The Problem of Immortality (1892), Chapter 12 by E. Petavel

CHAPTER XII. HARMONIES AND BENEFITS OF THE TRUE BIBLICAL TEACHING.

I.The mystic Sphinx and the divine OEdipus

THE Greek poets tell how the Sphinx, stationed upon the road near Thebes, proposed to the passers-by an enigma to be solved. Those who failed to give the right solution were devoured or cast into the sea. At last came OEdipus, who expounded the riddle; then the Sphinx, defeated, cast herself down into the waves, and Thebes, being delivered from the monster, placed her liberator upon the throne.

In this ancient myth we may see an evangelical parable. The Sphinx represents death, the scourge of God, punishing the people's sins. The passers-by are ourselves, each one of us being called upon during this earthly pilgrimage to solve the enigma of the great beyond. The sea is the dreadful gulf of nothingness which threatens the man who fails to solve the fateful problem. Jesus Christ is represented by OEdipus the deliverer, revealing the secret of death, overcoming and finally suppressing that last enemy. In Thebes is seen humanity, groaning under the tyranny of death, but already hailing in Jesus Christ the conqueror of that king of terrors. 1

The longer we reflect upon it, the more are we convinced that the true solution of the problem propounded at the outset of our study is presented by the Gospel. But we mean the Gospel taken at its source in heights above the point at which the current has been empoisoned by human traditions.

II.Recapitulation of the results arrived at in the preceding chapters. The Conditionalist solution of the problem is warranted by philosophy, exegesis, and the history of dogmas

In mounting to those heights we have gathered up a number of precious truths: the time has now arrived for binding the sheaf. We will use as a bond this master-thought, which arises out of our study as a whole: MAN, WHO IS HEIR PRESUMPTIVE OF IMMORTALITY, WILL NOT ASCEND THE THRONE WITHOUT FULFILLING THE CONDITION, ENTERING INTO COMMUNION WITH JESUS CHRIST, AND WALKING IN HIS FOOTSTEPS.

While keeping aloof from this, the only way, man is advancing by a slow and painful death-process towards the eternal night out of which he has arisen, and into which every being must sink again who does not live in the holy life of the living God. The believer alone receives, through the Holy Spirit, that vital force which conquersthe second death. In support of this main thesis we have shown the following facts:

1. In this age of universal emancipation, wherever Christian thought has freed itself from the fetters of scholasticism, that which is provisionally called Conditionalism has presented itself as the true biblical teaching. Everywhere it wins the adhesion of an increasing number of generally esteemed theologians.

1 The name OEdipus, meaning the man with swollen feet, leads to the thought of the stigmata of the victim on Calvary. As the mythological story goes, OEdipus, when a child, had his feet pierced and nailed to a tree by a servant of his father, Laius, King of Thebes.

2. It has also won the more or less close adhesion of a choice company of metaphysicians, men such as Rothe, Weisse, Lotze, De May, Charles Lambert, Charles Renouvier, Francois Pillon, and Charles Secretan, to mention only the principal names. Christian anthropologists, biologists, and physiologists are in agreement with modern metaphysics on this point.

Without being founded upon the vain reasoning of the schools, Conditionalism has the support of those moral presumptions which testify in favour of an eventual survival beyond the tomb.

3. Our thesis is in conformity with the data of the Old Testament and with the twenty centuries of teaching in the Synagogue, the principal chiefs of which have not ceased to affirm that God is the only being truly imperishable. This teaching is contradicted only by some uncanonical books and by the Kabbalah, a pantheistic doctrine of Indo-Persian origin which has no official authority in orthodox Judaism.

4. So, too, the New Testament teaches that "God only hath immortality," and that the indefinite perpetuation of existence is the exclusive privilege of the man who doeth the will of God. Immortality, which in the New Testament is called eternal life, or by abbreviation the life, is the very subject of the preaching of Jesus and his apostles. The final suppression of the impenitent is but a corollary of this teaching.

5. Jesus reveals to us the secret of immortalization; his supreme purpose is to restore life to the dying, and to restore the capacity of life to beings whom sin has excluded from the conditions of an eternal life.

6. This same notion has supplied us with a key to the symbolism of baptism and the Lord's supper: it explains the deep meaning of these rites, which form, as it were, the escutcheon of the Church.

7. The elimination of evil and of evil-doers by way of gradual extinction is in conformity with the historico-grammatical meaning of the Scripture, with reason, and with universal analogy. The religious consciousness cannot but subscribe to this declaration of the apostle:

"The wages of sin is death."

8. The earliest Fathers of the Church maintained the primitive teaching.

9. The doctrinal deviation of the later Fathers is easily explained by the surreptitious infiltration of the Platonic philosophy into the degenerate Churches. It is now generally recognized that since the second century that philosophy has been an important factor in ecclesiastical theology.

10. The theory of universal salvation falls to pieces as soon as the pillar that supports it is taken away; and that pillar is nothing else than the Platonic a priori of the emanation and eternal pre-existence of individual souls.

11. A similar petitio principii is found to be the basis of all the arguments brought forward in support of the traditional dogma and against an acquirable immortality. Biblical evangelism is summoned, under pain of forfeiture and deposition, to restore to the fundamental terms life and death their ontological value, of which they have been unjustly deprived in favour of merely accessory notions. The legitimacy of such a restitution is implied in admissions made by interpreters of various schools. We have recorded these declarations. In conformity with the Latin adage: Patere quam ipse fecisti legem, Protestant orthodoxy, which makes its appeal to the biblical text, must in the end draw the conclusion from that principle, must accept it or abdicate. The fact that our principal opponent has ended his long contest, as may be seen in the preceding chapter, by an implied adhesion to one of our fundamental theses, is, in relation to the coming evolution of orthodoxy, like that swallow which does not make, but foretells the summer.

III. As an evangelical synthesis, it bears the character of a theodicy, and it replaces in their true light several doctrines generally misunderstood:

In brief, a verdict favourable to our hypothesis is given, as with a common accord, by philosophy in the measure of its competence, by revelation as contained in both Old and New Testaments, by the history of dogmas, and by the religious consciousness; these confer upon it the right to a place in Christian dogmatics.

Dogmaticians will arise who will reconstruct on this foundation the tottering edifice of traditional beliefs.

During many past years much confusion has prevailed respecting the origin and developement of this system of interpretation. Discovering that one of its results is to establish a doctrine of future retribution which is irreconcilable with belief in the eternal misery of the lost, the advocates of the latter opinion, naturally impressed with the magnitude of the cause at stake, have, not "for the space of two hours" but for a whole generation, filled the air with doubtless honest outcries against what they describe as the "miserable doctrine of annihilation," and have persistently represented that this doctrine is the beginning and the end of our endeavours. It now, however, begins to be understood, after many years of misconception, that much more is concerned than a doctrine of future punishment. 1

To see in Conditionalism nothing but a question of future punishment was to depreciate the doctrine, to look only on the reverse of the medal. Judges whose competence and impartiality are beyond dispute have called immortality "the great question." 2 In the Christian system, as presented by Mr. White, for example:

“The idea of life occupies the central position, and is, so to speak, its generative principle. Immortality brought again within the reach of creatures who are rebellious, and so devoted to absolute death: that, in short, is the ‘glad tidings.’ When once properly understood, this doctrine lets in a flood of light upon all the rest, which, grouping themselves around it, help in their turn to corroborate it and give it precision. Thus Christianity, which is so often mutilated by the narrowness of its teachers, appears before us in itstrue logical sequence and in its grand unity.” 3

It will become more and more evident that far from overturning evangelical teaching, the thesis that we are defending can only rejuvenate by regenerating it. 4

1 E. White, op. cit., p. 346.

2 MM. Dupont-White and Ch. Renouvier, Critique religieuse, April and July, 1878.

3 Chas. Byse, preface to his translation of Mr. White's book, p. vii., sq.

4 See the opinion expressed by Dr. Dale in Supplement No. II.

We have already had occasion to remark that this thesis brings a renovating element into biblical theology and exegesis, by a more rigorous application of the important hermeneutic principle of the historico-grammatical interpretation. A glance which we are about to cast at the various branches of dogmatics may convince us that, looked at from this point of view, many a doctrine generally misunderstood presents itself in its true light. We will mention, for example:

§ 1. THE NOTION OF GOD AND PREDESTINATION.

This notion is of the highest importance, since it is in the nature of things that the believer transforms himself into the likeness of the God whom he adores.

