the Greek or Roman Church has to face in all their horror the two doctrines which I impugn -of an irreversible doom passed at death, and of torment necessarily endless for every soul that has died in sin. The doctrine of an Intermediate State robs those popular conceptions of nine-tenths of their ghastliness, because it enables Christians to contemplate without agony the condition of all who are nearest and dearest to them, and practically of all who die with the last rites of their Church. It is quite true that of the doctrine of Purgatory, in the precise and dogmatic form of it, there is no adequate proof; but the expression of our Article, "a fond thing vainly invented," applies, I imagine, far less to the mere doctrine than to the mass of flagrant abuses with which it had become inevitably identified.1 "That dragon's tail, the mass," said Luther, "begot multiplied abominations. First Purgatory," which

1 "The primitive doctrine is not condemned in the Article (22nd), unless indeed the doctrine be Romish, which must not be supposed." -Dr. Newman, Tract., p. 23.

with all pertaining to it, he proceeds to call a mere devil's mask (mera diaboli larva est), Art. Smalcald, p. 307. But in point of fact the taunt of the Romish controversialist, Möhler, that 'Protestantism must either admit many into heaven stained with sin, or imagine that a magical change is wrought merely by death,' is unanswerable, unless we reply with Karl Hase that both views are untenable, since most men at death are indeed not wicked enough to deserve an endless hell, yet not holy enough to be admitted into heaven. And Hase proceeds to argue with justice that our Protestantism is perfectly reconcilable (not indeed with a dogmatic and definite) but with "a subdued and enlightened view of purgatory," i.e. of progressive amelioration, of a purifying process, after death.

Lastly, as in no one of the Catholic Creeds of Christendom is endless damnation, with its accessories, made an article of faith,-though every creed expresses that unlimited faith in "the forgiveness of sins" which is the chief hope of life, and the

richest blessing of immortality,--so by no single formulary of the Church of England is such a dogma required. In the case of Fendall v. Wilson, 1863-4, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, with the concurrence of, and without protest from, the late Archbishop of Canterbury and the present Archbishops of Canterbury and York, decided1 that "we do not find in the formularies 2 to which this Article" [a charge that Mr. Wilson had denied the endlessness of future punishment] "refers, any such distinct declaration of our Church upon the subject as to require us to condemn as penal the expression of hope by a clergyman that even the ultimate pardon of the wicked, who are condemned in the day of judgment, may be consistent with the will of God." For ten years indeed (1552-1561) a Forty-second Article condemned Universalism; but

1 Brooke's Privy Council Judgments, p. 102.

2 Among which were the damnatory clauses of the Athanasian Creed.

for Universalism I have not pleaded, and, moreover, even that Article was struck out with the consent of the Bishops and Clergy of both Houses and both provinces. To say that it was struck out because the Anabaptists were no longer prominent is simply an unsupported conjecture. The conjecture may be true, but even if so I look on the elimination of the Article as distinctly overruled by a watchful Providence; since it is the province of the Church to decide only in matters of faith, and no Church has a right to legislate in those matters of opinion on which wise and holy men have, in all ages, been content to differ, seeing that we have no indisputable voice of Revelation to guide our conclusions respecting them.

EXCURSUS I., p. xlv.

THE TEACHING OF BISHOP BUTLER ON THE FUTURE LIFE.

I AM permitted to print the following valuable and important letter, which reached me after I had written the remarks in the text. It will be observed that the passage which I have quoted is one more to be added to those so strikingly combined by Professor Plumptre; and I hope that the great name of Bishop Butler will no longer be abused in support of views which he has nowhere maintained, which he evidently regarded as very dubious, and which--had he lived in these days-he would almost certainly have repudiated with still greater distinctness. With every word that Bishop Butler has written on the subject I heartily agree :

MY DEAR FARRAR,

BICKLEY VICARAGE,

Christmas, December, 1877.

The passage in Butler's Analogy to which I referred as bearing on the great question with which you have been led to deal is in Part i. c. 3.

"Virtue, to borrow the Christian allusion, is militant here, and various untoward accidents contribute to its being often overborne : but it may combat with greater advantage hereafter, and prevail completely, and enjoy its consequent rewards in some future states. Neglected as it is, perhaps unknown, perhaps despised and oppressed here, there may be scenes in eternity lasting enough, and in