99a 
 
Cornell University Library 
 
 arV13898 
 
 The endless life 
 
 3 1924 031 294 949 
 olin,anx 
 
 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BEQUEST 
 
 JAMES McCALL 
 
 Class or 1885 
 
 1944 
 
THE ENDLESS LIFE: 
 
 TWO DISCOURSES 
 
 ON 
 
 THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH OPINION ON HUMAN 
 
 DESTINY, DURING THE LAST THIRTY YEARS, WITH 
 
 A SPECIAL VIEW TO THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY 
 
 THROUGH THE DIVINE INCARNATION. 
 
 Preached at St. Paul's Chapbi,, Hawies Boad, Kentish 
 Town, on Mabch 19th, 1882. 
 
 By EDWARD WHITE. 
 
 (feinted by request.) 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW; 
 Waeeen Hali. & LoTiTT, 88, Cakden' Road'""'" 
 
 "; -J.aiH — ,M j ,i. " ,j| f 
 
 PRICE SIXPENCE. 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031294949 
 
A DISCOURSE ON THE THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY 
 OF THE CHURCH IN HAWLEY ROAD. 
 
 The world passetk away atidthe lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God 
 abideth for ever. — I John ii, 17. 
 
 The present week terminates the thirtieth year of the 
 history of our Congregation and Ministry. Several reasons 
 incline us briefly to rehearse this history to-day in the ears of 
 a new generation, since those who were present at its com- 
 mencement are rapidly passing away ; and the story will, I 
 doubt not, become interesting, perhaps encouraging, to our 
 survivors, as a passage in English Church life in the nineteenth 
 century. . 
 
 The history of English thought on human destiny is a subject 
 which may well lift us above all personal recollections into the 
 infinite realms. Individual interests vanish when the rending 
 veil exposes eternity to our view. Yet, if we are to give the 
 history of English thought and opinion it will be necessary 
 to state some facts, and to commemorate some English 
 experiences, since it is through the finite that the infinite is 
 brought into relation with man. 
 
 I shall not detain you long with the story of local endeavour 
 in this field of English belief. The beginnings which we 
 bring to mind to-day will soon lead us away from our own 
 individuality into a review of greater movements, and the 
 commemoration of the deeds of many soldiers of Christ in 
 our own and other lands. Nevertheless, as this is our 
 Commemoration day, we will tell the home story first of all. 
 
A few sentences will suffice to despatch the personal part 
 of this narrative, which yet are necessary in order to explain 
 what will follow. Forty- four years ago, in 1838, towards the 
 end of my educational course in preparation for the Christian 
 ministry, I met, as we say, accidentally on a Holborn book- 
 stall, with an anonymous volume which, as appeared by a 
 manuscript letter inside its cover, had previously belonged to 
 : the then Bishop of LlandafF, the celebrated critic, Dr. Herbert 
 Marsh, and had been presented to him by the author, a 
 layman, Mr. James Fontaine, in the year 1 8 1 7. It was neither 
 a learned nor a critical book, but it clearly maintained and 
 enforced in a devout temper the doctrine that " Immortality 
 is dependent on spiritual regeneration, and that eternal 
 punishment is privation, not suifering." It was published by 
 Hatchard, bookseller to the Queen, Piccadilly. I bought it 
 for a trifle, and it proved the turning-point in my life. I 
 found myself both astonished and interested by the august 
 idea which in simple language it unfolded ; that man, by sin, 
 had lost immortal life ; and that the object of the stupendous 
 procedure of the Incarnation of the Godhead in the person of 
 Christ was to restore the divine image to man, and with it an 
 everlasting life in God. I found it impossible to shake oif the 
 impression which it made upon me, agreeing as it did so much 
 with the surface meaning of the Bible. But the next thought 
 was that since this doctrine had sunk out of general know- 
 ledge, as was evident by my own surprise at hearing of it, it 
 had failed of acceptance because it was only one of many 
 unsuccessful heresies. 
 
 Nevertheless, I resolved to keep it in view in those 
 systematic studies of Holy Scripture in which I was then 
 engaged, knowing that, although it had been generally 
 rejected, and had sunk out of view, that was a fate 
 
which had befallen some undoubted truths in a world 
 not much given to careful examination of evidence, and 
 ruled in its belief by authority and by custom rather 
 than by inquiry. Under any result, fresh examination 
 would either confirm the idea of Mr. Fontaine's book, 
 or would re-establish my feet upon the rock of orthodox faith. 
 Therefore, on a night of extraordinary splendour and beauty, 
 when the vastness of the starry heavens seemed to impart a 
 most solemn urgency to the question of human destiny, I 
 remember praying to the God of heaven, in a high garden on 
 the banks of the Lower Thames, that He would lead me into 
 the knowledge of His Truth on this matter, and strengthen me 
 even for a life-long conflict, either to re-enforce the awful 
 doctrine of orthodoxy on the future of humanity, or to shake 
 its sway. I do not think any youthful spirit ever more 
 honestly devoted itself to find out Truth by patient investiga- 
 tion, and if necessary to suffer for its diffusion, than I did on 
 that night, when the Infinite seemed to open afresh on my view. 
 
 For seven years I pursued the inquiry, amidst other 
 studies, reading the books of the Bible in order, over and over 
 again, using all the aids, literary and personal, which were 
 available. 
 
 The result was an ever-deepening conviction that Fontaine's 
 unlearned book set forth the very truth of God, — ist, on the 
 nature of man as not necessarily immortal ; 2nd, on the result 
 of the Fall as bringing man under sentence of death, in the 
 sense of extinction of all life ; 3rd, on the object of Redemption 
 to renew man in the divine image, in the possession of an 
 endless life through union with the Incarnate life of God in 
 Christ ; while it resulted, also, 4th, that man out of Christ 
 will utterly perish and die the " second death " in hell, without 
 hope of recovery. 
 
I had pretty early discovered that these ideas had a very 
 ancient history ; that they were distinctly held and taught by 
 some of the most important of the writers of the second and 
 third centuries ; and had been, in whole or in part, revived by 
 a long succession of writers in subsequent ages, — most of 
 whom, however, had treated the question erroneously, chiefly 
 as one of future punishment, instead of regarding it as a 
 question on the nature and objects of the Christian redemption. 
 
 Accordingly, after laying the critical and historical evidence 
 which had carried my own judgment before several able 
 friends, who were similarly affected by it, notably before John 
 Foster the essayist, who responded in the celebrated letter 
 published in his memoirs, I published a pamphlet without 
 my name in 1844, entitled What was the Fall P — thus showing 
 that the object was not to affront Christendom by a juvenile 
 or dogmatic denial of its settled beliefs, but to obtain a much- 
 needed thorough discussion of a neglected topic in theology. 
 This pamphlet obtained no success, except a scurrilous and 
 contemptuous notice in the Evangelical Magazine. 
 
 It was now necessary to set forth the argument in greater 
 fulness. Accordingly, in 1846, the first edition of L^e in 
 Christ was published in a small octavo volume, which was 
 received, along with Mr. Dobney's work published in the same 
 year, without any serious examination, and with a storm of 
 indignation against us, which plainly showed that my own 
 prospect of further employment in the Congregational Ministry 
 was ended. It is difficult to convey to this generation a con- 
 ception of the vehemence and severity of the condemnation 
 with which these early efforts of ours were met by the 
 English religious public. 
 
 The practical result for myself was exclusion from every 
 Nonconformist pulpit in the land ; and I could not conscien- 
 
tiously enter the National Church. One mode alone of con- 
 tinuing- in the Ministry remained available— to go to London, 
 as the centre of English thought, and to obtain if possible some 
 church-building- where there might be a legal right to preach 
 the Gospel under such conditions as I have described, where 
 these conclusions might be tested and thoroughly sifted amidst 
 the culture and experience of London Christianity. 
 
 This buildingf, in its original form, in a somewhat obscure 
 suburb, was the only one that offered. We were not ac- 
 quainted with a single Christian person in the neighbourhood 
 who would be likely to render assistance. But I committed 
 the cause to God alone, and went forward. No prospect 
 could have seemed more unpromising. We were then alone 
 in London in these beliefs. Devout men, held in deserved 
 honour, went about warning- all who " valued their immortal 
 souls " not to cross this threshold. For my part I was not 
 sorry for these disadvantages. The movement had begun in 
 incessant prayer for light on this awful problem of man's 
 nature and destiny, in ceaseless study of the sacred Scrip- 
 tures, and in a willingness to suffer anything- in disrepute and 
 loss of promotion, God enabling us, in order to test the truth, 
 and to promulgate it if confirmed. If these ideas were errors, 
 we said, let them be crushed — the sooner the better — by all 
 the weight of public authority and of hostile learned opinion ; 
 or let them be smothered by this local obscurity, insignificance, 
 and financial difficulty. On the other hand, we said, if these 
 ideas are true and divine, " ye cannot overthrow them." If 
 some few people are found ready to suffer sharply enough, 
 and long enough, in bringing them before the public, they will 
 certainly make way at last ; God will fight for them if they 
 are His truth, and will strengthen us, or some one else, to 
 continue the witness, and will supply the needful resources. 
 
And if " these things are so," He will in time open the eyes of 
 some of His abler servants to see what we, and so many others 
 before us, have seen, and strengthen them to acknowledge 
 the doctrine of Life in Christ as true in itself, and true for the 
 times. 
 
 No sooner was the building opened for worship than some 
 signs of sympathy appeared. Several distinguished ministers, 
 guarding themselves against the supposition of agreeing with 
 us, preached at this re-consecration. A few friendly and 
 heroic souls from a distance, whose hearts God had touched, 
 cast in their lot with us at the very commencement, nearly all 
 previously unknown. These have mostly passed away ; a few 
 remain still to enjoy the recollection of their remarkable self- 
 denial and courage, and to join their thanksgiving with ours 
 to-day in the review of the years that have gone by. 
 
