26—" ind after three score and two weeks shall the anointed one be cut off [annihilated?]".

Mat. 10 : 6, 39, 42 —" the lost sheep of the house of Israel.... be that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.... he shall in nowise lose his reward "—In these verses we cannot substitute "annihilate" for "lose"; acta 13 : 41—"Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish"; cf. Mat. 6 : 16—"for they disfigure their faces — where the same word iif>a>'ic> is used. 1 Cor. 3 :17— "If any man destroyeth [annihilates?] the temple of God, him shall God destroy"; 2 Cor. 7 : 2—"we corrupted no man"— where the same word o>«*«i'pu> is used. 2 Thess. 1:9—" who shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might" — tho wicked shall be driven out from the presence of Christ. Destruction is not annihilation. "Destruction from" separation. "A ship engulfed in quicksands is destroyed: a temple broken down and deserted Is destroyed "; see Lillle, Com. in loco. 2 Pet. 3 : 7—"day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men"—here the word "destruction" (diruAeiac) is the same with that used of the end of the present order of things, and translated "perished" (iinuAcro) in verse 6. "We cannot accordingly infer from it that the ungodly will cease to exist, but only that there will be a great and penal change in their condition " (Plumptre, Com. in loco).

(d) The passages held to prove the annihilation of the -wicked at death cannot have this meaning, since the Scriptures foretell a resurrection of the unjust as well as of the just; and a second death, or a misery of the reunited soul and body, in the case of the wicked.

lets 24 : IS—"than shall be » resurrection both of lh« jut and unjust"; Rev. 2 : II "He tut ovorcometh shall not be hart of the second death "; 20 : 14,15 — " And death and Hades vers east into the lake of Are. This is the second death, eren the lake of Mrs. Ind if any vas not found written in the book of life, he vu oast into the lake of Ire"; 21: 8—"their part shall be in the lake that burnetii with Ire and brimstone; which is the second death." The "second death" is the first death intensified. Having one's "part in the lake of Ire" Is not annihilation.

(e) The words used in Scripture to denote the place of departed spirits, as well as the allusions to their condition, show that death, to the writers of the Old and the New Testaments, although it was the termination of man's earthly existence, was not an extinction of his being or his consciousness. ( Sl'NIP is either from ^i'^i to press, aud = ' the shut-up or constrained place'; or from ''Nt?, to be at rest or quiet, and = ¹ the resting place.' "A«5w =• not 'hell,' but the 'unseen world,' conceived by the Greeks as a shadowy, but not as an unconscious, state of being).

Gen. 25 : 8, 9 — Abraham "was gathered to his people, ind Isaac and Ishmael his sons buried him in the care of Mschpelah"; so of Isaac in Gen. 35 : 29, and of Jacob In 49 : 29, 33 — all of whom were (fathered to their fathers before they were buried. Sum. 20 : 24—"Aaron shall be gathered unto his people"— since Aaron was not burled at all, being" gathered to their fathers" was something different from burial. Job 3 :13, 18—"for now should 1 have lien down snd been quiet; I should hare slept: then had I been at rest.... There the prisoners are at ease together; They hear not the voice of the taskmaster'; 7 : 9 —" Is the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away, So he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more "; 14 : 22 —" But his flesh upon him hath pain, And his soul within him mourneth."

Ez. 32 : 21 —" The strong among the mighty shall speak to him out of the midst of hell"; Luke 16 ; 23 —" And in Hsdes he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom "; 23 : 43 — "To-day shall thou be with me in Paradise "; cf. 1 Sam. 28 :19 — Samuel said to Saul in the cave of Endor: "To-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me "—evidently not in an unconscious state. Many of these passages intimate a continuity of consciousness after death. Though Sheol Is unknown to man, it is naked and open to God (Job 26 : 6); he can find men there and redeem them from thence (Ps. 49 :15)—proof that death is not annihilation. See Glrdlestone, O. T. Synonyms, 447.

(/) The terms and phrases which have been held to declare absolute cessation of existence at death are frequently metaphorical, and an examination of them in connection with the context and with other Scriptures is sufficient to show the untenableness of the literal interpretation put upon them by the anniliilationists, and to prove that the language is merely the language of appearance.

Death is often designated as a "sleeping" or a "falling asleep"; see John 11; 11,14— "Our friend Laxarus is fallen asleep; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep .... Then Jesus therefore said unto them plainly, Lasarus is dead." Here the language of appearance is used; yet this language could not have been used, if the soul had not been conceived of as alive, though sundered from the body; see Meyer on 1 Cor. t: 18. So the language of appearance is used in loci. 9 :10 —" there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave whither thou goest"—and in Ps. 146 : 4 —"His breath goeth forth; in that very day his thoughts perish,"

See Mozley, Essays, 2 :171 —" These passages often describe the phenomena of death as it presents itself to our eyes, and so do not enter into the reality which takes place beneath it." Bartlett, Life and Death Eternal, 189-358 —" Because the same Hebrew word is used is used for 'spirit' and ' breath,' shall we say that the spirit is only breath? 'Heart' in English might in like manner be made to mean only the material organ; and David's heart, panting, thirsting, melting within him, would have to be interpreted literally. So a man may be 'eaten up with avarice,' while yet his being is not only not extinct, but is in a state of frightful activity."

(fir) The Jewish belief in a conscious existence after death is proof that the theory of annihilation rests upon a misinterpretation of Scripture. That such a belief in the immortality of the soul existed among the Jews is abundantly evident: from the knowledge of a future state possessed by the Egyptians (Acts 7 : 22); from the accounts of the translation of Enoch and of Elijah (Gen. 5 : 24; cf. Heb. 11:5. 2 K. 2 : 11); from the invocation of the dead which was practised, although forbidden by the law (1 Sam. 28 : 7-14; of. Lev. 20 : 27; Deut. 18 : 10, 11); from allusions in the O. T. to resurrection, future retribution, and life beyond the grave (Job 19 : 25, 27; Ps. 16 : 9-11; Is. 26 :19; Ez. 37 :1-14; Dan. 12 : 2, 3, 13); and from distinct declarations of such faith by Philo and Josephus, as well as by the writers of the N. T. (Mat. 22 : 31, 32; Acts 23 : 6; 26 : 6-8; Heb. 11 :13-16).

The Egyptian coffin was called "the chest of the living." See the Book of the Dead, translated by Birch, In Bunsen's Egypt's Place, 123-333: The principal ideas of the first part of the Book of the Dead are "living again after death, and being born again as the sun," which typified the Egyptian resurrection (138). "The deceased lived again after death" (134). "The Osiris lives after he dies, like the sun daily ; for as the sun died and was born yesterday, so the Osiris Is born " (184). Yet the Immortal part, in its continued existence, was dependent for its blessedness upon the preservation of the body; and for this reason the body was embalmed. Immortality of the body Is as Important as the passage of the soul. Growth or natural reparation of the body is invoked as earnestly as the passage of the soul to the upper regions." "There Is not a limb of him without a god; Thoth Is vivifying his limbs" (197). See Uarda, by Ebers; Dr. Howard Osgood on Resurrection among the Egyptians, in Hebrew Student, Feb., 1885. The Egyptians, however, recognized no transmigration of souls; see Renouf, Hlbbert Lectures, 181-184.

It Is morally impossible that Moses should not have known the Egyptian doctrine of Immortality: lots 7 : 22 —" Ind Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." That Moses did not make the doctrine more prominent In his teachings, may be for the reason that it was so connected with Egyptian superstitions with regard to Osiris. Yet the Jews believed In immortality: Gen. 5 : 24 —" Ind Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him "; cf. Heb. II: 5 —" By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death "; 2 lings 2 :11 —" Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven "; 1 Sam. 28 :1-14 — the Invocation of Samuel by the woman of Endor; cf. Lot. 20 : 27 —" A man also, or woman, that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall snrely be put to death;" Dent 20 :10,11 —" There shall not be found among yon a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer."

Job 19 : 25-27 —" For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand up at the last upon the earth: and after my skin hath been thus destroyed, yet from my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another. Hy reins are consumed within me "; Ps. 16 : 9-11 —" Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: My flesh also shall dwell in safety. For thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol; Neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path of life: In thy presence is fulness of joy; In thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore "; Is. 26 :19 —" Thy dead shall live; my dead bodies snail arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall east forth the dead "; Ez. 37 :1-14 — the valley of dry bones —"I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, 0 my people"—a prophecy of restoration based upon the idea of immortality and resurrection; Dan. 12 : 2, 3,13 —" Ind many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament,

and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever But go thou thy way till the end be:

for thou shalt rest, and shalt stand in thy lot, at the end of the days."

Josephus, on the doctrine of the Pharisees, In Antiquities, xvm: 1: 3, and Wars of the Jews, ii: 8 : 10-14—"Souls have an immortal vigor. Under the earth are rewards and punishments. The wicked are detained in an everlasting prison. The righteous shall have power to revive and live again. Bodies are indeed corruptible, but souls remain exempt from death forever. But the doctrine of the Saddueecs Is that souls die with their bodies." Mat 22 : 31, 32 —" But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living."

Christ's argument, in the passage last quoted, rests upon the two implied assumptions; first, that love will never suffer the object of its affection to die; beings who have ever ton the objects of God's love will be so forever — for " Life is ever Lord of death. And love can never lose its own " (Tennyson, In Memorlam); secondly, that body and soul belong normally together; if body and soul are temporarily separated, they shall be united; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are living, and therefore they shall rise again. It was only an application of the same principle, when Robert Hall gave up his early materialism as he looked down Into his father's grave: he felt that this could not be the end; ef. Ps. 22 : 26 - '' Your heart shall live forever." Acts 23 : 6 —" I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees: touching the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question "; 26 : 7, 8 —" ind concerning this hope I am accused bj the Jews, 0 king! ¥ej is it judged incredible with jou. if God doth raise the dead?" leb. 11:13-16 — the present life was reckoned as a pilgrimage; the patriarchs sought " a better country, that is, a heavenly "; cf. Gen. 47 : 9.

Mozley, Lectures, 38-59, and Essays, 2 :169—"True religion among the Jews had an evidence of Immortality in Its possession of God. Paganism was hopeless in its loss of friends, because affection never advanced beyond Its earthly object, and therefore, In losing It, lost all. But religious love, which loves the creature in the Creator, has that on which to fall back, when its earthly object is removed."

(h) The most impressive and conclusive of all proofs of immortality, however, is afforded in the resurrection of Jesns Christ,— a work accomplished by his own power, and demonstrating that the spirit lived after its separation from the body (John 2 : 19, 21; 10 : 17, 18). By coming back from the tomb, he proves that death is not annihilation (2 Tim. 1:10 ).

John 2 :19. 21 —"Jesns answered and said unto them. Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up .... But he spake of the temple of his body "; 10 :17,18 —" Therefore doth the father love me, because I lay down my life,

that I may take it again I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again "; 2 Tim. 1 :10 —

"our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel "— that is, Immortality had been a truth dimly recognized, suspected, longed for, before Christ came: but it was he who first brought It out from obscurity and uncertainty Into clear daylight and convincing power.

Christ taught immortality: (1) By exhibiting himself the perfect conception of a human life. Who could believe that Christ could become forever extinct? (2) By actually coming back from beyond the grave. There were many speculations about a trans-Atlantic continent before 1493, but these were of little worth compared with the actual word which Columbus brought of a new world beyond the sea. (3) By providing a way through which his own spiritual life and victory may be ours; so that, though we pass through the valley of the shadow of death, we may fear no evil. (4) By thus gaining authority to teach us of the resurrection of the righteous and of the wicked, as he actually does. Christ's resurrection is not only the best proof of Immortality, but we have no certain evidence of immortality without it.

For the annihilation theory, see Hudson, Debt and Grace, and Christ, Our Life: also Dobney, Future Punishment. Per contra, see Hovey, State of the Impenitent Dead, 1-27, and Manual of Theology and Ethics, 153-188; Luthardt, Compendium, 289-292; Delitzsch, Bib. Psych., 397-407; Herzog, Encyclop.. art.: Tod; Spllttgerber, Schlaf und Tod; Estes, Christian Doctrine of the Soul; Baptist Review, 1879 : 411-439; Presb. Rev., Jan., 1882 : 203.

II. The Intermediate State.

The Scriptures affirm the conscious existence of both the righteous and the wicked, after death, and prior to the resurrection. In the intermediate state the soul is without a body, yet this state is for the righteous a state of conscious joy, and for the wicked a state of conscious suffering.

That the righteous do not receive the spiritual body at death, is plain from 1 Thess. 4 : 16, 17 and 1 Cor. 15 : 52, where an interval is intimated between Paul's time and the rising of those who slept. This rising was to occur in the future, "at the last trump." So the resurrection of the wicked had not yet occurred in any single case, but was yet future (John 5 : 28-30 — tpX^eTat <->pa, not Kai viv iariv, as in verse 25; Acts 24 : 15 — avaaraaiv jitXKtiv iaeodat). Christ was the firatfruits (1 Cor. 15 : 20, 23). If the saints had received the spiritual body at death, the patriarchs would have been raised before Christ.

1. Of the righteous, it is declared:

(a) That the soul of the believer, at its separation from the body, enters the presence of Christ.

2 Cor. 5 :1-8—" If the earthly house of oar tabernacle be dissolved, wo have a building from God. a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens. For verily in this we groan, longing to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from heaven: if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For indeed we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened; not for that we would be unclothed, but that we would be clothed upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up of life .... willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord "— Paul hopes to escape the violent separation of soul and body — the being- "unclothed"— by living till the coming of the Lord, and then putting on the heavenly body, as it were, over the present one (tVivoWao-dat); yet whether he lived till Christ's coming or not, he knew that the soul, when it left the body, would be at home with the Lord.

Luke 23 : 43 —" To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise "; John 14 : 3 —" and if I go and prepare a plan for you, I come again, and will receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also "; 2 Tim. 4 :18 —" The lord will deliver me from every evil work, and will save me unto [ or,'into'] his heavenly kingdom " = will save me and put me into his heavenly kingdom (Ellicott), the characteristic of which is the visible presence of the King with his subjects.

(6) That the spirits of departed believers are with God.

Eeb. 12 :23—Ye are come "to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who an enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all"; cf. led. 12 : 7 —" the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit return unto God who gave it" John 20 :17 —" Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended unto the Father "— probably means: "my body has not yet ascended." The soul had gone to God during the interval between death and the resurrection, as is evident from Luke 23 : 43, 46 —" with me in Paradise.... Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit"

(c) That believers at death enter paradise.

Luke 23 : 42, 43 —" And he said, Jesus, remember me when thou oomest in thy kingdom, and he said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise "; cf. 2 Cor. 12 : 4 —" caught up into Paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter "; Rev. 2 : 7 —" To him that overcometh, to him will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God "; Gen. 2 : 8 —" ind the Lord planted a garden eastward, in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed." Paradise is none other than the abode of God and the blessed, of which the primeval Eden was the type.

(d) That their state, immediately after death, is greatly to be preferred to that of faithful and successful laborers for Christ here.

Phil. I : 22. 23 -"I am in a strait betwixt the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ; for it is very far better "—here Haekett says: "ivaAiio-ai = departing, cutting loose, as if to put to sea, followed by <riiv Xoio-Tw «!vat, as if Paul regarded one event as immediately subsequent to the other." Paul, with his burning desire to preach Christ, would certainly have preferred to live and labor, even amid great suffering, rather than to die, if death to him had been a state of unconsciousness and inaction. See Edwards the younger, Works, 2 :530, 531; Hovey, Impenitent Dead. 81.

(e) That departed saints are truly alive and conscious.

Mat. 22 : 32—" God is not the God of the dead, but of the living "; Luke 16 : 22 —" carried away by the angels into Abraham's bosom "; 23 : 43 —" To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise " — " with me" = in the same state unless Christ slept in unconsciousness, we cannot think that the penitent thief did; John 11: 26—"whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die"; 1 Tbess. 5 :10—"who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him "; Rom. 8 10—" and if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin: but the spirit is life because of righteousness." Life and consciousness clearly belong to the "souls under the altar" mentioned under the next head.

(/) That they are at rest and blessed.

Rev. 6 : 9-11 —"I saw under the altar the souls of them that had been slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: and they cried with a great voice, saying;, How long, 0 Master, the holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth, and there was given them to each one a white robe; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet a little tune, until their fellow-seiranta also and their brethren, which should be hilled even as they were, should be fulfilled in number"; 14 :13 —" Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; for their works follow with them "; 20 :14 — "and death and Hades were oast into the lake of fire"— see Evans, in Presb. Kev., 1883 : 303—"The shadow of death lying upon Hades is the penumbra of Hell. Hence Hades is associated with death in the final doom."

2. Of the wicked, it is declared:

(a) That they are in prison,— that is, under constraint and guard (1 Pet. 3:19 — <pvlaKT) ).

1 Pet 3 :19 —" In which [ spirit ] also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison "— there is no need of putting unconscious spirits under guard. Hovey: "Restraint implies power of action, and suffering implies consciousness."

(6) That they are in torment, or conscious suffering (Luke 16 : 23 —

cv jiaa&vaM;).

Luke 16 : 23 —" And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom, and he cried and said. Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of bis finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am in anguish in this flame."

Here many unanswerable questions may be asked: Had the rich man a body before the resurrection, or is this representation of a body only figurative? Did the soul still feel the body from which it was temporarily separated, or have souls in the intermediate state temporary bodies? However we may answer these questions, it is certain that the rich man suffers, while probation still lasts for bis brethren on earth. Fire is here the source of sufferiug, but not of annihilation. Eten though this be a parable, it proves conscious existence after death to have been the common view of the Jews, and to have been a view sanctioned by Christ.

(c) That they are under punishment (2 Pet. 2:9 — KoXa^ofiivovr).

2 Pet 2 : 9 —" The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly ont of temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment unto the day of judgment"—here "the unrighteous" — not only evil angels, but ungodly men; cf. verse 4—"For if God spared not angels when they sinned, but oast them down to hell, and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment,"

The passages cited enable us properly to estimate two opposite errors.