In every religion the chief moral force is the God whom it reveals and whose sovereignty it establishes. A sleeping Boodh sends nations to sleep. An impure Vishnu depraves all India. An infinitely terrific power hardens and alienates the people. A God of more intelligible justice and mercy will more powerfully "draw all men unto him." 1

The God of evangelical orthodoxy does not always set a good example. His charity is absent from hell, where, however, more than anywhere else, it would seem to be needed. 2 To doom to endless torments unhappy beings of whom it is certain that they will never obtain any advantage from their sufferings is hardly a charitable act. Their bitterest enemy could scarcely show greater hatred. Even if they are incorrigible sinners, everyone would like to know why the Almighty does not open to them the door of nonentity, out of which they never asked to be brought forth. And is that the God who commands us to love our enemies, to bless them that curse us, and to do good to them that hate us? A venerable Christian has acknowledged to us that he had passed half his life in questioning whether the orthodox deity were not the devil. Any way, the docility of those believers who here and there still adore this contradictory deity is marvellous. From the Conditionalist point of view, God, always charitable, manifests his compassion even in the terrible chastisement meted out to the most rebellious sinners. Bestowing life upon all as a provisional gift, he does not impose upon any one the perpetuity of that boon. Not being able to consult his creature before having called him into existence, he interrogates him when self-consciousness has been attained. He inquires whether the life received is appreciated, and whether the creature desires the conservation of that life on conditions that he has appointed. The gift of life will not be taken back unless the creature does what he can to deprive himself of it. On his side the Creator will do his part towards leading the ungrateful recipient to repentance. Thus does Conditionalism dispel the dark cloud that dimmed the notion of God. Even hell itself is no longer withdrawn from the omnipresence of an indivisible divinity. Like propitious stars, justice and goodness, holiness and mercy shine into the dark abode of which the disappearance is provided for by the eternal wisdom.

1 E. White, op. cit., p. 493.

2 See p. 225, note.

In connection with the notion of God let us take one of the most discredited among the Calvinistic dogmas, that of predestination to evil. At the present day who preaches it, either in Calvin's own city or in Scotland? An enforced immortality which devoted the wicked inevitably to eternal torments, gave an odious character to the divine decree. Put aside this element of error, and election will be nothing more than God's liberty in the initial distribution of his gifts. There is nothing more striking in nature, nothing more undeniable than this liberty, whereof no man has a right to complain, since every benefactor has the right to "do what he will with his own," showing favour to whomsoever he may prefer. An unequal distribution is even indispensable for the variety which embellishes the universe. In order to prevent the possibility of the prerogatives conferred being taken as motives for jealousy, God would have had to limit his creation to one single individual. In his munificence he promises to enrich indefinitely all those who make a good use of the gifts confided to them. But he will banish from his universe those who, in their ingratitude, refuse to accept the position that he assigns to them, or rather he will at last abandon them to the fatal consequences of their guilty folly. The predestination of the wicked may simply consist in the determinate purpose of the Creator not to oblige those to live for ever who obstinately plunge themselves into death. The predestination of the righteous would be the determinate purpose and promise to give "eternal life to them that by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honour and incorruption"; those will be the elect who will fulfil the required conditions. These purposes, at the same time unchangeable and conditional, would leave intact the liberty of man, an intelligent mite going and coming at his will within the narrow precincts of his perishable dwelling.

For the repression of abuses in dealing with property some modern codes limit a father's testamentary power; but the heavenly Father, who can never abuse his rights, has evidently reserved full power to himself. He has created in the world hills and mountains, a Pascal, a Newton, and myriads of little or medium intellects. Let us not speak of the disinherited: there are none; all have a share. If privileges exist, it is because without inequalities God could not have created two beings differing one from the other. Even if we imagine two exactly alike, the one who is placed on the left might find occasion for being jealous of the one on the right, or vice-versa. Granted the existence of two beings, privilege cannot but exist also; privilege is indeed the

same thing as individuality. Let us, then, leave to God the liberty that he has assumed of entrusting to one five talents, to another two, to a third only one; let us leave to him also the liberty of taking away from this last his single talent if it is not used to good purpose. Let the hill, instead of envying the mountain, give thanks and rejoice that it is not a mere mound, and let the mound in its turn appreciate the unmerited advantage which raises it above the grain of sand. 1 The parable of the talents, to which allusion has just been made, teaches us, too, that capital well administered may increase. Prayer and work at all times open the ever-full treasury of divine gifts and graces.

Doubtless all are not equally endowed. But, first, each one will find a measure of happiness in the exercise of the several faculties that he possesses; secondly, each one will find an increasing measure of happiness in the truly divine prerogative which permits him to share his communicable advantages with others less privileged; and, thirdly, each one will find such an increasing measure of happiness in the attainment of advantages not at first possessed, or in the developement of those already possessed, that in the end he will no longer desire the lot of any other. Why should we speak of envy? Such as we are, debtors to Providence, we shall all be animated with gratitude corresponding to the benefits of which not one among us is entirely deprived. Furthermore, we shall remember that every advantage creates a moral debt, and carries with it proportional obligations. The most richly endowed is, so to speak, the most deeply indebted. 1

1 This truth has found ingenuous expression in the liturgical prayer of the Israelites, who give thanks to God that he has not made them women. The women, for their part, give thanks to God that he has made them according to his good pleasure.

§ 2. THE NOTION OF MAN.

To suppose with the poet that man is "A fallen deity, with memories of heaven," is to assign to him a nature consistent only with pantheism. From the biblical point of view, which we occupy, man has not fallen from heaven, having never been there. He is not a part of God, but only a perishable creature endowed with a certain aptitude for immortality. Sin, the parent of death, has diminished that aptitude, and will in the end destroy it, if not itself rooted out. The wild tree that bears only acid fruits is valuable only on condition of being grafted; if, endowed with liberty, it refuses the graft, it is good for nothing except to be burnt. In the spring-time the ground is strewed with the vine shoots cut off by the vine-dresser, but when autumn comes the vine shows no sign of having suffered by the pruning; this vine is an emblem of the human race. A being of an intermediate nature, as Theophilus of Antioch expresses it, risen above animality and a candidate for immortality, man has power to choose between progress and retrogression, between the nothingness that is behind him and the imperishable life that is before him. In this domain God has granted him liberty without reserve.

This notion, which opens up to us the most sublime prospects, shuts out the titanic conception of a being who, when punished by the Monarch of the universe, would avenge himself by for ever pouring forth an inexhaustible torrent of curses and blasphemies.

1 It may here be noticed what a light is thus thrown upon the social problem.

§ 3. THE CHRISTOLOGICAL NOTION.

A contributor to the Temoignage has affirmed that in Conditionalism "the divinity of Christ is superfluous." 1 There could not be a greater mistake. It is precisely upon the divinity of Jesus Christ that our hope of immortality depends; from our point of view there is much greater need for his divinity than there is from the traditional standpoint. It is, indeed, possible to conceive that the devotedness of a man might suffice to deliver us from impending ills, were they even eternal, and to procure the healing of our bodies or our souls. A created being may be able more or less to give happiness, to aid in our sanctification. But to communicate life eternal to a perishable creature is the work of the Almighty alone. If therefore, we obtain in Jesus an eternal life, in our view he can be no other than God himself manifest in the flesh. From the biblical standpoint there is no life apart from the Word, of which Jesus was the incarnation. This creative Word animates as well as enlightens every man that comes into the world. Unconverted sinners have no other light than the twilight afforded by Christ, the Sun of souls, not yet visible on their horizon or already set below it. For us Jesus is not merely something, he is everything. One of the principal characteristics of the doctrine that we are defending is that it exalts the unique glory of him whom the apostle Peter calls the Author of life. 2 Thus to enforce a doctrine and bring it into bold relief, does that look like hostility to it, does that make it seem superfluous?

1 M. Menegoz, in a review of our work entitled La Fin du mal, No. of 10 Aug., 1872.

2 Archegon tes zoes, Acts iii. 15. Grimm, Clavis N. T.; Eng. R.V. margin.

We believe, indeed, that from the standpoint of an inevitable immortality it may be easily shown that the essential divinity of Jesus Christ is by no means an indispensable dogma. It would suffice to see in Jesus a model man and the guide who brings back the erring travellers into the right way. But a doctrine that is not indispensable is in great danger of being rejected. A few biblical passages, the authority of which is contested, will not suffice to support it. In order to become unassailable, the dogma of the divinity of Jesus Christ needs to be placed upon a Conditionalist foundation. 1

§ 4. THE NOTION OF SALVATION.