 There was this speciality in the establishment of this 
 congregation, that it was founded in 1852 to do a double 
 work. First, it was founded to fulfil the ordinary function of 
 a congregational society, to " gather out " of the surrounding 
 population, by the preaching of the Gospel of Christ, "a 
 people for God's name," who by joint worship and work 
 might become the instruments of the Holy Spirit for saving 
 other souls, and for helping forward the general mission of 
 the Gospel through the world. This was the chief end pro- 
 posed in our church foundation, and I thank God that this 
 has been our chief end ever since. No one who has joined 
 us has ever been asked what was his opinion or belief on any 
 secondary subject ; the only condition of church-membership 
 has been declared faith in Christ, and in the dogmatic 
 authority of His Apostles, and a consistent life. We have 
 been glad to welcome the adhesion of persons who agreed 
 with us in important secondary views, but such agreement 
 
was not essential, and as a matter of fact only a fractional 
 section of our society has exhibited a strong- theological 
 tendency in any direction. It has been this practical spirit of 
 the church for thirty years which has been its salvation in every 
 sense of the word, for no church can subsist wholly or chiefly 
 upon controversy, even on matters of the gravest importance. 
 It is the chief comfort of my own reflections to-day that there 
 never was more uncontroversial zeal for the common salva- 
 tion, never more zeal for the salvation of souls, never more 
 good work done amongst us for young men and women, for 
 the ignorant, for the poor, for the rich, for the surrounding 
 population, for the heathen nations, than at the present time. 
 
 There was, however, a second end to accomplish — and a 
 difficult one — namely, to combine with the ordinary course of 
 evangelisation and church-fellowship here, a public effort 
 to explain, to defend, and to propagate those doctrines on 
 immortal life, which long previous study had led us to regard 
 as worthy of all acceptation. It was a sufficiently entangled 
 undertaking. There was always the danger of giving 
 undue prominence to these specialities ; of which those who 
 disliked them would not be slow to make observation. There 
 was the opposite danger of so concealing them that one chief 
 object of the movement would be sacrificed to the aim of 
 pleasing its adversaries. We have tried to avoid both 
 extremes. 
 
 Whether all that has grown up here and elsewhere through- 
 out the world from these beginnings is to be traced to the 
 good hand of God upon us, or to the aid of the power of 
 darkness assisting a small number of men for thirty years, at 
 great personal loss and discomfort, to enforce and propagate 
 a pernicious heresy, you can judge at your leisure. For my 
 own part I end these thirty years as I began them by calling 
 
God to record that we have been actuated, so far as we 
 know, by no spirit of rebellion against His holy revelations, 
 but by an honest desire to interpret the Bible accordingf to the 
 plain rule of taking its meaning from the most obvious sense 
 of its general expressions, as on all other topics, so on this 
 subject of Life and Death eternal. And at the end of this long 
 period of additional study of God's word, of conference with 
 an immense number of scholars of all churches, and of several 
 nations, of laborious investigation of the ancient and modem 
 literature of the questions concerned (having hereby obtained 
 an acquaintance with the controversy which gives one a 
 certain moderate claim to be listened to, superior at least to 
 that of hasty and trifling notice- writers in religious newspapers 
 and magazines) ; above all at the end of these thirty years' 
 experience of the spiritual effects seen in Christians subjected 
 to such teaching, and in alienated souls both ignorant and 
 educated, who have been reclaimed by its influence, I 
 solemnly this day confess again the doctrine which was 
 taught here at first, that man is not represented in the divine 
 revelation as immortal since the fall, but as a being who has 
 lost the hope of everlasting life, which he can regain only by 
 spiritual regeneration and union with the immortal Son of 
 God. And, therefore, I protest again, with all my heart and 
 soul and mind, against what appear to us still those two 
 opposite errors, both springing from the common root of 
 . faith in man's natural immortality ; first, against the doctrine 
 of endless torments to be inflicted in hell on unsaved men, 
 whether civilised or barbarian; and, secondly, against the 
 now popular doctrine of the absolute final salvation of all men 
 good and bad; as directly contrary both to the letter and 
 spirit of the Christian revelation recorded in Holy Scripture. 
 
I now wish to add a few observations on the general history 
 of the discussions of the past thirty years on the momentous 
 subjects to which reference has been made : — 
 
 I. Let it be noted specially, and everywhere diligently 
 declared, that the object set before them, whether here or 
 elsewhere, by those who agree with us, has not been, as is too 
 commonly represented, primarily to promulgate a doctrine on 
 the future punishment of wicked men, but a doctrine on the 
 salvation of good men — a doctrine on the means and conditions 
 of everlasting life for those who are saved ; not primarily the 
 doctrine of the everlasting destruction of the wicked, much 
 less a metaphysical refinement on their "annihilation" (a term 
 which we have never employed, because it hopelessly entangles 
 the real question with side-issues, and opens the door to 
 metaphysical quibbles on the abolition of substance). We 
 have taught, as Scripture teaches, that the wicked will perish, 
 and we can discern no reason why this word should not signify 
 the same thing in their case that it does when it is used to 
 describe the " perishing " of bread, or of wine-skins, or of the 
 heavens, in John vi., Luke vi., and Psalm cii. ; that is, the 
 " bread " and the " heavens," and the wine-skins, will be no 
 more in that character. Christ says the wicked will be 
 " killed with death," be " destroyed body and soul in Gehenna^' and 
 it is to follow the universal law of interpretation when we say 
 that this does not signify any form of living for ever. But this 
 is only secondary truth. The main point is that the gift of 
 ENDLESS LIFE in God's image is the central idea of revelation — 
 the idea whence radiate all other evangelical truths on justifi- 
 cation, sanctification, and resurrection ; and this life for 
 " perishing sinners " is in Christ alone, the Incarnate Life of 
 God. Deathless life, or immortality, is not the property of the 
 animal man, but only of the spiritual. " The world passeth 
 
10 
 
 away, and the lust thereof; but he that doetk the will of God 
 abide th for ever.^' — I John ii, 17. 
 
 II, I desire to-day to offer a distinct answer to the question 
 so often publicly, so much more often privately, proposed, 
 " How is it, if this doctrine be true, and, according- to its 
 advocates, so easily to be seen to be true by careful inquirers, 
 that such numbers of ministers of religion, whose piety, ability, 
 knowledge, and usefulness you will be the first to acknow- 
 ledge, do not perceive the force of your argument, but still 
 apparently give the weight of their authority to the established 
 doctrines" — i., that man is naturally immortal in his soul; ii., that 
 Christ does not confer immortality of the soul on believers, but 
 only holiness, and blessedness, because they are already 
 immortal; iii., that God will inflict misery on the wicked for ever, 
 because they, too, are by nature immortal ? Why is this ? 
 Why has not this argument for Life in Christ affected these 
 good and able men all over the world ?" 
 
 To this question we reply — i. That, as a matter of fact, 
 which we have learned by extensive inquiry, the tone and 
 method of preaching on these subjects is greatly modified both 
 in England and America. I believe that men are now seldom 
 pressed as they used to be with the notion of their own natural 
 and necessary immortality, except by Universalists. Very 
 widely, preachers have come back to the model of the Apostles, 
 who never rest anything on man's natural immortality, in either 
 body or soul. • No public or formal confession is made of 
 change of opinion, but practically the language of the orthodox 
 preachers who have grown up during the last thirty years is 
 far more in accord with Scripture than was the language of 
 their predecessors. Very much more attention is paid every- 
 where to the doctrine of Life in Christ, which, whatever it 
 may signify, holds the central place in the New Testament. 
 
II 
 
 2. Similar careful inquiry satisfies us that the whole tenor 
 of language used in the pulpit on future punishment ha& 
 undergone a great modification in nearly all Churches. Thirty 
 years ago scarcely a sermon was preached without some 
 phrase indicating the belief that unsaved persons, whether in. 
 Christendom or Heathendom, being immortal, would "suffer 
 for ever," would go to " endless woe" or " endless misery," or be 
 " banished from the presence of God in eternal remorse." I be- 
 lieve that such unscriptural expressions are now more rarely 
 employed ; the terms used in Scripture are employed instead, 
 and left to produce their own effect on the minds of the hearers, 
 without further commentary. These ordinary ministers have 
 all heard that much more eminent Greek and Hebrew scholars 
 than they themselves can ever hope to be, and quite equal to- 
 any on the side of traditional opinion, strongly affirm that there 
 is no philological or psychological reason why the terms of 
 Scripture should not be taken in their obvious sense, and 
 naturally this has weighed with the younger men. 
 
 3. In the next place, to my certain knowledge, among the 
 numerous ministers supposed to adhere to the old doctrine 
 there are not a few who feel no vocation to involve themselves 
 with the more ignorant and passionate members of their con- 
 gregations, who yet distinctly acknowledge the immense modi- 
 fication of nearly all men's thoughts since these questions were 
 raised at the beginning of this generation. For example : at 
 the autumnal meeting of the Congregational Meeting in 1881, 
 Mr. Griffith John, of Hankow in China, a notable and nobl& 
 missionary, who on his previous visit to England, ten years 
 ago, maintained, at Exeter Hall, something much like the 
 doctrine of endless misery as the basis of mission work, now as 
 openly argued at Manchester, for the toleration of the three 
 distinct theories of human destiny,~everlasting misery, con- 
 
12 
 
 ditional immortality, and universal restoration, in the mission 
 field. For myself I repudiate this loose proposal, believing 
 that truth is one, and that only truth ought to be taught. But 
 It is easy to see that if such is the movement of the mind 
 among missionaries, it is much the same with ministers at 
 home. Numbers of them are in an unsettled state of opinion, 
 or are too busy with Church controversy to study the matter 
 of human destiny carefully from end to end. They have for- 
 saken their old anchorages, and are drifting they know not 
 whither. Meantime they do not commit themselves to any 
 definite dogma, but denounce " dogmatism," as if it were a 
 reproach to hold a definite belief, or a belief more definite than 
 theirs. 
 