A. They refute, on the one hand, the view that the souls of both righteous and wicked sleep between death and the resurrection.

This view is based upon the assumption the possession of a physical organism is indispensable to activity and consciousness — an assumption which the existence of a God who is pure spirit (John 4 : 24), and the existence of angels who are probably pure spirits (Heb. 1 : 14), show to be erroneous. Although the departed are characterized as 'spirits (Eccl. 12: 7; Acts 7 : 59; Heb. 12 : 23; 1 Pet. 3 :19), there is nothing in this 'absence from the body' (2 Cor. 5:8) inconsistent with the activity and consciousness ascribed to them in the Scriptures above referred to. When the dead are spoken of as 'sleeping' (Dan. 12 : 2; Mat. 9 : 24; John 11 : 11; 1 Cor. 11: 30; 15 : 51; 1 Thess. 4 : 14; 5 : 10), we are to regard this as simply the language of appearance, and as literally applicable only to the body.

John 4 : 24 —"God is a Spirit [or rather, as margin, 'God is spirit']"; Heb. 1:14 —" Are they [angels]

not all ministering spirits?'' fed. 12:7—"the Just return to the earth as it was; and the spirit return unto God who gave it"; lets 7 : 59 —" and thej stoned Stephen, calling upon the Lord, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit"; Heb. 12 : 23 —"to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect"; 1 Pet, 3 :19 —"in which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison"; 2 Cor. 5 : 8—"We are of good courage, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the bodj, and to be at home with the Lord "; Dan. 12 : 2 —" man; of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake''; Mat. 9 : 24 — " the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth "; John 11:11 —" Our friend Lasarus is fallen asleep; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep"; 1 Cor. 11: 30— "For this cause many among you are weak and sickly, and not a few sleep "; 1 These. 4:14 —" For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him "; 5 :10—" who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him."

B. The passages first cited refute, on the other hand, the view that the suffering of the intermediate state is purgatorial.

According to the doctrine of the Roman Catholic church, "all who die at peace with the church, but are not perfect, pass into purgatory." Here they make satisfaction for the sins committed after baptism by suffering a longer or shorter time, according to the degree of their guilt The church on earth, however, has power, by prayers and the sacrifice of the mass, to shorten these sufferings or to remit them altogether. But we urge, in reply, that the passages referring to suffering in the intermediate state give no indication that any true believer is subject to this suffering, or that the church has any power to relieve from the consequences of sin, either in this world or in the world to come. Only God can forgive, and the church is simply empowered to declare that, upon the fulfilment of the appointed conditions of repentance and faith, he does actually forgive. This theory, moreover, is inconsistent with any proper view of the completeness of Christ's satisfaction (Gal. 2:21; Heb. 9 : 28); of justification through faith alone (Bom. 3 : 28); and of the condition after death, of both righteous and wicked, as determined in this life (Eccl. 11 : 3; Mat. 25 :10; Luke 16 : 26; Heb. 9 : 27; Eev. 22 :11).

Against this doctrine we quote the following- texts: Gal. 2 : 21 —" I do not make void the grace of God: for if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nought"; Heb. 9 : 28 —" so Christ also, having been once [or,'once for all'] offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time, apart from sin, to them that wait for him, unto salvation''; Rom. 3 : 28—" We reckon therefore that a man is justified by faith, apart from the works of the law "; fed. 11: 3 —" If the tree fall toward the south or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth. there it shall be "; Mat 25 :10 —" and while they went away to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage feast: and the door was shut"; Luke 16 : 26—" and beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, that they which would pass from henoe to you may not be able, and that none may cross over from thence to us "; Heb. 9 : 27 —" it is appointed unto men onoo to die, and after this Cometh judgment''; Rev. 22 : 11 —" He that is unrighteous, let him do unrighteousness still: and he that is filthy, let him be made filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him do righteousness still: and he that is holy, let him be made holy ttUL"

For the Romanist doctrine, see Perrone, Prtelectiones Theologies?, 2:301-420. Per contra, see Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3 : 743-770; Barrows, Purgatory. Augustine, Encheiridion, 69, suggests the possibility of purgatorial fire in the future for some believers. Whlton, Is Eternal Punishment Endless? page 89, says that Tertullian held to a delay of resurrection in the case of faulty Christians; Cyprian first stated the notion of a middle state of purification; Augustine thought It " not incredible "; Gregory the Great called it" worthy of belief "; it is now one of the most potent doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church; that church has been, from the third century, for all souls who accept her last consolations, practically restorationlst.

Elliott, Hone Apocalyptical, 1:410, adopts Hume's simile, and says that purgatory gave the Roman Catholic Churoh what Archimedes wanted, another world on which to fix Its lever, that so fixed, the church might with It move this world. We must remember, however, that the Roman church teaches no radical change of character in purgatory — purgatory Is only a purifying process for believers.

We close our discussion of this subject with a single, but an important, remark,— this, namely, that while the Scriptures represent the intermediate state to be one of conscious joy to the righteous, and of conscious pain to the wicked, they also represent this state to be one of incompleteness. The perfect joy of the saints, and the utter misery of the wicked, begin only with the resurrection and general judgment.

That the Intermediate state Is one of Incompleteness, appears from the following passages: Mat 8 : 29—" That have we to do with, thee, thou Son of God? art thoa come hither to torment as before the time?" 2 Cor. 5 : 3, 4 —" if ao be that being clothed we shall not be found naked, for indeed we that are in tail tabernacle do groan, being burdened; not for that we would be unclothed, but that we would be clothed upon, that what is mortal maj be swallowed up of life "; cf. Rom. 8 : 23—• And not only so, but ourselves also, which hare the urstfruiu of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body "; Phil. 3 :11 —" if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead "; 2 Pet. 2 : 9 —" the lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment unto the day of judgment"; Rot. 6 :10—"and they [the souls underneath the altar] cried with a great voice, saying, How long, 0 Vaster, the holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?"

In opposition to Locke, Human Understanding, 2:1:10, who said that" the soul thinks not always"; and to Turner, Wish and Will, 48, who declares that "the soul need not always think, any more than the body always move; the essence of the soul is potentiality for activity "; Descartes, Kant, Jouffroy, sir Wm. Hamilton, all maintain that it belongs to mental existence continuously to think. Upon this view, the intermediate state would be necessarily a state of thought. As to the nature of that thought, Dorner remarks In his Eschatology that "in this relatively bodiless state, a still life begins, a sinking of the soul into itself and into the ground of its being— what Steffens calls 'involution,' and Martensen 'self-brooding.' In this state, spiritual things are the only realities. In the unbelieving, their impurity, discord, alienation from God, are laid bare. If they still prefer sin, Its form becomes more spiritual, more demoniacal, and so ripens for the Judgment."

Even here, Dorner deals in speculation rather than in Scripture. But he goes further, and regards the intermediate state as one, not only of moral progress, but of elimination of evil; and holds the end of probation to be, not at death, but at the Judgment, at least in the case of all non-believers who are not incorrigible. We must regard this as a practical revival of the Romanist theory of purgatory, and as contradicted not only by all the considerations already urged, but also by the general tenor of Scriptural representation that the decisions of this life are final, and that character is fixed here for eternity. This is the solemnity of preaching, that the gospel Is "a aavor from life unto life," or "a savor from death unto death" (2 Cor. 2 :16).

On the whole subject, see Hovey, State of Man after Death; Savage, Souls of the Righteous; Julius Mttller, Doct. Sin, 2 : 304-306; Neandcr, Planting and Training, 482-484; Delitzsch, Bib. Psychologic, 407-448; Bib. Sac, 13:153; Methodist Rev., 34 : 240; Christian Rev., 20 :381; Herzog, Encyclop., art.: Hades; Stuart, Essays on Future Punishment; Whately, Future State.

III. Tub Second Coming Of Christ.

While the Scriptures represent great events in the history of the individual Christian, like death, and great events in the history of the church, like the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost and the destruction of Jerusalem, as comings of Christ for deliverance or judgment, they also declare that these partial and typical comings shall be concluded by a final, triumphant return of Christ, to punish the wicked and to complete the salvation of his people.

Temporal comings of Christ are indicated in: Mat. 24 : 23, 27, 34 —" Then if any man shall say

unto you, Lo, here is the Christ, or, Here; believe it not For as the lightning cometh forth from the east, and is

seen even unto the west; so shall be the coming of the Sou of man Verily, I say unto you, This generation shall

not pass away, till all these things be accomplished "; 16 : 28—" Verily, I say unto you, There be some of them that stand here, which shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom "; John 14 : 3,18 —" inj if i go and prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive you unto myself; that where I am, there

may be also I will not leave you desolate: I come onto you "; Rot. 3 : 20 —" Behold, I stand at the door and

knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." So the Protestant Reformation, the modern missionary enterprise, the battle against papacy In Europe and against slavery in this country, the great revivals under Whitefield in England and under Edwards in America, were all preliminary and typical comings of Christ.

The final coming of Christ is referred to in: Mat. 24 : 30 —" they shall see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send forth his angels with a gnat sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to the other "; 25 : 31 —" But when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he tit on the throne of bis glory "; Acts 1 :11 —" Te men of Galilee, why stand ye looking into heaven? this Jesus, which was received up from yon into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye beheld him going into heaven "; 1 Thess. 4 :16 — " For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God "; 2 Then. 1: 7,10 —" the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of his power when he shall come to be glorified in bis saints,

and to be marvelled at in all them that believed"; Heb. 9 : 28—"so Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time, apart from sin, to them that wait for him, unto salvation"; Rev. 1: 7 — "Behold, he oometh with the clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they which pierced him; and all the tribes of the earth snail mourn over him.

1. The nature of this Coming.

Although without doubt accompanied, in the case of the regenerate, by inward and invisible influences of the Holy Spirit, the second advent is to be outward and visible. This we argue:

(a) From the objects to be secured by Christ's return. These are partly external (Rom. 8 : 21, 23). Nature and the body are both to be glorified. These external changes may well be accompanied by a visible manifestation of him who 'makes all things new' (Rev. 21 : 5).

Rom. 8 : 21, 23— "in hope that the creation also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of

the glory of the children of God waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body "; Rev, 21: 5 —

"Behold, I make all things new."

(6) From the Scriptural comparison of the manner of Christ's return with the manner of his departure (Acts 1:11) — see Com. of Hackett, in loco:—" bv rpdirov — visibly, and in the air. The expression is never employed to affirm merely the certainty of one event as compared with another. The assertion that the meaning is simply that, as Christ had departed, so also he would return, is oontradicted by every passage in which the phrase, occurs."

lets 1 :11 —" this Jesus, which was received up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye beheld him going into heaven "; c/. Acts 7 : 28 —" Wouldest thou kill me, as [ br rponoy ] thou killedst the Egyptian yesterday?" Mat. 23 : 37—" how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as [ rp6noy ] a ben gathereth her chickens under her wings "; 2 Tim. 3:8 —" like as [ 6v rpovov ] Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also withstand the truth."

(e) From the analogy of Christ's first coming. If this was a literal and visible ooming, we may expect the second coming to be literal and visible also.

1 Thess. 4 :16— "For the Lord himself [ in his own person] shall descend from heaven, with a shout [something heard], with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God"—see Com. of Prof. W. A. Stevens: "So different from Luke 17:20, where 'the kingdom of God cometh not with observation.' The 'shout' is not necessarily the voice of Christ himself (lit. 'in a shorn-,' or 'in shouting'). 'Voice of the archangel' and 'trump of God' are apposltlonal, not additional." Rev. 1: 7—"every eye shall see him "; as every ear shall hear him: John 5 : 28, 29 —"ail that are in the tombs shall hear his

voice"; 2 Thess. 2 : 2—" to the end that ye be not quickly shaken from your mind, nor yet be troubled as that

the day of the Lord is now present "—they may have "thought that the first gathering of the saints to Christ was a quiet, invisible one —a stealthy advent, like a thief in the night" (Lillie). 2 John 7—" For many deoeivers are gone forth into the world, even they that confess not that Jesus Christ oometh in the desk "— here denial of a future second coming of Christ is declared to be the mark of a deceiver.

Alford and Alexander, In their Commentaries on ids 1: tl, agree with the view of Hackett quoted above. Warren, Parousia, 61-05,106-1H, controverts this view, and says that "an omnipresent divine being can come, only in the sense of ntanifastation." He regards the parousia, or coming of Christ, as nothing but Christ's spiritual presence. A writer In the Presb. Review, 1883: 221, replies that Warren's view is contradicted "by the fact that the apostles often spoke of the parousia as an event yet future, long after the promise of the Redeemer's spiritual presence with his church had begun to be fulfilled, and by the fact that Paul expressly cautions the Thcssalonlans against the belief that the parousia was just at hand." We do not know how all men at one time can see a bodily Christ; but we also do not know the nature of Christ's body. If all men may see the same rainbow, all men may see the same Christ coming in the clouds.

2. The time of Christ's coming.

(a) Although Christ's prophecy of this event, in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, so connects it with the destruction of Jerusalem that the apostles and the early Christians seem to have hoped for its occurrence during their life-time, yet neither Christ nor the apostles definitely taught when the end should be, but rather declared the knowledge of it to be reserved in the counsels of God, that men might ever recognize it as possibly at hand, and so might live in the attitude of constant expectation.

1 Cor. 15 : 51 — " We all shall not sleep, but we shall all be changed "; i These. 4 :17 —" then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord "; 2 Tim. 4:8 — " henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give to me at that day: and not only to me, but also to all them that have loved his appearing "; James5:7—" Be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord"; 1 Pet 4 : 7—"But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore of sound mind, and be sober unto prayer "; 1 John 2 :18 —" Little children, it is the last hour: and as ye heard that antichrist oometh, even now have there risen many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last hour."

PhiL 4 : 5—"The Lord is at hand (ryyvc). In nothing be anxious"—may mean "the Lord Is near" (in space), without any reference to the second coming. The passages quoted above, expressing as they do the surmises of the apostles that Christ's coming was near, while yet abstaining from all definite fixing of the time, are at least sufficient proof that Christ's advent may not be near to our time. We should be no more warranted than they were, in inferring from these passages alone the immediate coming of the Lor«^

(6) Hence we And, in immediate connection with many of these predictions of the end, a reference to intervening events and to the eternity of God which shows that the prophecies themselves are expressed in a large way which befits the greatness of the divine plans.

Mat 24 : 36—"But of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the father "; Hark 13 : 32 —" But of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is "; Acts 1: 7 —" And he said unto them, It is not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father hath set within his own authority "; 1 Cor. 10 :11 —"Now those things happened unto them by way of example; and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages are come "; 16 : 22 —" Maran atha [ marg.— that is, ¹ Our Lord eometh' J"; 2 Thess. 2 :1-3 —"Sow we beseech you, brethren, touching the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto him; to the end that ye be not quickly shaken from your mind, nor yet be troubled .... as that the day of the Lord is now present [Am. Rev.: 'is just at hand']; let no man beguile you in any wise: for it will not be, exoept the falling away come first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition."

James 5: 8, 9—"Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Murmur not, brethren, one against another, that ye be not judged: behold the judge standeth before the doors"; 2 Pet 3 : 3-12 — "in the last days mockers shall come .... saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they wen from the beginning of the creation. For this they wilfully forget,

that there were heavens from of old But forget not this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a

thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise But the day of the lord Till raw •» a thief.... what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holj litis? ud godliness, looking for and earnestly desiring [marg.—'hastening'] the coming of the day of God"—awaiting it, and hastening its 00ml□# by your prayer and labor.

Her. 1: 3—"Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of the prophecy, and keep the things which are written therein: for the time is at hand"; 22 :12, 20 —" Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to render

to each man according as his work is He which testifieth these things s&ith, Yea: I come quickly. Amen: come.

Lord Jesus." From these passages It is evident that the apostles did not know the time of the end, and that it was hidden from Christ himself while here in the flesh. He, therefore, who assumes to know, assumes to know more than Christ or his apostles — assumes to know the very thing which Christ declared it was not for us to know.

(c) In this we discern a striking parallel between the predictions of Christ's first, and the predictions of his second, advent. In both cases the event was more distant and more grand than those imagined to whom the prophecies first came. Under both dispensations, patient waiting for Christ was intended to discipline the faith, and to enlarge the conceptions, of God's true servants. The fact that every age since Christ ascended has had its Chiliasts and Second Adventists should turn our thoughts away from curious and fruitless prying into the time of Christ's coming, and set us at immediate and constant endeavor to be ready, at whatsoever hour he may appear.

Gen. 4:1 —" And the man knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord [ lit.: 'I hare gotten a man, even Jehovah¹ ] "— an Intimation that Eve fancied her first-born to be already the promised seed, the coming deliverer; see MacWnorter, Jah veh Christ. Dent 18 :15 —" The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him shall ye hearken—here is a prophecy which Moses may have expected to be fulfilled in Joshua, but which God designed to be fulfilled only In Christ. Is. 7 :14,16 —" Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign: behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and

shall call his name Immanuel for before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land

whose two kings thou abhorrest shall be forsaken "— a prophecy which the prophet may have expected to be fulfilled in his own time, and which was partially so fulfilled, but which God intended to be fulfilled ages thereafter.

Luke 2 : 25 —" Simeon; and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel "—Si moon was the type of holy men, in every age of Jewish history, who were waiting for the fulfilment of God's promise, and for the coming of the deliverer. So under the Christian dispensation. Luther, near the time of his death, said: "God forbid that the world should last fifty years longer. Let him cut matters short with hi9 last judgment." Melancthon put the end less than two hundred years from his time. Calvin's motto was: "Dnmine, qiumgque t" "O Lord, how long?" On the whole subject, see Hovey, in Baptist Quarterly, Oct., 1877 : 416-432, and notes upon our next section.

