The first and last and only question which this system propounds to the individual is how to escape the eternal damnation, to which it supposes him doomed by the fact of his humanity, i. e. by the measure of sinfulness proper to human nature as such. The question is not how to escape the sin, but how to escape the damnation incurred by it. The system makes the whole essence of revelation to consist "in the discovery to man of a new means by which, without any previous eradication of sin, sin can be pardoned." We question if a character formed on the principle of escaping damnation, with a sole or principal view to that end, will ever realize the highest ideal of manhood or womanhood. Great correctness it may attain to, and negative holiness, but at what expense of freedom and power, and dignity and grace! The aim of a true religion is not to escape damnation, but to lay hold of everlasting life. These aims may seem to coincide in effect, but the difference between them is heaven-wide. The one is dictated by selfish fear, the other springs from exceeding love. The former is ascetic in its tendency and method; it delights in scrupulous correctness of deportment, it accomplishes wonders of self-denial, but all for self's sake, to escape damnation; as the miser denies himself the gratifications of sense for the sake of increasing his store. The other is a self-forgetting, a losing of one's self in some worthy object for its own sake. It is written: "He that will lose his life for my sake" (not for the sake of his own soul, but for my sake, for the sake of truth and righteousness and human weal) "shall find it." And who can doubt that one who devotes himself, a living sacrifice, to some great and good work, without troubling himself about the salvation of his soul, or spending a single thought on the subject, is in quite as salvable a condition, and has quite as good a chance of a blessed hereafter, as one whose single aim in life has been to save his soul from death? A very poor soul it may be when it is saved, and very little comfort he may have in it. However free from positive vice, however unspotted from the world, it may not have expanded, not developed; it may never have fairly come out of itself in one true act of self-abandonment. A very little soul after all, and scarcely worth the pains it has cost. A true religion will rather aim to make us one. forget ourselves in the love and pursuit of noble ends, than seek to occupy us with thoughts of the hereafter, our part and lot in another world. Let theologians say what they will, that is not the first and great concern, but a very secondary What we want of religion is to develop in us the principle of love. Without this no soul can be truly blessed, and this the fear of hell will never awaken. The uttermost that the fear of hell can do, is to keep the life unspotted from the world. It can never kindle the flame of love, it can give no hold of eternal life. What we complain of in this system is, that, instead of taking us out of ourself, it drives us back upon ourself, in self-tormenting introspection. Instead of showing us spiritual beauty in forms that shall win and command our affections, it turns a magnifying-glass on our sins and unworthiness. It aims to frighten us with our lost state. If it does not succeed in that, it leaves us weaker than before. If it does succeed, the remedy it proposes to our fear is, not eradication of the sinful principle, but a transfer of the penalty. It makes more of the penalty than it does of the sin. The salvation it offers is salvation from the consequences of sin, rather than from sin itself. It is certainly essential to our spiritual wellbeing that we should be aware of our sins; not theological sins, not Adam's sin, but of actual transgressions in thought, will, and deed. Conviction of sin is an indispensable step in the reformation of the sinner. But this conviction is to be effected, not by forcing the eye inward, but by that enlightening and quickening of the conscience which comes through adequate exhibitions of moral truth. And when that conviction is awakened, the feeling to be encouraged in connection with it is not the fear of future punishment, but the sense of present defilement, of an insupportable burden to be got rid of for its own sake, not for the sake of what may hereafter come of it. The sorrow should be taught to dwell on the sin itself, and not on the penalty incurred by it. Practically, therefore, the question of future punishment is not one of prime importance. As a speculative question, it may claim that degree of attention which belongs to other speculations in theology, and no more. Recent discussions have renewed the interest in this subject, and brought it prominently before the religious mind of this community, without bringing it, we fear, any nearer to a final adjustment. The well-meant and conscientious publication of Dr. Hovey, who quotes the Apocalypse as the "testimony of Christ after his ascension," and "rejoices" to find the eternal misery, of Satan at least, conceded by Mr. Dobney,* is not likely to contribute materially to this consummation. Dr. Hovey reasons from the letter of the New Testament in favor of the doctrine of endless punishment. His exegetical argument is well put, and would weigh more had not the author omitted to consider the Scriptures which bear on the other side. But even were the letter more decisive than it is, there are many with whom the letter is not a finality, and who cannot receive it as the only and sufficient witness in a matter like this. In spite of Dr. Hovey's critical labors, the question will remain an open question for the present; it is likely to occupy the theologians of another generation, and to be transmitted an