 You will have observed that during the last thirty years 
 not one of our honoured neighbours in the ministry within the 
 radius of a mile, whether Episcopalian or Nonconformist, has 
 thought it necessary to oppose openly, in a controversial form, 
 what has been taught here. If the preachers now were 
 ■exactly where most men were formerly, some of these faithful 
 men would certainly have done this. Had we denied here 
 the Deity of Christ, or the Atonement, and diligently circulated 
 the denial, they would, one and all, have openly remonstrated 
 with us, and testified against us in distinct courses of sermons. 
 But the doctrine of man's utter death by the law for sin, and of 
 Life in Christ, was too much like the natural sense of the whole 
 Bible for them to do so. 
 
 No one need therefore be afraid of this doctrine, simply 
 because comparatively few Christian ministers openly declare 
 in a controversial form in its favour. The English rule of 
 -declaration of beliefs is, first to avow them secretly, and then 
 publicly, after the laity is somewhat prepared for them ; and, 
 I must say, wisely, for it is in the power of one fanatical and 
 
13 
 
 ignorant man or woman, in any church, to frighten the whole 
 
 congregation respecting their pastor's orthodoxy; and the 
 
 more ignorant they are the more obstinate and unscrupulous. 
 
 4. Let us further demand of our honoured neighbours and 
 
 friends who hold any special faith as scriptural, as the result of 
 
 careful study, whether the circumstance of the silence of other 
 
 ministers is regarded by them as a valid argument against 
 
 such special beliefs? Do the Baptists consider the silent 
 
 refusal of all the Psedob^ptist ministers in England to answer 
 
 their arguments, or to be affected by them, as any reason for 
 
 distrusting their own convictions ? Do they not at once say, 
 
 in effect, — "The Independent, Methodist, and Episcopal 
 
 ministers were on this topic of baptism ill-taught ; they are 
 
 bound together by denominational ties; they have not very 
 
 carefully studied this question." And do not the Independent 
 
 ministers and college tutors say the very same thing of the 
 
 Baptists ? 
 
 Again, the belief in the Advent of Christ at the end of " the 
 times of the Gentiles," to destroy Antichrist, and to establish 
 the Kingdom of God on earth for a thousand years, is now 
 widely spread among Christian people, excepting the 
 Independents and Baptists, who, almost to a man, repudiate it, 
 — although nearly all their forefathers held it in the ages of 
 Puritanism. If you are one of the great company of those who 
 hold this " blessed hope,'' and " love the appearing of the 
 Lord," as an Apostolic Christian ought to do, does the 
 general contempt of the dissenting ministers of England 
 for " Pre millennial views" in the least degree shake your 
 faith in that which Bishop Lightfoot demonstrates to have 
 been the primitive faith of Christendom, and which such men 
 as Auberlen, Steir, Alford, and a thousand others, hold to be 
 the plain doctrine, not only of St. Paul in the Second Epistle 
 
14 
 
 to the Thessalonians, but everywhere else the doctrine of the 
 Old and New Testaments ? 
 
 We conclude then, that the still gfeneral abstinence from 
 any open and dogmatic confession of adhesion to the doctrme 
 •of Life in Christ -by the generality of Christian ministers, is not 
 of so much weight as it might at first appear to he. 
 
 5. Especially since, in the last place, men of the greatest 
 •calibre as to knowledge and ability, and of equal weight as 
 to Christian character and devotedness, are at length boldly 
 •avowing their adhesion to the truth, so long almost hope- 
 lessly proclaimed at an earlier date. 
 
 It would be easy to read a long catalogue of names of 
 scholars and divines of every rank, and of almost every 
 •country ; theologians, linguists, critics, philosophers, mission- 
 aries, who, having carefully studied these disputed doctrines 
 on human nature and destiny, now openly and earnestly 
 -avow the conviction of their truth. 
 
 But I will take as an example the names of four dis- 
 tinguished men only, known to all by reputation, who have 
 recently, in various ways, declared their assent. Professor 
 Stokes, Mr. Dale, Mr. Thomas Walker, and Mr. Skrefsriid, 
 of the Santhal Mission in India. These four eminent persons 
 divide between them nearly all the graver intellectual and 
 literary accomplishments of our time ; and they are all devout 
 ■and earnest Christians — spiritual, and not simply formally 
 religious men. Professor Stokes, Secretary to the Royal 
 Society, and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cam- 
 bridge, brings to bear on the study of Scripture, a mind which 
 is the finest result of University culture in habits of calm and 
 exact thought. Mr. Dale is sufficiently well known as an 
 accomphshed and well-balanced theologian, all whose ten- 
 dencies lie in the direction of evangelical orthodoxy. Mr. 
 
Thomas Walker, formerly editor of the DatTy News, adds to a 
 large acquaintance with European literature, and a habit of 
 Biblical study, an intimate knowledge of the unbelieving 
 world, and the causes of their alienation ; which he has set 
 forth in his recent critique on Mr. Tennyson's poem on Despair.* 
 Mr. Skrefsriid stands in the front rank of Indian philologists, 
 and is now employed by the Indian Government in writing a 
 Comparative Grammar in seventeen languages : so that he 
 knows more than most men the force and signification of Asiatic 
 words. He is also, as you know, one of the most devoted and 
 successful missionaries now living. These four distinguished 
 men, with no leaning whatever towards heresy, after the most 
 careful study of the questions concerned, and knowing all the 
 critical devices by which the argument for Life in Christ is 
 usually met and entangled in the popular religious magazines, 
 have all recently declared their clear and firm assent to the 
 doctrine that the hope of human immortality is in Christ alone, 
 and that this hope is restricted to men who are "born again " 
 of the Spirit. 
 
 Now, as I have mentioned names on one side, I will men- 
 tion one honoured name on the other.- No one yields tome 
 in hearty admiration and affection for the Rev. Charles 
 Spurgeon. But his refusal to listen to the doctrine of Life in 
 Christ has formed a more serious obstacle to its popular 
 diffusion than that of any other living man during the last 
 twenty years. Now, the interests of truth (not my own 
 inclination) compel me to ask whether the decided judgment 
 and belief of four such scholars and thinkers as I have just 
 mentioned, men who have carefully studied this matter, ought 
 not, if opinions are to be influenced by authority, to outweigh. 
 
 ■ Published by Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row. 
 
i6 
 
 a hundred times, the opposition of even the most popular 
 preacher on earth; from whom we have never once been 
 able to extract a deliberate and reasoned statement in reply- 
 to this positive and cumulative argument; but who simply 
 persists in repeating, year after year, that life in the Bible, 
 does not signify life, but something else; and that death 
 signifies separation from God in a state of sin and misery for 
 ever. Frankly, I regard the deliberate judgment of four such 
 modern inquirers, and of Irenaeus (a.d. i6o) as of much greater 
 weight than that of Mr. Spurgeon. 
 
 III. I shall conclude this discourse by a few observations 
 on the reputed, and actual, results which have attended the 
 diffusion of the doctrine of Immortality through Christ only 
 during the past generation. 
 
 I. The notion has prevailed in some quarters that two evils 
 attend this teaching : — 
 
 (i.) It has been said that the denial of man's natural im- 
 mortality leads to popular materialism, and to the most de- 
 basing views of human nature ; and (2) it is said that the 
 removal of the belief ih endless torment in hell leads to the 
 extinction of religious fear, and therefore removes the chief 
 restraint on the wickedness of ungodly men. 
 
 Here let me acknowledge at once that I have never seen 
 much practical good to result when this question is taken up 
 merely as a modification of doctrine on future retribution — 
 merely as a relief from the unspeakable horrors of the old 
 Papistic Roman doctrine on endless torments. Men who take 
 up the doctrine simply as a negative dogma on future punish- 
 ment are brought no nearer to Christ by the alteration of their 
 views. It is only when this reformation of doctrine is closely 
 connected with the person of Christ that the spiritual benefit 
 
17 
 
 of the change appears. It is because some of its defenders 
 have been mere destructionists, merely interested in a doctrine 
 on judgment, that they have so easily yielded to the sinister 
 allurements of Universalism. Vital union with Christ by the 
 indwelling Spirit of Life, this must be our watchword. Out 
 of Christ, no life eternal — only a wretched and terminable life 
 here, — and beyond only the second death — death eternal, — in 
 Christ, the power of an endless life, and this life everlasting 
 holiness and love. This doctrine so taught establishes a close 
 life-relation with the risen Saviour, which is also a love-rela- 
 tion, at once the solid basis of hope and the chief means of 
 contending against temptation. The two Sacraments then 
 receive a flood of light from these ideas. Baptism is seen to 
 be the burial of the corrupt humanity with Christ — " the bap- 
 tism of repentance /or i he remsst'on of sins" — the symbol, too, 
 of resurrection to the new life in the risen Saviour. This 
 interpretation lifts Baptism to a lofty height above its modern 
 sectarian associations. In like manner the Lord's Supper 
 sets forth the Sacrificial Covenant of Life, under which we eat 
 " the bread which came down from heaven to give life unto 
 the world," and drink " the blood which is the life " of the Life- 
 giver. 
 
 We have not found the result of such teaching to be the 
 spread of degrading views of human nature in this place. 
 No true views of human nature can be degrading views. 
 The true elevation of man does not depend on adopting a 
 style of rhetorical exaggeration, or in describing him, with 
 Dr. Winter Hamilton, as naturally a " coeval of God," as 
 naturally an immortal being, that is, incapable of death. Had 
 such statements been true they would have occurred every- 
 where in the revelation of God. But they occur nowhere in 
 the Bible. Men are never once addressed in the Scriptures as 
 
i8 
 
 immortal or deathless beings. The wicked man is born, but 
 he shall surely die. The elevation of man is always traced in 
 the Bible to his moral nature, to his original relation to God, 
 to his original destiny to eternal life, to his capacity for now 
 receiving the life-giving remedy of redemption. All this 
 remains to us in full force : with the additional impulse which 
 comes with believing that the lowest and most sunken savage 
 on earth may, through this redemption, be raised to share in 
 the Glory of the everlasting Son of God. 
 
