earth,' can henceforth call Him' good,' unless he believe that the solution is yet to be given to that dark problem hereafter.

"There is one unendurable thought. It is, that justice may fail to be done in time or in eternity. This thought makes the human soul writhe like a trampled worm. Other ideas are sad, even agonising, but

this cannot be borne. No courage, no virtue, no unselfishness, will help us to bear it. The better we are, the more insufferable it is. To receive it into the soul is madness. On the other hand, every threat besides, however, sorrowful or terrible, if it be but overshadowed by the sense, It will be just,' becomes endurable-nay, is followed by a sort of awful calm. Could we even feel certain that our guilt merited eternal perdition, then the doom of hell would bring to us only dumb despair. Something greater than ourselves within us would say to the wailings of our self-pity, Peace! be still.' But let us only doubt that there is any justice here or hereafter, let us think that wrong and tyranny may be finally triumphant, and goodness and heroism ultimately defeated, punished and derided, and lo! there surges up from the very depths of our souls a high and stern remonstrance, an appeal which should make the hollow heavens resound with our indignation and rebellion.'

It is not without a feeling somewhat akin to compunction that we venture to assail an argument thus presented, and especially an argument which from the writer's standpoint is both sound and strong. Nevertheless a little consideration may serve to convince us of two things; first, that this argument is strong only on Theistic grounds,-to our mind the most unsatisfactory and unstable ground it is possible to occupy; and secondly, that it is no argument for immortality at all, in the only sense, i.e., the lexical, in which we here call that doctrine in question.

(1.) The strength of this moral argument for a future life is derived solely from a Theistic standpoint. Of course Christians are in the truest sense of the word, Theists; but we use the term here as designating those who, while rejecting Christianity, yet profess their belief in a God of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, On this assumption, --which assuredly, apart from Christ, "the riddle of the painful earth," as, e.g., the recent doings and sufferings in Bulgaria, does little to encourage,-doubtless the argument as far as it goes-and how far it does go we shall show presently-is unobjectionable; but as opposed to the scientific materialism of the day, which refuses to admit this assumption, it is as valueless as the most imposing array of ciphers from which the preceding numeral has been removed. Given-assumption the first as the scientist would say-the existence of a God of infinite power, justice, and love; and given also-assumption the second and still greater that such a Being would create and suffer to continue such a system of things, physically, socially, and morally as this world has presented throughout its recorded history, and does still under its existing conditions present; and doubtless the argument holds good. But it rests, as we see, on a double assumption, the second of which is so precarious that its reflex action tends greatly to weaken the force of the

* Pp. 25-27.

D

argument, even as derived from the first. We may in a simple manner illustrate our meaning thus:

Let us suppose that a traveller is passing through the dominions of a mighty monarch, who he is informed not only possesses absolute power and most efficient ministers, but who with a wisdom unparalleled and a beneficence the most boundless seeks continually to advance the prosperity and happiness of his subjects. Our traveller finds, nevertheless, that throughout the particular province of the empire in which he happens to be journeying, there everywhere exists extreme misery, cruel oppression, and preventable evils of a thousand kinds; but on expressing his astonishment and indignation at such a state of things, he is complacently told that all this, deplorable as it seems, only proves-under the government of so wise and gracious a sovereign-that these anomalies will at some future time and in some other province of the vast empire, to which these sufferers are to be removed, be completely redressed and adjusted. Would our hypothetical traveller be fairly bound under such circumstances, do we think, to accept this explanation as either satisfactory or sufficient? Surely not. "You tell me," he might rather say, "that your ruler is mighty, just, and good; but you admit that you have never seen this mysterious monarch, and that you do not in fact possess any promise that he will thus cause just recompense to be made. the other hand, the actual condition of his people, in this part of his dominions at least, is a fact before my eyes, and one which it is impossible to reconcile with your account of his character and government; I am therefore forced to conclude that this monarch of yours, if he exists at all, lacks either the will or the power to secure the welfare and happiness of his subjects, and hence analogy leads me also to fear that much the same state of things would in all probability be found to exist throughout the whole of his empire and as long as his reign shall continue. You may, if you please, argue from the unseen and unknown to the seen and known; but I prefer to argue from the seen and known to to the unseen and unknown."