Salvation originally signified conservation. 2 Conditionalism restores to this term its primitive meaning. In the traditional dogma the accessory notion of happiness usurps the whole position, the result being that Christianity has incurred the reproach of eudemonism. 3 The Gospel, which is more profound and more moral, relegates to the background the selfish notion of happiness. It puts man into a condition in which he may fulfil his sublime mission. It re-establishes the failing conditions of existence, restores the primitive hierarchy of our faculties, and thereby renders us immortalizable. 4 The emblematic rites of the Gospel are explicable only from this point of view they tell us of renovation and a new life; the notion of happiness is not brought out by them.

§ 5. ESCHATOLOGY AND RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE.

The Conditionalist principle lightens up this mysterious domain by fixing what may be called a standard of measure in the matter of penalties and rewards. According to the Gospel, this standard consists in a given capacity for action or feeling, to which Jesus in the parable applied the name of talent. 5

At the starting-point the portions allotted vary according to the good pleasure of the master, who at his will endows the servants to whom he confides the administration of his goods.

1 On the specific divinity of Jesus Christ, see Supplement No. XXI.

2 See p. 277.

3 A system which consists in recognizing personal well-being as the supreme motive of all actions. It is one of the names applied to the doctrine of Aristippus and of Epicurus.

4 See Chap. V.

5 Matt. xxv. 114-30; Luke xii. 42; xix. 12-27; cf xvi. 1-12.

The recompense consists in the increase or the multiplication of the powers of those who have well used their capital; the penalty will be a diminution, or, if deserved, a suppression of such and such a faculty, or even of all the faculties. The moral and religious use of our faculties prepares for us eternal riches, it creates within us a superior aptitude which we shall retain beyond the tomb, while all the riches of this world will vanish in smoke.

The traditional dogma has displaced the axis of the sphere of retributions, making it pass through the inferior notions of pleasure and pain. The importance of these notions is thus exaggerated. It is clear that the exercise of a faculty must be accompanied by a measure of enjoyment, and that the deprivation of that same faculty would involve a corresponding measure of suffering; but we ought to seek the cause that is behind the consequence. When Jesus speaks of the sufferings of the wicked in the future life, he describes them as being caused by a sight of the advantages of which they have deprived themselves by their own wilfulness. 1

Thus pain loses its odious character. It may be considered as an appeal by the divine charity, and as a means for rescuing the guilty from the essential chastisement, which is the gradual loss of faculties, and in the end the loss of all faculties. In itself a benefit, pain becomes a real misfortune only to him who refuses to profit by it.

Punishment will be strictly proportional. Guilt will be measured exactly by responsibility, and the measure of the responsibility will be found in the number and extent of the powers and privileges granted. The guilty one who has received much will suffer much, just because he will lose much. He who has received less will sin less, because he will abuse a smaller number of gifts; he will suffer less, because he will lose less. Everything will be taken away from the man who makes no good use of his faculties. Such a man will cease to exist, for a man is only by that which he has.

1 Luke xiii. 28. On consideration it will be seen that all pain is either the consequence of actual loss or the symptom of a danger threatening that which we fear to lose. A toothache usually precedes the rottenness of a tooth. Painful blows cause bruises which themselves are threatenings of death, either local or general. See Chap. VII., sect. iv.

Otherwise stated, responsibility is measured by prerogative; guilt by the abuse of prerogative, suffering by loss, and loss by guilt. The duration and intensity of sufferings in the future life will be in direct proportion to the quota of vital forces and diverse faculties distributed at the first to each delinquent; and that quota being always limited, the sufferings will be so too. No one can sin or stuffer beyond the strict measure of the faculties received. 1

The ruin of a millionaire will cause privations which will be to him more painful than they would be to a poor man who has never possessed riches. The greater the mass of vital forces, the longer and more poignant will be the pain that accompanies their dissolution; the more richly a soul is endowed, the more guilty will it be if it falls from its high estate, and the more grievous will be its death agony. Thus, in the doctrine of Conditional Immortality is established an ever-exact equilibrium between these three factors: gifts, responsibilities, retributions. According to the saying of Akibah: "All is supplied under bond. The market is open; the merchant gives credit; but a register is kept; each debt is inscribed, and sooner or later the collectors will obtain payment in one way or another." 2

There is, then, nothing to prevent us from subscribing to the principles laid down by M. Gretillat:

1st. Every creature being eternally called to perfect happiness in perfect holiness, at the time of retribution will have received a portion of the necessary means of grace sufficient for obtaining salvation.

2nd. The portions granted at their initial distribution to the different moral agents are unequal, and are sovereignly and unconditionally determined by the divine will.

3rd. The responsibilities incurred by the various moral agents are proportionate to the means of grace that have been granted to them. 3

1 The opinion of the learned Rothe was nearly the same. In his view the duration of the chastisement of a soul would be in proportion to its guilt, and this guilt in proportion to the sum of the divine elements that were in it. We may add that the law of analogy leads us to suppose that in the future life it will be as on earth, where we see suffering usually shortened in direct proportion to its intensity.

2 Aboth, iii. Quoted by M. J. Cohen, Les Pharisiens , vol. ii., p. 426.

3 Op. cit. , vol. i., p. 366.

Our standpoint allows the determination with the greatest precision of the bases of the last judgement, and to some extent the nature of the retributions; while the traditional dogma, for lack of a proper datum line, is unable to measure the gradation of future rewards and punishments. In particular, the hell of popular theology is only a vast lake of fire and brimstone into which the guilty, small and great, are cast indiscriminately, and where they will live for ever in a promiscuous crowd. We, on the contrary, believe that God has established an exact and infallible correlation between sin and its punishment. The calculation will be absolutely correct; the balance will be more delicately poised than that of any jeweller. No artifice, no acceptation of persons, will ever make it turn; but, on the other hand, it will surely be affected by the slightest efforts and the least failures of the moral life.

The eternal law speaks to the conscience of every sinner, saying to him: "Whoever thou art, I have a right over thee, and I will judge thee at the last day. Do to-day whatever may please thee, to-morrow I will lay hold of thee. Lie, steal, kill, blaspheme, and laugh over it, I still hold a mortgage upon thy person. In the exact measure of thy delinquencies, thy capacities for action and feeling shall be diminished, and except thou repent thou shalt be miserably and definitively suppressed. The eternal order which thou hast violated shall be restored at thy cost; the universe, for a moment troubled by thy presence, will find thy disappearance to be an advantage. The very excess of evil shall result in the suppression of evil."

The penal code of human justice, the dread of which holds in check so many evildoers, is but a feeble echo of this threat of the moral law.

We may be told that to a perverse will this threat will not be found an all-powerful restraint. But where is there such a thing as an all-powerful restraint? It does not exist. God has not willed that it should exist, because he desires the maintenance of an element of spontaneity; none the less will the restraint that we have described replace with advantage the official dogma, which reassures the sinner by its excessive menace. That dogma, being incredible, encourages the secret hope of a final amnesty. It is like the scarecrow which, so far from frightening the pilfering birds, at last serves them as a perch. It reminds us of the bogey stories wherewith nurses too often fill the imagination of little children. A sound system of education rejects such well-meaning falsehoods.

The defect of the traditional dogma comes out clearly in the presence of the most poignant realities. Recently, at Ain Fezza, in the province of Oran, an adulterous wife was found guilty of administering poison to her husband.

Condemned to twenty years of close imprisonment, she poisons herself. A pastor presides at her burial; he consoles the mourning family by the presentation of a hope of pardon at last beyond the tomb, "the divine mercy being greater even than men's sins." A reputedly orthodox journal reproduces this funeral oration without the expression of any reserve. Nor are we going to blame it; but it must be admitted to be in flagrant contradiction with the doctrine that announces punishment beginning immediately after death and perpetuated without any possibility of remission. Will our brethren who call themselves orthodox never stir from the false position in which they still stand? By what right will they condemn us when they themselves are thus

more or less chargeable with heresy?

Such is the horror arising from the prevalent creed, that it is seldom applied either to living multitudes or dead relations. A hopeful case is made out for almost everyone who dies, in direct opposition to Christ's words that "destruction" is certain for all except those who "hear his sayings and do them." The effect, moreover, of the existing opinion is to lower the standard of morality to zero, since the hell believed in is thought too dreadful for all except gigantic offenders. 1 Thus Christ's words on "wrestling to enter into life" become practically inoperative. The masses harden themselves in wickedness, and Christians deliberately set aside their Lord's lesson on the fewness of the saved. The effect of true doctrine will be to strengthen the moral testimony. When men believe in a terrible but credible perdition, they will allow the limitation of the offer of eternal life. 2

1 It has just been seen that even the orthodox are now reassuring themselves as to the future end of the greatest criminals.—E. P.

2 E. White, op. cit., p. 467, sq.

The traditionalists are accustomed to assert that, if we assign an end to the sufferings of hell, vicious and hardened beings will plunge into evil with a renewed sense of security.

