CHAPTER XIX.

UNDER THE LAWS OF HIS OWN MORAL NATURE, AND BY HIS OWN VOLITION, MAN FIXES HIS OWN DESTINY.

Revulsion from the Harsh Views Formerly Held on this Subject.-Retribution now Dressed in a Different but more Credible Costume.-Conservative Theologians forced to Admit that Children and "a Great Multitude" dying Ignorant of Christ, are now Praising Him in Heaven.-The Countless Myriads of Heathen no longer Deemed to be Hopeless Candidates for Perdition.—Growing Recognition of Christian Consciousness in the Development of Religious Doctrine.-Christ the Leader and Inspirer of this Progressive and more Benign Teaching.-Fiendish Sentiments quoted from Thomas Aquinas, Edwards, Hopkins, Knapp, and other Accepted Exponents.—The Moral Law of Cause and Effect, Ordained by God, is Universal and Immutable, so that it is Necessarily “Ill with the Wicked and Well with the Righteous."-The Startling and Impressive Message from God to All.-It is not alone a "Revelation," but a Positive Natural Law, from which None can Escape.-Its Adaptedness as an Appeal to Man's Conscience, as the Most Urgent Motive to Avoid Sin and Follow after Righteousness.

By Rev. WASHINGTON GLADDEN, D.D., Pastor of the First Congregational Church, Columbus, Ohio.

It seems to be generally believed that the opinion of the Church with respect to retribution has been greatly changed within the last century. As to the forms by which the doctrine is set forth this belief is well founded. It is not very long since hell was universally supposed to be a literal lake of fire and brimstone, and the physical sufferings of the lost were depicted in flaming colors on the canvas of the popular evangelist. I remember hearing Elder Knapp describe the writhings of the lost in that pit of flame; and it is impossible to forget the extremely realistic rhetoric in which he pointed out the damned crawling up the sides of the crater, and the devils standing with pitchforks on the edges to fling them in again. These picturesque delineations were delivered, with perfect assurance, to a crowded audience of Christians, of which I, as a small

boy in the gallery, with two good eyes and two good ears, was an insignificant but very sensitive part; and if they provoked dissent or disgust in this Christian congregation, the same was not visible or audible to me. Elder Knapp's methods of presenting the doctrine of retribution were considerably coarser than the average of those which were current in his generation; but there are many men and women now living who have often heard from the pulpit similar descriptions of hell as a place of physical torment. A few evangelists are now traveling who adhere, though rather shamefacedly, to this method of presentation,-insisting that "the Bible always means just what it says"; but from no intelligent teacher, even of the most conservative school, is any such doctrine heard. The costume of the theory of retribution has greatly changed within the last century.

It must also be admitted that the content of the doctrine has been considerably reduced. It is not very long since the damnation of many infants and all the heathen was generally taught; in utter despite of logic room has been found for all the little children in the heavenly home, and the doctrine of the "essential Christ permits the staunchest of the defenders of Orthodoxy to say that "a great multitude" of those who never heard on earth of the Man of Nazareth are praising him to-day in heaven. That the statements made by the representatives of the majority in the recent debates upon the platform of the American Board of Missions, would have shocked and scandalized the good men who, fifty years ago, were managing that organization, is too plain for argument. " Within the last thirty years," said those good men, in one of their official documents, "a whole generation of five hundred millions have gone down to eternal death." And again: "The heathen are involved in the ruins of the apostasy, and are expressly doomed to perdition. Six hundred millions of deathless souls on the brink of hell! What a spectacle!" The unshrinking affirmation is that the heathen, as heathen, are "expressly doomed to perdition." No hint is here of any "essential Christ"; no suggestion that one man of all these millions can be saved by living up to the light vouchsafed him. It

would be utterly impossible for "the most straitest sect" of the Orthodox to make any such affirmation to-day. No more effectual method could be found of "cutting the nerve of missions" than the proclamation of this horrible doctrine. Certainly it would be thought by men of good will in this generation hardly worth while to spend much time or money in proclaiming a religion that had no more hope than this for the millions of mankind. "The enthusiasm of humanity" would not be greatly stimulated by working with or for a deity who could hurl whole generations of crippled and blinded souls into the abyss after this fashion; nor is it entirely clear that faith in such a god would do the heathen any good.

There is a good deal of sneering, in certain quarters, at the Christian consciousness of the age as one of the factors in the development of doctrine; but it is a power, after all, which teachers of every school are compelled to take into the account, and to which the wisest of them now pay profound respect. It is this Christian consciousness, quickened by the abiding presence in the Church of Him who is the Life and the Light of men, that has discarded those dreadful theories of universal doom, and opened so wide a door of hope to all men everywhere who follow the light that has been given to them. It is because the ethical judgments of men are steadily growing clearer under the tuition and inspiration of Christ himself, that those monstrous dogmatic shapes have disappeared from the teaching of the Church concerning retribution.

Certain it is that great changes have taken place in the belief of the Church, on this question, during the last century. The most strenuous of the Orthodox have been busily depopulating hell; they reject and even resent the ancient assumption that the vast majority of the human race will suffer there forever. Nor would it be possible for any teacher of this time to say, without raising a suspicion of his sanity, what Thomas Aquinas said in the thirteenth century: "In order that the saints may enjoy their beatitude more richly, a perfect sight of the punishment of the damned is granted to them;" or what Jonathan Edwards said, in the last century:

"The sight of hell torments will exalt the happiness of the saints

forever.

happiness.

It will make them more sensible of their own

A sense of the opposite misery in any case greatly increases the relish of any joy or pleasure;" or what Samuel Hopkins said, about the same time: "The smoke of their torment shall ascend up in the sight of the blessed for ever and ever, and serve as a most clear glass always before their eyes to give them a bright and most affecting view. This display of the divine character will be most entertaining to all who love God, and will give them the highest and most ineffable pleasure. Should the fire of this eternal punishment cease, it would in a great measure obscure the light of heaven, and put an end to a great part of the happiness and glory of the blessed." The time has come―let us say it with deyout thankfulness-when no such fiendish sentiments as these are uttered in the interest of Orthodoxy. The most conservative teachers of this generation are not in the habit of asserting that the blessedness of the redeemed depends on an unobstructed view of the torments of the damned; nor would they say, respecting the city that hath no temple, that it is not the Lamb, but the sulphurous fire of the pit, that is the light thereof. Is any one disposed to lament that the Church of this generation has departed, in some respects, from the teaching of the fathers concerning retribution?

But it is alleged that the Church of this generation has not only cast off these heathenish hypotheses, but that it has also thrown away the substantial truth respecting the punishment of sin; that the great facts of retribution are obscured or slurred over in the teaching of this time; that the law of God is not enforced as it ought to be, and that the morals of this generation are suffering from lax views of penalty. The doctrine of punishment preached in the churches of this generation, it is said, is as much understated as the doctrine of a former time was overstated.

It would not be strange, indeed, if such a result should follow. One extreme is apt to produce another. There is some truth in the complaint which we have just quoted. The doctrine of punish