CHAPTER XV. PUNISHMENT IS NOT THE GREAT AIM OR DESIGN, BUT AN IN- DIST TEACHING. Some Prevailing Misconceptions Pointed Out.-One of these is the holding to Literal Flames. Again, Hades is not, as is Commonly Supposed, a Receptacle for Bodies, but for Spirits, and Gehenna is the place of Doom for the Wicked, after being Sentenced.-Reasons why Retribution is Antagonistic to Human Acceptance.-Human Sentiment, or Sympathy, however Creditable in itself, is Relative and Imperfect, as a Standard of Judgment.-The Solution of Future Destiny, whether of Happiness or Misery, Dependent Solely on Individual Volition.-Fear is Not a Degrading but Rightful Motive, as the Sense of Peril must Precede the Desire to Escape it.-Accountability is a Strong and Necessary Restraint upon Conduct in this World, as well as on that which Concerns the World to Come.-A Future without a Hell would make a Hell of the Present.-As the Jews Believed in Eternal Punishment, the Meaning was Clear.-The Opposite of all this Agonizing Fate was the Blessedness of those who "Entered into Life." By Rev. C. H. FOWLER, D.D., Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. METHODISM holds nine fundamental doctrines, viz.: concerning God, moral government, free agency, sin, atonement, resurrection, judgment, heaven, and hell. These doctrines are woven into a harmonious system. They are so related that no one of them can be eliminated without mutilating all the others. Thus, while punishment is not the great aim or design, it is an incident, of the moral government; and it is so necessary a part of the system that the doctrine concerning hell is fundamental in Methodist teaching. A clear and comprehensive statement of eschatology removes very many of the difficulties supposed to embarrass the doctrine concerning hell, and makes the statement of the argument simple and satisfactory. There is some confusion in the public mind concerning what is really taught in the Scripture on this subject. Many of the distinctions there observed and maintained are often omitted in the popular conceptions on this subject. Hell is understood to be a place of everlasting torment, where the lost are exposed to the horrors of literal fire and brimstone for unending ages. This conception distorts the belief of Methodism on this theme, by holding to the literal flames. It overlooks, also, all the conditions of the intermediate world and gathers the substance of its faith from the fate of the damned after the judgment. This popular conception of hell, freed from the "physical flames," very forcibly represents the ultimate retribution that shall come to the finally impenitent. The teaching of the Bible on this subject, as we understand it, is substantially this, namely, at death the soul is separated from the body and enters into Hades, the receptacle of disembodied spirits, whether good or bad. Hades contains both classes. The good are in the Paradise of Hades, or in Abraham's Bosom, and the bad are in Hades, or the Tartarus of Hades. After the experiments of probation are finished with the human race, and time is ended, comes the resurrection of the dead, when all spirits shall be called out of Hades, and all bodies out of the grave ("the sea and the earth give up their dead") and these spirits and bodies, being reunited, shall be judged at the general judgment, according to the deeds done in the body. After this judgment, the righteous with their resurrection bodies are received into heaven, the final and eternal home of the blessed, and the wicked are cast into gehenna, or hell, into everlasting punishment. Hades ceases at the judgment. Heaven and gehenna begin after the judgment. In corroboration of these views, it is important to remember that the word hades occurs eleven times in the New Testament and is translated ten times as hell and once as grave, and in no single case does it embrace the idea of a receptacle for bodies. It is simply a receptacle for disembodied spirits. Hades is the exact equivalent of the Hebrew word sheol of the Old Testament. Sheol occurs sixty-five times, and is rendered, in English, thirty-one times, hell, and thirty-one times, grave, and three times, pit, but in the Septuagint it is rendered, with two exceptions, hades, and this meaning, receptacle for the dead, is its proper equivalent. If the Old Testament writers had meant the grave they would have used kehber, had they meant pit they would have used bohr, but they meant receptacle for the dead and used sheol. Gehenna occurs twelve times in the New Testament, and all but once, where it is exceedingly figurative (James, 3:6), is used by our Lord and refers to the doom of the wicked after some judgment or sentence. With this brief eschatological map before us, we are prepared to arrange and classify the facts involved. SOME