On

Christianity, no doubt has-to the satisfaction and assurance at least of millions-met and solved this great problem. The uplifted cross of a suffering Saviour has broken up, if it has not dissipated, the darkness. of nature, and irradiated the mystery of pain with a glory which only through pain could be revealed. But it has done this in a manner and by means which quite set aside the moral argument for immortality, as uncalled for if not inadmissible. Christianity does not require its aid if indeed it can accept it. It bases its sublime revelation of conditional immortality on Divine facts, not on moral principles which owe their real power only to those facts. The world knows no true and living morality apart from the life and love of Christ, and man's only solid hope of immortality rests absolutely on the miracle of his resurrection. Plainly the moral argument for immortality" was not in Paul's mind when he wrote: "If the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised; and if Christ be not raised, . . . then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished." (1 Cor. xv. 16, 18.) "Perished!" the Theist may exclaim, "nay, Paul, you are overlooking the moral argument for immortality.' You forget that unless there be a future life in which compensation shall be made for wrong and suffering endured here, we

will make the hollow heavens resound with our indignation and rebellion.' But we think Paul would answer, calmly and even sternly; "And the hollow heavens would reverberate the indignation and rebellion of a sinful and sentenced race, whose individual demands for retribution against their fellows would be as immoral as that of the debtor in the parable against his fellow servant who owed him an hundred pence, his own debt to the common master being ten thousand talents; and their claims to compensation for the wrongs and sufferings they have in this life endured as ludicrously out of place, as if a criminal condemned for a capital offence should claim compensation for the incommodiousness of the vehicle in which he is carried to execution."

(2.) But setting aside all this, and even accepting the "moral argument" on Theistic ground, it can easily be shown that it is really no argument at all for "immortality" in the lexical sense of "endless existence," however valid it may be-like that instinctive conviction of survival of which we have spoken-for a future existence. This point has been so well and forcibly put by one of the earlier writers in this controversy Mr. H. H. Dobney of Maidstone, whose valuable book, "The Scripture Doctrine of Future Punishment," has to the great regret of many been long out of print,*-that we prefer to give his words rather than any of our own: The argument has merely to be stated in form, and then no one can be at a loss as to its real value. It stands thus:

66

"The character of God ensures that he will reward virtue and punish vice.

"But in the present state this is not fully done,

"There remains therefore another state in which all shall be adjusted. "Let this stand as good reasoning; and no one, it is believed, can wish to enlarge the conclusion, for the premises will not sustain a larger. How then does it prove that the next state must be unending, and that man is immortal? Surely something less than eternity would suffice to rectify all the anomalies of the threescore years and ten of the present state. For will any one maintain the proposition, --that nothing less than time infinitely protracted would be sufficient for this purpose? Only let an attempt be made to realise what is meant by the word so easily pronounced, ETERNITY! and let it be remembered that when we have exhausted all our powers of calculation, taxing the imagination to multiply all the atoms in the universe by themselves, each standing for millions of ages, and heaping up all the illustrations we can invent, till the mind sinks back exhausted and distracted, even then we have done nothing, literally nothing, towards gaining any idea of eternity; of which it is not possible for the human mind to form an idea, for how can the finite take in the infinite? No,--a future state may be shown to be not improbable, probable even in a high degree, but this is quite another thing from a proved immortality. And a future state protracted through ages that outnumber all the atoms of all worlds is after all infinitely short of immortality. This argument, then, when properly

Nor can we now hope for its republication, the author having changed his views, and become avowedly a Universalist.

stated, can at the best do no more than support the doctrine of a future state, without bearing at all on the doctrine of immortality.'

