These considerations we submit humbly and prayerfully, with a full conviction that neither divine revelation, rightly interpreted, nor any scheme of philosophy that shall do justice to human experience and the nature of man, affords any evidence of the continuance of sin and its retribution in the resurrection state.

A A Miner.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

A RIGHTEOUS RETRIBUTION IN THE WORLD TO COME, BUT NO LITERAL ETERNITY OF TORMENT FOR ANY

CREATED BEING.

The Dogma of Eternal Penal Suffering too often Treated by Writers and Thinkers with Levity or Bigotry.-Denial of the Doctrine by Origen, John Foster, Erskine, Stanley, Farrar, and many other Eminent Scholars.-The Solemn Impressiveness of the Subject has led their Minds to this Conclusion.-The Idea of Punishment in the Sense of Arbitrary Infliction by the Divine Government not to be Thought of.— In Human Governments such Infliction comes Solely from the Necessity of Social Self-Defense.-Freedom from the Body and its Passions, by Death, is no Aid to Repentance and Spiritual Renovation.-The Full Identity and Continuity of the Soul and the Laws of its Moral Being remain Undisturbed.-God's Discipline, Loving, not Malignant, is Prolongedly and Severely Merciful. - Christ's Wisdom in not foretelling all the Divine Plan.-The Meaning of the word "Eternal," or "Everlasting," as used by him, is "Age-Long," or "As Long as Sin Lasts."As in This Life, so in That Beyond, Suffering, in Accordance with God's Purposes, may Exist until Sin is Purged Away, and Happiness is thus Finally Attained.

By Rev. A. P. PEABODY, D.D., LL.D., Professor in Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

It is greatly to be regretted that punishment in the future life has become of late the subject of the same sort of discussion that prevails on topics of less sacred interest. It demands, indeed, serious inquiry from religious students and thinkers; while it is by no means an edifying theme, even from the pulpit, for very much the same reason for which lectures on the penal code of municipal law would be of no use to law-abiding citizens, and would hardly exert a beneficial influence on those inclined to evil. In recent discussions on this subject I have been disgusted and repelled, on

the one hand, by the levity of those who have written about it as if it were a great boon to have the weight of moral responsibility lifted from their shoulders, and as if it were lifted by the denial of a dogma which the better part of Christendom has virtually outgrown, and, on the other hand, by the uncompromising and gloomy bigotry with which the vanguard of orthodoxy have clung to that dogma, attaching the same vital importance to the wrath of the Almighty which St. John attaches to his love, whereas the very word wrath, though employed in our translation of the Scriptures, has since that translation was made taken on a meaning of malignant and vindictive passion, which by no means represents the righteous indignation, not incompatible with love, ascribed to the Supreme Being by the sacred writers, and justly felt by the best of men for willing and stubborn depravity. In point of fact, the denial of the eternity of penal suffering has, in numerous instances in the Christian Church, sprung from intensely solemn views of the divine retribution. This was the case with Origen, among the Christian fathers, with John Foster, by far the greatest name among the English Baptists, with McLeod and Erskine, of the Scotch Presbyterian Church, as also with Stanley and Farrar, of the English Church, and with not a few of their eminent coevals in our own country. It is one thing to suppose that a merciful God dooms myriads of his creatures to everlasting torment, and quite another to regard moral evil in the human soul as anything else than a calamity, dire and, it may be, enduring, beyond human imagination.

Let us consider the subject, first, in the light of consciousness and experience, and then in that presented by our Saviour and by those most intimately conversant with his teachings and spirit.

At the outset, I would dismiss the idea of punishment in the sense of arbitrary infliction. I cannot conceive of this under the divine government. Its necessity in human governments results solely from the necessity of social self-defense; and the humane sentiment of our age spurns vindictiveness in punishment, and at least professes to inflict only such restraint, privation, and suffering as