 Neither have we found that the result of this teaching has 
 been, as is alleged, to extinguish in man that fear of judg- 
 ment to come, at the thought of which " Felix trembled." 
 
 On the contrary, the experience of all who have tried the 
 experiment is that the firm adoption of the doctrine of judg- 
 ment to come, as taught by the Lord Jesus Christ and His 
 Apostles, is to awaken for the first time a salutary fear of that 
 judgment in multitudes who never feared it under the old form 
 of teaching it, and thereby to prepare them to "flee for 
 refuge " from hell and death to Christ the Lord and Giver of 
 Life. 
 
 The strongest language which I could employ to-day in 
 representing this favourable result, not only in my own experi- 
 ence, but in that of a vast number of Christian believers in all 
 lands, must fall short of the facts. 
 
 The fewest and simplest words will best convey our 
 meaning. So far is it frora being true that the doctrine of 
 everlasting torment has upheld the fear of God's judgment in 
 the minds and consciences of mankind, that the opposite state- 
 ment is nearer the truth. No single indirect influence has 
 done so much to promote European infidelity, no single 
 influence has indirectly done so much to root out the very 
 belief of God from the minds of the European nations as 
 
19 
 
 that doctrine of a torment that shall never, never end — that 
 notion of eternal evil resulting from the anti-Christian doctrine 
 of the immortality of the soul. The common people, and the 
 educated people of Europe, generally speaking, literally hate 
 the very idea of the God of orthodoxy ; and all their literature, 
 high and lowr, virill tell you why. It is the result of what they 
 regard as the unjust, arid therefore incredible, doctrine taught 
 for so many ages by that church which permits none of its 
 ministers to be either a husband or a father — the doctrine of 
 the endless torment of the unsaved members of a race born 
 in sin, brought up in ignorance, sorely tempted, and despoti- 
 cally ruled by priests and kings. The very first principle of 
 that terrible Russian Nihilism, as taught by its chief apostle, as 
 he says, is " to get rid of the very idea of God as the root of 
 all evil — a God who is capable of tormenting mankind for ever 
 and ever." This doctrine has simply exploded popular faith 
 in Christianity throughout Europe. No religion offers any 
 support to morality unless the God whom it makes known is a 
 moral being, whose attributes commend themselves to the- 
 unsophisticated conscience. No unsophisticated human con- 
 science accepts the idea of the God who, creating men im- 
 mortal, predestinates some to eternal bliss, and condemns the 
 non-elect to endless misery. Such a creed produces every- 
 where, sooner or later, popular atheism. 
 
 The doctrine of Life in Christ operates universally in favour 
 of the belief in a just, a merciful, and intelligible Deity. It 
 revives popular faith wherever it is boldly proclaimed in a 
 godly sort. I firmly assert that it has acted thus in this 
 quarter of London. Is it not notoriously true that so far from 
 removing the fear of judgment to come, future punishment 
 has been here set forth in a way which makes it appear just 
 as real and as credible as future blessedness ? And has not 
 
20 
 
 the effect been largely to draw the teeth of infidelity and 
 atheism in this neighbourhood? Where are the raging 
 infidels and atheists of this locality ? Are they found among 
 the people of the factories, who are never weary of telling us 
 how grateful they are for being enabled to recover their hold 
 on Christianity, through these representations of it ? No ! 
 Neither here, nor at Birmingham with Mr. Dale, nor in 
 Liverpool with Mr. Stowell Brown, nor in any town visited by 
 Mr. Aitken, who is observed now never to teach man's natural 
 immortality, nor in Brussels, nor Geneva, nor in the United 
 States, is any result found except one — that heaven and hell, 
 the two issues of human life, become for the first time credible 
 to multitudes — and men fear judgment to come more because 
 they can ielieve it more. No man's conduct is practically 
 governed by that which his judgment and conscience pronounce 
 to be incredible. And the doctrine of endless torment, as 
 applied to the masses of mankind, seemed just as incredible to 
 John Foster as it does to Paul Bert or Charles Bradlaugh. 
 Now, what we assert is that the orthodox church-Christianity 
 is indirectly guilty of assisting into atheism these horrible 
 blasphemers. 
 
 Next, the effect of this teaching among Scientific Men has 
 corresponded with its results among the multitude. I speak 
 with great humility of scientific men, but I say that which I 
 know to be the truth, when I affirm that the doctrine of Life in 
 Christ is now preventing numbers of scientific and profes- 
 sional people from joining the ranks of infidelity and atheism ; 
 and is holding them fast in the faith of Christianity. Not a 
 few Of these have with warm acknowledgment assured us 
 that the pathway to faith has been made clear by the 
 doctrine of Immortal Life through the Incarnation ; and it is 
 
21 
 
 a doctrine which is spreading among religiously-disposed , 
 scientific men of all ranks every day. It corresponds with the 
 honest conclusions of real science, physical and metaphysical, 
 and affords that solid hope of immortality which nature does 
 not afford. It throws a marvellous light upon the meaning 
 of the Divine Incarnation, and on the union of the divine and 
 human natures in the person of Christ, so converting the great 
 stumbling-block to faith into its strongest attraction. It will 
 be, I feel persuaded, when better understood, the scientific 
 and spiritual death-blow to Unitarianism, by rendering a 
 rational account of the Incarnation. It will gather high and 
 low around the cross and tomb of Christ, with St. Peter's 
 confession, " Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the 
 words of eternal life." 
 
 Lastly, I rejoice this day to think that the labour expended 
 here and elsewhere, by so many fellow workers, the story of 
 whose toils and sacrifices I will recount this evening, has 
 assisted in an immense and general modification of the teach- 
 ing given to young Children, in families, schools, and churches, 
 respecting the character of Almighty God. 
 
 At the beginning of this long siege against the fortress 
 of ancient error the plight of children as to their instruction in 
 the ways of God was pitiable indeed. Practically, little was 
 said in detail, or by way of application to individuals, of the 
 theory then prevailing in the ministry. But thoughtful children 
 knew very well what doctrines underlay the surface-teaching 
 in families, schools, and churches. It was this, — that they 
 were all born immortal beings, born with souls that must live 
 for ever, in happiness or in torment ; and born with souls so 
 degenerate and prone to sin that there was no escape from the 
 doom of fire in hell for ever, except by regeneration either by 
 
22 
 
 baptism, or, without baptism, by truth. Arminians, such as 
 the Methodists, taught their children that all might escape this 
 doom by faith and repentance. Calvinists (and the Indepen- 
 dents and Baptists were mostly Calvinists then) taught their 
 children that only a certain number of them born could be 
 saved, because only a certain number were predestinated by 
 God to be saved ; all the rest born in sin, and not elected 
 from eternity to salvation, must suffer torment in hell 
 throughout the eternity to come. This was the creed, taught 
 in a quiet and respectable way, under which I was myself 
 educated among the Independents. It was not worked out 
 in detail by the pious preacher, the younger and more 
 thoughtful hearers were left to work it out in their own 
 reflections. 
 
 Mr. Robert Browning, then a boy with marvellous counten- 
 ance and black and flashing eyes, listened to this doctrine in 
 the corner of the gallery, close to the reverend preacher's 
 right hand, and I listened to it in the same church, on the 
 floor. What effect it had on Mr. Robert Browning I can only 
 guess from his poems. For myself, it nearly drove me mad 
 with secret misery of mind, in thinking of such a God. Our 
 young souls were enmeshed in the most perplexing tangle of 
 contradictory ideas. We were taught that God was good and 
 just ; all the Bible and all the hymns said that, and Nature 
 confirmed the lesson. But, what could we make of this 
 Omnipotent Being, who "so loved the world" as to determine 
 on the birth of an immense multitude of non-elect children — 
 who must suffer for ever — while we ourselves might be 
 amongst the fated number. Well, it did not quite make in- 
 fidels of us, for better influences were at work, but it did so 
 very nearly. It poisoned the fountains of youthful joy, and 
 rendered it the most dreadful task on earth to think steadily 
 
23 
 
 of our Creator. From fourteen years old and upwards our 
 faith depended very much on the art of not thinking on the 
 hateful mystery. 
 
 Such was the youth out of which sprang my own subse- 
 quent history ; and to-day I praise, and extol, and honour the 
 King of Heaven, who has shaken this old and frightful system ' 
 of theology almost to the ground, and is strengthening a great 
 company to protest, year after year, against such teaching of 
 the young ; until at length, this year; even the Methodist Con- 
 ference has silently withdrawn its ancient catechism of horrors, 
 for not teaching which they three years ago expelled Mr. 
 Impey, forty years missionary in South Africa. 
 
 Throughout England children to-day are taught the true 
 character of God as never before. Few teachers dare to 
 repeat to them the mediaeval tales of dread under which our 
 own earlier years were so deeply oppressed. Even Mr. 
 Moody, in his recent Edinburgh addresses to the young, never 
 once told any of them the old Church of Scotland story, — that 
 they were liable, through the sin of Adam, to endless misery. 
 
 The God of Abraham bless the lads and lasses, and draw 
 them nearer to Himself under the blessed sunlight of happier 
 truth which has dawned upon them now ! 
 
24 
 
 DISCOURSE II. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH OPINION ON HUMAN DESTINY 
 DURING THE LAST THIRTY YEARS; WITH SPECIAL 
 REFERENCE TO THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY 
 THROUGH THE DIVINE INCARNATION. 
 
 " If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do 
 mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live" — RoM. viii., 13.. 
 
 In the discourse of this morning I related the history of the 
 foundation of this church, explaining- the doctrine for which, 
 among other objects, liberty of utterance in London was here 
 first obtained, and some of the changes in English opinion on 
 human destiny, which we have lived to witness and rejoice in. 
 