But such persons forget that these profligates have enjoyed the full restraining advantage of the threatening of everlasting woe with scarce an interruption during all their lifetime, and that even this has not deterred them from their dreadful career. They are already as wicked as they can be, and cannot be made worse by the modification of a threatening which they have utterly disbelieved in and defied. It is even possible that some alteration in the way of presenting God's justice and love to them may work for the better and diminish their blasphemies.

What is needed to arouse such profligates to reflection... to make them tremble at judgement to come, and to bring them to repentance, is the proclamation of a future remediless punishment, which carries its own credentials along with it, and while shaking the souls of sinners, even the most intelligent, as at a fiery handwriting on the wall, with a deep convulsive dread, shall leave no valid ground for moral speculations on its injustice and improbability. Such is, I submit, the doctrine of judgement as here set forth. 1

1 E. White, op. cit., p. 491.

No sinner can hope to escape from this righteous condemnation to death, while everyone imagines that he will escape eternal torments, even if he believes in them for others. The enfeebled evangelism of our day has taken pains to substitute for the traditional hell the fear of a moral separation from God. It has always seemed to us that this motive can have very little hold upon souls. The sinner willingly accepts this prospect of an existence independent and uncontrolled; he has little dread of a moral separation from God, for to him God is only a constraint.

The ship of Conditionalism sails at an equal distance from these two rocks: the dualist pessimism which makes evil eternal, and the perfidious optimism which asserts that all will end well for every one.

We do not replace the faith of our fathers by a relaxed doctrine. Our God, too, is a consuming fire. An earnest Christian lady is said to have declared that she would no more seek to evangelize, but would "sit still in her drawing-room" if it should be proved that the torments of the damned are not endless. This pious person judges herself too harshly. She would quickly leave her drawing-room if in an adjoining chamber the beginning of a fire should threaten the life of an infant in the cradle; she will find herself even more strongly urged to leave her room in order to rescue souls from eternal death. "Flattering," "reassuring," death eternal! Is the bloody sword of the executioner flattering, reassuring? Will the sword of celestial justice be any more so?

Paul was accused of making void the law, and he exclaims: "Do we then make void the law? Nay! we establish the law" upon a more solid basis. So, too, we are accused of suppressing a salutary fear, while on the contrary we reestablish it. For the traditionalist the sinful soul is a diamond fallen into the mud, which soils but does not destroy it; delay is not absolutely fatal. In the view of the Conditionalist the diamond has fallen into a fire that is consuming it. Of these two views, which is the one that supplies the most urgent motive for a prompt and energetic rescue?

To point out the irreparable effects of sin, is that to deny its terrible reality, is that to enfeeble the notion of sin, is that to paralyze the activity of the missionary or the preacher? What! shall we see the physician lavish of his attention and his efforts with the sole object of prolonging his patient's life for a few years, or perhaps a few days? shall we call heroes the men who are ready to brave flood and flame in order to rescue their fellow-creatures from a death comparatively little dreadful, and shall we remain careless and indifferent in presence of the plague that is destroying souls? The true believer dreads for the whole race of men that danger to which they are in, sensible; he knows that if he does not hasten he will have to answer for the blood of his brethren; he knows that the ravages of evil will become irremediable, that the tide is rising, that the fire is spreading; is not that enough to enkindle his zeal and to keep the sacred love of souls ever burning in his heart?

In dread of the mortal peril which threatens the impenitent, we live in a state of perpetual alarm, for we are as it were upon an immense vessel on which a fire has already broken out, the fire and the water enveloping us on all sides, and the ship full of sleeping passengers. We lift up our voice and cry: "Sleepers, awake! Hasten to put on the life-belts! The shore is not distant, and all who will may be saved." This ship on fire is the world; the life-belt is faith. We do not believe that a ferocious God is going to occupy eternity in tormenting the damned in hell, but the motive of our life is the desire implanted in our hearts by the Holy Spirit himself, the ardent inextinguishable desire to honour the heavenly Father by rescuing some of our fellow-creatures from an eternal death.

Over the converted sinner Conditionalism possesses a unique power, namely, the notion of a certain irreparability of evil. The traditional dogma ignores gradation; it attributes to faith the power of destroying, as by enchantment, all the consequences of sin. Salvation is all or nothing. Let a sinner give the rein to all his passions his whole life long, let him repent at the very last moment, his place is not only in heaven, which is true, but his place in heaven will be as good as that of the man who has not ceased to strive and to pray. Pursuing this mischievous way even to the end, the ritualist dogma has done away with all righteousness. A sacramental formula is to save from hell; a gift or a legacy to the Church is to shorten the duration of purgatory. Constantine could imbrue his hands in the blood of his own children, the baptism which he postponed until his last hour was to take the place of repentance.

All these abuses are cut short by the biblical principle of the condition of existence. According to that principle, sin is a corrosive, a burning, of necessity implying damage, destruction partial or total, local or general. Sin involves for the sinner more or less self-diminution. The penitent sinner will be saved as through the fire. Although saved, he must pay a proportionate tribute to the inexorable law of eternal justice. Repentance, even though followed by pardon, will not cause the disappearance of all the deleterious consequences of the sin that has been committed. It is possible to circumscribe a fire, to stop it, to rebuild the edifice that has been destroyed or damaged, but it is not possible to do away with the fact of damage or loss. Great sin means great damage; little sin, little damage; but in either case a loss that is irreparable, and therefore serious. 1

1 See Chap. V., sect. ix. See also the sermon by Rev. E. White on The Secondary Consequences of Sin in the volume entitled The Mystery of Growth, etc., Dickinson, 1877, and Un redoubtable Mais in the journal religieux of 9 Aug., 1890.

This austere truth leaves room for justice without excluding grace; it assigns salvation to every believer, and renders to each man according to his works; it gives us consolation, but does not soothe us with dangerous illusions. It occupies in moral retribution the position claimed in politics for the representation of minorities; to the passions of the sinner who believes himself to be converted, and in reality is only half converted, it opposes a barrier unknown to the traditional dogma.

We may add that in the eschatological domain the resurrection of the body had become a kind of needless extra, not to say a retrogression. In the traditional view, the believer's soul, leaving its prison-house of clay, is in immediate enjoyment of celestial happiness. Why it should return to the bondage of a body is not explained. Thus it has come to pass that many theologians relegate to the background the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which in the New Testament occupies a foremost position. Conditionalism, not believing in a separate immortality of souls, restores to resurrection the predominant place that is assigned to it in Scripture.

We will sum up this section by noticing that:

1st. The truth of any teaching is confirmed when it introduces into dogmatics a synthesis which facilitates the methodical arrangement and connection of all doctrines.

2nd. A doctrine is beneficent when it satisfies the mind and the heart, solves our difficulties, urges to the practice of that which is good, represses evil, edifies and sanctifies the soul.

If these are true touchstones, Conditionalism deserves to be placed in the rank of beneficent truths.

IV. It tends to reconcile science with faith, and reason with the Gospel: § 1, In the person of their most illustrious representatives, the schools of duty and of liberty have declared their adhesion to this conception of the Gospel; § 2, Guided by universal analogy and by the law of continuity, Christian evolutionists have adopted the same point of view; § 3, A glance at philosophical pessimism; Conditionalism furnishes weapons with which to combat it—

§ 1. ADHESIONS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHERS.

The doctrine of which the Conditionalists are the humble upholders is no human invention. All the honour belongs to Jesus Christ; it is a revelation, and its divine origin appears all the more clearly since it has won the adhesion of thinkers belonging to the most diverse schools. We have gathered together some of their testimonies. 1

1 See the prefatory letter by Professor Charles Secretan and our first two chapters.

In them may be seen pledges of a reconciliation between old rivals: on one side, human reason and science; on the other side, faith and religion. The neo-criticism, of which M. de Pressense said: "More than ever we have need of such a philosophy," 1 has shown itself particularly favourable to an understanding upon such a basis. One of its standard-bearers, M. F. Pillon, now director of the Annie philosophique, looks to the adoption of the Conditionalist point of view as assuring the future of Protestantism, whereof he has become one of the most eminent champions. He says: “On the one hand Conditional Immortality is perfectly admissible in philosophy for anyone who places himself at the point of view of metaphysics and criticist morality. On the other hand this theory seems to me to result clearly and certainly, in theology, from an exegesis that is truly scientific and in conformity with the Protestant spirit. I believe that it is necessary to make of it one of the essential foundations of the renovated Protestant theology. It offers the advantage of purifying without suppressing the Christian idea of damnation and salvation. In the conception of damnation the substitution of annihilation for an endless hell can and ought to serve as opposing Protestantism to Catholicism, the religion of freedom to the religion of servitude. The Catholic conception of the kingdom of God resembles the despotic Asiatic empires, where the sovereign power is manifested in penal matters by horrible tortures without limit or purpose. The penalty of death is sufficient in the Protestant conception of the kingdom of God.” 2

We believe that the theological importance of this thesis can hardly be exaggerated. A theology is defined and characterized especially by the solution that it gives to the eschatological question, because it is eschatology alone; that can fully determine the nature of the divine government, the scope of human freedom, the consequences of sin, the position and work of the Christ, the purpose of redemption. The theology of the sixteenth-century reformers remained half Catholic. The Conditionalists have understood that, in order to amend it, the first thing to be done is to put aside the Catholic conception of damnation and salvation, not by doubt or indifference, but by precise and resolute affirmations, by a doctrine in conformity with the Protestant method; that is to say, taken from the Scripture, and not from tradition. 3

1 See p. 29.

2 Private letter to the author, 6 May, 1887.

3 Critique philos., 31 March, 1877.

§ 2. ADHESIONS OF EVOLUTIONIST SCIENTISTS.

