to assign the final cause of the fact, but to admit and reason on the
fact itself. The fact occasions no horror in our minds, and less regret
than is felt perhaps by any denomination of Christians besides
ourselves; and for this reason, that we do not hold perdition to be the
only alternative to salvation by Christ. We find no sanction for so
fearful a collocation of terms in the record of the covenant; no mode of
reconciling the doctrine thus originated with the attributes of Deity,
or with our conceptions of justice, much less of benignity. Moreover we
can clearly discern through what misconception the monstrous belief in
the everlasting destruction of unbelievers, whether by natural or moral
necessity, has sprung to birth. We believe it to have arisen from the
before-mentioned misapprehension of the terms Salvation, Remission of
sins, and Justification.
To the enjoyment of the blessings of the Gospel no alternative could be
opposed but their non-possession; to the remission of sins, but their
retention; to justification, but condemnation under the law. But it does
not follow that when these terms are shifted from their original use,
and accommodated to a subject to which they do not naturally belong,
they should be still opposed to each other, no others being allowed to
intervene. If it be generally agreed to understand by _Salvation_ a
state of perfect bliss after death, it is well: but if any man then
choose to transfer the term _Perdition_ from meaning the loss of the
privileges of Christianity to the loss of the happiness of heaven and a
consequent subjection to the pains of hell, he goes further than the
customary use of language allows, further than reason can sanction, and
much further astray from a true theology than he can at present
estimate, or can hereafter sufficiently deplore. It is mournful enough
that myriads have died in ignorance and error, that thousands have
rejected offered light; but no words can express the horror of the
popular doctrine of the eternal condemnation of all who have not died
in the faith of Christ, or our reprobation of the corruption through
which such a doctrine has been originated, received, and retained. While
we believe that grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, and that 'all
things are but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
our Lord,' we cannot believe that wrath from above and misery from
below, sin from within and darkness around, destined to be dissipated
only by the flames of hell, are the portion of all but those who are
equally happy with ourselves. Our belief appears to us more consistent
with our apprehensions of the perfections of our Father, with our
interpretations of his providence, and with the spirit of his revealed
law. We believe that though Christianity is the focus in which all the
lights of reason and religion are concentrated, every ray is not there
absorbed. We believe that though shadows brood more or less darkly over
every heathen land, there is in the most remote a glimmering of the
dawn; a ray which may direct the eye towards the fountain of glory, and
engage the attention to watch the rising of that sun which shall set no
more.
We believe that the rewards of righteousness are promised to all; and
that the practice of righteousness is not limited to any kindred,
tongue, or people, or essentially connected with any religious belief.
We hold that retribution is the universal sanction of the universal
moral law; and if the nature of the sanction be more fully understood by
Christians, and therefore practically admitted with greater readiness,
let them be as grateful as they will for the great privilege, but beware
of supposing that the sanction is abolished to all besides. Under the
various obscurations of this sanction, savage virtue may be inferior to
civilized,--Hottentot to Roman virtue, as both are to Christian
holiness; but there is every reason to believe that the savage who
surrendered his hard-earned meal to the hungry stranger, and the Pagan
senators and warriors who toiled and bled for their country, were as
sure of an appropriate reward as the most benevolent and heroic of
Christians.
The unlimited nature of salvation in this sense, leads us on to another
great doctrine of the Gospel; viz.
III. A Future State.
This truth, the most important to human improvement, the most
interesting to human affections, was so fully brought to light by the
Gospel, that Christians have differed respecting it no further than as
to the time and mode in which future retribution will take place. That
Jesus died on the cross, was inclosed in the sepulchre, and was led
forth thence by the manifest power of God, are facts too well
authenticated to be questioned to any purpose by the most hardy sceptic;
and on them securely rests the sublime belief which, from the midst of
obscurity, had already cheered the bereaved, animated the martyr, and
exalted the hopes and fears of the great body of the Hebrew nation. They
had been led, like many of the Gentiles, by the mournful questionings of
their affections, to inquire concerning a future state, and at length to
believe in it; but their indistinct belief was widely different in
nature and far inferior in power to the firm and clear faith with which
the resurrection of Christ authorized them to look forward. Their former
belief was strong enough to reconcile them to death; and perhaps they
had sufficiently clear convictions that the future life would be a scene
of retribution, to govern their own conduct by some regard to it; but
the evidence was not such as to authorize their pressing on the minds
of others the motives which the doctrine now affords. Without the
evidence of the facts of Christ's resurrection, Paul could not have made
Felix tremble at the prospect of judgement to come; or have enforced the
duties of masters to their servants by considerations of their
accountability to a master in heaven; or have felt how far better it was
to depart and be with Christ than to pursue his earthly labors. Without
this evidence, Stephen could not have met his fate as if he had been
welcoming the hour of rest from which the beams of a new day should
awaken him. Without this evidence, no one of the Apostles could have
passed through his labors and sufferings with zeal, patience, and
cheerfulness; for we have their own testimony, that if in this life only
they had had hope in Christ, they would have been of all men the most
miserable. Without this evidence, not only would the hopes of millions
who have since lived have vacillated, the peace of millions have been at
the mercy of sickness and death, and their spiritual strength in
perpetual peril from temptation, but the state of morals through the
whole civilized world, imperfect as it yet is, would have been far
inferior to what we see it, and could never attain the purity which we
confidently anticipate in some future age. Without this evidence,
Christianity would be almost nothing; for the doctrine of future
retribution is not only its most important revelation, but it is so
intimately connected with every other, as a sanction, that the Church
might as well be supposed complete without its chief corner-stone, as
Christianity to be efficacious if deprived of this last grand truth.
