III. We named one other argument of those who hold the common view; viz., that the eternal existence of the lost is unworthy of the name of immortality, and therefore they are not called immortal. Very true; but this reasoning may go further than it was intended. The Bible is peculiarly apt to call things by their right names. Now "eternal conscious existence" is the right name for eternal conscious existence. But the Scriptures never assert even that of the wicked; and those who use the phrase, as some carefully do, are inconsistent by their own showing; they travel out of the record, and are "wise above that which is written." If these good people and Christians generally would adhere more closely to the words which are "profitable for correction," this sad controversy about immortal woe and eternal evil would soon come to an end.

It hardly needs to be said that, while we deny the eternity of evil, we affirm its actual temporary existence, and its guilt on the part of man. We are not deists or pantheists, that we should exculpate man by calling his sin only relative and apparent. We affirm also that there is a true and valid doctrine of the "wrath of God;"-a displeasure against every evil work, which will destroy along with sin all those who love and cherish it. And over against this only right of guilt we find a proper Gospel of grace: "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him might not perish, but have everlasting life.”

We may suggest, in conclusion, that the doctrine of undying evil has a practical bearing. If God, the Lord of the Universe, can not avoid an eternal continuance of evil, then poor, weak man, in his petty relations to the world, may think it no sin to allow some things not the best. "Necessity knows no law;" and the higher necessity may lend its sanction to the lower. Individuals and communities may tolerate peccadilloes and social mischiefs because worse things shall ever be; which would be thrust away by a prevalent feeling that EVIL HAS NO RIGHTS, and will in due time be swept away from the whole realm of God.

THE following passage in Dr. Mansel's "Limits of Religious Thought" has been largely republished by the religious press, and seems to require some notice:—

"It is urged that sin can not for ever be triumphant against God. As if the whole mystery of iniquity were contained in the words for ever! The real riddle of existence-the problem which confounds all philosophy, aye, and all religion, too, so far as religion is a thing of man's reason—is the fact that evil exists at all; not that it exists for a longer or a shorter duration. Is not God infinitely wise and holy and powerful now? and does not sin exist along with that infinite holiness and wisdom and power? Is God to become more holy, more wise, more powerful hereafter; and must evil be annihilated to make room for His perfections to expand ? Does the infinity of His eternal nature ebb and flow with every increase or diminution in the sum of human guilt and misery? Against this immovable barrier of the existence of evil, the waves of philosophy have dashed themselves unceasingly since the birthday of human thought, and have retired broken and powerless, without displacing the minutest fragment of the stubborn rock, without softening one feature of its dark and rugged surface."

It is worthy of remark that Dr. M. had just spoken of "arbitrary and summary decisions of human reason on the most mysterious as well as the most awful of God's revealed judgments against sin,—the sentence of Eternal Punishment." He also says it is "assumed " by objectors, that God's punishment of sin in the world to come "will take place as a special infliction, not as a natural consequence;" and that it "will be inflicted solely with reference to the sins committed during the earthly life; that the guilt will continue finite, while the misery is prolonged to infinity.”

These preliminary statements seemed to us, in several points, inaccurate. Many defenders of the doctrine have regarded eternal suffering as a divine infliction, and some still so regard it. Again, the eternal suffering has been regarded, until recently, as deserved by an "infinite guilt" contracted in this life; and the objection has been, that infinite guilt within this life is impossible. Again, when orthodox writers have attempted to justify eternal pain on the supposition of eternal sinning, the objector has urged that there can be, in all reason, no eternal sinning. Moreover, that theory of unceasing misery hardly escapes the objection raised against inflicted punishment. For, since no cre

ated being is self-existent, it must still be supposed that God for ever holds the sinner in being, and thus conserves him ever, as it were, on the rack. If God does not scourge the recreant with his right hand, he still appears as grasping him by the left hand, while the process of anguish goes on unceasingly. It can not be maintained that God merely allows the sinner to reap the fruit of his own doings, leaving him for ever alone. For, when the Creator shall let any creature utterly and finally alone, the anathema is fatal. None can live without God.

It may be suggested, then, that "the arbitrary and summary decisions of human reason are possibly on the side of the "most mysterious and awful judgment;" the more properly, since the author "assumes" to speak of an "immortal soul" which the revelation never calls immortal. The revealed word also calls the final punishment an "everlasting destruction," and speaks of the judgment as manifestly just, never as mysterious.

Our author appears inaccurate, also, in the larger extract we have cited for examination. Who says that "the whole mystery of iniquity is contained in the words for ever"? Deists and rationalists, for whose benefit he speaks, do indeed most earnestly protest against that doctrine which he calls "most mysterious." But very many of these persons regard moral evil as a stage of natural development, and thus deny that sin "exists at all." On the other hand, orthodox divines usually aver that sin is an unnatural and perverse action of free will, and that all sin, however temporary, is a proper mystery. Hence the argument of Dr. M. seems to us both inadequate and irrelevant: he has admitted the notion of eternal woe to be "most mysterious" and "awful," and thus apparently not on the same footing with temporary evil; and his principal objectors deny the chief element in the mystery to which he makes his appeal.