unsolved problem by them to their successors. The various opinions which have been entertained regarding the moral future of souls may be reduced to these two:1st, that of the Universalists, who suppose that all souls, after a purgatory longer or shorter according to the exigency of each case, or even without purgatorial discipline, will be eternally blest; 2d, that of the Partialists, who suppose that only a select portion will be so blest, and the rest consigned to eternal punishment, either in the way of annihilation or of conscious endless suffering. From the earliest period of the Church these two parties have divided, very unequally, the Christian world. These two, and no third. No sect has maintained that all will be lost. An eschatology so desperate, however agreeable to the Church Despondent, involves too violent a theory of life for the hardihood even of penal theology. It seemed absolutely necessary that some should be saved, and that hell should have its correlative heaven, were it only for the sake of perspective. Simple theism required thus much. A God who creates only to destroy, or, creating to save, is balked in that * Page 83. intent by the wilfulness of his creatures or the power of Satan, and cannot so much as save one soul, would be equivalent to no God, and would answer no theological purpose. It was therefore conceded (not without seeming reluctance in some cases) by even the most zealous of those who identified the majesty of God with revenge of a violated law, that a special effort of grace would be made by way of showing what Mercy could do if Justice would. Universalists and Partialists:-both of these systems, with proper modifications, that is, with a reasonable extension of the penal discipline on the one side, and a reasonable allowance of saving grace on the other, are sufficiently plausible; but neither is unquestionable, neither is demonstrable, neither possesses the certainty requisite to constitute it a positive doctrine of religion. There is much to be said in favor of both, much may be objected to both; neither can pretend to dogmatic certainty, nor is it in the power of theological learning or human wit to establish anything definite on this subject. Theology here must content itself with generalities, and religion must rest on those everlasting laws which compose the framework of the moral universe, and include, together with this earthly life, the heavens and the hells in one dominion. If we suppose, with the Universalists, that all souls are predestined to everlasting blessedness in the world to come, we must suppose a fitness or capacity for such blessedness on the part of the subject, already existing or to be hereafter acquired. Without this fitness on the part of the subject, blessedness in any state is inconceivable. No man in his senses believes that happiness hereafter will be thrust upon him in spite of himself, and against all the habits and antecedents of the soul. But to change that condition of the soul by an external force in order to make it receptive of happiness, would be to annihilate one soul and to create another in its place. If we say that this capacity already exists in the subject, in all subjects, we are contradicted by the plainest facts of nature and life. It may be urged, that the present unfitness arises from causes which cease with death; that death will make all men blest by removing the obstacles to blessedness which abound in this world, and which belong to this world alone. This plea supposes an efficacy in death which we have no right to assume. It is thought by some, that the body and the physical or other external influences by which we are conditioned in the present life are the cause of all evil, and that every soul will be found fit for happiness when once divested of its mortal covering, and disencumbered of its present relations. But are there no evils beside those which arise from physical and terrestrial relations? Granting that a portion of our sins and our sufferings have their origin in the flesh, there are others which cannot with any propriety be traced to that source. Some organizations, no doubt, are more favorable to moral rectitude than others, but experience shows that moral rectitude may exist under all conditions; that the most favorable, so far as we can judge, do not secure it; that the most unfavorable, so far as we can judge, do not preclude it. We have, therefore, no authority from any grounds in our present experience, and certainly not from any other source, for supposing that vice and misery belong to the body alone, and will cease with the ending of this bodily life. Moreover, in its extreme formthe supposition of immediate and universal happiness hereafter -the Universalist theory impugns the disciplinary character, and confounds the meaning and aggravates the mystery of this human world. If all men are morally fit for happiness now, it is difficult to understand why this world has not been so arranged as to yield that happiness now, and why we are doomed to reach by the long and circuitous route of mortal experience, and through the miracle of death, a good to which in our present capacity we might seem to have a present claim. Or, adopting the modification with which the Universalist theory is commonly held, if we suppose that the fitness and capacity for happiness which exist not now will arrive hereafter, will arrive to all, that all souls are destined to eternal blessedness after such probation as each may require, we still stretch the right of conjecture. We suppose a remedial and restorative influence in the air of hell, or (lest the theological term should mislead) in the future transmundane penalties of sin, which may possibly belong to them, but of which we know |