3. The precursors of Christ's coming.

(a) Through the preaching of the gospel in all the world, the kingdom of Christ is steadily to enlarge its boundaries, until Jews and Gentiles alike become possessed of its blessings, and a millennial period is introduced in which Christianity generally prevails throughout the earth.

Dan. 2 : 44, 45 —" And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall the sovereignty thereof be left to another people; but it shall break in pieces and oonsume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever, forasmuch as thou sawest that a stone was out out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure."

Mat. 13 : 31, 32—"The kingdom of heaven is like unto a grain of mustard seed .... which indeed is less than all seeds; but when it is grown, it is greater than the herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the heaven come and lodge in the branches thereof "—the parable of the leaven, which follows, apparently illustrates the intensive, as that of the mustard-seed illustrates the extensive, development of the kingdom of God; and it is as impossible to confine the reference of the leaven to the spread of evil as it is impossible to confine the reference of the mustard-seed to the spread of evil.

Hat 24 :14 —" And this gospel of the kingdom shall bo preached in the Thole world for a testimony unto all the nations; and then shall the end come"; Rom. 11: 25. 26—"a hardening in part hath befallen Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in; and so all Israel shall be saved "; Rev. 20 : 4-8 — "And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God. and such as worshipped not the beast, neither his image, and received not the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand; and they lived, and reigned with Christ a thousand years,"

(6) There will be a corresponding development of evil, either extensive or intensive, whose true character shall be manifest not only in deceiving many professed followers of Christ and in persecuting true believers, but in constituting a personal antichrist as ite representative and object of worship. This rapid growth shall continue until the millennium, during which evil, in the person of its chief, shall be temporarily restrained.

■at 13 : 30. 38 — "Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers.

Gather up first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn The field

is the world; and the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom: and the tares are the sons of the evil one "; 24 : 5,

11,12, 24 —" For many shall come in my name, saying, I am the Christ; and shall lead many astray And many

false prophets shall arise and shall lead many astray. And because iniquity shall bo multiplied, the lore of the many

shall wax cold for there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders: so

as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect."

Luke 21:12 —" But before all these things, they shall lay their hands on you, and shall persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for my name's sake "; 2 Thess. 2 : 3. 4. 7, 8—"it will not be, except the falling away come first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, he that opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshipped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God,

setting himself forth as God for the mystery of lawlessness doth already work: only there is one that restrameth

now, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall be revealed the lawless one, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of his mouth, and bring to nought by the manifestation of his coming."

Elliott, Hone Apocalypticte, 1:85, holds that "Antichrist means another Christ, a pro-Christ, a vice-Clirtst, a pretender to the name of Christ, and in that character, an usurper and adversary. The principle of Antichrist was already sown in the time of Paul. But a certain hindrance, i. t., the Roman Empire as then constituted, needed first to be removed out of the way, before room could be made for Antichrist's development." Antichrist, according to this view, is the hierarchical Bpirlt, which found its final and most complete expression in the Papacy.

(c) At the close of this millennial period, evil shall again be permitted to exert its utmost power in a final conflict with righteousness. This spiritual struggle, moreover, shall be accompanied and symbolized by political convulsions, and by fearful indications of desolation in the natural world.

Mat 24 : 29, 30 —" But immediately, after the tribulation of those days, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken; and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven "; Luke 21: 8-28 — False prophets; wars and tumults; earthquakes; pestilences; persecutions; signs in the sun, moon, and stars; "and then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. But when these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads; because your redemption draweth nigh."

Interpretations of the book of Revelation are divided into three classes: (1) the PrtetcrM (held by Grotius, Moses Stuart, and Warren), which regards the prophecy as mainly fulfilled in the age immediately succeeding the time of the apostles (666 = Neron Kalsar): (2) the Continuous (held by Isaac Newton, Vitringa, Bengel, Elliott, Kelly, and Cumming), which regards the whole as a continuous prophetical history, extending from the first age until the end of all things (666 = Lateinos): Hengstenberg and Alford hold substantially this view, though they regard the seven seals, trumpets, and vials as synchronological, each succeeding set going over the same ground and exhibiting It in some special aspect; (3) the FuturM (held by Maitland and Todd), which considers the book as describing events yet to occur, during the times immediately preceding and following the coming of the Lord.

Of all these Interpretations, the most learned and exhaustive is that of Elliott, in his four volumes entitled Hone Apocaly pticse. The basis of his interpretation is the "time and timee and half a time" of Ban. 7 : 25, which according to the year-day theory means 1280 years — the year, according to ancient reckoning, containing 360 days, and the "time" being therefore 380 years [360 + (2X360) + 180 = 1280 ]. This phrase we find recurring with regard to the woman nourished in the wilderness (Key. 12:14). The blasphemy of the beast for forty and two months ( R»t. 13 : 5) seems to refer to the same period [ 42 X 30 = 1260, as before ]. The two witnesses prophesy 1280 days (Her. 11:3); and the woman's time In the wilderness Is stated (Roy. 12 : 8) as 1280 days. This period of 1280 years is regarded by Elliott as the time of the temporal power of the Papacy.

There is a twofold term Intu a quo, and correspondingly a twofold terminus ail quern. The first commencement is A. D. 531, when in the edict of Justinian the dragon of the Roman Empire gives its power to the beast of the Papacy, and resigns its throne to the rising Antichrist, giving opportunity for the rise of the ten horns as European kings (Rom. 13 :1-3). The second commencement, adding the seventy-five supplementary years of Daniel 12 :12 [ 1335 —1260 = 75 ], is A. D. 806, when the Emperor Phocas acknowledges the Primacy of Rome, and the ten horns, or kings, now diademed, submit to the Papacy (Rev. 17:12,13). The first ending-point is A. D. 1791, when the French Revolution struck the first blow at the independence of the Pope L531 +1260 = 1791 ]. The second endingpoint is A. D. 1866, when the temporal power of the Pope was abolished at the unification of the kingdom of Italy [ 606 +1260 = 1868 ]. Elliott regards the two-horned beast (Rev. 13 :11) as representing the Papal clergy, and the image of the beast (Rot. 13 :14,15) as representing the Papal Councils.

Unlike Hengstcnberg and Alford, who consider the seals, trumpets, and vials as synchronologlcal, Elliott makes the seven trumpets to be an unfolding of the seventh seal, and the seven vials to be an unfolding of the seventh trumpet. Like other advocates of the premillennial advent of Christ, Elliott regards the four chief signs of Christ's near approach as being: (1) the decay of the Turkish Empire (the drying up of the river Euphrates — Re*. 16:12); (2) the Pope's loss of temporal power—(the destruction of Babylon — Rev. 17-19); (3) the conversion of the Jews and their return to their own land (St. 37; Rom. 11:12-15, 25-27 —but on this last, see Meyer); (4) the pouring out of the Holy Spirit and the conversion of the Gentiles (the way of the kings of the East—Rev. 16 :12; the fulness of the Gentiles —Rom. 11:25).

Elliott's whole scheme, however, is vitiated by the fact that he wrongly assumes the book of Revelation to have been written under Domltlan (94 or 96), Instead of under Nero (67 or 68). His terminus a quo is therefore incorrect, and his interpretation of chapters 5-9 is rendered very precarious. The year 1866, moreover, should have been the time of the end, and so the terminus ad quern seems to be clearly misunderstood — unless indeed the seventy-five supplementary years of Daniel are to be added to 1866. We regard the failure of this most Ingenious scheme of Apocalyptic interpretation as a practical demonstration that a clear understanding of the meaning of prophecy is, before the event, impossible, and we are confirmed in this view by the utterly untenable nature of the theory of the millennium which is commonly held by so-called Second Adventists, a theory which we now proceed to examine.

4. Relation of Christ's second coming to the millennium.

The Scripture foretells a period, called in the language of prophecy "a thousand years," when Satan shall be restrained and the saints shall reign with Christ on the earth. A comparison of the passages bearing on this subject leads us to the conclusion that this millennial blessedness and dominion is prior to the second advent. One passage only seems at first sight to teach the contrary, viz.: Bev. 20 : 4-10. But this supports the theory of a premillennial advent only when the passage is interpreted with the barest literalness. A better view of its meaning will be gained by considering:

(a) That it constitutes a part, and confessedly an obscure part, of one of the most figurative books of Scripture, and therefore ought to be interpreted by the plainer statements of the other Scriptures.

We quote here the passage alluded to: Rev. 20 : 4-10 —" lid I saw thrones, and the? sat upon thin, ud judgment na given onto them: and I saw the souls of them that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God, and such as worshipped not the beast, neither his image, and received not the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand; and they lived, and reigned with Christ a thousand years. The rest of the dead lived not until the thousand years should be finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: over these the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years."

(b) That the other Scriptures contain nothing with regard to a resurrection of the righteous which is widely separated in time from that of the wicked, but rather declare distinctly that the second coming of Christ is immediately connected both with the resurrection of the just and the unjust and with the general judgment.

Mat. 16 : 27 —" For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then shall he render unto every man according to his deeds"; 25 : 31-33—"But when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he ait on the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all the nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats"; John 5 . 28, 29—"Marvel not at this: for the hour cometh, in which all that are in the tombs shall hear his voioe, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment"; 2 Cor 6:10—"For we must all be made manifest before the judgment-Mat of Christ; that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad "; 2 These. 1: 6-10 —" if so be that it is a righteous thing with God to recompense affliction to them which afflict you, and to you that are afflicted rest with us, at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of his power in flaming fire, rendering vengeance to them that know not God, and to them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be marvelled at in all them that believed."

2 Pet. 3 : 7,10 —"the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men .... But the day of the Lord will come as a thief: in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat. and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up "; Rev. 20 :11-15 —" and I aw a great white throne, and him that sat upon it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away: and there was found no place for them, and I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne; and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of the things that were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, even the lake of fire, and if any was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire."

Here ia abundant evidence that there is no interval of a thousand years between the second coming of Christ and the resurrection, general judgment, and end of all things. All these events come together. The only answer of the premlllennialists to this objection to their theory is, that the day of judgment and the millennium may be contemporaneous,—in other words, the day of judgment may be a thousand years long. Elliott holds to a conflagration, partial at the beginning of this period, complete at its close — Peter's prophecy treating the two conflagrations as one, while the book of Revelation separates them; so a nearer view resolves binary stars into two. But we reply that, if the Judgment occupies the whole period of a thousand years, then the coming of Christ, the resurrection, and the final conflagration should all be a thousand years long also. It is Indeed possible that, in this case, as Peter says in connection with his prophecy of judgment, "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (2 Pet 3 : 8). But if we make the word "day" so Indefinite in connection with the judgment, why should we regard it as so definite, when we come to interpret the 1260 days?

(c) That the literal interpretation of the passage — holding, as it does, to a resurrection of bodies of flesh and blood, and to a reign of the risen saints in the flesh, and in the world as at present constituted — is inconsistent with other Scriptural declarations with regard to the spiritual nature of the resurrection-body and of the coming reign of Christ.

1 Cor. 15 : 44, 50 —" it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body Now this I say, brethren, that

lesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption." These passages are Inconsistent with the view that the resurrection is a physical resurrection at the beginning of the thousand years —a resurrection to be followed by a second life of the saints in bodies of flesh and blood. They are not, however, inconsistent with the true view, soon to be mentioned, that "th« Srst resurrection" is simply the raising: of the church to a new life and zeal.

(d) That the literal interpretation is generally and naturally connected with the expectation of a gradual and necessary decline of Christ's kingdom upon earth, until Christ comes to bind Satan and to introduce the millennium. This view not only contradicts such passages as Dan. 2 : 34, 35, and Mat. 13: 31, 32, but it begets a passive and hopeless endurance of evil, whereas the Scriptures enjoin a constant and aggressive warfare against it, upon the very ground that God's power shall assure to the church a gradual but constant progress in the face of it, even to the time of the end.

Dan. 2 : 34, 35—"Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them in pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken in pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth "; Hat 13 : 31, 32 —" The kingdom of heaven is like unto a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in bis field: which indeed is less than all seeds; but when it is grown, it is greater than the herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the heaven come and lodge in the branches thereof." In both these figures there is no sign of cessation or of backward movement, but rather every indication of continuous advance to complete victory and dominion. The premillennial theory supposes that for the principle of development under the dispensation of the Holy 8pirit, God will substitute a reign of mere power and violence. J. B. Thomas: "The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, not like a can of nltro-glycerine."

The theory also divests Christ of all kingly power until the millennium, or, rather, maintains that the kingdom has not yet been given to him; see Elliott, Hone Apocalypticte, 1: 94 — where Luke 19 :12 —" a certain nobleman went into a far country, to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return"—is interpreted as follows: "Subordinate kings went to Home to receive the investiture to their kingdoms from the Roman Emperor, and then returned to occupy them and reign. So Christ received from his Father, after his ascension, the investiture to his kingdom; but with the Intention not to occupy it, till his return at his second coming. In token of this investiture he takes his seat as the Lamb on the divine throne" (Rev. 5 i 6-8 >. But this interpretation contradicts Hat. 28:18, 20—" ill authority hath been

given into me in heaven and on earth lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." See Presb.

Rev., 1882:238. On the effects of the premillennial view in weakening Christian endeavor, see J. H. Seelye, Christian Missions, 94-137; per contra, see A. J. Gordon, in Independent, Feb., 1886.

(e) We may therefore best interpret Rev. 20 : 4-10 as teaching in highly figurative language, not a preliminary resurrection of the body, in the case of departed saints, but a period in the later days of the church militant when, under special influence of the Holy Ghost, the spirit of the martyrs shall appear again, true religion be greatly quickened and revived, and the members of Christ's churches become so conscious of their strength in Christ that they shall, to an extent unknown before, triumph over the powers of evil both within and without. So the spirit of Elijah appeared again in John the Baptist (Mai. 4:5; af. Mat. 11 : 13, 14). The fact that only the spirit of sacrifice and faith is to be revived is figuratively indicated in the phrase: "The rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years should be finished." Since resurrection, like the coming of Christ and the judgment, is twofold, first, spiritual (the raising of the soul to spiritual life), and secondly, physical (the raising of the body from the grave), the words in Rev. 20 : 5—"this is the first resurrection"—seem intended distinctly to preclude the literal interpretation we are combatting. In short, we hold that Rev. 20 : 4-10 does not describe the events commonly called the second advent and resurrection, but rather describes great spiritual changes in the later history of the church, which are typical of, and preliminary to, the second advent and the resurrection, and therefore, after the prophetic method, are foretold in language literally applicable only to those final events themselves ( cf. Ez. 37 : 1-14; Luke 15 : 32).

Mai. 4 : 5—" Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord come"; cf. Hat. 11:13,14 —" For all the prophets and the lav prophesied until John, ind if ye are willing to receive it, this is Elijah, which is to come"; Bs. 37 :1-14 —the vision of the valley of dry bones = either the political or the religious resuscitation of the Jews: Luke 15 : 32—"this thy brother wis dead, and is alive again"— of the prodigal son. It will help us lu our interpretation of Ret. 20 : 4-10 to notice that death, Judgment, the coining of Christ, and the resurrection, are all of two kinds, the ftrst spiritual, and the second literal:

(1 ) First, a spiritual death (Eph. 2:1—" dead through your trespasses and sins "); and secondly, a physical and literal death, whose culmination is found in the second death (rot. 20 :14 — "and death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, even the lake of Are " ).

(2) First, a spiritual Judgment (Is 26 : 9 —" when thy judgments are in the earth "; John 12 : 31 — "Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world bo east out": 3 :18 —" be that believeth not bath been judged already "); and secondly, an outward and literal Judgment < Acts 17 : 31 —" hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained ").

(3) First, a spiritual and invisible coming of Christ (Mat. 16: 28— "shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom "—at the destruction of Jerusalem; John 14: 16 18 —" another Comforter .... I eome unto you "— at Pentecost; 14 : 3 —" And if I go and prepare a place for you. I come again, and will receive you unto myself "—at death ); and secondly, a visible literal coming (Mat. 25 : 31 —" the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him ").

(4) First, a spiritual resurrection (John 5:25—"The hour oometh, and now is, when the dead shall bear the voice of ths Son of God; and they that hear shall live" ); and secondly, a physical and literal resurrection (John 5 : 28, 29 —" the hour cometh, in which all that are in the lombs shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done ill, unto the resurrection of judgment").

This twofoldness of each of the four terms, death, Judgment, coming of Christ, resurrection, is so obvious a teaching of Scripture, that the apostle's remark in Rev. 20 : 5 — "This is the first resurrection'"-seems distinctly intended to warn the reader against drawing the premillenarian inference, and to make clear the fact that the resurrection spoken of is the first or spiritual resurrection,—an interpretation which is made indubitable by his proceeding, further on, to describe the outward and literal resurrection In verao 13— "And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them."

This interpretation suggests a possible way of reconciling the premillenarian and postmillenarian theories, without sacrificing any of the truth in either of them. Christ may come again, at the beginning of the millennium, in a spiritual way, and his saints may reign with him spiritually, in the wonderful advances of his kingdom; while the vlslblet literal coming may take place at the end of the thousand years. Dorner's vie* is postmillennial, in this sense, that the visible coming of Christ will be after the thousand yearsHengstenberg curiously regards the millennium as having begun in the middle ages (800 — 1800 A. D.). This strange view of an able interpreter, as well as the extraordinary diversity of explanations given by others, convince us that no exegete has yet found the key to the mysteries of the Apocalypse. Until we know whether the preaching of the gospel in the whole world (Mat. 24 :14) is to be a preaohlng to nations as a whole, or to each individual in each nation, we cannot determine whether the millennium has already begun, or whether it is yet far in the future.