This evidence we have, however; and possessing it, it is of
comparatively little importance how widely men differ in their
speculations as to the time and mode in which the future life shall
succeed to the present, and as to the nature of the rewards and
punishments which shall follow their probation. The belief in a certain
and righteous retribution is all that is enforced upon us by
Christianity, all that is a necessary consequence of our faith in the
resurrection of Christ. Yet, as a tendency to unauthorized speculation,
and also a misapprehension of some Scriptural expressions, appear to us
to have caused a very extensive forgetfulness that retribution is not
only certain, but will be righteous, we must enter on some explanation
of our views respecting the extent of punishment of which the life to
come is to be the scene.
We say respecting the _extent_ only, because the _nature_ of the
punishment is a subject of far inferior importance, and one on which we
possess so little light that it may fairly be left to the imagination of
each individual to conceive for himself. Some persons, perhaps the great
majority of every denomination of Christians, believe that the pains of
actual burning will be inflicted on a corporeal frame, susceptible of
suffering in the same way as the body which we at present inhabit, but
rendered indestructible. Others conceive that the Scripture language
which describes the wicked as tormented by fire is metaphorical, and
that it clearly refers, by way of allusion, to the valley of Hinnom,
where corrupt substances were devoured by worms, and where human
sacrifices were offered by fire to Moloch. Such imagine that the future
sufferings of the wicked will be purely mental, but not therefore the
less severe and awful. If it had been necessary to form clear
conceptions on this subject, a fuller light would have been cast upon
it; and as that fuller light is not granted, we may fairly suppose that
we cannot at present understand the exact nature of the evil of which
we are emphatically called on to beware. But of the duration of the
evil, we believe ourselves so far qualified to judge, as to anticipate
that it will not be eternal.
Our reasons for thus determining are various. It is, in the first place,
utterly inconceivable that God should appoint to any individual of his
creatures a lot in which misery predominates over happiness. Our belief
in the Divine prescience requires that we suppose the fate of every man
to be ordained from the beginning. Our faith in the Divine mercy
requires that we should expect an overbalance of good in the existence
of every being thus ordained; and that in no case can the punishment be
disproportionate to the offence. Our faith in the Divine benevolence
inspires a conviction that all evil is to be made subsidiary to good,
and that therefore all punishment must be corrective, all suffering
remedial. Thus far the light of nature teaches us to anticipate the
final restitution of sinners.
It is confirmed by revelation,--by every passage of the sacred records
which represents God as a tender Father to all the human race, as just
and good, as incapable of being 'angry for ever,' or of taking pleasure
in the punishment of the wicked, and as chastising in mercy, for
corrective purposes. It is confirmed by every passage which describes
the good brought into the world by Christ as overbalancing the evil
produced by the introduction of sin and death. It is confirmed by every
passage which prophetically announces the triumph of the Gospel over all
adverse powers,--death, sin, and sorrow. Above all, it is confirmed by
the whole tenor of the preachings and writings of the Saviour and his
followers,--by the spirit of boundless benevolence, of joyful faith, of
exulting hope, which is every where blended with their emphatic warnings
of the perils of sin, and their mournful regret for the infatuation of
sinners. It appears to us that against all this array of evidence on the
one side, little or none can be adduced on the other.
That which is brought forward most frequently and with the most show of
reason is the expressions commonly translated _everlasting_, and which
are applied both to the future happiness of the righteous and misery of
the wicked. These terms (which are much less frequently applied to a
future state than is commonly supposed) do not invariably signify
'everlasting' and 'eternal,' as is evident from their being applied to
various institutions and states which have already come to an end and
passed away: as to the covenant with Abraham, which is declared to have
been long since annulled; to the priesthood of Aaron, of which no
vestiges remain; and to the flames of Gehenna, which have been quenched
for ages. The strictly correct rendering of the terms in these cases is
_permanent_, _continual_, _lasting_, and not absolutely eternal.