Conditionalism, being in conformity with practical reason, may serve as the crown and completion of the evolutionist system, which has been adopted by so many learned men. That system is no longer dangerous when an element of liberty is admitted into it. 1 Thus regarded, evolution is the method followed by the personal God, who sometimes introduces unexpected threads into the tissue of his work. The creation of a principle of organic life, man's self-consciousness, the developement of moral liberty, the appearance of Jesus Christ, these are undeniable facts, new beginnings, which a determinist evolutionism cannot explain, and which must be taken into account.

The evolutionist who is faithful to his principle will become transformed into the image of Jesus, who himself transformed his humanity into the image of the heavenly Father. For a man to be satisfied with himself, to believe himself perfect, and not to evolve in the direction of the model man, would be a flagrant negation of the transformist principle properly understood. Conditionalism defies materialist evolutionism to find a developement for the human race superior to that which the Gospel proposes. In this way Christian sanctification becomes a postulate of science.

Evolutionism thus amended and completed would help us the better to understand the Gospel. The struggle for life and survival of the fittest prophesies in a measure the immortalization of the elect; the elimination of the unfit enables us to foresee the final suppression of the wicked, who withdraw themselves from the requirements of moral progress. The same laws are there, with individual liberty in addition.

1 See pp. 30 and 48, and the volume entitled Christianity and Evolution, a symposium reprinted from the Homiletic Magazine. London: Nisbet and Co., 1887. Several theologians among the contributors adopted the standpoint of Christian evolutionism. Dr. MacCosh, in his book The Religious Aspect of Evolution, Professors Flint, of Edinburgh, and Pfleiderer, of Berlin, belong to that school.

The fossil remains of fifty thousand extinct species attest a certain contemplated loss in the work of creation. Such a fact is of a nature to reconcile us with the notion, at first painful, of a corresponding loss in the operations of grace. 1

Let us distinctly keep in mind the fact that in the ecclesiastical doctrine the eternal hell is not only an immense loss, but is also an ever-festering sore. The superiority of the Conditionalist theory is, therefore, clearly perceptible.

Just as in the visible universe there is apparently an enormous and inexplicable waste of germs, seeds, and eggs of all kinds, which die simply because they are useless—analogy would lead us to conclude that something similar, and to at least as enormous an extent, happens in the Unseen with the germs of spiritual frames. The caterpillar which has not chosen a secure place of refuge in which to assume the chrysalis form does not live to become a perfect insect. The seeds that fell by the wayside, though scattered by an intelligent sower, were devoured by the birds of the air. "For many are called, but few chosen." 2

In the true Gospel teaching, the elect are neither the objects of a divine caprice, nor are they egoists; they will form a select portion of mankind, chosen on account of spiritual qualities. The men who are fittest for the life eternal will be found to be the most charitable, their ambition being indistinguishable from the desire to be useful and devoted in the highest degree, the greatest among them to the best of their power helping the least in their upward course.

1 On this subject see the remarkable considerations of the second book of Esdras viii. 41; ix., passim, and various passages of the Wisdom of Solomon. Therein will be found a sort of presentiment of that which is well founded in Darwin's celebrated theory of the struggle for life and survival of the fittest. The partial loss does not in any way contradict the principle of the super-abundance of grace, the effects of which will last and be manifest through eternity, while evil, a merely ad interim apparition, is abolished. See Supplement No. IX., end of § 6; cf. Chap. 11., sect. iii., sect. viii., § 2; p. 289; and the end of Supplement No. V.

2 The Unseen Universe, by Professors Balfour Stewart and Tait, 4th edition p. 265 art. 261.

In this conception there is no foundation for such accusations against Christian morality as the following:

“This morality is arbitrary, superficial, and in fact immoral; it does not explain why it calls some actions good and others bad. It sets forth as the motive for doing right the assurance of thereby gaining a place in paradise, and as the motive for avoiding wrong the fear of burning in hell. As a reason for not giving way to the temptation to deceive, by being apparently good while really wicked, it makes believe that everyone is always under invisible surveillance. Such is religious morality; it is based upon egoism and the fear of corporal punishments, upon the hope of the advantages of paradise and the dread of the flames of hell. This morality is good for egoists and cowards, but especially for children who may be influenced by the threat of the whip or the promise of barley-sugar. In place of this morality, which appeals to the lowest instincts of man, progress lays down a general principle: the solidarity of humanity.” 1

We have shown that the "actions called good" tend to the conservation of the being, 2 and as Professor Auguste Sabatier has very well said:

“We scarcely think now that God's universal work, his definitive work, consists in the mysterious choice of a few elect for future bliss. No doubt we still believe in God's elect; but they are elected, not for bliss, but for duty, for the salvation of their brethren. To be one of the elect is to be called, to be sent, into the Lord's vineyard. It is not a privilege of selfish enjoyment; it is the call to a greater, harder, and more glorious task. True salvation for a soul, in fact, consists especially in its birth to the life of love, that is to say, in its vocation to self-devotion for the sake of those who are still in death and sin; in other words, our own salvation has its aim and object in the salvation of others.... Salvation consists in the developement of the eternal life of love.”3

What is there now remaining of M. Nordau's diatribes?

§ 3. A GLANCE AT PHILOSOPHICAL PESSIMISM.

Professor Secretan, in his prefatory letter, mentions certain thinkers "who hold themselves aloof from eschatological questions, being persuaded that it is impossible to form an idea of a future existence that will be both precise and rational, and who are also led away by the idea that we ought to will the right for the sake of the right, without regard to personal consequences." It seems to us that the ideal set forth by Professor Sabatier is exactly of a nature to satisfy such agnostics.

1 Max. Nordau, Les mensonges conventionnels de notre civilisation, translated by Auguste Dietrich, p. 351.

2 See Chap. XI., sect. v., and Supplement No. V., § v.

3 Deux conceptions du ministere evangelique. Revue chretienne, 1 Jan., 1891, p. 11, sq.

Their admirable spirit of devotedness will find in the mission to which the elect are called a field of activity as precise as it is rational. They may even enter upon it at once, without quitting the present life.

Professor Secretan further asks us to say a word for the benefit of persons otherwise excellent, "for whom the prospect of complete annihilation is a subject rather of hope than of fear." Are these good folk theists or pantheists? M. Secretan does not say. If they belong to the latter category, we look upon them as being out of health and needing to place themselves under special treatment. If the tree is to be judged by its fruits, they will learn to distrust a tendency which, under the names of Brahminism and Buddhism, has reduced a great part of Asia to the state, little to be envied, in which we now see it. The desire to live being inherent in life, the enfeeblement of that desire is a symptom of coming death. Moreover, the virtue of these good people themselves seems to us to be in danger, for human morality has great need of a sanction which pantheism does not furnish, since it sanctions everything. Those who are tired of life should hasten to come back to the personal and living God. While recommending to them the study of the Bible and the society of sincere Christians, we will leave to others more competent the task of indicating remedies more efficacious.

In the Gospel Jesus tells us of a king who is angry because, having prepared a grand banquet, he learns that some of those who had been invited have, on frivolous pretexts, declined the invitation. If the personal and living God assigns to us a place in a better world, shall we not offend him if we disdain his gracious offer? Is it not insulting to the Creator for the creatures to decline the position that he calls them to fill? Has not an element of laziness some place in the readiness to forego life thus put forward? Would not the aspiration after absolute repose, when there is so much need for doing good, be a subtile form of egoism, and is not that abdication of all individual will the very death of liberty, which is the glorious aim of the universe?