Our own interpretation of Rev. 20 :1-10, was first given, for substance, by Whitby. He was followed by Vitringa and Fuber. For a fuller elaboration of it, see Brown, Second Advent, 206-359; Hodge, Outlines of Theology, 447-453. For the postmillennlal view generally, see Kendrick, in Bap. Quar., Jan., 1870; New Englander, 1874 : 358; 1879 : 47-49, 114-147; Pepper, in Bap. Rev., 1880 :15: Princeton Review, March, 1879 : 415-434; Presb. Rev., 1883 : 221-252; Bib. Sac, 15 : 381, 625; 17 : 111; Harris, Kingdom of Christ, 220-237; Waldegrave, Bampton Lectures for 1854, on the Millennium; Neander, Planting and Training, 526, 527; Cowles, Dissertation on Premillennial Advent, in Com. on Jeremiah andEzekiel; Weiss, Premillennial Advent; Crosby, Second Advent; Fairbairn on Prophecy, 432-480; Woods, Works, 3:26"; Abp. Whately, Essays on Future State. For the premillennial view, see Elliott, Hone Apocalyptlciv, 4 : 140-196: William Kelly, Advent of Christ Premillennial; Taylor, Voice of the Church on the Coming and Kingdom of the Redeemer; Liteh, Christ Yet to Come.

IV. The Resurrection.

"While the Scriptures describe the impartation of new life to the Boui in regeneration as a spiritual resurrection, they also declare that, at the second coming of Christ, there shall be a resurrection of the body, and a reunion of the body to the soul from -which, during the intermediate state, it has been separated. Both the just and the unjust shall have part in the resurrection. To the just, it shall be a resurrection unto life; and the body shall be a body like Christ's — a body fitted for the uses of the sanctified spirit. To the unjust, it shall be a resurrection unto condemnation; and analogy would seem to indicate that, here also, the outward form will fitly represent the inward state of the soul — being corrupt and deformed as is the soul which inhabits it. Those who are living at Christ's coming shall receive spiritual bodies without passing through death. As the body after corruption and dissolution, so the outward world after destruction by fire, shall be rehabilitated and fitted for the abode of the saints.

Passages describing a spiritual resurrection are: John 5: 24-27, especially 25—"The hour cometh and now is, when the dead snail hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live "; Rom. 6:4, 5 —" as Christ vas raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with him by the Likeness of his death, we shall be also by the likeness of his resurrection";

Eph. 2 :1, 5, 6 —" And yon did he quicken, when ye were dead through your trespasses and sins even when we

were dead through our trespasses, quickened us together with Christ and raised ns up with him, and made us to

sit with him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus "; 5 : 14 — " Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee." Phil. 3 : 10— "that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection"; Col, 2 : 12, 13 —" having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, being dead through your trespasses and the uncircumcisiou of your flesh, you, I say, did he quicken together with him "; cf. Is. 26 :19 —" Thy dead shall live; my dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast forth the dead "; Ez. 37 :1-14 — the valley of dry bones: "I will open your graves, and cause yon to come up out of your graves, 0 my people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel."

Passages describing a literal and physical resurrection are: Job 14:12-15— "So man lieth down and riseth not: Till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, Nor be raised out of their sleep. Oh tb.it thou wouldest hide me in Sheol, That thou wonldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, That thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my warfare would I wait, till my release should come. Thou shouldest call, and I would answer thee: thou wouldest have a desire to the work of thine hands''; John 5 : 28, 29—"the hour cometh, in which all that are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done ill, unto the resurrection of judgment."

Acts 24 :15 —" having hope toward God that there shall be a resurrection both of the just and unjust"; 1 Cor.

15 :13, 17, 22, 43, 51, 52—"if there is no resurrection of the dead, neither hath Christ been raised and if Christ

hath not been raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all

be made alive .... it is sown in corruption: it is raised in incorruption "We all shall not sleep, hut we shall all

be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible"; Phil. 3 : 21 —" who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be eonformed to the body of his glory, according to the working whereby he is able even to subject all things unto himself"; 1 Thess. 4 :14-16 —" For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first"

2 Pet. 3 : 7,10,13 —" the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being

reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men But the day of the Lord will come as a

thief; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent

heat, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up But, according to his promise, we look for

new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness"; Rev. 20 :13—"And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them "; 21:1, 5 —" And I saw a new heaven and a

new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth are passed away; and the sea is no more And he that sitteth

on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new."

The smooth face of death with the lost youth restored, and the pure white irlow of the marble statue with all passion gone and the lofty and heroic only visible, are Indications of what is to be. Art, In its representations alike of the human form, and of an ideal earth and society in landscape and poem, is prophetic of the future —it suggests the glorious possibilities of the resurrection-morning. Nlcoll, Life of Christ: "The river runs through the lake and pursues its way beyond. So the life of faith passes through death and is only purified thereby. As to the body, all that is worth saving will be saved. Other resurrections [ such as that of Lazarus ] were resurrections to the old conditions of earthly life; the resurrection of Christ was the revelation of a new life." A. J. Gordon: "Here then is where the lines of Christ's ministry terminate —In sanctiflcatlon, the perfection of the spirit's holiness; and In resurrection, the perfection of the body's health."

Upon the subject of the resurrection, our positive information is derived wholly from the word of God. Further discussion of it may be most naturally arranged in a series of answers to objections. The objections commonly urged against the doctrine, as above propounded, may be reduced to two:

1. The exegetical objection,— that it rests upon a literalizing of metaphorical language, and has no sufficient support in Scripture. To this we answer:

(a) That, though the phrase "resurrection of the body " does not occur in the New Testament, the passages which describe the event indicate a physical, as distinguished from a spiritual, change (John 5 : 28; Phil. 3 : 21; 1 Thess. 4 : 13-17). The phrase "spiritual body" (1 Cor. 15 : 44) is a contradiction in terms, if it be understood as signifying 'a body which is simple spirit.' It can only be interpreted as meaning a material organism, perfectly adapted to be the outward expression and vehicle of the purified soul. The purely spiritual interpretation is, moreover, expressly excluded by the apostolic denial that "the resurrection is past already" (2 Tim. 2: 18), and by the fact that there is a resurrection of the unjust, as well as of the just (Acts 24 : 15).

John 5:28—"ill that are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall come forth"; Phil. 3 : 21 —" who shall luhion ansv the body of our humiliation "; 1 Thess. 4 :16,17—" for the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shorn, with the Toice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise trst"; 1 Cor. 15 : 44 —" it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body "; 2 Tim. 2 :17,18 —" Bymeneus and Philetns; men who conoeraing the truth hare erred, sarins; that the resurrection is past already, and overthrow the faith of some': lets 24 :15 —"Bavins; hope toward God that there shall be a resummon both of the just and of the unjust."

(6) That the redemption of Christ is declared to include the body as well as the soul (Rom. 8 : 23; 1 Cor. 6 : 13-20). The indwelling of the Holy Ghost has put such honor upon the frail mortal tenement which he has made his temple, that God will not permit even this wholly to perish (Bom. 8: 11—£ia rb ivoiKoiv avroi nvev/ia iv ifiv, i. e., because of his indwelling Spirit, God will raise up the mortal body). It is this belief which forms the basis of Christian care for the dead (Phil. 3 : 21; c/ Mat. 22 : 32).

Rom. 8 : 23 —" waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body "; 1 Cor. 6 :13-20—"Meats for the belly and the belly for meats: but God shall bring to naught both it and them. But the body is not for fornication, but for

the lord; and the Lord for the body: and God both raised the Lord, and will raise up us through his power But

he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit Or know ye not that your body is a temple of the Boly Ghost which is

in you, which ye have from God glorify God therefore in your body "; Rom. 8 :11 —" But if the Spirit of bin

that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, he that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall also quiches your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you "—here the Revised Version follows Tisch., 8th ed., and Westcott and Hort's reading of 5id Tow e'voiKoGproc avrov Trrev^arov. Tregelles,. Tiseh., 7th ed., and Meyer, have iia T& ivomoiv avrov nvtina, and this reading we resrard as, on the whole, the best supported. Phil. 3 : 21 —" will fashion anew the bodj of our humiliation."

Dr. R. D. Hitchcock, In South Church Lectures, 338, says that" there Is no Scripture declaration of the resurrection of the flesh, nor even of the resurrection of the body." While this Is literally true, it conveys a false Idea. The passages just cited foretell a quickening of our mortal bodies, a raising of them up, a changing of them into the likeness of Christ's body. Dorner, Eschatology: "The New Testament is not contented with a bodiless immortality. It Is opposed to a naked spiritualism, and accords completely with a deeper philosophy which discerns in the body, not merely the sheath or garment of the soul, but a side of the person belonging to his full Idea, his mirror and organ, of the greatest importance for his activity and history."

Christ's proof of the resurrection in Mat. 22 : 32—" God is not the God of the dead, bat of the living "— has for Its basis this very assumption that soul and body belong normally together, and that since they are temporally separated In the case of the saints who live with God, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob shall rise again. The idealistic philosophy of thirty years ago led to a contempt of the body; the recent materialism has done at least this service, that it has reasserted the claims of the body to be a proper part of man.

(c) That the nature of Christ's resurrection, as literal and physical, determines the nature of the resurrection in the case of believers ( Luke 24: 39; John 20 : 27). As, in the case of Christ, the same body that was laid in the tomb was raised again, although possessed of new and surprising powers, so the Scriptures intimate, not simply that the saints shall have bodies, but that these bodies shall be in some proper sense an outgrowth or transformation of the very bodies that slept in the dust (Dan. 12 : 2; 1 Cor. 15 : 53, 54). The denial of the resurrection of the body, in the case of believers, leads naturally to a denial of the reality of Christ's resurrection 1 Cor. 15:13).

Luke 24 : 39 —"See mj hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me having"; John 20 : 27 —" Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and see my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and put it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing "; Dan. 12 : 2—" and many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt '; 1 Cor. 15 : 53. 54 —" For this corruptible must put on interruption, and this mortal most put on immortality. But when this corruption shall have put on incormptton, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall oome to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory "; 13 —" But if there is no resurrection of the dead, neither hath Christ been raised."

Sadducean materialism and Gnostic dualism, which last held matter to be evil, both denied the resurrection. Paul shows that to deny it is to deny that Christ rose; since, if it were Impossible In the case of his followers, It must have been Impossible In his own case. As believers, we are vitally connected with him: and his resurrection could not have taken place without drawing in its train the resurrection of all of us. Having denied that Christ rose, where is the proof that he is not still under the bond and curse of death? Surely then our preaching Is vain. Paul's epistle to the Corinthians was written before the gospels; and is therefore, as Hanna says, the earliest written account of the resurrection.

(d) That the accompanying events, as the second coming and the judgment, since they are themselves literal, imply that the resurrection is also literal

Rom. 8 :19-23 —" For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God. the

whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now even we ourselves groan within ourselves,

waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body "— here man's body is regarded as a part of nature, or the "creation,'' and as partaking in Christ of its deliverance from the curse; Rev. 21: 4, 5 —"he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall be no more .... and he that sitteth on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new"—a declaration applicable to the body, the seat of pain and the avenue of temptation, as well as to outward nature. 8ee Hanna, The Resurrection, 28; Fuller, Works, 3 :291; Boston, Fourfold State, in Works, 8 : 271-289. On Olshausen's view of immortality as Inseparable from body, see Aids to the Study of German Theology, 63. On resurrection of the flesh, sec Jahrbuch f. d. Theol., 1:289-317. 2. The scientific objection.—This is threefold:

(a) That a resurrection of the particles which compose the body at death is impossible, since they enter into new combinations, and not unfrequently Iwjcome parts of other bodies which the doctrine holds to be raised at the same time.

We reply that the Scripture not only does not compel us to hold, but it distinctly denies, that all the particles which exist in the body at death are present in the resurrection-body (1 Cor. 15 : 87 — oil rb au/ia rd yevr/n6/ievov; 50). The Scripture seems only to indicate a certain physical connection between the new and the old, although the nature of this connection is not revealed. So long as this physical connection is maintained, it is not necessary to suppose that even a germ or particle that belonged to the old body exists in the new.

1 Cor. 15 : 37—"that which thou sowest, thou sowest not the body that shall bo, bat a bare (Train, it may chanoe of wheat, or of some other kind; but God giveth it a body even as it pleased him, and to each seed a body of its own," The view of the resurrection held a century ago was exposed to the objection mentioned above. Pollock's Course of Time represented the day of resurrection as a day on which tho limbs that had been torn asunder on earth hurtled through the air to Join one another once more. The amputated arm that had been buried in China must traverse thousands of miles to meet the body of its former owner, as It rose from the place of its burial in England.

There are serious difficulties attending this view. The bodies of the dead fertilized the field of Waterloo. The wheat grown there has been ground and made Into bread, and eaten by thousands of living men. Particles of one human body have become incorporated with the bodies of many others. "The Avon to the Severn runs, The Severn to the sea, And Wycllffe's dust is scattered wide. Far as its waters be." Through the clouds and the rain, particles of Wycllffe's body may have entered into the water which other men have drunk from their wells and fountains. There is a propagation of disease by contagion, or the transmission of infinitesimal germs from one body to another, sometimes by infection of the living from contact with the body of a friend just dead. In these various ways, the same particle might. In the course of history, enter into the constitution of a hundred living men. How can this oue particle, at the resurrection, be in a hundred places at the same time? "Like the woman who had seven husbands, the same matter may belong in succession to many bodies, for 'they ail had it' " (Smyth). The cannibal and his victim cannot both possess the same body at the resurrection.

These considerations have led some, like Origen, to call the doctrine of a literal resurrection of the flesh "the foolishness of beggarly minds," and to say that resurrection may be only "the gathering round the spirit of new materials, and the vitalizing them into a new body by the spirit's God-given power"; see Newman Smyth, Old Faiths in a New Light, 349-391; Porter, Human Intellect, 39. But this view seems as great an extreme as that from which it was a reaction. It gives up all Idea of unity between the new and the old. If my body were this instant annihilated, and if then, an hour hence, God should create a second body, precisely like the present, I could not call It the same with the present body, even though it were animated by the same informing soul, and that soul had maintained an uninterrupted existence between the time of the annihilation of the first body and the creation of the second. So, if the body laid in the tomb were wholly dissipated among the elements, and God created at the end of the world a wholly new body, it would be impossible for Paul to say: "this corruptible mast put on incorraption" (1 Cor. 15 : 53), or: "it is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory" (Terse 43). In short, there is a physical connection between the old and the new, which is Intimated by Scripture, but which this theory denies.

Paul himself gives us an illustration which shows that his view was midway between the two extremes: "that which thou sowest, thou sowest not the body that shall be" (1 Cor. 15 : 37). On the one hand, the wheat that springs up does not contain the precise particles, perhaps does not contain any particles, that were in the seed. On the other hand, there has been a continuous physical connection between the seed sown and the ripened grain at the harvest. If the seed had been annihilated, and then ripe grain created, we could not speak of identity between the one and the other. But, because there has been a constant flux, the old particles pressed out by new, and these new in their turn succeeded by others that take their places, we can say: "the wheat has come up."

Or, to use another Illustration nearer to the thing we desire to illustrate: My body is the same that It was ten years ago, although physiologists declare that every particle of the body is changed, not simply once in seven years, but once in a single year. Life is preserved only by the constant throwing off of dead matter and the introduction of new. There is indeed a unity of consciousness and personality, without which I should not be able to say at intervals of years: "this body is the same; this body is mine." But a physical connection between the old and the new Is necessary in addition.

The North River is the same to-day that it was when Hendrick Hudson first discovered it; yet not a particle of its current, nor a particle of the banks which that current touches now, is the same that it was then. Two things make the present river identical with the river of the past. The first is, that the same formative principle is at work,— the trend of the banks is the same, and there is the same general effect in the flow and direction of the waters drained from a large area of country. The second is, the fact that, ever since Hendrick Hudson's time, there has been a physical connection, old particles in continuous succession having been replaced by new.

So there are two things requisite to make our future bodies one with the bodies we now inhabit: first, that the same formative principle be at work in them; and secondly, that there be some sort of physical connection between the body that now is and the body that shall be. What that physical connection Is, it is vain to speculate. We only teach t hat, though there may not be a single material particle In the new that was present In the old, there yet will be such a physical connection that it can be said: "the new has grown out of the old "; "that which was in the grave has come forth "; "this mortal has put on immortality."

(b) That a resurrection-body, having such a remote physical connection with the present body, cannot be recognized by the inhabiting soul or by other witnessing spirits as the same with that which was laid in the grave.

To this we reply that bodily identity does not consist in absolute sameness of particles during the whole history of the body, but in the organizing force, which, even in the flux and displacement of physical particles, makes the old the basis of the new, and binds both together in the unity of a single consciousness. In our recognition of friends, moreover, we are not wholly dependent, even in this world, upon our perception of bodily form; and we have reason to believe that in the future state there may be methods of communication far more direct and intuitive than those with which we are familiar here.

Cf. Hat. 17 : 3, 4 —" And behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elijah talking with him. And Peter answered, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for as to be here: if thou wilt, I will make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah "— here there is no mention of information given to Peter as to the names of the celestial visitants; it would seem that, In his state of exalted sensibility, he at once knew them. The recent proceedings of the English Society for Psychical Research seem to prove the possibility of communication between two minds without physical intermediaries.

With regard to the meaning of the term 'identity,' as applied to material things, see Porter, Human Intellect, 631 —" Here the substance is called the same, by a loose analogy taken from living agents and their gradual accretion and growth." The Euphrates is the same stream that flowed, "When high in Paradise By the four rivers the first roses blew," even though after that time the flood, or deluge, stopped its flow and obliterated all the natural features of the landscape. So this flowing organism which we call the body may be the same, after the deluge of death has passed away.

A different and less satisfactory view is presented In Dorner's Eschatology: "Identity involves: 1. Plastic form, which for the earthly body had its moulding principle in the soul. That principle could effect nothing permanent in the intermediate statu; but with the spiritual consummation of the soul, it attains the full power which can appropriate to itself the heavenly body, accompanied by a cosmical process, made like Christ. 2. Appropriation, from the world of elements, of what it needs. The elements into which everything bodily of earth is dissolved, are an essentially uniform mass, like an ocean; and It is Indifferent what parts of this are assigned to each Individual man. The whole world of substance, which makes the constant change of substanoe possible, is made over to humanity as a common possession (acta 4 : 32 —' not one of ihem said that aught of the things which he poiwri tu hii own; bat they had all thing* common.')."