OBJECTIONS. It is not possible to project so profound and agonizing a fact as eternal retribution into the thought of mortals without awakening every possible antagonism. Sinners pressed with a sense of guilt, and stirred with enmity against God, will not confront such a horrible possibility without seeking every conceivable reason for rejecting it. Instead of being surprised by these objections, let us consider them briefly, and estimate their full value. It seems hardly necessary to state that these questions can be finally settled on no other ground than the Word of God. Human speculations concerning the subject are unable to penetrate the future. Plato, who stands as the foremost representative of mere human struggling for light on the future, dies, saying, "Such is my view, since you wish to know it, but whether it be true or not the gods only can say." Tacitus said, "What torments us is not the tempest but the nausea." And Pliny prayed, "Give me new consolation, great and strong, of which I have never heard or read. All that I have heard or read comes back to my memory, and my sorrow is too great." Cicero said, "The philosophers of the Academy affirm nothing, they despair of arriving at any certain knowledge." Seneca wailed, "No man is able to clear himself, let some one give him a helping hand." If any one doubts what these confessions purport, the helplessness of humanity without this "helping hand," let him undertake for himself to answer the questions of the future without reference to the Scriptures. It will not require many experiments to establish the need of divine help in this big problem. Remembering, then, that the ultimate authority must be the Word of God, we pause, before entering fully into the subject, to consider some of the more serious difficulties in the way of the view we present. Certain sensitive natures fill the atmosphere with mist, that, like fog in the valley, distorts and exaggerates the real figures to be measured. Canon Farrar exclaims, "Was there any human being, worthy of the dignity of a human being, who did not revolt and sicken at the notion of a world of worm and flame?" This is fine, though excessive, rhetoric. It is the declamation of a nervous orator. One sensitive nature cries out against the punishment of the guilty on account of pity for his sufferings, but all forgetful of the sufferings of his victims, or of the truth crucified by the sufferer's malice. Let us not discredit any human sympathy, nor lower the price of any human compassion; but let us be careful not to exalt it to a sphere where its exercise is cruelty and its triumph is tortDoubtless Canon Farrar expressed his sentiment when he cried out against the doctrine of hell, and sickened "at the notion of a world of worm and flame." But when it is reduced to a question of sentiment we appeal to another great Teacher, who had the ure. only perfect nature ever found in the race; was the only perfect flower that ever unfolded on the stock of humanity; who had the most profound sympathy for suffering that the world ever saw; whose sentiment was not a fine saying, but was perfected in the dust of the highway, where the leper and the harlot cried for help, where beggars and cripples thronged the path. It is to this Teacher we appeal. He has no conception of offending the delicate taste of a lost world. He never hesitates, as if it were of doubtful expediency to warn of danger, or of doubtful taste to describe the terrors of the broken law. He cannot get through his speeches to the race, without crying into the ears of all the generations his warnings about being "cast into hell," about the final sentence of the Judge," Depart from me, ye that work iniquity, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels." Contrast the statements of these teachers:: Jesus. "It is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands, to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched; where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." (Repeated three times.) Farrar. "Was there any human being worthy of the dignity of a human being who did not revolt and sicken at the notion of a world of worm and flame?" It is not difficult to choose between these two teachers. One easily becomes wise above what is written. Surely the disciple is not above his Lord. II.-CRUELTY OF FATALISM. While we have profound regard for the great host of saints who are working mightily for God in spite of this error, we can find no term to express the revolt of our souls against this barbarism that buries human liberty and accountability with the moral government and divine character in one grave, and seals it with the wrath of an infinite monster, while every intelligence in the universe utters its hatred against such injustice. Mr. Beecher is not far from the |