"Into God's Word as in a palace fair Thou leadest on and on, while still beyond And thou in each art kneeling down in prayer, Should take the colourings of earthly thought, Led by weak Fancy should let go Truth's hand, With all our affection for his memory, the truth must be said, that we are compelled to consider him in some degree untrustworthy, on some other points besides this. The general sentiment of the Church is shown by the strength of feeling exhibited against him in this matter: In cujus rei tractatione, says the learned Huet, tantum sibi permisit Origenes, ut non aliam ob caussam majores in se querelas concitárit." He founded his doctrine on a wild dream of the pre-existence of souls, and their merits in a previous state; a doctrine which, however favoured by Plato (and possibly by our own Wordsworth and some few others), has never found a home in the Christian Church. The wondrous powers of Origen, no doubt, imbued some others with a slight tinge of the same sentiment. Moments there are, probably, in the lives of most men, when they would gladly disbelieve this doctrine, if they dared. The eminent teachers above-named have (seldom more than once and away) yielded to such sentiments; but they are not herein consistent with each other or with themselves. Not with each other, for the pre-existence of souls, asserted by Origen, is distinctly denied by S. Gregory of Nyssa ; the restitution of the evil angels, as well of wicked men, is asserted by some and denied by others; and, lastly, as has been already mentioned, they all (including Origen himself), in some passage of their writings, assert that Eternity of Misery which they elsewhere contravene. In their assertions of a finality of woe, they seem to build either on private theories or obscure texts, or else to be trusting to the great but erratic genius of a single Father; in their avowals of its endlessness, they build up no theory, but simply accept the plain and obvious 1 Lyra Apostolica,' republished also in The Cathedral.' 2 Origeniana,' p. 216 in tom. iv. of the Benedictine edition. This was pointed out to us by a most learned person, who is engaged upon an edition of the works of this Father. On Origen's errors, the famous letter of S. Jerome to Avitus deserves study; though there runs through it a tendency in pejus interpretari. meaning of our Lord's words, the teaching of Christ Himself and of His Church. And after the condemnation of this error of Origen, which is generally assigned to the Fifth General Council (held at Constantinople in A.D. 553) the unanimity of teaching remained unbroken, save here and there by some pantheising mystic, until the outburst of those Anabaptists, whose lawless excesses made them the terror of Christendom and, for a brief season, the scandal of the Reformation. We have intimated that the Fathers do not philosophize upon this theme. We do not mean, of course, that very solemn and suggestive reflections upon it may not be culled from their works. There is much that is striking in the early apologists, as Lactantius, Minucius Felix, S. Justin Martyr.1 S. Augustine, in the Twenty-first Book of the De Civitate Dei,' and against the Priscillianists, is clear and emphatic; so is S. Gregory the Great, in his 'Morals in the Book of Job."' S. Chrysostom, and even Origen, make acute and thoughtful comments on the form of expression in S. Matthew xxv.-comments handed on to us by Maldonatus and Dean Alford. S. Athanasius is, as usual, brief and weighty; Tertullian,5 more suo, only too fierce and emphatic. In the Middle Ages, S. Anselm and S. Bernard (especially the latter) show a manifest delight in relieving the due and necessary announcement of wrath on the obdurate and impenitent, by the glad tidings of inercy for the repentant. And, if Venerable Bede and Ayguan display a somewhat material tendency, this must be ascribed, perhaps, rather to their age than to themselves. The same may be said of that Vision of Albericus, which may have helped to kindle the fancy of him who produced the first great and enduring work of modern literature. And though, in this life, the truth of Dante's famous lines over the portal of Hell must ever remain a matter of faith rather than of the full and complete acquiescence of the reason, yet is it good to think them over well; to see if, even now, we may not be able to discern some faint glimmer of the grounds of a decision so terrible : 1 Lactantius in lib. vii. 21 of his 'Institutiones.' For Minucius see § 35; S. Justin Martyr in many places, e. g. Apol. i. § 12. 2 Tom. vii. pp. 618, 629 sqq.; tom. viii. p. 613 sqq. (ed. Ben.) 3 Lib. xxxiv., much used and appealed to by Ayguan on Psalm ix. 17. 4 Cont. Apollinarium, lib. i. § 14; lib. ii. § 17. 5 In the truly painful passage which concludes the De Spectaculis a passage not to be read without deep regret, and which may have some real connexion with the author's fall into Montanism. Gibbon eagerly lays hold of it; the Editor of the Oxford Translation (Dr. Pusey) condemns, though of course with respect and modesty. Perhaps we can hardly imagine how we should have felt towards the heathen had we lived in the midst of such fiery persecution, and had grace to stand firm, and courage to defy the persecutors. 