(f) That a material organism can only be regarded as a hindrance to the free activity of the spirit, and that the assumption of such an organism by the soul, which, during the intermediate state, had been separated from the body, would indicate a decline in dignity and power rather than a progress.

We reply that we cannot estimate the powers and capacities of matter, when brought by God into complete subjection to the spirit. The bodies of the saints may be more etherial than the air, and capable of swifter motion than the light, and yet be material in their substance. That the soul, clothed with its spiritual body, will have more exalted powers and enjoy a more complete felicity than would be possible while it maintained a purely spiritual existence, is evident from the fact that Paul represents the culmination of the soul's blessedness as occurring, not at death, but at the resurrection of the body.

Rom. 8 : 23 —¹¹ waiting for oar adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body "; 2 Cor. 5 : 4 —" not for that we would be unclothed, but that we would be clothed upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up of Ufa "; Phil. 3 :11 —" if by any means I may attain onto the resurrection from the dead." Even Pa. 86 :11 —" Unite my heart to fear thy name"—may mean the collecting of all the powers of body as well as soul. In this respect for the body, as a normal part of man's being, Scripture Is based upon the truest philosophy. Plotinus gave thanks that he was not tied to an immortal body, and refused to have bis portrait taken because the body was too contemptible a thing to have Its image perpetuated. But this is not natural, nor is it probably anything more than a whim or affectation. Kph. b: 29— "no man erer hated his own flesh; bat nounsheth and chori&beth it" What we desire is not the annihilation of the body, but its perfection.

Kenouf, Hlbbert Lectures, 188—" In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the soul reunites itself to the body, with the assurance that they shall never again be separated." McCosh, Intuitions, 213—"The essential thing about the resurrection is the development, out of the dead body, of an organ for the communion and activity of the spiritual life." Ebrard, Dogmatik, 2 : 226-234, has interesting remarks upon the relation of the resurrection-body to the present body. The essential difference he considers to be this, that whereas, in the present body, matter is master of the spirit, in the resurrection-body spirit will bo master of matter, needing no reparation by food, and having control of material laws. Ebrard adds striking speculations with regard to the glorified body of Christ.

On the spiritual body as possibly evolved by will, see Harris, Philos. Basis of Theism, 388. On the nature of the resurrection-body, see Burnet, State of the Departed, chaps. 7 and 8; Cudworth, Intell. System, 3:310 so.; Splittgerber, Tod, Fortloben und Auferstehung. On the doctrine of the Resurrection among the Egyptians, see Dr. Howard Osgood, in Hebrew Student, Feb., 1885; among the Jews, see Griibler, in Studien und Kritiken, 1879: Heft 4; DeWUnsche, in Jahrbuch f. prot. Theol., 1880: Heft 2 and 4; Revue Theologlque, 1881:1-17. For the view that the resuiTectiou is wholly spiritual and takes place at death, see Wlllinarth, In Bap. Quar., Oct., 186S, and April, 1870: Ladd, In New Englander, April, 1874; Crosby, Second Advent.

On the whole subject, see Hose, Hutterus Redlvivus, 280; Herzog, Encyelop., art.: Auferslehung; Ooulburn, Bainpton Lectures for 1850, on the Resurrection; Cox, The Resurrection; Neander, Plautlng and Training, 479-487, 524-528; Naville, La Vie fcternelle, 253, 254; Delitzsch, Bib. Psychologic 453-483; Moorhouse, Nature and Revelation^ 87-112; Unseen Universe, 33; Hovey, in Baptist Quarterly, Oct., 1887; Westcott, Revelation of the Risen Lord, and in Contemporary Review, vol. 30; R. W. Macan, Resurrection of Christ; Cremer, Beyond the Grave.

V. The Last Judgment.

While the Scriptures represent all punishment of individual transgressors and all manifestations of God's vindicatory justice in the history of nations as acts or processes of judgment, they also ultimate that these temporal judgments are only partial and imperfect, and that they are therefore to be concluded with a final and complete vindication of God's righteousness. This will be accomplished by making known to the universe the characters of all men, and by awarding to them corresponding destinies.

Passages describing temporal or spiritual judgment are: Pa. 9 : 7 — "He hath prepared his throne for judgment"; Is. 28 : 9 —" when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the earth will learn righteousness "; Mat. 16 : 27, 28 —" For the Son of nan shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then shall he render unto every man according to his deeds. Verily I say unto you, There be some of them that stand here, which shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom "; John 3 :18, 19 — " He that believeth not hath been judged already, because he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God' And this is the judgment, that light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil"; 9 : 39 —" For judgment came I into this world, that they which see not may see: and that they which see may become blind "; 12 : 31 —" Xow is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out"

Passages describing the final Judgment are: Hat. 25 : 31-46 —" But when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all the nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats .... lets 17 : 31 —"he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead"; Rom. 2 :16—" in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men, according to my gospel, by Jesus Christ"; 2 Cor. 5 :10 —" For we must all be made manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ; that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad"; Eeb. 9 : 27, 28 —"and inasmuch as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this Cometh judgment; so Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time, apart from sin, to them that wait for him, unto salvation "; 20 :12 —" And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne; and books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works."

1. The nature of the final judgment.

The final judgment is not a spiritual, invisible, endless process, identical with God's providence in history, but is an outward and visible event, occurring at a definite period in the future. This we argue from the following considerations:

(a) The judgment is something for which the evil are "reserved" (2 Peter 2 : i, 9); something to be expected in the future (Acts 24 : 25; Heb. 10 : 27); something after death ( Heb. 9 : 27 ); something for which the resurrection is a preparation ( John 5 : 29 ).

2 Pet 2 : 4, 9 —" God spared not angels when they sinned, but cast them down to bell.... reserved unto judgment

the lord knoweth how .... to keep the unrighteous unto punishment unto the day of judgment"; lets 24 :25

—" as he reasoned of righteousness, and temperance, and the judgment to come, Felix was terrified''; Bob. 10:27 — "a certain fearful expectation of judgment"; 9 : 27 —" it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this cometh judgment"; John 5 : 29—"the resurrection of judgment"

(b) The accompaniments of the judgment, such as the second coming of Christ, the resurrection, and the outward changes of the earth, are events which have an outward and visible, as well as an inward and spiritual, aspect. We are compelled to interpret the predictions of the last judgment upon the same principle.

John 5 ; 2S, 29 —" Marvel not at this: for the hour cometh, in which all that are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done ill, unto the resurrection of judgment"; 2 Pet 3: 7,10 —" the day of judgment... the day of the Lord .... in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat"; 2 Thess. 1: 7, 8—"the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of his power in laming fin, rendering vengeance to them that know not God when he shall come in that day."

(c) God's justice, in the historical and imperfect work of judgment, needs a final outward judgment as its vindication. "A perfect justice must judge, not only moral units, but moral aggregates; not only the particulars of life, but the life as a whole." The crime that is hidden and triumphant here, and the goodness that is here maligned and oppressed, must be brought to light and fitly recompensed. "Otherwise man is a Tantalus — longing but never satisfied "; and God's justice, of which his outward administration is the expression, can only be regarded as approximate.

Renouf, Hlbbert Lectures, 194—"The Egyptian Book of the Dead represents the deceased person as standing in the presence of the goddess MiiHt, who is distinguished by the ostrich-feather on her head : she holds the sceptre in one hand and the symlxil of life in the other. The man's heart, which represents his entire moral nature, is being weighed in the balance in presence of Osiris, seated upon his throne as judge of the dead." Rationalism believes in only present and temporal judgment; and this it regards as but the reaction of natural law: "Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht —the world's history is the world's Judgment." But there is an inner connection between present, temporal, spiritual judgments, and the final, outward, complete judgment of God.

Dorncr: "With Christ's appearance, faith sees that the beginning of the judgment and of the end has dome. Christians are a prophetic race. Without judgment, Christianity would involve a sort of dualism: evil and good would be of equal might and worth. Christianity cannot always remain a historic principle alongside of the contrary principle of evil. It is the only reality." God will show or make known his righteousness with regard to: (1) the disparity of lots among men; (2) the prosperity of the wicked; (3) the permission of moral evil In general; (4) the consistency of atonement with justice. "The avrriKua Tou aiueof ('end of the world,' Hat. 13 : 39) = stripping hostile powers of their usurped might, revelation of their falsity and impotence, consigning them to the past. Evil shall be utterly cut off, given over to its own nothingness, or made a subordinate element."

2. The object of the final judgment.

The object of the final judgment is not the ascertainment, but the manifestation, of character, and the assignment of outward condition corresponding to it.

(a) To the omniscient Judge, the condition of all moral creatures is already and fully known. The last day will be only "the revelation of the righteous judgment of God."

They are Inwardly judged when they die, and before they die; they are outwardly judged at the last day: Rom. 2 : 5, 6 — " treasurest up for thyself wrath in the day of wrath and nidation of the righteous judgment of God; who will render to every man according to his works "— see Meyer on this passage: not "against the day of wrath," but "in the day of wrath'' = wrath existing beforehand, but breaking out on that day. 1 Tim. 5 : 24, 25— "Some men's sins are evident, going before unto judgment; and some men also they follow after. In like manner also, there are good works that are evident: and such as are otherwise cannot be hid"; Rev. 14 :13— "for their works follow with them "—as close companions, into God's presence and judgment (Ann. Par. Bible).

(b) In the nature of man, there are evidences and preparations for this final disclosure. Among these may be mentioned the law of memory, by which the soul preserves the record of its acts, both good and evil (Luke 16 : 25 ); the law of conscience, by which men involuntarily anticipate punishment for their own sins ( Bom. 2 :15, 16; Heb. 10 : 27); the law of character, by which every thought and deed makes indelible impress upon the moral nature (Heb. 3 : 8, 15).

Luke 18:25—"Son, remember I" See MacLaren's Sermons (1:109-122) — Memory (1) will embrace all the events of the past life; (2) will embrace them all at the same moment; (8) will embrace them continuously and continually. Rom. 2 :15. 16—"they shew the work of the law written is their hearts, their conscience bearing witness therewith, and their thoughts one with another accusing or else excusing them; in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men, according to my gospel, by Jeans Christ" j Heb. 10 : 27 —" a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of fire which shall devour the adversaries." Heb. 3 : 8,15 —" Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, Like as in the day of the temptation in the wilderness

To-day, if ye shall hear his voice, Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation."

A man who afterwards became a Methodist preacher was converted in Whitefleld's time by a vision of the judgment, in which he saw all men gathered before the throne, and each one coming up to the book of God's law, tearing open his heart before it " as one would tear open the bosom of his shirt," comparing his heart with the things written in the book, and according as they agreed or disagreed with that standard, either passing triumphant to the company of the blest, or going with bowling to the company of the damned. No word was spoken; the Judge sat silent; the Judgment was one of self-revelation and self-condemnation. See Autobiography of John Nelson (quoted in the Diary of Mrs. Kitty Trevylyan, 207, by Mrs. E. Charles, the author of The ScbOnberg-Cotta Family).

(c) Single acts and words, therefore, are to be brought into the judgment only as indications of the moral condition of the soul. This manifestation of all hearts will vindicate not only God's past dealings, but his determination of future destinies.

Mat. 12 : 36—" and I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment"; Luke 18:2, 8, 9—"there is nothing covered up, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall

not be known. Every one who shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the

angels of God: but he that denieth me in the presence of men shall be denied in the presence of the angels of God "; John 3 :18 —"He that believeth on him is not judged: ho that believeth not hath been judged already, because he hath not believed on the same of the only begotten Son of God "; 2 Cor. 5 :10 —" For we must all be made manifest [ not: 'must all appear,' as in A. Vers.] before the judgment-seat of Christ."

Even the human Judge, In passing sentence, commonly endeavors so to set forth the guilt of the criminal that he shall see his doom to be Just. So God will awaken the consciences of the lost, and lead them to pass judgment on themselves. Each lost soul can say as Byron's Manfred said to the fiend that tortured his closing hour: "I have not been thy dupe, nor am thy prey, But was my own destroyer." Thus God's final judgment will be only the culmination of a process of natural selection, by which the unfit are eliminated, and the fit are caused to survive.

3. The Judge in the final judgment.

God, in the person of Jesus Christ, is to be the judge. Though God is the judge of all (Heb. 12 : 23), yet this judicial activity is exercised through Christ, at the last day, as well as in the present state (John 5 : 22, 27).

Heb. 12 : 23— "to God the Judge of all"; John 5 : 22, 27—"For neither doth the father judge any man, but he hath given all judgment unto the Son and he gave him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of man."

This, for three reasons:

(a) Christ's human nature enables men to understand both the law and the love of God, and so makes intelligible the grounds on which judgment is passed.

Whoever says that God is too distant and great to be understood may be pointed to Christ, in whose human life the divine "law appears, drawn out in living characters," and the divine love is manifest, as suffering upon the cross to save men from their sins.

(b) The perfect human nature of Christ, united as it is to the divine, ensures all that is needful in true judgment, viz.: that it be both merciful and just.

As F. W. Robertson has shown in his sermon on "The Sympathy of Christ" (vol. 1: sermon vil), it is not sin that most sympathizes with sin. Sin blinds and hardens. Only the pure can appreciate the needs of the Impure, and feel for them.

(c) Human nature, sitting upon the throne of judgment, will afford convincing proof that Christ has received the reward of his sufferings, and that humanity has been perfectly redeemed. The saints shall "judge the world" only as they are one with Christ.

The lowly Son of man shall sit upon the throne of Judgment. And with himself he will Join all believers. Met 19 : 28—"ye which hive followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of nun shall at on the throne of his glory, ya tin dull sit upon twelve thrones, Judging the twelve tribes of Israel"; Luke 22 : 28-30 —" Bnt ye are they which hare continued with no in my temptations; and I appoint unto you a kingdom, even as my Father appointed unto me, that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom: and ye shall sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel"; 1 Cor, 6 : 2, 3 —" know ye not that the saints shall judge the world? .... Inow ye not that we shall judge angels?" Ear. 3 : 21— "He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with me in my throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with my rather in his throne."

4. The subjects of the final judgment.

The persons upon whose characters and conduct this judgment shall be passed are of two great classes:

(a) All men—each possessed of body as well as soul,— the dead having been raised, and the living having been changed.

1 Cor. IS : 51, 52— "We all dull not sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed "; 1 Thess. 4 :16,17 —" For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."

(6) All evil angels — good angels appearing only as attendants and ministers of the Judge.

Evil angels: 2 Pet 2 : 4 —" For if God spared not angels that sinned, but oast them down to hell, and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment"; Jude 6 — " And angels which kept not their own principality, but left their proper habitation, he hath kept in everlasting bonds under darkness unto the judgment of the great day"; Good angels: Mat 13 : 41, 42—"The Sou of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that shall cause stumbling, and them that do iniquity, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth "; 25 : 31 —" But when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all the nations."

5. The grounds of the final judgment. These will be two in number:

(o) The law of God,— as made known in conscience and in Scripture.

John 12 : 48 —" He that rejeoteth me, and reoeiveth not my sayings, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I spake, the same shall judge him in the last day "; Rom. 2 :12 —" For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned under law shall be judged by law."

(6) The grace of Christ (Rev. 20 : 12),— those whose names are found '' written in the book of life" being approved, simply because of their union with Christ and participation in his righteousness. Their good works shall be brought into judgment only as proofs of this relation to the Redeemer. Those not found "written in the book of life " will be judged by the law of God, as God has made it known to each individual.

Rev. 20 :12 —" and 1 saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne; and books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works."

On the whole subject, see Hodge, Outlines of Theology, 466,457; Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, 465, 466; Neander, Planting and Training, 524-526; Edwards, Works, 2 : 499. 500; 4:202-225.

VI. The Final States Of The Righteous And Op The Wicked. 1. Qf the righteous.

The final state of the righteous is described as eternal life (Mat. 25 : 46), glory (2 Cor. 4 :17), rest (Heb. 4:9), knowledge (1 Cor. 13 : 8-10), holiness ( Rev. 21 : 27), service ( Rev. 22 : 3), worship ( Rev. 19 : 1), society < Heb. 12 : 23), communion with God (Rev. 21: 3).

Mat. 25 : 46 —" And these shall go away into eternal punishment: but the righteous into eternal life "; 2 Cor. 4 :17 —" For our light affliction, which is for the moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory"; Heb. 4 : 9—"There remaineth therefore a sabbath rest for the people of God"; 1 Cor. 13 : &M0—"lore never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall be done away; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away, for we know in part, and we prophesy in part: but when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away "; Rot. 21: 27 —" and there shall in no wise enter into it anything unclean, or he that maketh an abomination and a lie: but only they that are written in the Lamb's book of life "; 22:3 —" and his sonants shall do him service "; 19:1 —" after these things I hoard as it were a great trios of a great multitude in heaven, saying, Hallelujah; Saltation, and glory, and power, belong to our God; for true and righteous are his judgments"; Heb. 12 : 23 —" to the general assembly and church of the Irstborn who are enrolled in hoaten "; Ret. 21: 3 —" ind I heard a great trice out of the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be his peoples, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God."

Summing up all these, we may say that it is the fulness and perfection of holy life, in communion with God and with sanctified spirits. Although there will be degrees of blessedness and honor, proportioned to the capacity and fidelity of each soul (Luke 19:17, 19; 1 Cor. 8:14, 15), each shall receive as great a measure of reward as it can contain (1 Cor. 2:9), and this final state, once entered upon, shall be unchanging in kind and endless in duration (Rev. 3 :12; 22 :15).