 This evening we shall extend our view over a far wider 
 horizon, and attempt to commemorate at once the mercies 
 of God, and the honour of those of his servants who have 
 assisted in effecting the changes of belief to which reference 
 has been made. 
 
 The example of Holy Scripture, and the custom of nearly 
 all churches, warrants such an occasional commemoration of 
 public service on the day of rest ; and it happens that scarcely 
 any person is more qualified than myself, by age and by per- 
 sonal knowledge of the actors in this matter, to record their 
 " good deeds towards the house of their God." Most of them 
 have suffered for years for their convictions, and borne their 
 testimony amidst every kind of social discouragement. It 
 shall at least not be our fault to-day if their courage and 
 patience fail of a loving memorial. 
 
 But first of all let us clearly admonish the Christian public, 
 that none of us who have been concerned in these latest 
 
2S 
 
 endeavours to revive and diffuse a psychology which com- 
 pels a reformed interpretation of Scripture, have thought of 
 ourselves for one moment as discoverers of a secret not before 
 made known to Christendom. The common charge, preferred 
 againt us by many, that we are inviting the world to believe 
 that until some of us arose no one had previously understood 
 the Christian religion, may serve the purpose of theological 
 controversy, often as unjust as political strife ; but it is a mis- 
 conception, founded on want of knowledge. That which we 
 are inviting the world to believe is a simple matter of fact, 
 which any educated reader can verify for himself; — that in the 
 first three centuries of Christianity the doctrine of man's 
 natural mortality in body and soul, and of Life in Christ only, 
 as we now teach it, is found clearly in the pages of the earliest 
 of the Christian fathers; and specially in the pages of Irenaeus, 
 Bishop of Lyons, in the middle of the second century, separated 
 from St. John by the one life and common bond of St. 
 Polycarp ; and that Irenaeus and others of that earliest age, 
 explain the language of the New Testament on Immortality by 
 Christ, precisely as we have explained it. 
 
 So that we do not set ourselves forth as discoverers, but 
 only as revivers of forgotten truth ; — truth which had been for 
 a time forgotten in England when we began this revival, but 
 which in no generation since the Apostles has lacked witnesses, 
 emphatically in the ages since the Reformation. 
 
 We have only revived the doctrine of Irenaus expounding 
 St. John, when St. John had been dead scarcely sixty years : — 
 
 " For life is not from us ourselves, or from our nature, but it is given or 
 bestowed according to the Grace of God ; therefore he who preserves this 
 gift of life and returns thanks to Him who bestows it, he shall receive 
 ' length of days,' for ever and ever. But he who rejects it, and proves 
 unthankful to bis Maker for creating him, and will not know Him who 
 
26 
 
 ■bestows it, he deprives himself of the gift of duration to all eternity. And, 
 ^erefore, the Lord speaks thus of such unthankful persons. If you have 
 not been ' faithful in that which is least, who will commit much to you ? ' 
 intimating thereby unto us, that they who are unthankful to Him with 
 lespect to this short transitory life which is His gift — the effect of His 
 bounty — shall be most justly deprived of length of days for ever and ever.'' 
 
 " But again, those who assert that he was simply a mere man, remaining 
 in the bondage of the old disobedience, are in a state of death ; having been 
 not as yet joined to the Word of God the Father, nor receiving liberty 
 through the Son, as He does Himself declare ; ' If the Son shall make you 
 free, ye shall be free indeed.' But being ignorant of Him who born of the 
 Virgin is Emmanuel, they are deprived of His gift which is eternal life ; and 
 not receiving the incorruptible Word, they remain in mortal flesh, and are 
 debtors to death, not obtaining the antidote of life. To whom the Word 
 •says, mentioning His own gift of grace, ' I said ye are all the sons of the 
 Highest, and gods; but ye shall die like men.' He speaks undoubtedly 
 these words to those who have not received the gift of adoption, but who 
 •despise the incarnation and pure generation of the Word of God, defraud 
 human nature of promotion into God, and prove themselves ungrateful to the 
 Word of God, who became flesh for them. For it was for this end that the 
 Word of God was made man, and He who was the Son of God became the 
 Son of man, that man having been taken into the Word, and receiving the 
 adoption, might become the Son of God. For by no other means could we 
 have attained to incorruptibility and immortality, unless we had been united 
 to incorruptibility and immortality. But how could we be joined to incor- 
 ruptibility and immortality, unless, first, incorruptibility and immortality 
 had become that which we also are, so that the corruptible might be 
 -swallowed up by incorruptibility, and the mortal by immortality, that we 
 might receive the adoption of sons ? " — Irenaus against Heresies, Books II, 
 JII. 
 
 We have only revived the doctrine of Arnolius in a.d. 260. 
 " For souls are of a middle or intermediate quality, as has been learned 
 from Christ's teaching, and they are such that they may on the one hand 
 perish, if they have not known God, and on the other hand be delivered 
 from death, if they have given heed to his threatenings and profi'ered 
 favours. That is the true death which leaves no residuum." 
 
27 
 
 We have only revived the doctrine of Si. A/hanasius in his 
 treatise on the Incarnation of the Word, a.d. 363. 
 
 " Thus God made man, and desired him to continue in incorruption. 
 But men, making light of and rebelling against the knowledge of God, 
 thinking out and inventing evil for themselves, came under the before- 
 threatened condemnation of death. . . . It was right that men, being 
 emptied of the knowledge of God, and turning to the things that are not 
 (for evil things are things that are not, but good things really are, since they 
 proceed from the really existing God), should be emptied also of eternal 
 existence, and this is for them, being dissolved, to remain in death and 
 destruction." 
 
 We have only revived the doctrine of Sophronius, 
 Patriarch of Jerusalem, in a synodical letter read to the 
 Council of Constantinople in 680, who, after confessing all the 
 rest of the orthodox, faith, declares the true faith also to be 
 that men's souls have not a natural immortality. " It is the 
 gift of God that they receive the grant of immortality and 
 incorruptibility." 
 
 We have only revived the doctrine of Luther, who said 
 that the " immortality of the soul was one of the monstrous 
 opinions accumulated on the Papal dung-hill." (0pp. II., 
 Wittemberg, folio 1 1 3). 
 
 We have only revived the doctrine oi John Lccke, in his 
 ReasmabUness of Chrisiiamty and in his Commentary on St 
 Paul's Hpistles, when he says : — 
 
 "By death threatened to Adam, some men understand endless torments 
 in hell-fire ; but it seems a strange way of understanding a law which requires 
 the plainest and directest wo^ds, that by death should be meant eternal life 
 in misery. Can any one be supposed to intend by a law which says, • for 
 felony thou shall surely die,' not that he should lose his life, but be kept alive 
 in exquisite and perpetual torments ; and would any one think himself fairly 
 dealt with that was so used? " 
 
 We have only revived the doctrine of a multitude of 
 
28 
 
 learned members of the Church of England in the beginning- 
 of the last century, and specially of Mr. Pitts, who published 
 a most erudite treatise in 1708, called The Holy Spirit the 
 Author of Immortality, or Immortality a Peculiar Grace of the 
 Gospel, no natural ingredient of the Soul, wherein it is solidly 
 proved that Mr. Clark hath not one sentence of the Fathers or one 
 text of Scripture on the side of Man's Natural Immortality ; a 
 book which accomplishes all Mr. Pitts here promises, in rela- 
 tion both to Scripture and to the Fathers. 
 
 We have only revived what Dr. Watts taught when he 
 said in his Ruin and Recovery of ManMtid: — 
 
 " Who can say whether the word death might not be fairly construed to 
 extend to the utter destruction of the life of the soul, as well as of the body 1 
 For man by sin had forfeited all that God had given him — that is, the life 
 and existence of his soul, as well as of his body. . . . There is not one 
 place of Scripture that occurs to me where the word death, as it was first 
 threatened in the law of innocency, necessarily signifies a certain miserable 
 immortality of the soul, either to Adam, the actual sinner, or to his 
 posterity." 
 
 We have only revived what Archbishop Whately taught 
 when he said in his lectures on the " Future State" (p. 231), 
 published in 1822 : — 
 
 " ' Life,' as applied to the condition of the blest, is usually understood to 
 mean a ' happy life.' And that theirs will be a happy life, we are indeed 
 plainly taught ; but I do not think we are anywhere taught that the word 
 ' life ' does of itself necessarily imply happiness. If so, indeed, it would be a 
 mere tautology to speak of a ' happy life ;' and a contradiction to speak of a 
 'miserable life ;' which we know is not the case, according to the usage of 
 any language. In all ages and countries, ' life ' has always been applied in 
 ordinary discourse to a wretched life no less properly than to a happy one. 
 If, therefore, we suppose the hearers of Jesus and His apostles to have under- 
 stood, as nearly as possible, the words employed in their ordinary sense, //5f>> 
 must naturally have conceived them to mean (if they were taught nothing to 
 the contrary), that the condemned were really and literally to be ' destroyed ' 
 
29 
 
 and cease to exist; not that they were to continue for ever to exist in a state 
 of wretchedness." 
 
 No wonder, then, that this doctrine of Life only in the Son 
 of God has never lacked defenders ; and that when the truth 
 has not run in the main channel it has nevertheless always 
 run in scattered and solitary streams, as Protestantism did for 
 one thousand years under the Papacy. The tradition has 
 never quite died out, but has been handed from one to another, 
 although never till our time has a sufficiently resolute attempt 
 been made to attack the fortress of psychological error on the 
 nature of man. Thus it was that good Mr. Fontaine, of Hol- 
 born, published the truth again in his plain English book in 
 1817, and seventeen years later (in 1835) the Rev. Mr. De 
 Burgh, of Dublin, in his tract on Eternal Life, and four years 
 later Mr. Storrs, of New York, an able but not lettered man, 
 who has done good service in America. 
 