This inadvertence is explained by that which is the main argument of Dr. M.'s book,—his large use of the mysteries in nature and revelation, reducing the exercise of reason, he thinks, within certain rigid limits. Every new or grand mystery he can show, adds to the force of this main argument. Thus it is for his interest to add the dire tenet of immortal woe to the cloud of his witnesses. He brings this doctrine upon the stand, not simply because he regards it as true, but that its overwhelming mystery may check the rash presumption of man's knowingness, which he would fain rebuke. Therefore does he tell us that, if we admit the existence of temporary evil, we can not disprove its eternal continuance.

The interested nature of his argument makes his inadvertent concession the more important. And the authority of his name and great ability is, in this matter, more than balanced by that of several writers who have held the eternity of future suffering, but have expressly admitted that it is the special difficulty of the received theology. Thus a learned reviewer of the controversy between Peter Bayle, who offered the Manichæan hypothesis, and his opponents, said: "No one can deny that the very great difficulties which press the doctrine of the origin of evil and its reconciliation with the justice and goodness of God, could be more easily overcome if an end of hell-punishments is supposed, and not their eternity." (Buddeus, Inst. Theol. Dogm., 1. 2, c. 3, § 17.) And Dr. Müller closes his elaborate work on "The Christian Doctrine of Sin" by saying: "A purely theoretic solution of the problem of the world would be possible if the evil were not;-the evil which does not resolve itself as a passing moment in the process of the development of the world, but is capable of being maintained, by the will of the creature persistently hardening itself, through endless ages.' (The reader will observe that the burdensome doctrine is here stated in the precise form in which Dr. Mansel thinks it most mild and rational.) And to the question, " Shall Eternity be begloomed with sin for ever unconquered, unconquerable?"— Dr. Young replies: "The thought is unutterably affecting. Far, far without not beyond the range of celestial vision, but not obtruding upon it-there may dim and dark and mysterious phantasın; the only speck in a universe of light, and too remote withal to cast upon it even the faintest shadow.” (The Mystery, p. 335.) Thus would an orthodox writer put the supposed infinite evil so far out of the way, and so nearly out of the world, that it should be reduced to a finite thing, even a "speck.” (Shall Heaven be poorer if the mote disappears ? )

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For its inaccuracies, and by these and other authorities, the plea of Dr. M. might be ruled out of court. But we have not yet done with this attempt at reasoning from the finite to the infinite.* We think it ought to hold as well in respect to physical evil and mystery as to moral. Let us see what it might prove.

A gentleman once attempted to analyze the venom of the rattlesnake, but without success. His most powerful reagents produced no effect upon it, and its nature remained to him a profound secret.

* The authority of Dr. Whately, who employs a similar argument, may here be alleged. But Dr. W. avoids the inaccuracies we have pointed out, and shows in the same treatise that he does not hold the eternity of future suffering. We have examined the point he makes in " Debt and Grace," pp. 147–152.

Let us suppose that this were a chemical mystery, never to be solved by the reason or advancing knowledge of man. Poison, then, is a mystery-perhaps in more senses than one. Most of the reasons against the eternity of poison might be urged to show that it should not and does not exist at all. For, its nature is a mystery, without respect to its quantity. It is such examined by the grain-a ton of it is no more so. Insoluble when diffused through the space of a cubic inch, it is no more so if spread over a continent. Inscrutable in the days or years of time, it is no more so in the cycles of eternity. Hence, if there is to be an eternal world of moral evil, not infringing upon God's sovereignty nor encroaching upon his holy kingdom, so there may be a corresponding thesaurus of venom, for ever undissolved, stored in long rows of colossal demijohns, tier upon tier; vessels of adamant that shall ever restrain the virus from breaking forth in mischief, yet all eternally conserved for a display of the terrible import of that dark mystery, Poison, or for whatever other reason may be supposed.

Why not? - since venom is confessedly a gentler form of evil than sin. Nay, even if the poison were allowed to course through the veins of living creatures, causing deathless yet guiltless pangs, that were better than eternal hate and rebellion against the All Good.

Rather, who does not say that the more crying evil of sin is the very reason why it of all things should not be eternal? Precisely because it is a very special mystery, and perchance the only absolute mystery, it should come to an end. God knows the frame and constitution of all created things; but sin, perhaps, even he does not understand, and therefore he can not speak for the sinner when he shall stand speechless. Sin is pure monstrosity, rising out of lawlessness, and therefore knowing no principle of action or of continuance, but speedily dashing and destroying its subject against the laws of being which are eternal. When a frail creature, born of yesterday, chooses to act madly and wildly, that is no reason why he should have power to do so for ever, but just the contrary. But the usual mode of arguing from "the evil of sin" seems to make its enormity a reason for its perpetuity;if it were too evil to come to an end.

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The remaining argument of Dr. M. would prove, we think, a great deal too much. "Is God," he asks, " to become more holy, more wise, more powerful hereafter; and must evil be annihilated to make room for His perfections to expand?" By such reasoning we might show that God needs never to have done any thing, but might be as Brahma -eternally quiescent. Was He not all holy, and wise, and mighty, from the beginning? Why, then, should Chaos and old Night give