Luke 19 :17,19 —" Well done, thou good servant: because thou wast found faithful in a tery little, hate thou authority

over ten cities Be thou also oter Ite cities"; 1 Cor. 3 :14,15—"If any man's work shall abide which he built

thereon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as through fire "; 2:9—" Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, And which entered not into the heart of nun, Whatsoever things God prepared for them that love him "; Rev. 3 :12 —" He that overcometh. I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go oat thence no more "; 22 :15 —" Without are the dogs, and the sorcerers, and the fornicators, and the murderers, and the idolaters, and every one that loveth and maketh a lie."

Ill the parable of the laborers (Mat. 20 :1-16), each receives a penny. Rewards in heaven will be equal, in the sense that each saved soul will be filled with good. But rewards will vary, in the sense that the capacity of one will be greater than that of another; and this capacity will be In part the result of our improvement of God's gifts In the present life. The relative value of the penny may In this way vary from a single unit to a number indefinitely great, according to the work and spirit of the recipient. Heaven will involve rest from defective physical organization and surroundings, as well as from the remains of evil in our hearts. It will be a rest consistent with service, an activity without weariness, a service which is perfect freedom.

Plato's Republic and More's Utopia are only earthly adumbrations of St. John's City of God. The representation of heaven as a city seems intended to suggest intensity of life, variety of occupation, and closeness of relation to others. Brotherly love in the next world implies knowing those we love, and loving those wo know. We certainly shall not know less there than here. If we know our friends here, we shall know them there. And as love to Christ here draws us nearer to each other, so there we shall love friends, not less but more, because of our greater nearness to Christ.

With regard to heaven, two questions present themselves, namely: (a) Is heaven a place, as well as a state?

We answer that this is probable, for the reason that the presence of Christ's human body is essential to heaven, and that this body must be confined to place. Since deity and humanity are indissolubly united in Christ's single person, we cannot regard Christ's human soul as limited to place without vacating his person of its divinity. But we cannot conceive of his human body as thus omnipresent. As the new bodies of the saints are confined to place, so, it would seem, must be the body of their Lord. But, though heaven be the place where Christ manifests his glory through the human body which he assumed in the incarnation, our ruling conception of heaven must be something higher even than this, namely, that of a state of holy communion with God.

John 14 2,.') —" In my Father's house an many mansions; if it wan not to, I would have told yon; for I go lo prepare a place for yon. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive you unto myself; that where I am, then ye may be also"; Heb, 12 :14 —" Follow after peace with all men, and the sanotifieation withoal which no man shall see the Lord.''

Although heaven Is probably a place, we are by no means to allow this conception to become the preponderant one In our minds. Milton: "The mind is Its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." As he goes through the gates of death, every Christian can say, as Citaar said when he crossed the Rubicon: "Omnia mea mecum porto." The hymn " O sing to me of heaven, When I am called to die " is not true to Christian experience. In that hour the soul sings, not of heaven, but of Jesus and his cross. As houses on river-flats, accessible in time of flood by boats, keep safe only goods In the upper story, so only the treasure laid up above escapes the destroying floods of the last day. Dorner: "The soul will possess true freedom, in that it can no more become unfree; and that through the indestructible love-energy springing from union with God."

(b) Is this earth to be the heaven of the saints? We answer:

First,— that the earth is to be purified by fire, and perhaps prepared to be the abode of the saints — although this last is not rendered certain by the Scriptures.

Rom. 8 :19-23 —" For the earnest expectation of the creation vaiteth for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only so, but ourselves also, which have the urstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for oar adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body "; 2 Pet. 3 : 12, 13 —" looking for and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of God, by reason of which the heavens being on lira shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat Bnt according to his promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, whenin dwelleth righteousness "; Rev. 21:1 —" ind I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth an passed away; and the sea is no more." Dorner: "Without loss of substantiality, matter will have exchanged its darkness, hardness, heaviness, inertia, and impenetrableness for clearness, radiance, elasticity, and transparency. A new stadium will begin — God's advance to new creations, with the cooperation of perfected mankind."

Secondly,— that this fltting-up of the earth for man's abode, even if it were declared in Scripture, would not render it certain that the saints are to be confined to these narrow limits (John 14 : 2). It seems rather to be intimated that the effect of Christ's work will be to bring the redeemed into union and intercourse with other orders of intelligence, from communion with whom they are now shut out by sin (Eph. 1 : 10; CoL 1 : 20).

John 14 : 2 —" In my Father's house an many mansions "; Eph. 1:10 —"unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth "; Col.!: 20 —" through him to reconcile all things unto himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross; through him, I say, whether things upon the earth, or things in the heavens."

See Dr. A. C. Kendrick. in Bap. Quarterly, Jan., 1870. Dr. Kendrick thinks we need local associations. Earth may be our home, yet from this home we may set out on excursions through the universe, after a time returning again to our earthly abodes. So Chalmers, interpreting literally 2 Pet, 3. We certainly are in a prison here, and look out through the bars as the Prisoner of Chlllon looked over the lake to the green isle and the staffing birds. Why are we shut out from intercourse with other worlds and other orders of Intelligence? Apparently it is the effect of sin. We are in an abnormal state of durance and probation. Earth is out of harmony with God. The great harp of the universe has one of its strings out of tune, and that one discordant string makes a jar through the whole. All things in heaven and earth shall be reconciled when this one Jarring string Is keyed aright and set in tune by the hand of love and mercy. See Leitoh. God's Glory in the Heavens, 827-330.

2. Of the wicked.

The final state of the wicked ia described under the figures of eternal fire (Mat. 25 : 41); the pit of the abyss (Rev. 9 : 2, 11); outer darkness (Mat.

8 : 12); torment (Eev. 14 : 10-12); eternal punishment (Mat. 25 : 46); wrath of God (Rom. 2:5); second death (Rev. 21 : 8); eternal destruction from the face of the Lord (2 Thess. 1:9); eternal sin (Mark 3 : 29).

Mat 25 : 41 —" Depart from me, je cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels "; Rev.

9 : 2,11 —" And he opened the pit of the abyss; and there vent np a smoke ont of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace .... They have over them as king the angel of the abyss: his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in the Greek tongue he hath the name Apollyon "; Mat. 8 :12 —" but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast forth into the outer darkness: there shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth"; Rev. 14 :10—12— "he also shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is prepared unmixed in the cup of his anger; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: and the smoke of their torment goeth up for ever and ever"; Hat 25 : 46—"And these shall go away into eternal punishment.

Rom. 2 : 5 —" after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up for thyself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God "; Rev. 21: 8 —" But for the fearful, and unbelieving, and abominable, and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, their part shall be in the lake that bumeth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death "; 2 Thess. 1: 9—" who shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction from the face of the I*rd and from the glory of his might"—here »>d, from, = not separation, but "proceeding from," and indicates that the everlasting presence of Christ, once realized, ensures everlasting destruction; Hark 3 : 29 —" whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin "— a text which implies that (1) some will never tease to sin; (2) this eternal sinning will involve eternal misery; (3) this eternal misery, as the appointed vindication of law, will be eternal punishment. As Uzziab, when smitten with leprosy, did not need to be thrust out of the temple, but "himself hasted

to go out" (2 Chron. 26 : 20), so Judas is said to go "to his own place" (Acts 1: 25; ef. 4 : 23 —

where Peter and John, "being let go, they came to their own company ").

Summing up all, we may say that it is the loss of all good, whether physical or spiritual, and the misery of an evil conscience banished from God and from the society of the holy and dwelling under God's positive curse forever. Here we are to remember, as in the case of the final state of the righteous, that the decisive and controlling element is not the outward, but the inward. If hell be a place, it is only that the outward may correspond to the inward. If there be outward torments, it is only because these will be fit, though subordinate, accompaniments of the inward state of the soul.

Every living creature will have an environment suited to its character—"its own place." "I know of the future judgment. How dreadful so e'er It be, That to sit alone with my conscience Will be judgment enough for me." Calvin: "The wicked have the seeds of hell In their own hearts." Chrysostom, commenting on the words " Depart, ye cursed," says: "Their own works brought the punishment on them; the fire was not prepared for them, but for Satan; yet, since they cast themselves into It, 'Impute it to yourselves,' he says, 'that you are there."" Byron : "There is no power in holy men, Nor charm in prayer, nor purifying form Of penitence, nor outward look, nor fast. Nor agony, nor, greater than all these. The innate torture of that deep despair Would make a hell of heaven, can exorcise From out the unbounded spirit the quick sense Of Its own sins."

Phelps, English Style, 228, speaks of "a law of the divine government, by which the body symbolizes, In its experience, the moral condition of its spiritual inhabitant. The drift of sin is to physical suffering. Moral depravity tends always to a corrupt and tortured body. Certain diseases are the product of certain crimes. The whole catalogue of human pains, from a toothache to the angina pectoris, is but a witness to a state of sin expressed by an experience of suffering. Carry this law into the experience of eternal sin. The bodies of the wicked live again, as well as those of the righteous. You have therefore a spiritual body, Inhabited and used, and therefore tortured, by a guilty soul — a body, perfected in its sensibilities, inclosing and expressing a soul matured in its depravity."

The figurative language of Scripture is a miniature representation of what cannot be fully described in words. The symbol is a symbol; yet it is less, not greater, than the thing symbolized. It is sometimes fancied that Jonathan Edwards, when, in his sermon on "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," he represented the sinner as a worm shrivelling in the eternal Are, supposed that hell consisted mainly of such physical torments. But this is a misinterpretation of Edwards. As he did not fancy heaven essentially to consist in streets of gold or pearly gates, but rather in holiness and communion with Christ, of which these are the symbols, so he did not regard hell as consisting in Are and brimstone, but rather In the unholiness and separation from God of a guilty and accusing conscience, of which the fire and brimstone were symbols. He used the material imagery, because he thought that this best answered to the methods of Scripture. He probably went beyond the simplicity of the Scripture statements, and did not sufficiently explain the spiritual meaning of the symbols he used; but we are persuaded that he neither understood them literally himself, nor meant them to be so understood by others.

In order, however, to meet opposing views, and to forestall the common objections, we proceed to state the doctrine of future punishment in greater detail:

A. The future punishment of the wicked is not annihilation.—In our discussion of Physical Death, we have shown that, by virtue of its original creation in the image of God, the human soul is naturally immortal; that neither for the righteous nor the wicked is death a cessation of being; that, on the contrary, the wicked enter at death upon a state of conscious suffering which the resurrection and the judgment only augment and render permanent. It is plain, moreover, that if annihilation took place at death, there could be no degrees in future punishment,— a conclusion itself at variance with express statements of Scripture.

The old annihllationisin is represented by Hudson, Debt and Grace, and Christ our Life; also by Dobney, Future Punishment. It maintains that ndAant, "punishment" (in Mat. 25 : 46 —" eternal punishment" ), means etymologlcally an everlasting "cuttlng-off." But we reply that the word had to a great degree lost its etymological significance, as is evident from the only other passage where it occurs in the New Testament, namely, 1 John 4 :18 —" fear hath punishment" (A. V.: "foar hath torment" ). For full answer to the old statements of the annihilation-theory, see under Physical Death, pages 668-562.

That there are degrees of punishment in God's administration is evident from Luke 18: 47, 48 —" And that servant, which knew his Lord's will, and made not ready, nor did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes; but he that knew not, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes "; Rom. 2 : 5, 6 —" after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest np for thyself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God: who will render to every man according to his works "; 2 Cor. 5 :10 —" For we must all be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ; that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad "; II: 15 —" whose end shall be according to their works"; 2 Tim. 4 :14 —" Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil; the Lord will render to him according to his works "; Rev. 2 : 23 —" I will give unto each one of you according to your works "; 18 : 5, 6 —" her sins have reached even unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. Render unto her even as she rendered, and double unto her the double according to her works: in the cup which she mingled, mingle unto her double."

There are two forms of the annihilation theory which are more plausible, and which in recent times find a larger number of advocates, namely:

(a) That the powers of the wicked are gradually weakened, as the natural result of sin, so that they finally cease to be. We reply, first, that moral evil does not, in this present life, seem to be incompatible with a constant growth of the intellectual powers, at least in certain directions, and we have no reason to believe the fact to be different in the world to come; secondly, that, if this theory were true, the greater the sin, the speedier would be the relief from punishment.

This form of the annihilation-theory Is suggested by Bushnell, In his Forgiveness and Law, 146, 147. Dorner also, in his Eschatology, seems to favor it as one of the possible methods of future punishment. He says: "To tho ethical also pertains ontological significance. The 'second death' may be the dissolving of the soul itself into nothing. Estrangement from God, the source of life, ends In extinction of life. The orthodox talk about demented beings, raging In impotent fury, amounts to the same—annihilation of their human character. Evil is never the substance of the soul —this remains metaphysically good." It is argued that even for saved sinners there is a loss. The prodigal regained his father's favor, but he could not regain his lost patrimony. We cannot get back the lost time, nor the lost growth. Much more, then, In the case of the wicked will there be perpetual loss. Draper: "At every return to the sun, comets lose a portion of their size and brightness, stretching out until the nucleus loses control, the mass breaks up, and the greater portion navigates the sky, in the shape of disconnected meteorites."

But a sufficient answer to this view Is that certain minds grow in their powers, at lea6t in certain directions, in spite of the fact of sin. Napoleon's military genius grew with experience; and Satan's cunning and daring seem to be on the increase from the first mention of him in Scripture to its end. See Princeton Review, 1872 : 673-694. This view, moreover, would seem to be not simply defective in its award of retribution, but to be glaringly unjust, in making the greatest sinner the least sufferer; since to him relief, in tho way of annihilation, comes the soonest.

(b) That there is for the wicked, certainly after death, and possibly between death and the judgment, a positive punishment proportioned to their deeds, but that this punishment issues in, or is followed by, annihilation. We reply, first, that upon this view, as upon any theory of annihilation, future punishment is a matter of grace as well as of justice — a notion for which Scripture affords no warrant; secondly, that Scripture not only gives no hint of the cessation of this punishment, but declares in the strongest terms its endlessness.

The second form of the annihilation-theory seems to have been held by Justin Martyr (Trypho, Edlnb. transl., 93-95) —" Some, who have appeared worthy of God, never die; but others are punished so long as God wills them to exist and be punished." The soul exists because God wills, and no longer than he wills. "Whenever it is necessary that the soul should cease to exist, the spirit of life is removed from it, and there is no more soul, but it goes back to the place from which it was taken."

A modern advocate of this view is White, in his Life in Christ. He favors a conditional Immortality, belonging only to those who are joined to Christ by faith: but he makes a retributive punishment and pain fall upon the godless, before their annihilation. The roots of this view lie in a false conception of holiness as a form or manifestation of benevolence, and of punishment as deterrent and preventive instead of vindicative of righteousness. To the minds of its advocates, extinction of being is a comparative blessing; and they, for this reason, prefer It to the common view. Sec Whiton, Is Eternal Punishment Endless?

More rational and Scriptural Is the saying of Tower: "Sin is God's foe. He docs not annihilate it, but he makes it the means of displaying his holiness; as the Romans did not slay their captured enemies, but made them their servants." The terms and aiui-ioc, which we have still to consider, afford additional Scripture testimony against annihilation. See also the argument from the divine Justice, below; article on the Doctrine of Extinction, in N. Englander, March, 1879 :201-224; Hovey, Manual of Theology and Ethics, 163-168.

B. Punishment after death excludes new probation and ultimate restoration of the wicked.— Some have maintained the ultimate restoration of all human beings, by appeal to such passages as the following:

Mat. 19 : 28—" in the regeneration Then the Son of nun shall sit on the throne of his glory "; lots 3 : 21 —Jesus: "Thorn the heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things "; 1 Cor. 15 : 26 —" The last enemy thai shall be abolished is death ": Epa. 1 : 9, 10 --" awarding to his good pleasure which he purposed in him unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth "; Phil. 2 :10 :11 — " that in the name of Jesus every knee should Dot, of things in hearen and things on earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the

Father"; 2 PeL 3 : 9, 13 —" not wishing that any should pensh. but that all should come to repentance But.

according to his promise, we look for new heavens and a neT earth, Therein dwelleth righteousness."

For advocacy of a second probation for those who have not consciously rejected Christ in this life, see Newman Smyth's edition of Donier's Eschatology. For the theory of restoration, see Farrar, Eternal Hope; Dirks, Victor}^- of Divine Goodness; Jukes, Restitution of All Things; Delitzsch, Hit). Psychologic 489-176.

(a) These passages, as obscure, are to be interpreted in the light of those plainer ones which we have already cited. Thus interpreted, they foretell only the absolute triumph of the divine kingdom, and the subjection of all evil to God.

The true interpretation of the passages above mentioned is indicated in Meyer's note on Epa. 1:9,10 —this namely, that "the allusion is not to the restoration of fallen indivMualu, but to the restoration of unircrml harmnnu, implying that the wicked are to be excluded from the kingdom of God." That there Is no allusion to a probation after this life, is clear from Luke 16 :19-31 — the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Here penalty is inflicted for the sins done "in thy lifetime" (v. 25); this penalty is unchangeable—"there is a great gulf flied" (v. 26); the rich man asks favors for his brethren who still live on the earth, but none for himself (t. 27, 28). John 5 : 25-29—"The hour oometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live. Por as the Father hath life in himself, even 80 gave he to the Son also to have life in himself: and he gave him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of man. Marvel not at this: for the hour Cometh, in which all that are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall come forth: they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done ill, unto the resurrection of judem-'nt" — here it Is declared that, while for those who have done good there is a resurrection of life, there Is for those who have done ill only a resurrection of Judgment.

John 8 : 21. 24 —" shall die in your sin: whither I go ye cannot come except ye believe that I am he, ye shall

lie in your sins"— sayings which indicate finality in the decisions of this life.

