New Testament." Why should it be a serious error to refrain from reading into a word a sense which it does not possess? According to Aristotle κόλασις is corrective, τιμωρία alone is vindictive ; κόλασις has in view the improvement of the offender, Tμwpía the satisfaction of the inflictor (ἡ μὲν κόλασις τοῦ πάσχοντος ἕνεκά ἐστιν· ἡ δὲ τιμωρία TOU FOLOûVTOS Ivа åñоñλпрw◊ñ. — Rhet. i. 10, 17). It is Josephus, and later writers, not our Lord and His Apostles, who use such phrases as ἀθάνατος τιμωρία and εἰργμὸς ἀΐδιος ; and though everlasting death" occurs in our Liturgy, it nowhere occurs in Scripture. Ατελευτητὸς κρίσις is also unscriptural. 66 5. But surely there are other grounds on which we ought to have heard the last of this dreary argument, to which it is hardly possible to listen without indignation. Good men, from St. Augustine to St. Thomas Aquinas (Summ. part iii., Suppl. Quaest. 99, iii.), and from St. Thomas to Dr. Pusey, have gone on repeating it ad nauseam, and even the gentle Keble wrote "And if the treasures of thy wrath could waste, We hear the question asked triumphantly in sermons, "If the punishment of the wicked is not to last for ever, what guarantee have we that the felicity of the blessed will last for ever?” I reply, Is there not in the question-when not traditionally repeated, but plainly considered-an intense selfishness and a most ignoble thought of God? Thank God, my own hopes of seeing God's face for ever hereafter do not rest on ten times refuted attempts to read false meanings into the Greek lexicon, in order to support a system far darker than St. Augustine's, from whose mistaken literalism it took its disastrous origin. But here I declare, and call God to witness, that if the popular doctrine of Hell were true I should be ready to resign all hope, not only of a shortened, but of any immortality, if thereby I could save, not millions, but one single human soul from what fear, and superstition, and ignorance, and inveterate hate, and slavish letter-worship have dreamed and taught of Hell. I call God to witness that so far from regretting the possible loss of some billions of æons of bliss by attaching to the word alávios a sense in which scores of times it is undeniably found, I would here, and now, and kneeling on my knees, ask Him that I might die as the beasts that perish, and for ever cease to be, rather than that my worst enemy should, for one single year, endure the hell described by Tertullian, or Minucius Felix, or Jonathan Edwards, or Dr. Pusey, or Mr. Furniss, or Mr. Moody, or Mr. Spurgeon. Unless my whole nature were utterly changed, I can imagine no immortality which would not be abhorrent to me if it were accompanied with the knowledge that millions and millions and millions of poor suffering wretches-some of whom on earth I had known and loved-were writhing in an agony without end or hope.1 It may be worth while to add these further notes about aidv. Heyschius says it is sometimes used for "a long time; " and Origen alludes to the same fact. In Exod. Hom. vi. 13; De Princip. ii. 3, 5. Leontius Byzantinus, even in arguing against Origenists, admits that both in profane and sacred literature αἰών is used of a definite period (περὶ ὡρισμένου χρόνου λαμβάνεται). Caesarius (Dial, 3) even observes that the Origenist argument on the terminability of torment was derived from the use of this very word! Huetius, Origeniana (Opp. ed Paris, iv. pp. 231, 233). EXCURSUS IV. (p. 64). HOW THE OPINION OF ENDLESS TORMENT FOR ALL WHO DIE UNCONVERTED IS REGARDED BY SOME OF THE BEST OF THOSE WHO HAVE ACCEPTED IT. "For my part I fancy I should not grieve if the whole race of mankind died in its fourth year. As far as we can see I do not know that it would be a thing much to be lamented."-Henry Rogers (Greyson's Letters, i. 34). "In the distress and anguish of my own spirit I confess that I see no light whatever. I see not one ray to disclose to me the reason why sin came into the world, why the earth is strewed with the dying and the dead, and why man must suffer to all eternity."Albert Barnes, Practical Sermons, p. 123. "Were it possible for man's imagination to conceive the horrors of such a doom as this, all reasoning about it would be at an end, it would scorch and wither all the power of human thought." Archer Butler's Sermons (second series), p. 383. "The same gospel which penetrates our soul with warm emotions, dispersive of selfishness, brings in upon the heart a sympathy that tempts us often to wish that itself were not true, or that it had not taught us so to feel."-Isaac Taylor, Restoration of Belief, p. 367. "As being that had burned Half an eternity, and was to burn For evermore he looked. O sight to be Pollok, Course of Time. "Far be it from us to make light of the demerit of sin. But still what is man?" (After dwelling on his corrupt nature, his weakness, his ignorance, the strength of his passions and appetites, and the short sinful course of his few fleeting years on earth, he adds-) "But endless punishment! Hopeless misery through a duration to which the terms above imagined will be absolutely nothing! I acknowledge my inability (I would say reverently) to admit this belief together with a belief in the divine goodness-the belief that 'God is love,' that 'His tender mercies are over all His works.""-John Foster, On Future Punishment. "O most tender heart of Jesus, why wilt Thou not end, when wilt Thou end, this ever-growing horror of sin and woe? When wilt Thou chase away the devil into his own hell, and close the pit's mouth, that Thy chosen may rejoice in Thee, quitting the thoughts of those who perish in their wilfulness?"-J. H. Newman, Discourses. "Decretum horribile fateor."-Calvin, Instt. I have said that the doctrine, as commonly taught, is a fruitful source of scepticism : "The incredibility of this doctrine hath made some persons desperately doubt the whole body of that religion whereof this is supposed to be a fundamental article, which shows it to be a great scandal to human reason. - Heyworth, Dissertion on Future Punishments. (Printed with Barrow's Sermons and Fragments.) "L'Eglise Romaine s'est porté le dernier coup : elle a consommé son suicide le jour où elle a fait Dieu implacable et la damnation éternelle.”—George Sand, Spiridion, p. 302. "If this be the logical result of accepting theories, better believe in no God at all."-Leslie Stephen, English Thought in Eighteenth Century. EXCURSUS V. p. 74 THE VOICE OF SCRIPTURE RESPECTING ETERNAL HOPE. Before adducing the various passages of Scripture which are here referred to, I may make one or two observations respecting them. I. In proportion to the deep and unfeigned reverence which I have ever felt for Holy Scripture, is the sense of sorrow, and almost of indignation, with which I view its constant perversion by the attempt to build up infinite systems out of metaphorical expressions and isolated texts. I have spoken of this terrible abuse in one of my sermons; and I have said elsewhere that we must be guided, not by texts torn from their context, but by the whole scope and tenor of revelation. Texts have been perverted from the earliest times to the most unworthy purposes. They have-to the deadly injury of the divine authority of Scripture-been quoted for centuries in the cause of ignorance and sin. They have been abused, by the endless errors of private interpretation, to countenance every absurdity, and check every science, and denounce every moral reformation. They were quoted against Columbus, against Copernicus, against Galileo, against the geologists. They were quoted against St. Peter, against St. Paul, nay, even against Christ Himself. They were quoted against Wycliffe, against Luther, against Wilberforce, against the cause of Education, against the cause of |