 My own public activity in this revival commenced, as I 
 have described, in 1844 (six years after accidentally lighting 
 on Mr. Fontaine's book in 1838) by the circulation of a pam- 
 phlet entitled What was ike Fall? — followed, in 1845, by an 
 octavo volume called Life in Christ, or Immortality the peculiar 
 privilege of Regenerate Men. In the very same two years the 
 Rev. H. H. Dobney, of Maidstone, published, in tAvo forms, his 
 excellent work on Future Punishment, which no one has yet 
 answered, and which, I think, cannot be fairly answered, even 
 by himself, if we are to be guided by the ordinary principles 
 of interpretation. 
 
 Our two books, and our two selves, were attacked in the 
 religious periodicals of this day, with a vehemence and 
 contempt which perhaps betrayed some suspicion of weakness 
 in the assailants. But the good men who wrote against us, 
 and stirred up a popular indignation which resulted in a 
 
30 
 
 prolonged excommunication, are now long- laid to rest, and 
 we will say nothing of their past behaviour. Nothing except 
 that that noble man, and true friend of the people, Mr. Henry- 
 Dunn, Secretary of the British and Foreign School Society, 
 himself a firm believer in Immortality through Christ, under- 
 took our defence as young men against the calumnious attack 
 of the Eclectic Review, and showed to the Nonconformist public 
 how unfairly we had been charged with hostility to the 
 Evangelical system. 
 
 For seven years these books, although working beneath 
 the surface, made but one prominent convert to the revived 
 faith of early Christianity. This was Sir James Stephen, 
 then Professor of History at Cambridge, where, as he once 
 told me, he always kept some copies in circulation. In the 
 Epilogue to his Ecclesiastical Essays he has plainly expressed 
 his opinion on the necessity for a revision in this department 
 of theology. 
 
 It was in the midst of these " seven lean years " that the 
 witness for the doctrine of St. John and Irenaeus commenced in 
 this place ; this pulpit was absolutely the only spot of church 
 ground in London where the doctrine could be openly 
 discussed. 
 
 From that time, however, (thirty years ago), began a 
 succession of supporting testimonies, of which it is my delight- 
 ful task now to trace the development. 
 
 In 1853, Mr. Horace Hastings, of Boston, published his 
 Pauline Theology, in which he showed with admirable clear- 
 ness that in the writings of the Apostle to the Gentiles, there 
 is no trace of the doctrine of the natural immortality of the 
 soul, or a single expression which, taken in its obvious sense, 
 teaches anything else than the doctrine of eternal life by the 
 incarnation (Rom. viii., 1-I4). 
 
31 
 
 In 1855, Mr. John Sheppard, of Frome, the friend and 
 biographer of the celebrated essayist Mr. John Foster, 
 published anonymously his very learned and compact treatise 
 on the Duration of Evil, in which that accomplished scholar 
 (the author of the Thoughts on Devotion, and of, another more 
 learned work on the Divine Origin of Chriitianity) set forth the 
 argument which convinced him of the truth of the re-awakening 
 testimony. 
 
 In 1857 Professor Charles Hudson, of Boston (United 
 States), the author of the most useful Concordance to the 
 Greek Testament hitherto published, gave to the world his 
 great work on Debt and Grace as related to the Doctrine of a Future 
 Life. In this treatise, with a scholarship which places Mr. 
 Hudson in the very front rank of American divines, the whole 
 question of interpretation of the Scriptures on these topics is 
 subjected to a searching investigation, and the general doctrine 
 of Life in Christ vindicated with a learning which obtains the 
 highest admiration from those whose special studies best enable 
 them to appreciate it. This great writer has long since entered 
 into rest. As long as he lived he honoured and encouraged 
 us with his correspondence, and his name will become more 
 famous in America whenever American scholars shall think 
 fit to appreciate and re-publish his labours. His chief work 
 has long been out of print. 
 
 In 1863, Dr. Leask, who had during the preceding twenty 
 years become acquainted with the earlier writings on the 
 subject, commenced the publication of the Rainbow, and a few 
 years later, in 1868, opened its pages to the discussion of 
 the question of immortality. In its earlier and later years it 
 has been exceedingly useful in this direction. The kind- 
 hearted editor has perhaps been too-easily persuaded to give 
 the benefit of his pages of late to believers in the doctrine of 
 
32 
 
 eternal life, who have somewhat damaged the argument by 
 their advocacy of astronomical and ethnological theories which 
 true science must sternly reject. Every good cause suffers 
 from the additions of the weaker brethren who support it. 
 Many of us, also, have frankly differed from the Rainbow in 
 its too tolerant tone towards the doctrine, not merely of the 
 sleep of the soul in death (which, so long as men believe in a 
 surviving deeper, should form no ground of serious separation 
 between the upholders of the common faith), but also of the 
 doctrine of the actual dissipation of the soul in death, — a theory 
 rendering it impossible for ordinary minds to conceive of the 
 personal identity of men in the Resurrection, or even to under- 
 stand our Lord's words, " Fear not them that kill the body, 
 hut are not able to kill the soul." (Matt, x., 28.) But, although 
 absolutely by my own conscience compelled to make this 
 single exception in reference to the Rainbow, considered as a 
 representative magazine, it is far more necessary to record on 
 this occasion the eminent and persistent service that Dr. Leask 
 has rendered for many years and still renders, at great per- 
 sonal cost, and with conspicuous ability, to the object which is 
 so dear to his heart. 
 
 In 1863, Mr. Henry Dunn published his two volumes on 
 The Destiny of the Human Race. Mr. Dunn made no pretensions 
 to be a critical scholar, and therefore sometimes stumbled ; 
 but he was something better than a mere verbal critic, he was 
 •a most broad-minded, honest, and devout thinker ; above all 
 a man who walked ever with God, whose house was a temple, 
 and whose study-table was like the golden altar of incense. 
 This, his principal work, is based on a fundamental denial of 
 natural immortality, and on a fundamental belief in immortality 
 through the Incarnation of God in Christ, — in whose eternal life 
 he hoped, with Mr. Isaac Taylor, that multitudes of men would 
 
33 
 
 be made sharers hereafter, who had enjoyed no opportunity of 
 becoming sharers in it here. Mr. Dunn was not a Universalist, 
 inasmuch as a few months before his death he intimated to 
 me his general agreement with the argument for evangelisa- 
 tion of the race and its final issues, as stated in the later 
 editions of Life in Christ. Mr. Henry Dunn's work on Tht 
 Sludy . of (lie Bible is a manual which deserves perpetual 
 remembrance. I stood by this dear friend's open grave at 
 Norwood a few years ago, and it is a grave which deserves 
 a reverent pilgrimage from those who know how to revere 
 a pioneer in the search for truth, one of the most princely- 
 hearted and generous of mankind. 
 
 In 1864, the venerable Ami Bost, father of the celebrated 
 philanthropist of La Force, published his pamphlet on the 
 Doom of the Wicked, in which he expounded the Christian 
 doctrine of Immortal Life in Christ. 
 
 In 1855, Professor Barlow, of Trinity College, Dublin, 
 published his work on Eternal Death, in which he maintained 
 the same views. 
 
 In the same year, Mr. Litton, of Dublin, a barrister, now 
 one of the Irish Land Commissioners, published his excellent 
 volume on Life and Death. 
 
 In 1866, the Rev. W. Ker, Vicar of Tipton, published his 
 work on Immortality in Christ ; followed by another in 1880, 
 czA&^ Immortality : Whence, and for Whom? — perhaps the best 
 shilling manual of introduction to the study of the question.* 
 
 In the same year, the Rev. Thomas Davis, M.A., revered 
 throughout Yorkshire as Vicar of Roundhay, near Leeds, a 
 ripe scholar and a charming poet, published his critical 
 treatise on Endless Sufferings not the doctrine of Scripture, which 
 has passed through several editions. 
 
 • Elliot Stock, Paternoster Row. 
 
34 
 
 In 1867, Prebendary Constable appeared for the first time 
 in the field. He published his great work on Future Punish- 
 ment, one of the clearest, and I think most decisive, books in 
 modern popular controversy. It has happily passed through 
 several editions. Mr. Constable is now occupied in replying- 
 to Dr. Samuel Cox's Salvator Mundi in the pages of the Rainbow. 
 In 1868, the Rev. Samuel Minton, M.A., after holding in 
 reserve during a very long period, for reasons assigned in his 
 Fragment of Autobiography, the belief of Life in Christ, was at 
 length so deeply impressed with the importance of the truth, 
 that he avowed his belief to his congregation at Eaton Chapel, 
 with the result of awakening a general discussion in the 
 country, ten times more earnest and searching than we had 
 been able to excite in the preceding twenty years. To this 
 beloved and self-sacrificing clergyman, who abandoned all 
 hope of promotion in order to advance the cause of his Master, 
 is due, more than to any other individual, the first wide dif- 
 fusion of these ideas throughout the English-speaking world ; 
 and it is chiefly to his sacrifices that subsequent writers owe 
 the freedom with which they have been permitted in the Church 
 of England to treat the whole question without serious loss of 
 reputation. 
 
 In 1869, Mr. William Maude commenced those papers on 
 Immortality, in the Rainbow, which, as long as they lasted, 
 were the chief ornaments in scholarship of that periodical. 
 To Mr. Maude is due no small share of the honour which 
 belongs to the few disciplined scholars who took an early part 
 in this discussion. 
 
 In 1870, Dr. P^tavel, of Geneva, read to a Theological 
 Society, originated by Professor Godet, his argument entitled 
 The Struggle for Eternal Lfe, since published with this title in 
 English, with a preface by Dr. Dale of Birmingham, and in 
 
3S 
 
 French as La Fin du Mai. Dr. Emanuel P^tavel, formerly 
 pastor of the Swiss Church in London, brought to the discus- 
 sion the habits of a carefully-trained scholar, and the aid of 
 no small erudition, both in classical and oriental tongues. In 
 earlier years he had known England well, and had become 
 conversant with the controversy there proceeding. God was 
 thus preparing him to become the leading representative in 
 the French-speaking countries of the revived doctrine of 
 Immortal Life through the Incarnation— a doctrine which he 
 is at this moment maintaining in the Chretien Evangelique of 
 Paris, against the misrepresentations of the younger Godet, 
 with a learning, a logic, an energy, and a success, which 
 have raised the admiration of impartial readers. 
 