Rom. 1:18-28 — there is probation under the light of nature as well as under the gosj>el, and under the law of nature as well as under the gospel men may l>e given up "unto a reprobate mind"; 2: 6-16 — Gentiles shall be Judged, not by the gospel, but by the law of nature, and shall "perish without law .... in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men." 2 Cor. 5 :10 —" For we must all be made manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ; [ not that each may have a new opportunity to secure salvation, but] that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad "; Heb. 6 : 8 —" whose end is to be burned "— not to be quickeued again; 9 : 27—" And inasmuch as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this cometh [ not a second probation, but] judgment"

For an able review of the Scripture testimony against a second probation, see G. F. Wright, Relation of Death to Probation, iv. Emerson, ttie most recent advocate of restorationism, in his Doctrine of Probation Examined, 42, is able to evade these latter passage's only by assuming that they are to be spiritually Interpreted, and that there Is to be no literal outward day of Judgment — an error which we have previously discussed and refuted — see pages 581, 588.

(6) The advocates of universal restoration are commonly the most strenuous defenders of the inalienable freedom of the human will to make choices contrary to its past character and to all the motives which are or can be brought to bear upon it. As a matter of fact, we find in this world that men choose sin in spite of infinite motives to the contrary. Upon the theory of human freedom just metioned, no motives which God can use ■will certainly accomplish the salvation of all moral creatures. The soul which resists Christ here may resist him forever.

Emerson, in the book Just referred to, says: "The truth that sin is in its permanent «ssenco a free choice, however for a time it may be held in mechanical combination with the notion of moral opportunity arbitrarily closed, can never mingle with it, and must in the logical outcome permanently cast it off. Scripture presumes and teaches t he constant capability of souls to obey as well as to be disobedient." Emerson is correct. If the doctrine of the unlimited ability of the human will be a true one, then restoration in the future world is possible. Clement and Origen founded on this theory of will their denial of future punishment. If will be essentially the power of contrary choice, and if will may act independently of all character and motive, there can be no objective certainty that the lost will remain sinful. In short, there can be no finality, even to God's allotments, nor is any last Judgment possible. Upon this view, regeneration and conversion are as possible at any time in the future as they are to-day.

But those who hold to this defective philosophy of the will should remember that unlimited freedom is unlimited freedom to sin, as well as unlimited freedom to turn to God. If restoration is possible, endless persistence in evil is possible also; and this last the Scripture predicts. Whittier: "The sweet persuasion of His voice Respects the the sanctity of will; He glveth day: thou hast thy choice To walk in darkness still. What if thine eye refuse to see, Thine ear of heaven's free welcome fail; And thou a willing captive be, Thyself thine own dark Jail?" Swedenborg says that the man who obstinately refuses the inheritance of the sons of God Is allowed the pleasures of the beast, and enjoys in his own low way the hell to which he has confined himself. Every occupant of hell prefers it to heaven. The lost are Heautontimoroumenm, or self-tormentors, to adopt the title of Terence's play. See Whedon, in Meth. Quar. Rev., Jan., 1884; Bobbins, in Bib. Sac, 1881 :480-507.

(c) Upon the more correct view of the will which we have advocated, the case is more hopeless still. Upon this view, the sinful soul, in its very sinning, gives to itself a sinful bent of intellect, affection, and will; in other words, makes for itself a character, which, though it does not render necessary, yet does render certain, apart from divine grace, the continuance of sinful action. In itself it finds a self-formed motive to evil strong enough to prevail over all inducements to holiness which God sees it wise to bring to bear. It is in the next world, indeed, subjected to suffering. But suffering has in itself no reforming power. Unless accompanied by special renewing influences of the Holy Spirit, it only hardens and embitters the soul. We have no Scripture evidence that such influences of the Spirit are exerted, after death, upon the still impenitent; but abundant evidence, on the contrary, that the moral condition in which death finds men is their condition forever.

See Bushnell's "One Trial Better than Many," in Sermons on Living Subjects; also see his Forgiveness and Law, 146,147. Bushnell argues that God would give us fifty trials, if that would do us good. But there is no possibility of such result. The first decision adverse to God renders it more difficult to make a right decision upon the next opportunity. Character tends to fixity, and each new opportunity may only harden the heart and increase its guilt and condemnation. We should have no better chance of salvation if our lives were lengthened to the term of the sinners before the flood. Mere suffering does not convert the soul. A life of pain did not make Blanco White a believer; see Mozley's account of him, in Hist, and Theol. Essays, vol. 2, essay 1.

Edward A. Lawrence, Does Everlasting Punishment Last Forever?—"If the deeds of the law do not Justify here, how can the penalties of the law hereafter? The pain from a broken Umb does nothing to mend the break, and the suffering from disease does nothing to cure it. Penalty pays no debts — it only shows the outstanding and unsettled accounts." If the will does not act without motive, then it is certain that without motives men will never repent. To an impenitent and rebellious sinner the motive must come, not from within, but from without. Such motives God presents by bis Spirit in this life; but when this life ends and God's spirit is withdrawn, no motives to repentance will be presented. The soul's dislike for God will issue only in complaint and resistance. "Try what repentance can? what can it not? Yet what can It, when one cannot repent?"

(d) The declaration as to Judas, in Mat. 26 : 24, oould not be true upon the hypothesis of a final restoration. If at any time, even after the lapse of ages, Judas be redeemed, his subsequent infinite duration of blessedness must outweigh all the finite suffering through which he has passed. The Scripture statement that "good were it for that man if he had not been bom " must be regarded as a refutation of the theory of universal restoration.

Mat. 26 : 24 —" The Son of nun goeth, even u it is written of him: but woe unto that man through whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had not been bom." G. F. Wright, Relation of Death to Probation: "As Christ of old healed only those who came or were brought to him, so now he waits for the cooperation of human agency. God has limited himself to an orderly method in human salvation. The consuming missionary zeal of the apostles and the early church shows that they believed the decisions of this life to be final decisions. The early church not only thought the heathen world would perish without the gospel, but they found a conscience In the heathen answering to this belief. The solicitude drawn out by this responsibility for our fellows may be one means of securing the moral stability of the future. What Is bound on earth is bound in heaven; else why not pray for the wicked dead?" It is certainly a remarkable fact, if this theory be true, that we have In Scripture not a single Instance of prayer for the dead.

The theory of a second probation, as recently advocated, is not only a logical result of the defective view of the will already mentioned, but it is also in part a consequenco of denying the old orthodox and Pauline doctrine of the organic unity of the race in Adam's first transgression. New School Theology has been inclined to deride the notion of a fair probation of humanity in our first father, and of a common sin and guilt of mankind in him. It cannot find what It regards as a fair probation for each individual since that first sin; and the conclusion is easy that there must be such a fair probation for each individual in the world to come. But we may advise those who take this view to return to the old theology. Grant a fair probation for the whole race already passed, and the condition of mankind Is no longer that of mere unfortunates unjustly circumstanced, but rather that of beings guilty and condemned, to whom present opportunity, and even present existence, is matter of pure grace,— much more the general provision of a salvation, and the offer of It to any human soul. This world is already a place of second probation; and since this Becond probation is due wholly to God's mercy, no probation after death is needed to vindicate either the Justice or the goodness of God. See Kellogg, in Presb. Rev., April, 1886 : 228-356; Cremer, Beyond the Grave, preface by A. A. Hodge, xxxvl sq.

0. Scripture declares this future punishment of the wicked to be everlasting. It does this by its use of the terms aitiv, aiuviof.— Some, however, maintain that these terms do not necessarily imply eternal duration. We reply:

(a) It must be conceded that these words do not etymologically necessitate the idea of eternity; and that, as expressing the idea of "age-long," they are sometimes used in a limited or rhetorical sense.

2 Tim. 1: 9 —" bis own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before times eternal"— but the past duration of the world Is limited; Heb. 9 : 26 —" now once at the end of the ages hath he been manifested "— here the aiiiytt have an end.

(b) They do, however, express the longest possible duration of which

the subject to which they are attributed is capable; so that, if the soul is

immortal, its punishment must be without end.

Gen. 49 : 26—"the everlasting bills"; 17 : 8, 13—"I will give unto thee all the land of Canaan, for an

everlasting possession my covenant [ of circumcision ] shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant''; Bx. 21: 8 —"he [ the slave] shall serve him [big master] for ever"; 2 Ghron. 6 : 2 —"Bit I have built thee u bouse of habitation, and a place for thee to dwell in for ever "— of the temple at Jerusalem; Jude 6, 7— "angels.... he hath kept in everlasting bonds under darkness unto the judgment of the great daj. Even as Sodom

and Gomorrah are set forth as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire "— here la Jude 6 bonds

which endure only to the judgment day are called iiiiou (the same word which is used In Rom. 1:20—"his everlasting power and divinity"), and fire which lasts only till Sodom and Gomorrah are consumed is called aiuviov.

In all the passages cited above, the condition denoted by aiuvioc lasts as long as the object endures of which it is predicated. But we have seen that physical death is not the end of man's existenoe, but that the soul, made in the image of God, Is Immortal. A punishment, therefore, that lasts as long as the soul, must be an everlasting punishment. Another interpretation of the passages in Jude is, however, entirely possible. It is maintained by many that the "everlasting bonds" of the fallen angels do not cease at the judgment, and that Sodom and Gomorrah suffer "the punishment of eternal ire" In the sense that their sentence at the judgment will be a continuation of that begun in the time of Lot (see Hat. 10 :15 —" It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city").

(e) If, when used to describe the future punishment of the wicked, they do not declare the endlessness of that punishment, there are no words in the Greek language which could express that meaning.

G. F. Wright, Relation of Death to Probation: "The Bible writers speak of eternity in terms of time, and make the impression more vivid by reduplicating the longest timewords they had [ e. g., «t rout aian-ac rCtv atuvui- =' unto the ages of the ages' ]. Plato contrasts xpim and eueir, as we do time and eternity, and Aristotle says that eternity [aiuv] belongs to God The Scriptures have taught the doctrine of eternal punishment as clearly as their general style allows."

(d) In the great majority of Scripture passages where they occur, they have unmistakably the signification "everlasting." They are nsed to express the eternal duration of God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Rom. 16 : 26; 1 Tim. 1:17; Heb. 9 : 14; Rev. 1 :18); the abiding presence of the Holy Ghost with all true believers (John 14 : 17); and the endlessness of the future happiness of the saints (Mat. 19 : 29; John 6 : 54, 58; 2 Cor. 9:9).

Rom. 16 : 26—"the commandment of the eternal God"; 1 Tim. 1:17—"Now unto tie ling eternal, incorruptible invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever "; Heb. 9 :14—"the eternal Spirit"; Rev. 1:18—"I am the first and the last, and the Living one; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore "; John 14 :16,17 — "and I will pray the father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may be with you for ever, even the Spirit

of truth "; Mat. 19 : 29—"every one that hath left houses, or brethren, or sisters for my name's sake, shall

receive a hundredfold, and shall inherit eternal life "; John 6 : 54, 58 —"He that eateth my leak and drinketh my

blood hath eternal life he that eateth this bread shall live for ever " j 2 Cor. 9 : 9—" His righteousness abideth

for ever"; cf. Dan. 7:18 — " But the saints of the Vest High shall receive the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever."

Everlasting punishment is sometimes said to be the punishment which takes place in, and belongs to, an aiwr, with no reference to duration. But President Woolsey declare?, on the other hand, that " aiunos cannot denote ' pertaining to an auir, or world-period.'" The punishment of the wicked cannot cease, any more than Christ can cease to live, or the Holy Spirit to abide with believers; for all these are described in the same terms. "aluvioc is used in the N. T. 86 times,— 51 times of the happiness of the righteous, 2 times of the duration of God and his glory, 6 times where there is no doubt as to its meaning 'eternal,' 7 times of the punishment of the wicked; ai«v is used 95 times,—55 times of unlimited (duration, 31 times of duration that has limits, 9 times to denote the duration of future punishment."

(e) The fact that the same word is used in Mat. 25 : 46 to describe both the sufferings of the wicked and the happiness of the righteous shows that the misery of the lost is eternal, in the same sense as the life of God or the blessedness of the saved.

Kit. 25 : 46 —" And these shall go away into eternal punishment: bat tie righteous into eternal lib." On this passage see Meyer: "The absolute Idea of eternity, in respect to the punishments of hell, is not to be set aside, either by an appeal to the popular use of niurtot, or by an appeal to the figurative term 'Are'; to the incompatibility of the idea of the eternal with that of moral evil and its punishment, or to the warning design of the representation; but it stands fast exogetically, by means of the contrasted <■>>!>• aiunor, which signifies the endless Messianic life."

(/) Other descriptions of the condemnation and suffering of the lost, excluding, as they do, all hope of repentance or forgiveness, render it certain that aidiv and a\iivio$, in the passages referred to, describe a punishment that is without end.

Mat. 12:31, 32—"Irerj sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against the Spirit shall

not be forgiven it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in that which is to come "; 25 :10 —

"ind the door was shut"; Mark 3 : 29 —" whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness,

but is guilty of an eternal sin "; 9 : 43, 48 -" to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire where their worm dieth

not. and the Ire is not quenched ": Luke 3 :17 —" the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable Ire "; 16 : 26 — "between us and you there is a great gulf fued, that they which would pass from hence to you may not be able, and that none may cross over from thence to us"; John 3 : 36—"he that obeyeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him."

Review of Farrar's Eternal Hope, in Bib. Sac., Oct., 1878 : 782—"The original meaning of the English word ' hell' and ' damn' was precisely that of the Greek words for which they stand. Their present meaning Is widely different, but from what did it arise? It arose from the connotation imposed on those words by the Impression the Scriptures made on the popular mind. The present meaning of these words is involved in the Scripture, and cannot be removed by any mechanical process. Change the words, and in a few years 'Judge' will have in the Bible the same force that' damn' has at present. In fact, the words were not mistranslated, but the connotation of which Dr. Farrar complains has come upon them since, and that through the Scriptures. This proves what the general Impression of Scripture upon the mind Is, and shows how far Dr. Farrar has gone astray."

For the view that ai^viot and aiiiv are used in a limited sense, see DeQuincey, Theological Essays, 1:126-140; Maurice, Essays, 436; Farrar, Eternal Hope, 200; Smyth, Orthodox Theology of To-day, 118-123; Wniton. Is Eternal Punishment Endless? For the common orthodox view, see Fisher and Tyler, in Now Englander, March, 1878; Gould, in Bib. Sac, 1880 : 221-248; Princeton Review, 1873 : 620; Shedd, Doctrine of Endless Punishment, 12-117.

D. This everlasting punishment of the wicked is not inconsistent with God's justice, but is rather a revelation of that justice.

(a) We have seen in our discussion of Penalty that its object is neither reformatory nor deterrent, but simply vindicatory; in other words, that it primarily aims, not at the good of the offender, nor at the welfare of society, but at the vindication of law. We have also seen that justice is not a form of benevolence, but is the expression and manifestation of God's holiness. Punishment, therefore, as the inevitable and constant reaction of that holiness against its moral opposite, cannot come to an end until guilt and sin come to an end.

*

The fundamental error of LTnlversalism is its denial that penalty Is vindicatory, and that justice Is distinct from benevolence. See article on Unlversalism, In Johnson's Cyclopaedia: "The punishment of the wicked, however severe or terrible it may be, is but a means to a beneficent end; not revengeful, but remedial; not for its own sake, but for the good of those who suffer Its Infliction." With this agrees Rev. H. W. Beecher: "I believe that punishment exists, both hore and hereafter; but It will not continue after it ceases to do good. With a God who could give pain for pain's sake, this world would go out like a candle." But we reply that the doctrine of eternal punishment is not a doctrine of "pain for pain's sake," but of pain for holiness' sake. Punishment could have no beneficial effect upon the universe, or even upon the offender, unless it were just and right in itself. And If Just and right in itself, then the reason for its continuance lies, not in any benefit to the universe, or to the sufferer, to accrue therefrom.

F. L. Patton, in Brit and For. Ev. Rev., Jan., 1878 : 126-139, on the Philosophy of Punishment —"If the Uni versalist's position were true, we should expect to find some manifestations of love and pity and sympathy in the infliction of the dreadful punishments of the future. We look in vain for this, however. We read of God's anger, of his judgments, of his fury, of his taking vengeance; but we get no hint. In any passage which describes the sufferings of the next world, that they are designed to work the redemption and recovery of the soul. If the punishments of the wicked were chastisements, we should expect to see some bright outlook In the Bible-picture of the place of doom. A gleam of light, one might suppose, might make its way from the celestial city to this dark abode. The sufferers would catch some sweet refrain of heavenly music which would be a promise and prophecy of a far-off but coming glory. But there Is a finality about the Scripture statements as to the condition of the lost, which is simply terrible."

The reason for punishment lies not in the benevolence, but in the holiness, of God. That holiness reveals itself in the moral constitution of the universe. It makes itself felt in conscience — imperfectly here, fully hereafter. The wrong merits punishment. The right binds, not because it is the expedient, but because it is the very nature of God. "But the great ethical significance of this word right will not be known," (we quote again from Dr. Patton) "its imperative claims, its sovereign behests, its holy and imperious sway over the moral creation will not be understood, until we witness, during the lapse of the Judgment-hours, the terrible retribution which measures the Ill-desert of wrong."

(f>) But guilt, or ill-desert, is endless. However long the sinner may be punished, he never ceases to be ill-deserving. Justice, therefore, which gives to all according to their deserts, cannot cease to punish. Since the reason for punishment is endless, the punishment itself must be endless. Even past sins involve an endless guilt, to which endless punishment is simply the inevitable correlate.

For full statement of this argument that guilt, as never coming to an end, demands endless punishment, see Shedd, Doctrine of Endless Punishment, 118-163 —" Suffering that is penal can never come to an end, because guilt is the reason for its infliction, and

guilt, once incurred, never ceases to be One sin makes guilt, and guilt makes bell."

Man does not punish endlessly, because he does not take account of God. "Human punishment is only approximate and imperfect, not absolute and perfect like the divine. It is not adjusted exactly and precisely to the whole guilt of the offense, but is more or less modified, first, by not considering its relation to God's honor and majesty; secondly, by human Ignorance of inward motives; and thirdly, by social expediency."

But " hell is not a penitentiary The Lamb of God is also Lion of the tribe of Judah.