The Christian is not his own; as a loving and docile son, he will heartily fulfil his Father's commands. Without allowing himself a passionate attachment to the present life, nor even to the life to come, he will see in immortality not so much a reward as an opportunity for the accomplishment of a noble task. For him to start towards heaven is to go forward to the performance of fresh work.

There are some who through idleness shrink from this prospect, persuading themselves that their unwillingness is the effect of a sublime disinterestedness. They will get no admiration from us! We have a much higher regard for working Christians. Even though these should retain some degree of egoism, Jesus, their Chief, will take care to purify their notion of future bliss. Though there should be some alloy in the gold of their piety, would that be a reason for denying the natural connection between happiness and virtue? How can we doubt that a holy joy will fill the hearts of the workers in the future life?

A sumptuous feast is spread in the heavenly Father's house; if the child feels no attraction towards it, that shows that he is in a state of spiritual decline. But, faithfully acted out, the Gospel will restore both the will and the power to live, even to those who have lost both.

V. Conditionalism in practical theology. It stimulates missionary zeal—

The object of practical theology is the application of Christian teaching to the needs of the Church and of the world, and in that department also a return to the primitive Gospel will be of great advantage. The preacher is a soldier to whom Conditionalism brings new armour. There was a fault in the cuirass furnished by the traditional dogma. Since no apologetics could succeed in making the notion of a "hateful God" appear legitimate, that dogma has been used by free-thinkers in order to hinder the propagation of the Gospel. To this day they include both Catholicism and Protestantism in their hostility. In their view evangelism is only a species of Jesuitism, a lying invention, and an instrument of tyranny.

Exposed to these accusations, preachers cannot repeat without reserve the proud saying of the apostle: "I am not ashamed of the Gospel." Confined within their places of worship they remain on the defensive, and unbelief mounts guard at the door of their temples. The Christian literary man blushes for his faith in presence of his intimate literary but worldly friend, who asks him whether he sincerely believes in an eternal hell. Is the relative sterility that characterizes much evangelistic work to be greatly wondered at? 1

The primitive Gospel, on the contrary, commends itself to all consciences as a manifestation of divine truth. 2 It may restore to preachers that freedom of speech which was characteristic of the apostolic period. Being founded upon an unassailable theodicy, demonstrating the harmony of these four books of. God—the conscience, the Bible, nature, and history—it establishes the superiority of the Christian teaching over all religions and all systems of philosophy. 3

"The application of a truth cannot generally be made at the moment of its recognition." 4

1 See Chap. I., sect. iii. It is sad to see how, through lack of a dogmatic and philosophic synthesis, French Protestantism seems to he tramping without advancing. The Sunday at Home recently published a series of articles on religious thought in France. Towards the end the writer shows, with a certain sadness, that the Reformed Churches have lost all spirit of conquest and all hold upon the general public. Regarded by some as a detestable heresy and by others as a despicable superstition, Protestantism scarcely gains any recruits from among the cultivated classes. The home mission addresses attract a certain number belonging to the illiterate classes, but where are the earnest convictions? As for the Salvation Army, it does not even pretend to reach the thinking people; it brandishes in vain the blunted sword of an antiquated doctrine; it seems like the last convulsions of a sickly kind of evangelism.

Notwithstanding his optimist temperament, M. de Pressense, who was in the best position for knowing, was convinced of the powerlessness of the traditional Calvinism. In a letter to Father Hyacinthe Loyson, dated September, 1887, he wrote: "I have not ceased to believe that we, the sons—of the sixteenth-century Reformation, have not power sufficient to rescue our country from Romanism, and that for the accomplishment of that end it is necessary that an original reforming movement should arise within Catholicism itself."—Eglise libre, 17 July, 1891.

2 2 Cor. iv. 2.

3 See Supplement No. XXII.

4 Octave Feuillet.

Having been counteracted by the irrational hostility of the Churches, Conditionalism has hitherto been prevented from manifesting the extent of its power. It is asked whether it has founded all the works of Christian charity; but how could it have done so, since it has only just arisen out of its age-lasting entombment? Nevertheless, it already includes within its ranks preachers and evangelists of the first order, men like Dr. Dale, who was appointed President of the recent International Congregational Council, Rev. Edward White, the learned Dr. Perowne, now Bishop of Worcester, Rev. W. H. M. Hay Aitkin, whose daily services at New York some years ago attracted such crowds as to interfere with the commercial activity of that great city. 1 Sir Geo. Gabriel Stokes, Secretary and late President of the Royal Society, has borne witness to the zeal of Conditionalist missionaries; in a printed statement he has shown their exceptional success. 2

On the other hand the Rev. T. E. Slater has indicated a crisis in the affairs of the missionary societies. He declares that in many parts of Great Britain and the United States the zeal of the subscribers has cooled, and he attributes this fact to eschatological scepticism. 3 Like the sword of Damocles, a schism is threatening the American missions on this very subject of future retributions. The former enthusiasm is, as we believe, to be brought back only by a victory of the primitive Gospel.

Where there is no belief in an end of evil beyond the tomb, the prospect of a suppression of misery on earth is not very likely to be admitted; thus the traditional. dogma has a tendency to paralyze the hope of social reformation. Before singing with the angelic host at Bethlehem, "Peace on earth!" the Church must cry with a conviction at present lacking "Glory to God in the highest!" Such a conviction has become incompatible with a theology that makes hell eternal.

1 See his biography in The Christian of 10 Aug., 1888.

2 See Supplement No. XXIII., Conditionalism in Missionary Preaching.

3 "Strange to say, we hear in many quarters of a decline in missionary interest. There is not that enthusiasm in our Churches in respect to missions that formerly existed.... It is probably the uncertainty that has been gathering around the whole question of the future... that has cooled the ardour of missionary enterprise."—The Christian World, 2 Feb., 1882. The Philosophy of Missions, 1 vol., 16mo., 1882; see pp. 2 and 36. Chap. III. is entitled Decline of Interest in Missions. Cf. Evangelical Christendom, Dec., 1885.

The true Gospel stimulates the zeal of both missionaries and philanthropists by giving the joyful certitude of a final triumph of the good; it leads us on towards the epoch wherein, the episode of evil being ended, there will no longer be anything to disturb the felicity of the universe. But this hope does not inspire us with the fatal sense of security produced by the belief in an inevitable salvation; we are responsible for those who, through our negligence, will be missing from the celestial assembly.

VI. The conditions of moral and religious revival—

France is now passing through a crisis of vast import. 1 Her friends tremble to see her tossed about between atheism and the Syllabus upon a sea full of rocks. May she, being spared fresh misfortunes, listen to the counsel of one of her most devoted sons, who said: "That which France needs is a religion at once simple, positive, enlightened, tolerant, and moral, a religion that would live in peace with science and would be the ally of liberty; in fact, the religion of the Gospel. Such a religion, we are bold to say, Protestantism could and ought to give to her; but," adds M. Recolin, "that which seems to be lacking in evangelical Protestantism is a system of dogmatics more precise, more vigorous and more profound." 2

1 Closely connected with France, in addition to Belgium and French Switzerland, are the Latin nations, which in religious and literary matters move more or less in the orbit of France. The same fermentation extends in some degree to the Sclavonic, Germanic, and Anglo-Saxon races; in a word, to all our western civilization.

2 De l'etat retigieux de la France et particulierement du protestantisme francais, a report presented at the international conference of the Evangelical Alliance at Copenhagen on the 2nd Sept., 1884. Revue chretienne, Nov. and Dec., 1884.

The voice of the lamented Francois Bonifas, speaking as it were from the tomb, makes the same avowal; he has said:

“We need clear affirmations, precise doctrines. We must resolutely follow truth the whole way, and not fear to affirm all that the Bible affirms and teaches.... Let us bow respectfully before the mysteries whereof God has reserved the secret, but not without having used our best efforts to let in upon them all the light supplied to us by revelation. Let us thus construct a complete system of dogmatics which, without neglecting the precious heritage of past ages, will be careful to go back to the biblical sources, and to give to the eternal truths of the Gospel a new form that will answer to the requirements of the present state of things.” 1

Let us once more recall a saying that formed part of the spiritual testament of Pastor Bersier: "What we especially need is a sound and strong doctrine." 2

By another we are told: Young men say: "There is no thought in that which is offered to us." We need a movement of thought. Christians who are called to be missionaries in their generation ought to enter into living communion with this thought by the use of new formulas suited to the language of the age. 3

In the biblical doctrine that we have been describing, we have met with these very characteristics: eternal truth, new form, scientific value, vigour, and depth. It furnishes a satisfactory solution of the eschatological difficulty, and, as M. Pillon has said, in dogmatics eschatology is of capital importance. It has been too much neglected in the recent crusades of the home mission, which may perhaps account for a certain lack of success likely to lead to discouragement. It is desired to preach the Gospel of salvation, but it is important to know what is the great danger from which we are saved by the Gospel. 4 If, when interrogated on this point, the evangelist hesitates or stammers, his mission will be in peril. If he either wounds the consciences or lulls them to sleep, he is not likely to have greater success.