 In connection with Dr. P^tavel's name it is proper to men- 
 tion here, though it properly belongs to the year 1874, that of 
 the Rev. Charles Byse, now of Brussels, then a Vaudois 
 pastor, a man of extraordinary attainment in the classical 
 languages, as well as in Hebrew and Arabic. He was 
 brought in God's providence to spend a year in England, and 
 through Dr. Pdtavel be was brought to worship in this church. 
 This seemingly accidental combination has borne fruit. Mr. 
 Byse became a learned and able asserter of the doctrine on 
 Eternal Life, and both of these foreign friends, being excellent 
 English scholars, honoured us by devoting two years to trans- 
 lating Life in Christ into French (Mr. Byse translating, Dr. 
 P^tavel assisting the revision); thus giving it currency amidst 
 the vast population of France and Switzerland. Few English 
 books have ever enjoyed the fortune of falling into the hands 
 of more accomplished translators. 
 
 The result of their labours already begins to appear. 
 The whole question of conditional life has been formally dis- 
 cussed in several important conferences of pastors in France 
 
36 
 
 and Belgium ; with the effect of revealing-, among not a few 
 of the ablest of their number, a profound sympathy with the 
 theology of IrensEus and St. John. In Paris, in Lyons, in 
 Montauban, and in other places, there are vigorous supporters 
 of the main argument. In Paris, Monsieur E. M^nbgoz, 
 Director of the Theological Faculty in the Protestant Semi- 
 nary, has just published a book on Sin and Redemption, in 
 Which he declares S. Paul's faith in Life in Christ. In Montau- 
 ban, the Pastor Choisy has courageously avowed his convic- 
 tions in the same direction. In Geneva, Monsieur Caesar 
 Malan, one of the foremost thinkers in Switzerland, and 
 Mademoiselle Gaussen, the able daughter of a learned father, 
 are warmly devoted to the same doctrine. 
 
 In 1 870, Mr. Pettingell, Chaplain of the American Embassy 
 in Brussels, prepared a work, called the Theological Trilemma ; 
 or, the Three Tluories on Human Destiny considered in the light of 
 Reason and Revelation. Mr. Pettingell has now returned to 
 America, and is at this time bringing out a considerable 
 volume in support of the main thesis ; which will also contain 
 a Symposium^ or series of contributions made by American 
 and English writers on the bearings of this doctrine. Mr. 
 Pettingell has the ear of a wide circle in the United States, 
 and we trust that he will succeed in making it clear through- 
 out the United States that the doctrine of the immortality of 
 ihe children of God only is not a " passing fanaticism " (as 
 Dr. Dexter lately declared it to be in the Congregationalisl 
 newspaper), but a belief deeply rooted in the convictions of 
 scholars as profound, and of Christians as devoted, as any 
 who entertain the conviction that evil is eternal. It is too late 
 for language like that of the Congregationalisl to arrest the 
 controversy in America. Dr. Dorner, of Berlin, has spoken of 
 the mode of discussion adopted in at least one of its representa- 
 tive books, in a letter to the translators, as being " thoroughly 
 
37 
 
 scientific," and it must be a strange "fanaticism" which 
 attaches so vast a company of devout and accomplished 
 adherents and proclaimers in all lands. 
 
 In 1870, the Rev. John Denniston, M.A., a learned Baptist 
 minister, brought out his work on the Perishing Soul, which 
 has reached a second edition. The calm and scholar-like tone 
 of Mr. Denniston has been the means of convincing no small 
 company of discerning readers. He now lives in Jamaica, 
 where, doubtless, he still holds up the light of truth in that 
 thickly-peopled centre of the West Indian Archipelago. 
 
 In 1870, also, appeared the work of the Rev. Winiam 
 Griffith, of Eastbourne, called the Entire Evidence of Evangelists 
 and Apostles on Future Punishment, with Notes on the Teaching of 
 Dr. Angus. This work is now approaching a second and much- 
 enlarged edition, and contains a chapter called Immortal Life 
 the Golden Thread of St. fohn's Gospel, which will, doubtless, 
 attract attentive readers. 
 
 In 1870, also, appeared Professor Birks' work on the Victory 
 of Divine Goodness, interesting chiefly as an evidence that the 
 ceaseless fire of argument was beginning to tell even upon the 
 strongholds of orthodoxy at Cambridge. But the extent 
 of Mr. Birks' concession was only to throw out the extra- 
 ordinary idea that God would perhaps create an inferior 
 paradise in Gehenna for the solace of the eternally damned. 
 Naturally such a theory gained few converts. 
 
 In 1873, Mr. Dale, of Birmingham, after preaching the 
 doctrine of Life in Christ for some years in his own congrega- 
 tion, avowed more publicly his conviction of its truth in a 
 meeting of the Congregational Union. Thrice he has re- 
 peated his adhesion — 1, in a preface to the English transla- 
 tion of Dr. PAavel's work in 1875 ; 2, in an article in 1876 in 
 the Congregational Magazine, of which he was editor ; and 3, 
 
38 
 
 at a meeting held in tliis church in the year 1877. The in- 
 fluence of Mr. Dale's confession of faith throughout the country 
 has been very considerable, multitudes of preachers having 
 taken courage at least to commence an inquiry into the doc- 
 trine set forth, whom no inferior authority, or prima facie ap- 
 pearance of evidence, would have persuaded to the investigation. 
 
 About this time, when the tide had begun to turn rapidly 
 in favour of the more simple interpretation of Scripture 
 language on life and death, the opponents, of various schools, 
 began to consider of resistance. In 1875, Mr. Baldwin Brown 
 published his lectures on what he called the Miserable Doc- 
 trine of Annihilation, regarded in the light of the Gospel of 
 Love, in which the matter was set forth in such a manner as 
 to persuade me that a re-statement of the whole controversy 
 had become necessary. This, therefore, led to the publication 
 at the end of 1875 of an entirely new work, to which I attached 
 the old title of Ufe in Christy the growth at least of a lifetime 
 of study.* 
 
 This publication was the signal for a renewed interest in 
 the discussion. In 1876, occurred the Meeting at Cannon 
 Street Hotel, of the leading advocates of the revived belief in 
 Conditional Life, specially of those vvho thought it of unspeak- 
 able importance in relation to Foreign Missions. Through the 
 liberality of one gentleman, an edition of 50,000 copies of the 
 addresses then delivered by Mr. Constable, Mr. Heard, Dr. 
 Leask, and others, was widely distributed by post, at large 
 expense — a copy being specially sent to every English-speak- 
 ing missionary on earth, whose name could be ascertained — 
 a measure which is rightly-believed to have commenced the 
 
 * Now published in a cheap third revised edition, 550 pp. 8vo., by Mr. 
 Stock, 62, Paternoster Row, who sells the works here mentioned. 
 
39 
 
 modification of the thoughts of a multitude of missionaries in 
 all heathen lands. 
 
 During the years from 1870 up to 1876, the cause received 
 important aid from a variety of careful writers in magazines 
 and pamphlets— notably from the Rev. T. W. Hobson, M.A., 
 of Douglas, in his crushing reply to Garbett ; from Mr. James 
 Waylen, an artist, a scholar, and a theologian ; from the Rev. 
 Thos. Warleigh, rector of Ashchurch ; from Dr. Weymouth, 
 head-master of Mill Hill, (who expressed in one pregnant 
 sentence his impression as to.the meaning of the leading Greek 
 terms employed in the New Testament in declaring the destiny 
 of mankind*) and from the Rev. J. B. Tinling, B.A., of East- 
 bourne, a man whose wide experience in Home Missions added 
 special weight to the argument of his book on the Promise of 
 Life. 
 
 In 1878, Canon Farrar preached those sermons on Eternal 
 Hope, in Westminster Abbey, which shook the whole country 
 with astonishment, and woke into inquiry innumerable slumber- 
 ing divines who had dreamed on contentedly on the edge of 
 what they professed to believe was a hell of endless torment for 
 unsaved mankind. Dr. Farrar's point of view was the practical 
 incredibility of the orthodox faith as it stood. As head-master 
 of Marlborough, he had met with much occasion for thought 
 on the religious character of boys, and on the eternal destiny 
 of boys dying at fourteen to fifteen years of age, with good 
 general dispositions but no developed godliness. Had these 
 poor fellows really gone to everlasting torments under the 
 
 * " My mind fails to conceive a grosser misinterpretation of language 
 than when the five or six strongest words which the Greek tongue possesses, 
 signifying destroy or destruction, are explained to mean maintaining an 
 everlasting but wretched existence. To translate white as black is nothing 
 to this." 
 
, 40 
 
 government of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ? Accord- 
 ingly, taking just advantage of a public feeling prepared 
 and excited by the labours of previous writers, he openly 
 attacked the prevailing opinion with a directness and pas- 
 sionateness of assault, which, if it added litde to the ai-gument, 
 certainly shook the foundation of established errors in the 
 higher classes of society. 
 