.... The human penalty that approaches nearest to the divine is capital punishment. This punishment has a kind of endlessness. Death is a finality. It forever separates the murderer from earthly society, even as future punishment separates forever from the soeiety of God and heaven."

(c) Not only eternal guilt, but eternal sin, demands eternal punishment. So long as moral creatures are opposed to God, they deserve punishment. Since we cannot measure the power of the depraved will to resist God, we cannot deny the possibility of endless sinning. Sin tends evermore to reproduce itself. The Scriptures speak of "an eternal sin" (Mark 3 : 29). But it is just in God to visit endless sinning with endless punishment. Sin, moreover, is not only an act, but also a condition or state, of the soul; this state, as impure and abnormal, involves misery; this misery, as appointed by God to vindicate law and holiness, is punishment; this punishment is the necessary manifestation of God's justice. Not the punishing, but the not-punishing, would impugn his justice; for if it is just to punish sin at all, it is just to punish it as long as it exists.

Mark 3 : 29—" Whosoever dull blaspheme against the Holy Spirit bath sever forgiveness, but ii guilty of as eternal sis "; Rev. 22:11 —" He that is unrighteous, let him do unrighteousness still: and he that is filthy let him be nude filthy still." Calvin: "God has the best reason for punishing everlasting- Bin everlastingly." President Dwlght: "Every sinner Is condemned for bis first sin, and for every sin that follows, though they continue forever."

But we must remember that men are finally condemned, not merely for sins, but for Bin; they are punished, not simply for act* of disobedience, but for evil character. The Judgment is essentially a remanding of men to their "own plsoe" (Acts 1:25). The soul that is permanently unlike God cannot dwell with God. The consciences of the wicked will Justify their doom, and they will themselves prefer hell to heaven. He who does not love God Is at war with himself, as well as with God, and cannot be at peace. Even though there were no positive Inflictions from God's band, the impure soul that has banished Itself from the presence of God and from the society of the holy has in its own evil conscience a source of torment.

And conscience gives us a pledge of the eternity of this suffering. Remorse has no tendency to exhaust itself. The memory of an evil deed grows not less but more keen with time, and self-reproach grows not leBS but more bitter. Ever renewed affirmation of its evil decision presents to the soul forever new occasion for conviction and shame. F. W. Robertson speaks of "the infinite maddening of remorse." And Dr. Shedd, In the book above quoted, remarks: "Though the will to resist sin may die out of a man, the conscience to condemn it never can. This remains eternally. And when the process is complete; when the responsible creature, in the abuse of free agency, has perfected his ruin; when his will to do good Is all gone; there remain these two In his Immortal spirit — sin and conscience,'brimstone asd fire' (Rev. 21: 8)."

(d) The actual facts of human life and the tendencies of modern science show that this principle of retributive j'ustice is inwrought into the elements and forces of the physical and moral universe. On the one hand, habit begets fixity of character, and in the spiritual world sinful acts, often repeated, produce a permanent state of sin, which the soul, unaided, cannot change. On the other hand, organism and environment are correlated to each other; and in the spiritual world, the selfish and impure find surroundings corresponding to their nature, while the surroundings react upon them and confirm their evil character. These principles, if they act in the next life as they do in this, will ensure increasing and unending punishment.

Gal. 6:7, 8 —"Be sot deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soveth, that shall be also reap. For he that soveth unto bis own flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption"; Rev. 22 :11—"He that is unrighteous, let him do unrighteousness still: and he that is filthy, let him be made filthy still." Dr. Heman Lincoln, in an article on Future Retribution (Examiner, April 2,1885) — speaks of two great laws of nature which confirm the Scripture doctrine of retribution. The first is that " the tendency of habit is towards a permanent state. The occasional drinker becomes a confirmed drunkard. One who Indulges in oaths passes into a reckless blasphemer. The gambler who has wasted a fortune, and ruined his family, is a slave to the card-table. The Scripture doctrine of retribution is only an extension of this well-known law to the future life."

The second of these laws is that "organism and environment must be in harmony. Through the vast domain of nature, every plant and tree and reptile and bird and mammal has organs and functions fitted to the climate and atmosphere of its habitat. If a sudden change occur in climate, from torrid to temperate, or from temperate to arctic: if the atmosphere change from dry to humid, or from carbonic vapors to a pure oxygen, sudden death is certain to overtake the entire fauna and flora of the region affected, unless plastic nature changes the organism to conform to the new environment. The interpreters of the Bible find the same law ordained for the world to come. Surroundings must correspond to character. A soul in love with sin can And no place in a holy heaven. If the environment be holy, the character of the beings assigned to it must be holy also. Nature and Revelation are in perfect accord." See Drummond, Natural Law in the Spiritual World, chapters Environment, Persistence of Type, and Degradation.

(e) As there are degrees of human guilt, so future punishment may admit of degrees, and yet in all those degrees be infinite in duration. The doctrine of everlasting punishment does not imply that, at each instant of the future existence of the lost, there is infinite pain. A line is infinite in length, but it is far from being infinite in breadth or thickness. "An infinite series may make only a finite sum; and infinite series may differ infinitely in their total amount." The Scriptures recognize such degrees in future punishment, while at the same time they declare it to be endless (Luke 12 : 47, 48; Rev. 20:12, 13).

Lake 12 : 47, 48 —" And that servant which knew his Lord's will, and made not ready, aor did according to bis will, shall be beaten with many stripes; bat he that knew not, and did things worth j of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes "; Rev. 20 :12,13 —" and I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne; and books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged oat of the things which were written in the books, according to their works judged every man according to their works."

(/) We know the enormity of sin only by God's own declarations with regard to it, and by the sacrifice which he has made to redeem us from it. As committed against an infinite God, and as having in itself infinite possibilities of evil, it may itself be infinite, and may deserve infinite punishment. Hell, as well as the cross, indicates God's estimate of sin.

Every single sin, apart from the action of divine grace, Is the sign of pervading and permanent apostasy. But there Is no HngU sin. Sin is a germ of Infinite expansion. The single sin, left to itself, would never cease in its effects of evil — It would dethrone God. "The idea of disproportion between sin and its punishment grows out of a belittling of sin and its guilt. One who regards murder as a slight offence will think hanging an outrageous injustice. Theodore Parker hated the doctrine of eternal punishment, because he considered sin as only a provocation to virtue, a step toward triumph, a fall upwards, good in the making." But it Is only when we regard Its relation to God that we can estimate sin's ill desert. Dr. Shedd: "The guilt of sin is infinite, because it is measured, not by the powers of the offender, but by the majesty of the God against whom it is committed." See Edwards tho Younger, Works, 1:1-294.

E. This, everlasting punishment of the wicked is not inconsistent with God's benevolence.— It is maintained, however, by many who object to eternal retribution, that benevolence requires God not to inflict punishment upon his creatures except as a means of attaining some higher good. >We reply:

(a) God is not only benevolent but holy, and holiness is his ruling attribute. The vindication of God's holiness is the primary and sufficient object of punishment. This constitutes a good which fully justifies the infliction.

Even love has dignity, and rejected love may turn blessing into cursing. Love for holiness involves hatred of unholiness. The love of God is not a love without character. Dorner: "Love may not throw Itself away ... We have no right to say that punishment is just only when it is the means of amendment." We must remember that holiness conditions love.

(6) In this life, God's justice does involve certain of his creatures in sufferings which are of no advantage to the individuals who suffer; as in the case of penalties which do not reform, and of afflictions which only harden and embitter. If this be a fact here, it may be a fact hereafter.

There are many Bufferers on earth, in prisons and on sick-beds, whose suffering results in hardness of heart and enmity to God. The question is not a question of quantity, but of quality. It Is a question whether any punishment at all is consistent with God's benevolence,— any punishment, that is to say, which does not result In good to the punished. This we maintain; and claim that God is bound to punish moral lmpurity, whether any (rood comes therefrom to the impure or not. Archbishop Whately gays it is as difficult to change one atom of load to silver as it is to change a whole mountain. If the punishment of manu incorrigibly impenitent persons Is inconsistent with God's benevolence, so Is the punishment of one incorrigibly Impenitent person: if the punishment of incorrigibly Impenitent persons for eternity is Inconsistent with God's benevolence, so is the punishment of such persons for a limited time, or for any time at all.

(c) The benevolence of God, as concerned for the general good of the universe, requires the execution of the full penalty of the law upon all who reject Christ's salvation. The Scriptures intimate that God's treatment of human sin is matter of instruction to all moral beings. The self-chosen ruin of the few may be the salvation of the many.

Dr. Joel Parker, Lectures on Universalism, speaks of the security of free creatures as attained through a gratitude for deliverance " kept alive by a constant example of some who are suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." Our own race may be the only race (of course the angels are not a "race ") that has fallen away from God. As through the church the manifold wisdom of God is made manifest "to principalities and powers in tb« heavenlj places" (Eph. 3:10); so, through the punishment of the lost, God's holiness may be made known to a universe that without it might have no proof so striking, that sin is moral suicide and ruin, and that God's holiness is its irreconcilable antagonist.

With regard to the extent and scope of hell, we quote the words of Dr. Shedd, in the book already mentioned: "Hell is only a spot in the universe of God. Compared with heaven, hell is narrow and limited. The kingdom of Satan is insignificant, In contrast with the kingdom of Christ. In the Immense range of God's dominion, good is the rule and evil is the exception. Sin is a speck upon the infinite azure of eternity; a spot on the sun. Hell is only a corner of the universe. The Gothic etymon denotes a coveredup hole. In Scripture, hell Is a'pit,' a'lake'; not an ocean. It is 'bottomless,' not boundless. The Gnostic and Dualistic theories which make God and Satan, or the Demiurge, nearly equal in power and dominion, find no support in Revelation. The Bible teaches that there will always be some sin and death in the universe. Some angels and men will forever be the enemies of God. But their number, compared with that of unfallen angels and redeemed men, is small. They are not described in the glowing language and metaphors by which the Immensity of the holy and blessed is delineated (Pa. 68:17; Beat. 32 : 2; Pa 103 : 31; Mat. 6:13: 1 Cor. 15 : 35: Rev. 14 :1; 21:18, 34, 25.) The number of the lost spirits Is never thus emphasized and enlarged upon. The brief, stern statement is, that

'the fearful and unbelieving their part shall be in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone' (Rev. 21: 8).

No metaphors and amplifications are added to make the impression of an Immense 'multitude which no man can number.'" Dr. Hodge: "We have reason to believe that the lost will bear to the saved no greater proportion than the Inmates of a prison do to the mass of a community."

(d) The present existence of sin and punishment is commonly admitted to be in some way consistent with God's benevolence, in that it is made the means of revealing God's justice and mercy. If the temporary existence of sin and punishment lead to good, it is entirely possible that their eternal existence may lead to yet greater good.

A priori, we should have thought it impossible for God to permit moral evil. But sin Is a fact. Who can say how long it will be a fact? Why not forever? The benevolence that permits it now may permit it through eternity. And yet, if permitted through eternity, it can be made harmless only by visiting it with eternal punishment. Lillle on Thessalonians, 457 —" If the temporary existence of sin and punishment lead to good, how can we prove that their eternal existence may not lead to greater good?" We need not deny that it causes God real sorrow to banish the lost. Christ's weeping over Jerusalem expresses the feelings of God's heart: Mat. 33 : 37, 38 —" 0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killeth the prophets and stoneth them that are sent unto her! how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a ben gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate "; cf. Hose* 11: 8—"Bow shall I give thee up, Kparaim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim? mine heart is turned within me, mj compassions are kindled together."

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(e) As benevolence in God seems in the beginning to have permitted moral evil, not because sin was desirable in itself, but only because it was incident to a system which provided for the highest possible freedom and holiness in the creature; so benevolence in God may to the end permit the existence of sin and may continue to punish the sinner, undesirable as these things are in themselves, because they are incidents of a system which provides for the highest possible freedom and holiness in the creature through eternity.

But the condition of the lost is only made more hopeless by the difficulty with which God brings himself to this, his "strange work "of punishment (Is. 28: 21). The sentence which the judge pronounces with tears is indicative of a tender and suffering: heart, but it also Indicates that there can be no recall. By the very exhibition of "eternal judgment (Heb. 6:2), not only may a greater number be kept true to God, but a higher degree of holiness among that number be forever assured. See Goulburn, Everlasting Punishment; Haley, The Hereafter of Sin.

F. The proper preaching of the doctrine of everlasting punishment is not a hindrance to the success of the gospel, but is one of ite chief and indispensable auxiliaries.— It is maintained by some, however, that, because men are naturally repelled by it, it cannot be a part of the preacher's message. We reply:

(a) If the doctrine be true, and clearly taught in Scripture, no fear of consequences to ourselves or to others can absolve us from the duty of preaching it. The minister of Christ is under obligation to preach the whole truth of God; if he does this, God will care for the results.

b. 2 : 7—"And thou shall speak my words nnto them, whether they will heir, or whether they will forbear"; 3 :10,11,18,19—"Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, all my words that I shall speak nnto thee receive in thine heart, and hear with thine ears, ind go, get thee to them of the captivity, nnto the children of thy people, and speak

nnto them, and tell them, Thus saith the lord God; whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear When I

say nnto the wicked. Thou shalt surely die; and thon pvest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Tet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity: but thou hast deli Tend thy soul."

(6) All preaching which ignores the doctrine of eternal punishment just so far lowers the holiness of God, of which eternal punishment is an expression, and degrades the work of Christ, which was needful to save us from it. The success of such preaching can be but temporary, and must be followed by a disastrous reaction toward rationalism and immorality.

Much apostasy from the faith begins with refusal to accept the doctrine of eternal punishment. Theodore Parker, while he acknowledged that the doctrine was taught in the New Testament, rejected It, and came at last to say of the whole theology which includes this Idea of endless punishment, that It "sneers at common sense, spits upon reason, and makes God a devil."

But, if there be no eternal punishment, then man's danger was not great enough to require an infinite sacrifice: and we are compelled to give up the doctrlneof atonement. If there was no atonement, there was no need that man's Savior should himself be more than man; and we arc compelled to give up the doctrine of the deity of Christ, and with this that of the Trinity. If punishment is not eternal, then God's holiness Is but another name for benevolence; all proper foundation for morality is gone, and God's law ceases to inspire reverence and awe. If punishment Is not eternal, then the Scripture writers who believed and taught this were fallible men who were not above the prejudices and errors of their times; and wo lose all evidence of the divine Inspiration of the Bible. With this goes the doctrine of miracles; God^s identified with nature, and becomes the Impersonal God of pantheism.

Theodore Parker passed through this process, and so did Francis W. Newman. Logically, every one who denies the everlasting- punishment of the wicked ought to reach a like result; and we need only a superficial observation of countries like India, where pantheism is rife, to see how deplorable is the result In the decline of public and of private virtue.

(c) The fear of future punishment, though not the highest motive, is yet a proper motive, for the renunciation of sin and the turning to Christ. It must therefore be appealed to, in the hope that the seeking of salvation which begins in fear of God's anger may end in the service of faith and love.

Luke 12 : 4, 5 —" And I say onto you. my friends. Be not afraid of them which lull the body, and after that have no mora that they can do. But I will warn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, who after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Pear him "; Jude 23 —" and some sate, snatching them out of the fire." It is noteworthy that the Old Testament, which Is sometimes regarded, though Incorrectly, as a teacher of fear, has no such revelations of hell as are found in the New. Only when God's mercy was displayed in the cross wore there opened to men's view the depths of the abyss from which the cross was to save them. And it is not Peter or Paul, but our Lord himself, who gives us the most fearful descriptions of the suffering of the lost, and the clearest assertions of Its eternal duration.

(rf) In preaching this doctrine, while we grant that the material images used in Scripture to set forth the sufferings of the lost are to be spiritually and not literally interpreted, we should still insist that the misery of the soul which eternally hates God is greater than the physical pains which are used to symbolize it. Although a hard and mechanical statement of the truth may only awaken opposition, a solemn and feeling presentation of it upon proper occasions, and in its due relation to the work of Christ and the offers of the gospel, cannot fail to accomplish God's purpose in preaching, and to be the means of saving some who hear.

acts 20 : 31 —" Wherefore watch ye, remembering that by the space of three years I ceased not to admonish every one night and day with tears"; 2 Cor. 2 :14-17—"But thanks be unto God, who always leadeth us in triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest through us the savor of his knowledge in every place. For we are a sweet savor of Christ unto God, in them that are saved, and in them that perish; to the one a savor from death unto death; to the other a savor from life unto life, and who is sufficient for these things? For we are not as the many, corrupting the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, speak we in Christ"; 5 :11 —" Knowing therefore the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are made manifest unto God; and I hope that we are manifest also in your consciences"; 1 Tim. 4 :16—"Take heed to thyself and to thy teaching. Continue in these things; for in so doing thou shalt save both thyself and them that hear thee."

So Richard Baxter wrote: "I preached as never sure to preach again. And as a dying man to dying men." It was Robert McCheyne who said that the preacher ought never to speak of everlasting punishment without tears. MeCbeyne's tearful preaching of it prevailed upon many to break from their sins and to accept the pardon and renewal that are offered in Christ. Such preaching of judgment and punishment were never needed more than now, when lax and unscriptural views with regard to law and sin break the force of the preacher's appeals. Let there be such preaching, and then many a hearer will utter the thought. If not the words, of the Dies Irte, 8-10 —" Rex tremendse majestatls, Qui salvandos salvas gratis, Salva me, fons pietatls. Recordare, Jesu pie. Quod sum causa tun; via;: Ne me perdas ilia die. Quierens me sedistl laasus, Redemisti crucem passus: Tantus labor non sit cassus." See Edwards, Works, 4 : 226-321; Hodge, Outlines of Theology, 459-468; Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 310, 319, 464; Dexter, Verdict of Reason; George, Univeraalism not of the Bible; Angus, Future Punishment; Jackson, Bampton Lectures for 1875, on the Doctrine of Retribution; Shedd, Doctrine of Endless Punishment, preface.