In order to reconcile the terms as usually rendered with the attribute
of Divine justice, some Christians have imagined that the limited
punishment of the wicked will be followed by immediate destruction; but
this supposition leaves the difficulty where it was before, and is
besides destitute of all support from reason or Scripture; as it is
incompatible with the character of the Divine dispensations that
punishment should be appointed for any but corrective purposes, or that
sin and sorrow should triumph in the annihilation of any individual of
God's creatures.
If we are asked why then we firmly believe in the immortality of the
righteous? we reply, that we found our faith on much better evidence
than the use of the terms we have now been considering. We believe it,
because the happiness of the creature is the fulfilment of the ends of
creation and providence; because happiness is an eternal principle,
while misery is only a temporary influence; and because it would argue
imperfection in the Deity, if he were either unable or unwilling to
prolong a holy and blissful existence.
This doctrine,--of the limited and corrective nature of future
punishment,--is often likened by those who disbelieve and disapprove it,
to the Catholic doctrine of purgatory; a likeness which Catholics and
Unitarians are perhaps equally unwilling to admit, though the latter
have little doubt that the belief in purgatory is a corruption of the
genuine doctrine as they hold it now.
It was the opinion of many of the Fathers in very early times, that the
world would be destroyed by fire; that the good would be purified by the
process, and the wicked consumed. It is clear that they derived a part
of this belief from some other source than the Scriptures; but it is
equally clear that they had no notion of an eternity of torment. Origen,
Clemens Alexandrinus, his master, with Gregory Nazianzen, and others of
the Fathers, held that the wicked would survive this punishment, and
come out purified and fit for a blissful state. The Catholic doctrine of
purgatory probably arose out of some of these opinions, though it
embraces much which does not appear to have entered into the
imaginations of the Fathers. Its substance, as declared in the councils
of Florence and Trent, is that every man is liable both to temporal and
eternal punishment for his sins; that the eternal punishment may be
escaped by faith in the atonement of Christ; but that the temporal must
be borne by the individual in this world or at his entrance on the next;
that the sufferings of those who undergo purgation may be relieved by
the prayers and suffrages of their earthly brethren, though in what
manner this relief is wrought, whether by a process of satisfaction, or
of intercession, or of any other method, it is not essential to true
faith to be certified. Neither is it necessary to know where the place
of purgation is; of what nature its pains are, and how long sufferers
may be detained there. The belief in purgatory was, for some ages, held
by all Christians, except the ancient Waldenses, who left the Church of
Rome before the doctrine was established there, and who never admitted
it. Soon after the Reformation, it was abandoned by all who left the
Church of Rome; so that it has since been peculiar to that church.
Our reasons for rejecting it are, that we find no trace of it in
Scripture, and that, as we declared before, we do not admit
ecclesiastical traditions as matters of faith. We also reject the notion
that any part of the punishment of sin can be escaped through the
sacrifices, or mediation, or intercession of any being whomsoever. We
have been frequently accused of impairing a divinely appointed sanction
by asserting the limited extent of future punishment; but we think that
the sanction is, in reality, abolished by the admission that the Divine
decrees may be set aside by human acts, and that the relations of good
and evil, virtue and vice, which are declared to be immutable, may be
changed at the pleasure of mortal agents. We believe the punishment of
sin to be of limited duration; but as certain as the existence of the
moral agent, and as little capable of remission through the will of any
created being as the law which regulates the rise and fall of the tides,
the changes of the moon, and the revolutions of the planets. We hold it
to be awful, not only from its certainty, but from its concealed
nature. It will doubtless transcend all that the experience of earth
can suggest to the imagination. Can it be said that we impair this
sanction when we hold that the suffering consequent on guilt is
absolutely certain, lasting in its duration, and inconceivably dreadful
in its nature? What apprehensions could be fitted to excite greater
dread?
For the purpose of explaining why we believe that no part of the
consequences of guilt can be evaded through the sacrifices, mediation,
or intercession of any being whatsoever, it is necessary to pass on to
the next division of our subject. Having stated the three leading
doctrines of Christianity, the Unity of God, the unlimited scope of the
plan of redemption, and a future state, we now proceed briefly to
examine the principles of morals proposed by the Gospel.