'Per me si va nella città dolente: Per me si va nell' eterno dolore: La somma Sapienza, e 'l primo Amore. Se non eterne, ed io eterna duro : Lasciate ogni speranza, voi che 'ntrate.'3 We have said that we recognise the striking character of many of the patristic comments upon the texts above cited. Such is, for example, the comment of S. Chrysostom and others above alluded to, which points out how our Lord calls the redeemed the 'blessed of His Father, but does not call the lost the 'cursed of His Father,' for that the Father curses none, but they draw the curse upon themselves-how He speaks, too, of the kingdom eternally prepared for them on the right hand, but declares the everlasting fire to have been prepared-not for those on the left hand, but for the devil and his angels. Searching, too, is the comment of S. Gregory, asking how we can trust the promises of One, of whom we do not believe the threats; and able, as usual, are the arguments of S. Augustin against the Priscillianists. But upon the whole it may, we think, be fairly questioned, whether there exists any philosophic and elaborate defence of this dogma before the commencement of the eighteenth century. Even Aquinas seems to us, on this theme, to be below his usually high standard of acuteness; and the Reformers were content to assert and simply condemn impugners without arguing. In truth, the only opponents of their day, the Anabaptists, were not persons to be met with arguments. The civil sword was, in their case, a matter of absolute necessity. The causes of this deficiency in theological literature are not far to seek. It is probably a necessary condition of a philosophic statement of any single doctrine, that that doctrine should have been specially and persistently attacked; and such attack is, in this case, of comparatively modern date. The early apologetic writers against Paganism-Lactantius, Minucius Felix, S. Justin Martyr, S. Clement of Alexandria, and others—are all, as we shall see, able to appeal to pagan witnesses on behalf of their teaching respecting a future state. And, indeed, it seems open to great doubt, whether the most intellectual unbelievers, in any age, have been able to free themselves from the fear engendered by the possibility of the truth of hell. Celsus does not make it one of the groundworks of his objections to Christianity, nor do we remember to have met with it in the remains of the scoffing Julian. Porphyry's line of attack runs, if we mistake not, in a different direction. Of Lucretius we shall speak presently. In modern times, Rousseau did not venture to answer the question further than by a confession of utter ignorance-je n'en sais rien. Diderot, representing his doubts in the form of a dialogue with his own soul, writes: If you misuse your reason, you will be not only 'miserable in this life, but you will be so still after death in 'hell.' 'And who has told you that there is a hell?' Under the very circumstance of the doubt, you ought to con'duct yourself as if there were one. And how if I am sure that there is not?' 'I defy you to be sure.' A correspondent of Voltaire writes to him that he believes that he has at last found out to a certainty the non-existence of hell. Voltaire's reply is: You are very fortunate! I am far from that point' (Vous êtes bien heureux! Je suis loin de là.) 1 6 1 This, however, by the way. What we wish to observe is, that the rise of Socinianism necessitated, in some degree, a closer looking into the matter. Sermons treating specially of the matter begin to appear; 2 and the eighteenth century witnesses the publication of the deep remarks made by Bishop Butler, in his Analogy,' and the elaborate scriptural investigation of Dr. Horbery. 3. The nineteenth century has seen a new phase of the controversy. Before the present age a critic could almost always name some avowed and definite heresy, which was taught concomitantly with the denial of eternal punishment by those who impugned this dogma. It is not now perhaps, always possible to do this. But the result has been, as we said at the commencement of this paper, that a greater number of profound and philosophic essays on the subject have been published during the last thirty years than at any previous epoch, and that men so differently trained as the American Presbyterian Dr. Cheever, the Baptist Mr. Spurgeon, Anglican divines such 1 All three cited by M. Nicolas. 1 E.g., we find a very good one among the Sermons of J. Killing beck, Vicar of Leeds in 1700. as Bishop Ellicott and Canon Wordsworth, the Lutherans Erbkam and Julius Müller, Roman Catholics from France, Italy, and Spain (Nicolas, Passaglia, Balmes) are all to be found uttering solemn and emphatic warnings against the perils of Universalism. Who and what manner of men are ranged upon the opposite side, in ages past or in the present time, we ought, according to our arrangement, to consider here. But, on second thoughts, we postpone that question for a few pages, and we dismiss for the moment any further reference to the interpreters of Holy Scripture with this reflection-that the prayer 'sit anima mea cum sanctis' is a natural and a righteous aspiration; and what, let each ask himself-what is in this matter the teaching of God's most devoted servants of all time? With whom are we taking part and lot if we reject this doctrine? Whose words are we accepting?-whose are we rejecting? With the holy Gospels in our hands, with prayer for guidance into all truth upon our lips and in our hearts, shall we not fear lest unbelief in hell may be more than lack of sympathy with the saints-may be a want of faith and loyalty to their King? III. And now, for a time, we bid farewell to Holy Scripture, and suppose it, for argument's sake, to be to us as a sealed book. The question before us shall be, not whether we could accept as binding on the conscience such a dogma as that of eternal punishment apart from revelation (for to that question we venture to assume an answer in the negative), but whether, with the universe, and mankind, and its history and literature before us, there is not such an à priori presumption on the side of the truth of this doctrine, as should incline us the more acquiescingly and reverently to accept it when it comes before us with the stamp of a Divine authority. Firstly, however, let us gladly, thankfully, unreservedly, proclaim the evidence borne by all these witnesses to the existence of gladness, mercy, harmony, and love. That marvellous framework of nature, which the Greek emphatically called Order (xóoμos); the earth and sky, with all their varied and inexhaustible appeals to our sense of beauty; human nature, with all its rich and strange endowments, its wisdom, its courage, and its love; the sense of protection over us through life; the very hopefulness which at times breathes throughout even the records of paganism itself all these speak trumpettongued of the goodness of the Creator; all are a foretaste and, in some sense, a pledge of the existence of Heaven. In substance, even Christianity can add but little to the force of the |