1 Revue theologique, July, 1878. These lines form part of the last article published by their author, who died the same year.

2 See p. 4.

3 Lecture by Professor Raoul Allier on the moral conditions of a religious renewal. Le Trail d'union, 15 May, 1891.

4 "He who has not a clear notion of salvation, how can he have a clear idea of the Gospel ministry, which is nothing else than a work of salvation? Is not this the secret cause of the vagueness and uncertainty in which so many young pastors still remain as to the real nature of the task that they have to fulfil?"—Aug. Sabatier, article quoted, Revue chretienne, 1 Jan., 1891.

Several solutions of the difficulty offer themselves. They correspond to different notions as to God's character, human nature, sin and salvation. They are so many theologies, among which a decision becomes urgent. We have rejected, after full examination, the official dogma which offends the religious sentiment by calumniating the heavenly Father. With no less energy do we reject the enervating doctrines of Universalism, whether absolute or conditional. Nor will we accept that dogmatic scepticism according to which the Bible would at the same time teach contradictory doctrines, all equally good, it is said, provided that a good use be made of them. There is nothing much more dangerous than such indecision. Man with heart unrenewed makes for himself an impenetrable retreat in a vague region of unlimited extent which is thus given over to him, and there he sleeps the sleep of eternal death. If the choice is left to him, it is needless to say that he will choose the pleasant and convenient doctrine of an inevitable salvation. And in that doctrinal indecision, which is proposed as an ideal, what becomes of the precision demanded by Messrs. Bonifas and Recolin? No, even hell itself belongs to the domain of Christian dogmatics, which, enlightened by the torch of an impartial exegesis, will sound the depths even of the second death, will burst open those dungeons wherein the gaolers of the old theology inflicted eternal torments upon imperishable victims, and, armed with the besom of religious criticism, will clear the temple of truth of the impurities left by the harpies of the middle ages.

There remains Conditionalism. This is a doctrine which uses neither palliation nor dissimulation; it rests straight and square upon the Bible, bringing all the biblical declarations into harmony; it was maintained by the earliest Fathers; it is in conformity with universal analogy, it satisfies the instinct of self-preservation, an instinct which is also a duty; within the sphere of liberty it is the crowning of the great scientific law of the survival of the fittest, the graft of the Gospel upon the vigorous but wild tree of evolution. It humiliates the presumptuous child of the dust; it glorifies Jesus Christ; it is the basis of a new theodicy; it keeps the golden mean between the manich can pessimism which makes evil eternal and the optimism which sees no serious danger in evil. By removing the stumbling-block of eternal torments, it shows a God always faithful to himself, and merciful even in the terrible chastisement wherewith he threatens obstinate sinners. By re-establishing the notion of irreparability, it restores to the preacher a weapon that he had lost. The fury of human passions is such that often nothing but the vision of the irremediable can arrest the sinner when exposed to temptation, but in the traditional dogma the irreparable had an odious character which paralyzed the preachers. They had overshot the mark, and so had been led to keep silence as to future punishments. Conditionalism boldly declares the irreparable consequences of sin; the pardon that it offers is not impunity. Its mathematical morality deals out future retributions in exact proportion to the use made here below of the resources put within reach. A doctrine so clear and so just is a well-sharpened sword wherewith the defenders of the Gospel will be able to resume the attack, quitting the position of the besieged for that of conquerors. The traditional doctrine was a fetter on the feet of the evangelist, Universalism paralyzed his arm. Conditionalism terrifies the impenitent with the dismal prospect of a long agony and a no less lamentable eternal death. Is it possible to find a restraint at the same time more powerful, more moral, and more rational?

Conditionalism is, however, not merely a restraint, it is also a motive force. Appealing to our thirst for immortality, it presents to us Jesus Christ as the only one who can satisfy that thirst. In other terms, it places man at the very heart of the Gospel.

It may thus be seen that:

“Our principal thesis is not at the circumference, but at the centre of Christian dogma. It is a vital germ, a principle of regeneration for contemporary theology and preaching. In the measure in which our French Protestants assimilate this grand idea, deduce its logical consequences and thereby renew their faith, their apologetics, and their propaganda, in that measure we believe they will be seen to rise above their actual declining state and to exert their due influence in their country. They need this courageous evolution, which moreover is demanded by their own principles, they need this dogmatic reformation, which has been too long retarded by less pressing interests, if they are to win the ear of the present age.

On this ground, where they scarcely expected to meet us, the men of science will be able to follow us. Then, perhaps, we may succeed in making them understand that the Gospel has no fear of the light, that it completes instead of contradicting the revelations of nature, that in a word there is an admirable harmony between faith and reason. Thus rejuvenated and transfigured in its fundamental conception, the religion of the Christ will be able afresh to manifest its legitimacy as the best explanation of our troubled world, as the divine answer to our most agonizing questions. To many sincere and reflective minds, driven in spite of themselves by the parching wind of doubt towards atheism and despair, it will bring an untold peace and a sublime hope.” 1

VII. A prophecy in course of fulfilment—

Forty years ago, Isaac Taylor, although not professing himself a Conditionalist, had a kind of prophetic intuition of a rejuvenation of the Church by means of a new eschatology. He wrote:

“When once this weighty question of the after-life has been opened, a controversy will ensue, in the progress of which it will be discovered that with unobservant eyes we and our predecessors have been so walking up and down, and running hither and thither among dim notices and indications of the future destinies of the human family, as to have failed to gather up or to regard much that has lain upon the pages of the Bible, open and free to our use. Those who, through the course of years, have been used to read the Scriptures unshackled by systems and bound to no conventional modes of belief, must have felt an impatience in waiting, not for the arrival of a new revelation from heaven, but of an ample and unfettered interpretation of that which has so long been in our hands.

The doctrine of future punishment... will take its place in the midst of an expanded prospect of the compass and intention of the Christian system. So it will be with the future Methodism; and although it will rest itself upon a laboriously obtained belief concerning the ‘wrath to come,’ a belief that will heave the mind with a deep convulsive dread, yet, and notwithstanding this preliminary, the renovation which we look for will come as the splendour of day comes in the tropics; it will be a sudden brightness that makes all things glad! “2

1 Ch. Byse, in the preface to his translation of Mr. White's Life in Christ, p. xxxi., sq.

2 Wesley and Methodism, 1851, p. 289, sq. E. White, op. cit. , p. 457.

VIII. Duty of propagating a salutary truth—

This prophecy, like many others, and like immortality itself, remains conditional. History teaches us that the truth triumphs only by the disinterested efforts of those who believe that they possess it, efforts which, although disinterested, are none the less obligatory, being required by loyalty. Those of our readers who share our conviction will understand also the imperious duty of propagating it.

As M. de Pressense said:

“I hold that life is too short for us to lose time and strength in attenuating or disguising that which we believe to be true, for the purpose of making it more acceptable, and for the sake of not wounding numerous susceptibilities. We are here below in order to be ourselves, to speak the energetic language of our convictions, without looking to the right hand or to the left. It is only at the cost of this imprudence that the cause of truth is usefully served.” 1

It should be well understood that in this matter we are not dealing with the theory of an individual, nor joining in a vain tournament of dialectics, but considering the gravest question in the world, the specially vital question, to be or not to be, the question of our eternal destinies, of the character of God, of the future of the Christian religion upon earth. Those whose eyes have been opened will see in that which we seek to maintain a portion of the glad tidings which has been misunderstood. Imitating the widow in the parable, they will not fail to importune their brethren until that which we are opposing, that tyrannical dogma which to so many souls bars the way to the kingdom of God, is utterly overthrown.

If the doctrine of pain that shall never end be the offspring of the combination of a false psychology with the traditionary interpretations of a superstitious and uncritical antiquity, it is easy to see that the Deity must abhor the falsehoods taught in his name, in Europe as in Asia, and will highly commend the work of those who set themselves to overturn this stumbling-block, and to rend the dogma which at once veils from sinful men his real and awful justice, and from his children so much of the light of his eternal Love. 2

1 Quotation in the journal Signes des temps, 17 Feb., 1891.

2 E. White, op. cit., p. 64.

Our Western civilization, distracted by an intestine war, divided against itself, has now reached a point at which it cannot stay, nor can it long subsist if it fails speedily to discover and to make manifest to all a meeting-point between science: and faith, between the old Gospel and modern progress. The Conditionalists believe that they know that meeting-point. The farther they advance, the more are they confirmed in their belief by the manner in which that belief sustains the attacks of opponents and satisfies the cravings of their own souls. But the more complete their certitude, the more would their silence become culpable. May they help to hasten the day when all the friends of truth will share in its benefits!