The fundamental truths of Morals are eternal as He to whom they
primarily relate, and immutable as the purposes which they subserve. But
it is necessary that they should be communicated to men under different
forms and according to various methods, as minds are prepared to receive
them: and their application must also be regulated according to the
circumstances in which men are placed. The same principle was proposed
to Adam in Paradise, to Abraham in Beersheba, and to Paul when he set
his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem, knowing that bonds and
afflictions awaited him there. Obedience to God was the motive proposed
for abstaining from the forbidden fruit, for sacrificing an only son,
and for facing suffering and death. But an intimation which was all
powerful with Abraham was insufficient to secure a much less painful
obedience from Adam; and the self-devotion of Paul was ennobled in all
its manifold instances, by its springing, not from so many express
directions, but from a principle, undeviating and perpetual in its
operation. In the infancy of the race, it would have been utterly
useless to reveal the grand principles of morals in any other way than
that which was adopted, viz. by exhibiting their application in various
instances. The Divine will was therefore made known in express
directions, probably very few in number at first, and gradually
increasing in number and importance, so as to enable observers, from
remarking the similar tendency of several, to infer a general principle
from them. All the records which we possess of the history of the race
to the calling of the Israelites out of Egypt, prove this to have been
the method adopted. The commands of God, and the promises and threats by
which they were sanctioned, bore an analogy, in their gradual elevation,
to those by which we influence an opening mind in its progress from the
first manifestation of intelligence to the age when the power of
conscience is recognizable. In the Mosaic system, a considerable advance
was made, a direct appeal to conscience being instituted, and the
gradual revelation of a moral government being provided for. Men were
then taught, not what we now know, that the relation between virtue and
happiness, vice and misery, is immutable (which they could not have
understood,) but that in their particular case, obedience to certain
laws would secure prosperity, and disobedience adversity. Such
obedience, the most virtuous were incited to render, from a fear and
love of God; but they could not have rendered it in any but specified
cases, because, not yet being made acquainted with the principle as a
principle, they could not direct its application for themselves. The
case was the same with the other great principle, Benevolence, as with
Piety; and, accordingly, the body of laws which was prepared for the
Israelites was voluminous, and their sanctions were expressed in a
copious variety of promises and threatenings, and embodied in a
burthensome ritual, consisting chiefly of penal acts. When the nation
had thus been exercised long enough to prepare it for entering on a new
course of moral agency (as we prepare a child for the spontaneous
exercise of filial duty and fraternal love by a discipline of express
commands and particular acts,) Christianity was dispensed, and men were
at length furnished with the principles themselves, with whose
application they were henceforth to be entrusted.
Christianity was designed to be permanent and universal; and, therefore,
though it was first communicated in the form best adapted to those who
were first to receive it, it contains within itself that which shall fit
it to be a revelation to the mind of man in every stage.
It contains eternal principles of doctrine and morals, embodied in
facts, which are the only immutable and universal language. The
character of Christ affords a never-failing suggestion, and a perfect
illustration of the principles of morals; a suggestion which only the
most careless minds can fail to receive, and an illustration by which
only the most hardened can fail to be impressed. From him it was learned
what part of the moral law of Moses was to be retained and what forgone;
how much was vital and permanent and how much external and temporary.
From him it was learned, and shall be learned to the end of time, how
the sympathy which caused tears at the grave of Lazarus, the compassion
which relieved the widowed mother of Nain, the tenderness which yearned
towards the repentant Apostle, the diffusive love which embraced in its
prayer all of every age and nation who needed the gospel of grace,
combined to enforce and adorn the principle of Benevolence. His parables
are eloquent in their praise of benevolence; his entreaties to mutual
love are urgent, and his commands decisive; but the eloquence of his
example is by far more urgent and irresistible. From him it was, and
ever shall be, learned that the rule of life is to be found in the will
of God. From his devotion to the work which God had given him to do,
from his perpetual reference of all things to the Divine will, from his
unhesitating submission to suffering and death, from his supreme delight
in devotional communion, we learn how Piety is the pre-eminent principle
of feeling and action which men are required to adopt. The parables
which inculcate ready filial obedience and sorrow for disobedience, the
declarations that it was his meat and drink to do the will of God, and
that he was not alone because the Father was with him, are powerful
enforcements of the principle; but not so powerful as the acts of
obedience and resignation in which its power shone forth. The whole
scheme of morals is comprehended in the precepts, 'Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and soul, and mind, and strength, and
thy neighbor as thyself;' but the concentration of truth and beauty is
less resplendant, less engaging, less universally clear and interesting,
than in the character of him who deduced these two principles from all
the law and the prophets.
With these two principles, and all the subordinate ones which are
derived from them, are connected sanctions from above, which attest
their origin and secure their adoption. By an irreversible decree of Him
who founded nature and vouchsafed a revelation, certain states of
enjoyment and suffering are connected with the practical adoption or
rejection of the principles of duty, not by way of arbitrary
appointment, but of natural consequence. The relations of holiness and
happiness, of guilt and misery, are unalterable; shown to be so by the
teachings of nature and experience, by the explicit declarations of
Scripture, and by every species of evidence which the mind of man is
capable of receiving.