way to light and order? Must God find room for His perfections to expand? Why should He visit the earth with a deluge, and purge it of abounding wickedness? Was the remaining Universe not wide enough for display of His glory? Why should He hear the cry of the children ɔf Israel, and “triumph gloriously" over their oppressors? Must the Eternal Sovereign achieve a victory? Why appoint a day of final judgment, and a "restitution of all things"? Why not stereotype the Universe at any instant of its progress, and tell His creatures that His divine perfections require no advance of the world,-in whatever condition they are, they must adore Him and be content?

But the Father "worketh hitherto,” and resteth never until he can' pronounce all things very good. Nay, just because his are active perfections, progress is the law of all his intelligent creation. Hence it is simply consistent in theologians to say that hell itself comes to no stand-still, but its guilt and woe are ever augmenting. But the eternal progress of woe which God pities, and of guilt which he abhors, would be an advancing triumph over him. In order to this, some space or sphere of his realm must be, in the received theology, consigned away from him, and devoted to the Adversary whose works he sent his Son to destroy. Has the Universal Ruler endorsed the consignment?

At this point we may quote the words of a reviewer of Dr. M.'s book: “Much is made of the familiar commonplaces, about creation involving a change to the Creator, either from worse to better, or from better to worse, from a lower to a higher, or from a higher to a lower mode of being, or from one state to another, the change being purely indifferent. On all which, for my part, I do not feel called upon to say one word-inasmuch as the same things advanced by infidels of different schools have been met, so far as they can be met, This newer scepticism—for such essentially I hold it to be, of course without the remotest suspicion of the lecturer's personal faith-contains only the old poison not even changed in form.” (J. Young, 'The Province of Reason,' p. 89.)

many times over.

Mr. Maurice, reviewing Dr. Mansel in his work entitled, "What is Revelation?" makes the same point which we noted on p. 16. He

says:

"What I was, in my haste, about to condemn in Mr. Mansel, is in you and me. We have been tolerating evil; we have been believing that because it exists, it may just as well be immortal. This is the unbelief which has paralyzed all our arms and all our hearts. This it is which makes us patient of baseness and cowardice in ourselves,

which makes us indifferent how much of moral corruption there is in the world. We have said to ourselves, What is there in that little word for ever'? Is not God good now? Yet He suffers evil. We who are pledged by the vows of our Ordination, as well as by the vows of our Baptism, to resist evil to the death,- -we have been actually propagating this accursed denial, we have been investing it with sacred names, we have been making it a part of our orthodoxy. Do you think that this can go on? Is not this habit of mind destroying the vitals of the Nation, the vitals of the Church?"-Pp. 436, 437.

Citing Dr. Mansel's allusion to "the great and terrible mystery of Divine Judgment," Mr. Maurice speaks of all things in earth and heaven being made subject to Christ, and says:—

"Such a Judgment,-that which is called, in the New Testament, the unveiling of the Son of Man, the discovery of the real Head and Source of all Life, Order, and Peace, in God's universe, the overthrow and destruction of all Death, Disorder, War,-the Judgment which has cheered the heart of the sufferer on sick-beds, the lonely prisoner, the martyr at the stake, not because he expects some reward for himself, but because he shall see Righteousness and Truth triumphant; because he hopes to hear his prayers answered, that God's Will may be done at last throughout His Creation; such a Judgment we must banish from our thoughts. By proclaiming that all the Divine Government and Education of mankind have not been necessarily tending to this issue, that the contradictions which every true man feels to be agonizing may be immortal, the idea of Judgment is destroyed."—

Supposing that evil were to be eternal, he says: "We shall not be able to stop at Mr. Mansel's point; we shall be certain that Evil must reign fo. ever and ever, must drive out all that is opposed to it." Is there not indeed an “irrepressible conflict,” which must issue in a Universe either all good, or all evil? We rejoice, with Mr. Maurice, in the conflict of opinions on this subject,—and conclude in his words:

"If private Christians may discover that the notions they have cherished on the subject of the future world, its joys and its terrors, have darkened the Universe, as well as the Gospel of God's Kingdom to them, surely, the preachers of that Gospel have more need still to be inquiring whether they have not entertained theories which go near to make their preaching utterly vain, a tissue of empty truisms, or flagrant contradictions. Mr. Mansel's words may be most effectual for bringing this question to a trial."-P. 440.

Dr. Richard Rothe is well known, where he is known at all, as perhaps the foremost theologian of Germany. Dr. Schaf says of him: "He enjoys the respect and esteem of all who know him personally, as a most excellent man and humble Christian." "We must assign to

Rothe the very first place among the speculative divines of the present day. He surpasses even Nitzsch, Müller, Dorner, Martensen, and Baur in vigorous grasp and independence of thought, and is hardly inferior in this respect to Schleiermacher." A late writer in the Bibliotheca Sacra (April, 1860) speaks also in the highest terms of him, and of his chief work, the " Theological Ethics." From this we offer the following extracts:

"Evil can therefore be for God only an object of absolute negation, and his agency in respect to it only an absolute reaction against it for its complete removal; which, as divine and absolute, must be absolutely efficient. This absolutely efficient, unconditioned, negative reaction of God against sin, is his punitive agency. Thus, in general, the conception of punishment as divine is, that it is the absolute and purely efficient reaction of God, on the side of his omnipotence, against sin, whereby he removes it absolutely."