We have thus, hastily indeed, but not carelessly, traversed the whole field of inquiry, apart from Scripture, from Dan even to Beersheba, and found it barren of any proof of immortality. We have interrogated the oracles, but alike in vain; science says, "It is not in me ;" metaphysic says, "It is not with me;" even the inspiration of man's spirit and the voice of conscience can but respond, "We have heard the fame thereof with our ears." Hence nothing remains for us but to say, with one of the most able defenders of the doctrine of eternal torment,-"The light of nature can never scatter the darkness in question. This light has never yet sufficed to make even the question clear, to any portion of our benighted race, whether the soul of man is immortal? Cicero, incomparably the most able defender of the soul's immortality of which the heathen world can yet boast, very ingeniously confesses, that after all the arguments which he had adduced in order to confirm the doctrine in question, it so fell out, that his mind was satisfied of it only when directly employed in contemplating the arguments adduced in its favour. At all other times, he fell unconsciously into a state of doubt and darkness.

"It is notorious also that Socrates, the next most able advocate among the heathen for the same doctrine, has adduced arguments to establish the never-ceasing existence of the soul which will not bear the test of examination. Such is the argument by which he endeavours to prove, that we shall always continue to exist because we always have existed; and this last proposition he labours to establish, on the ground that all our present acquisitions of knowledge are only so many reminiscences of what we formerly knew, in a state of existence antecedent to our present one. Unhappy lot of philosophy, to be doomed to prop itself up with supports so weak and fragile as this! How can the soul be filled with consolation in prospect of death, without some better and more cheering light than can spring from such a source? How can it quench its thirst for immortality, by drinking in such impure and turbid streams as these? Poor wandering heathen! How true it is-and what a blessed truth it is-that life and immortality are brought to light in the Gospel!' It is equally true, that they are brought to light only there."+

IV. This testimony of an opponent-by no means a weak onebrings us to the threshold of SCRIPTURE, as the final as well as the only reliable source of information on this great question. Do then the Scriptures, more especially those of the New Testament, reveal the unconditional immortality of all men, or the conditional immortality of those who are "in Christ Jesus our Lord?" Into that question we do not enter now. On this, its only true ground, -the previous question which we have been considering being disposed of,-the battle has, during the past ten years, been fought again and again; and we may without undue assumption say, victory along the whole line so signally won, that we now see "orthodoxy" driven to adopt that always hazardous "strategic movement," an entire change of front. "The Bible does not reveal † MOSES STUART," Exegetical Essays."

* Second edition, pp. 97, 99.

but it assumes the immortality of all men." This is the position now generally taken up. But surely we have a right to demand, On what grounds is this assumption made? It can hardly be that orthodoxy would do such dishonour to those inspired documents which it professes so deeply to revere, as to maintain that their teaching is based on an assumption at once gratuitous and groundless! Yet we have in this paper searched for any such ground in vain. Shall we ask, then, for some other and stronger evidence? That would be mere affectation since we know perfectly well that none such exists. We can, therefore, only regard this theory of "assumption as a manœuvre-like the firing of cannon to cover, with the smoke, the retreat of a discomfited army-to postpone if it cannot prevent the humiliation of an unconditional surrender. But there is one surrender which involves no humiliation, though it needs humility; for he who, surrendering to the majesty of TRUTH, lays at the feet of the Divine Conqueror his frail and broken weapons, does in the very act become clothed upon with a heavenly armour which is at once the means and the assurance of everlasting victory.

Florence Villa, North Finchley, N.

W. MAUDE.

Α1

'UNTIL HE COME."

T this great light my lamp I trim,
Whilst waiting for the Lord;
Whate'er I doubt I doubt not Him,
But rest upon his word.

Until He come dark clouds will sail
Across the troubled sky,

And all creation send its wail,

By thousand tongues, on high.

Until He come earth's kings will find,
Amongst increasing fears,

The desperate task to rule mankind
More desperate grow with years.

Till then philosophers will teach,
In books of sceptic mode,
That intellect such heights may reach
As to dispense with God.

The Church, until He come, will fail
To heal her scattered fold,

And differing sects will still assail

Each other, as of old.

But when He comes will come a change,

Most glorious to behold,

The world and church he will arrange,

And bring the age of gold.