Every strong and sincere conviction tends to proselytism. When a man, after having long groaned under the yoke of ignorance and error, succeeds in finding a truth which satisfies all the needs of his reason and of his heart, which is like the fiat lux causing the radiant daylight to shine in upon the darkness and chaos wherein he was sinking; such a man could not keep that truth to himself. He would feel his soul too narrow to contain its brightness and splendour; it would produce in his mind so many thoughts, in his heart so many emotions, in his conscience the sense of so many obligations and duties, that in spite of his feebleness and timidity that truth would break forth in all his utterances, it would be perceptible in all his silences, in the fire of his eyes and the unusual radiance of his face. And should any authority, any despotic power succeed in shutting his mouth, that truth would become in his soul a consuming fire, an intolerable torment which would make him weary of life and cause him to long for that future existence wherein all his faculties will have full liberty of developement. 1

But yet, who will shut the mouth of the true believer? Who will cool down his enthusiasm? Cold water will intensify rather than extinguish the celestial fire by which he is animated. In the midst of a conflict which is often grievous he will call to mind the saying of a Christian thinker: "I know no greater delight than that of fighting for the triumph of a great truth that is still misunderstood." 2

1 Jules Denys, Le'Signal, 18 June, 1881.

2 Francois Guizot, L'Illustration, 25 Oct., 1884.

As regards the result of his efforts, the believer is patient, because he has eternity before him. By his faith he dominates a transitory world. He pities those who do not share his treasure, but his solicitude does not interfere with his confidence in God. Although he should never see here below the success of the cause that he defends, he knows that he will one day contemplate it from a higher standpoint, and this assurance is sufficient for him. The faithfulness of his testimony will not depend upon the sympathy that men, be they good or bad, envious or benevolent, cowardly or courageous, may deign or not deign to accord to him.

Upon the Churches this testimony lays a certain responsibility from which they can free themselves only by a serious response to the challenge. The fate of Jerusalem, the torpor of the Synagogue, reduced to the condition of a chrysalis, not to say a mummy, the ever-lamentable situation of the Jewish people, all these are facts indicating what may become of religious communities that reject or pretend not to understand the appeals of the truth. Will it be said that the truth which is occupying our attention is of secondary importance? That would be to prejudge the question. In the first century of the Church the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, and the Herodians doubtless agreed in assigning only a secondary importance to the problems raised by the disciples of Jesus Christ. In the sixteenth century the Roman Catholic Church treated as secondary the question of justification by faith, which Luther set up as a standard, but which does not appear in the Apostles' Creed. Again, only some fifty years ago the ecclesiastical authorities of French Protestantism still spoke disdainfully of a "pretended revival," a religious movement the power of which was very soon to overcome their own.

IX. The Conclusion

If ever an age has claimed to be able to solve the universal problem; if ever an age has been called upon to gather up a past fruitful of instruction in order to prepare a future loaded with benefits; if ever an age has been great in its mission, ardent in its hopes, indomitable in its enterprises, that age is surely our own; yet this age is agitated, breathless, weary, sick. 1 And this sick patient is distrustful of every remedy, ancient and modern; he wants the composition and effects of the medicines to be explained to him; he prefers death to the charlatans. The doctors must therefore meet the demands of their patient. The modern spirit rejects odious and contradictory conceptions. The required explanations can be refused only by obstinacy or ignorance.

We have asserted that every being exists only under a definite condition; that for every human soul this condition is personal communion with the personal and living God; that this, too, is the condition of immortality; that as a consequence of sin man finds himself outside of that communion; that he is invited to return into it; that this return is to be effected by faith in Jesus Christ, and is the healing needed by the age: are not these assertions reasonable, in conformity with universal analogy, with the laws of nature, and with the necessary conditions of life and progress?

Neither science nor conscience can contradict these assertions. Science says: Conform to the condition of your existence, reject every element that is contrary to your physical or moral constitution. The Gospel says: Be ye holy. Science says: Aspire after indefinite progress. The Gospel says: Be ye perfect.

Science demands the abandonment of every prejudice; the Gospel requires the docility of the little child.

The Gospel teaches that the Christ died for all, to the end that no man should live for himself alone. The blood of our Chief cries to us that we must live, and if needful die, for each other. Science responds with the cry: Solidarity, mutual trust; all for each, each for all. The object of social economy is attained when fraternity tends freely towards equality by the multiplication of the relations of all to each. 1

Adolphe Monod, in the peroration of his sermon, Qui a soif? The Gospel tells us that many are called but few chosen, and that many of those who are invited will refuse to sit down at the banquet of eternal life. Observation convinces us that in nature only a limited number of choice germs are developed and perpetuated.

So, too, the Gospel and universal analogy teach us, as by a common accord, that the gift of life is conditional, that progress is effected by a process of elimination, or to vary the expression, that it is needful to "strive to enter in by the narrow door... for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many be they that enter in thereby; for narrow is the gate and straitened the way that leadeth unto life, and few be they that find it." 1

These parallels might be multiplied. From them it appears that the Gospel at the very outset gives to the believer the benefit of that healthful rule, whereof science is only in these later days formulating the definition.

“Everything,” said Joseph de Maistre, ‘is announcing to us a great unity of some sort towards which we are hastening with rapid footsteps.” 2

In the words of a profound historian: “A fuller comprehension of the positive spirituality that underlies all forms, although not adequately expressed by any, must at last reconcile all antagonisms. We cannot give up the assurance that above these oppositions there yet rises the unity of a clear and therefore effective consciousness of God.” 3

In the distance, wrote M. Taine only recently, a moment is perceptible in which those two coadjutors, an enlightened faith and a respectful science, will together work at one picture, or else separately paint the same picture in two different frames. 4

1 Agonizesthe eiselthein, Luke xiii. 24; Matt. vii. 13. See p. 63.

2 Soirees de St. Petersbourg, eleventh conversation.

3 Ranke, at the end of his "History of the Popes."

4 Revue des Deux Mondes, June, 1891, p. 509.

The time is approaching when God's eternal light, meeting at last with man's reason and experience, will chase from the face of the nations that night in which no man can work.... St. Paul said: "The night is far spent, the day is at hand." We ought now to understand for ourselves that which formerly we accepted as told to us. Humanity is reaching adult age, and the dictates of wisdom, patiently inculcated in our childhood by the heavenly Father, ought now, in the light of experience, to display before our eyes the immensity of their truth. St. Paul also said: "We are no longer under a tutor," we are ourselves becoming masters. 1

These are the first dawnings of the promised day in which all from the least to the greatest shall comprehend religious truth, when "they shall teach no more every man his neighbour and every man his brother, saying: Know the Lord," for "the law of the Lord shall be written in their heart." 2 In the crisis through which we are now passing an imperfect science is shaking the faith of many; a riper science will change faith into sight.

And when, by the easier road of science, the hosts of mankind shall have reached the summits where light in full glory shines, they will there with surprise and joy encounter the men of faith, who, having gone forth from among them, will be found to have arrived long before, under the leadership of Jesus, and by the arduous and blood-stained paths of sacrifice.

Men of science, their minds having attained to maturity and to conformity with universal law and with God himself, will then return, but in resplendent light, to the formulas of the little, the humble, the simple, who with emotion and adoration say: My Father! They will see that those whose hearts were right have from the beginning of the world been in possession of the substantial and whole truth, which a partial thought and an immature science were not in a condition to grasp. 3

In this glorious picture there is a dark shadow. It is the void left behind them by the voluntary victims of evil. We have seen that the wish to remove this shadow would be an interference with the principle of individual freedom. But the number of the victims is not fatally fixed; the believer can labour to reduce that number. A sublime vocation, a powerful incentive: he can strive to rescue perishing souls from the nothingness to which they are hastening.

1 A. Gratry, La Morale et la loi de l'histoire, vol. i., p. 159.

2 Jer. xxxi. 34, 33.

3 A. Gratry, La Morale et la loi de l'histoire, vol. i., p. 46.

This thought brings us back at last to the practical solution of the great problem. The prospect of a more consolatory future; a deeper love for a God better understood; a fear, in view of sin and its inevitable consequences, that is more salutary because more rational and exempt from superstition; and lastly, a more enlightened zeal for the present and future interests of mankind: such will be in every honest and good heart the fruits of the true biblical teaching in relation to immortality.