He then shows how the divine abhorrence of evil co-operates with a regard for the sinner, and modifies punishment, — God seeking first to destroy sin by separating the sinner from it, directing the painful consequences of sin against the transgressor in the form of chastisement and correction, and thus concludes :

"But penal retribution can not enforce the attainment of its primary object with reference to the sinner; viz., his separation from sin, or his amendment. By means of his power of self-determination the sinner is able to harden himself against it. Yet he can not thus annul or frustrate the divine punishment, but by so doing he gives it a changed direction. Divine penalty is essentially divine_negation of sin, divine reaction against it; and, as divine, simply absolute. It can not relax until it has actually removed the sin. If the sinner does not separate himself from the sin, if he identifies himself with it finally, then the punishment is directed against himself, and fulfils the divine judgment upon sin in himself, by the abolishing of his own being. For, evil must be done away absolutely, as certainly as it is opposed to God, at whatever cost. If the sinner will not cease from it, then must he share its doom; successfully mock God in his defiance, he can not. Thus divine retribution results at last in the annihilation of the sinner; even by means of the evil impending over him as consequence of his sin, through and in it the divine punishment culminates. This annihilation of the sinner-this death in the New Testament sense-is accordingly the final aim of the divine punishment; and the necessary final result, lying in its very idea, of sin consistently and completely fulfilling itself."... "If punishment is executed completely, then its consequence is ever the annihilation of the sinner himself. As punishment, that is, when it remains punishment and is not removed by forgiveness, it ever ends with the death of the sinner in this sense." (Theologische Ethik, § 490; Vol. ii. pp. 195–197.)

24

THE RIGHTS OF WRONG; OR, IS EVIL ETERNAL?

And when we follow Dr. Mansel's appeal to "God's revealed judg ments against sin," we find every reason to hope that evil will come to a full end. The first great act in the drama of divine judgment was the Deluge; a cleansing of the earth from the violence with which it was filled. In the full account of this, and in all the scriptural allusions to it, not a word is said of any transfer of the sin and woe, to subsist for ever in another sphere. Then came the oft-named " overthrow" of the cities of the plain; the "eternal fire" of their visible and exemplary doom denoting, even with orthodox writers, an utter and irreparable destruction. And this "example," we believe, shows the true import of the great judgment named in Matt. xxv. 41, 46, which is described as an "everlasting destruction" in 2 Thess. i. 9. Then there are psalms of imprecation, which ask nothing worse than death. Is not the key to the difficulties they have made to be found in that prayer of all the righteous, "Oh, let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end"?

In the New Testament, the parables of the Wheat and the Tares, the Net and the Fishes, the Vine and the Branches, show that evil will have no eternity. And what can be a stronger intimation of this than the words in Heb. x. 27, “A fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries"? The doom of the mystical Babylon, of the Beast and the False Prophet, and of Death and Hades, indicates no perpetuity of evil. Christ shall also "destroy him that hath the power of death;" and he shall " destroy the works of the Devil;" which could hardly be true if any doing of Satan should be eternized. And those sublime expressions of God's sovereignty,—" Of Him, and through Him, and unto Him, are all things;" and, "That God may be all in all;”. must be sadly qualified if we allow a sphere of eternal rebellion, either as counterpart, or as part, of the divine realm. The passage in Phil. ii. 10, may denote an unwilling subjection. But the parallel passage in Rev. v. 13 employs the same phrases by which the ancients described the universe; and we there read: "Every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, even all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever." Could this be true, if evil is to be eternal?

REVIEWERS REVIEWED.

Ir is now three years since the work entitled, "Debt and Grace, as related to the Doctrine of a Future Life," was given to the public. The notices of the press, even where the author's solution of theological difficulties was strongly objected to, have been more favorable than he had reason to hope. With no advantage of position, known only as discarded for a supposed error, cut off from all appeal except to the calm reason of his readers, his very weakness was, perhaps, the secret of any success his book has met.

One writer has remarked that "for a rarity, he does not complain of his reviewers." Through the public religious press he could rarely reply to them if he would; yet he tenders thanks for some courtesies in that way. And he does not now write to complain. He would fain correct some errors and misapprehensions into which he thinks his reviewers have fallen; reply to some arguments they have advanced; offer some views which they have suggested; and, in general, indicate the state of the controversy, if such it may be called. He accordingly notices some writers who can not be considered his reviewers.

Believing that a growing acquaintance with the doctrine of an End of Evil, by Immortality through Christ alone, gains for it tolerance and frequent hearty acceptance, he would fain leave the discussion with the more eloquent friends of the view, and, in due time, to the lecture room and the religious press.

NOVEMBER 1, 1860.