 The publication of Dr. Farrar's sermons showed that he 
 had, with the reactionary tendency of oratorical genius, gone 
 almost to the opposite extreme of Universalism. This 
 dogmatic position Dr. Farrar indeed repudiates in his later 
 work on Judgment and Mercy, in reply to Dr. Pusey's book. 
 What is of Faith as to Everlasting Punishment ? — and this later 
 work of Canon Farrar is a far weightier production than the 
 former. It gives the most complete view as yet published of 
 Jewish Rabbinical opinions on human destiny ; and makes it 
 clearer than ever that the doctrine of endless misery was 
 not the orthodox faith of Christ's contemporaries. It is a 
 storehouse of facts on the question of authority in this depart- 
 ment. But Canon Farrar offers little aid in the interpretation 
 of Scripture. He admits most candidly that if the old- 
 fashioned established laws of interpretation must prevail, " no 
 demolition can be so complete, and so logical, a« that which 
 Mr. White and Mr. Minton have inflicted on the arguments 
 hitherto brought against them by those who think that these 
 questions require nothing for their decision but the shuffling 
 and manipulation of a few phrases or texts." This is the 
 language in which the late head-master of Marlborough 
 describes the established laws of biblical and classical inter- 
 pretation. He seems to rely, with Mr. Andrew Jukes and Dr. 
 Samuel Cox,on some more sublime mode ofextractingtruthfrom 
 the Bible than the old method of ascertaining the meaning^ 
 
41 
 
 of its ordinary expressions. It reminds us of Hooker's words, 
 that " there is nothing more dangerous than this licentious and 
 delusive art which changeth the meaning of words as alchemy- 
 doth, or would do, the substance of metals, making of anything 
 what it listeth, and bringing in the end all truth to nothing" It 
 is by the operation of this new alchemy on Scripture terms 
 that we are taught that the threatened destruction of a sinner 
 really signifies the destruction of sin in him, a statement vet 
 which all three of these eminent writers agree, denouncing 
 the more obvious sense as a piece of debasing literalism. 
 Mr. Constable, who has a special gift in following up the 
 deceptive windings of Universalism, well points out that 
 according to this definition of destruction, by Messrs. Farrar,. 
 Jukes, and Cox, the " destruction " of a sinner is precisely the 
 same thing with the " salvation" of a sinner ; so that it might 
 be said with equal truth that Jesus Christ came into the world 
 to destroy sinners, and to save them. But indeed it seems- 
 hopeless to ascertain and fix the exegetical principles of 
 Universalism. Whenever the Scripture offers language which 
 seems to stand like a wall straight across the pathway of this- 
 theory, it is unceremoniously levelled with the ground. As for 
 any painstaking study of the positive doctrine of Life in 
 Christ, or any detailed reply to its arguments, such a process 
 is not to be found in its recent publications. Scorn for liter- 
 alism, and the bold assertion of the figurative sense of all 
 Scripture language on human destiny, make up the sum of 
 its criticism, so far as I am able to understand it. The 
 question is — ^Whose word shall stand ? God's word, or theirs ?' 
 I am sorry to speak thus disparagingly of the works of 
 men at whose feet, in other respects, I should gladly sit as a 
 learner, — men of noble aims and lofty thought. But indeed I 
 am supported by still abler men in affirming that the tone of 
 
42 
 
 the Bible as a whole, in its tremendous warnings of the wrath 
 to come, is much nearer to the tone of the " orthodox" faith 
 than it is to the cheerful temper of Universalist writers in their 
 encouragement to obstinate sinners. They hold out to such 
 indeed a certain degree . of penalty, but beyond the penalty 
 shines the "eternal hope" of universal salvation; and this is the 
 issue which sinners regard. Now, Christ and His Apostles 
 speak of " everlasting destruction " of such, and of an 
 " indignation and wrath " which reaches to the " destruction 
 of body and soul in hell." I feel as unable as I did thirty 
 years ago to believe that these words contain a single ray of 
 hope for those wicked men in whose experience they will be 
 fulfilled. 
 
 It is one thing to hold, as many do, that God's great mercy 
 may permit of the presentation of saving truth and grace to 
 men in a future state, who, from age or circumstances, have 
 had no opportunity of laying hold of eternal life here ; it is 
 quite another thing to hold and teach that the wicked men who 
 have seen and rejected the Light of the world shall not 
 " perish in their iniquity." This seems to be flying in the face 
 of the Incarnate Judge, who has declared that their " destruc- 
 tion " shall be " eternal." 
 
 Now, lastly, I wish to add a few words on the extent to 
 which this mass of printed argument, in support of what we 
 think divine truth, has influenced Christian opinion. 
 
 There is a certain difficulty in forming an estimate, 
 because on this subject there prevails a strong tendency in 
 many quarters to conceal the facts. No sooner does any 
 considerable man reach the conclusion that divine truth is to be 
 found in the direction of the doctrine of Life in Christ, than 
 his friends begin to consider how they can persuade him to 
 
43 
 
 conceal his new convictions. Although he may be satisfied 
 in his own mind of the g-eneral validity of the argument, he is 
 conjured to nurse every remaining- doubt, so as to lessen the 
 obligation which conscience imposes on him to declare himself, 
 on a question where the character of Almighty God is so 
 deeply concerned. Thus some even of the ablest and most 
 successful preachers of this generation, bfest by God in 
 awakening many souls, men who know their bibles as few do, 
 will deliberately tell you that they find not a vestige of 
 evidence in the New Testament, from the beginning of the 
 gospel of St. Matthew to the end of St. Jude's epistle, — that is 
 in the Four Gospels, and in all the Apostolic Epistles — for the 
 natural immortality of the soul, or for any other doctrine than 
 that of Life in Christ ; yet, who because they think this avowal 
 in public would injure their usefulness, nurse some doubt 
 which they have as to the meaning of one passage at the end 
 of the Apocalypse. Imagine a good man acting thus in 
 relation to any other gospel doctrine ! Would he not boldly 
 teach, on any other topic, what he thought the four Evangelists 
 and the four great Apostles SS. James, Peter, John, and Paul, 
 lay down as dogmatic truth ? 
 
 A new illustration has just occurred of the concealment of 
 beliefs in the case of Dr. Alexander Vinet, of Lausanne. Vinet 
 died in 1850. No one dreamed of heresy in connection with 
 Vinet's name. No, he was the modern Pascal, the great pillar 
 of French Protestant orthodoxy. Yet it now appears by the 
 publication in his correspondence of a letter written in 1845, 
 and suppressed for nearly forty years by his orthodox friends, 
 that M. Vinet disbelieved in the popular doctrine of the 
 necessary immortality of souls, and rested all his solid hope of 
 an eternal life for man in the revelation of God in Christ, 
 declaring plainly for the everlasting destruction of the wicked. 
 
44 
 
 Thus it is with many others, both lay and cleric. The 
 Boards of Missionary Societies, Tract Societies, Bible Societies, 
 are honeycombed with these beliefs, but the fear of denuncia- 
 tion by a few fanatical members restrains confession. Mr. 
 Impey, before referred to, assures me that the Wesleyan 
 ministry is in a similar condition ; but the secret doubters and 
 believers are restrained by fear of losing- their official position 
 as Ministers, if they should openly declare what they think, 
 concerning the character and ways of God as set forth in 
 the Methodist formularies. I say these things with full 
 assurance of their truth. 
 
 Nevertheless, the confession of this faith is now rapidly 
 extending. Prominent men who hold it ought to confess it 
 to encourage others. The pressure of popular Atheism 
 increasing among the scientific and operative classes, and 
 founded nearly altogether upon abhorrence of the dogma of 
 eternal torments, is leading numbers to perceive that 
 Christianity, in order to weather the storm that is breaking- 
 upon it, must become more Scriptural in its basis. Christianity 
 with the idea of Immortal Life at the centre, can successfully 
 meet every Infidelity, every Atheism, every Paganism ; and 
 the positively large company of men who have proved this by 
 experience are sensibly influencing the understandings of 
 mankind. 
 
 In the Mission field the stirring of the dry bones of the 
 ancient theology is well nigh universal. Young men who go 
 forth from Europe saturated with modern knowledge, and are 
 placed face to face with hundreds of millions of heathens in 
 India and China, are finding that they cannot retain or preach 
 the ancient and horrible dogma of the endless misery of 
 so many pagans ; and it becomes an urgent question with 
 them between Universalism and the New Testament doctrine 
 
4S 
 
 of Life Eternal in Christ alone. If at home the current is still 
 runningf strongly among- the multitudes who do not sufficiently 
 *' tremble at the word of the Lord " in favour of Universalism, 
 in the mission field it is running with equal strength in favour 
 of the doctrine which has so long been expounded here and 
 elsewhere. 
 
 Time would fail me to tell what I know of the doubts of 
 students now preparing for mission work; of the faith of 
 missionaries abroad, and of Christian laymen in foreign parts. 
 One noble worker, a Baptist missionary, Mr. Hobbs, of 
 Sewry, in Bengal, in 1870, at home on furlough after ten years 
 labour, in passing up Fleet Street, sees an advertisement of 
 " Three Letters on Life in Christ," then appearing in the 
 Chrisiian World. Mr. Hobbs buys a copy, reads, goes home, 
 and goes back to India, to study the matter for several years, 
 is deeply convinced, avows his conviction to the Baptist 
 Missionary Committee. On returning home, invalided, a 
 second time, in 1878, he gradually and quietly drops out of 
 missionary employment, and is consigned to an obscure post 
 as a home worker in Bedfordshire ; thence he is drawn out 
 again by a wonderful providence to an independent mission 
 work in Calcutta; commences evangelical labour in open con- 
 fession of the doctrine of Life through the Incarnation ; con- 
 ciliates all Christian hearts by his temper and prudence ; is 
 supplied with the means of maintaining native fellow- workers 
 — all of them earnest believers in the same doctrine; cir- 
 culates Christian literature ; writes catechisms and tracts on 
 a Scriptural basis — all his brethren encouraging him — just 
 because the hand of God is evidently with this honest and 
 devoted man. 
 
 Another ea»iple: — The chief jailer of Bangalore is travel- 
 ling, twenty years ago, on a hot day in India — reposes in the 
 rest-house— finds on a window sill one ant-eaten page of a 
 
46 
 
 tract cm Life only in Christ — reads it, searches the Scriptures, 
 believes it — forms a lending library of the books and pamphlets 
 which set forth the argument. A young Wesleyan missionary, 
 forced by the overpowering burden of Conference theology to 
 think over his creed among the Indian millions, is led similarly 
 to this conclusion, and before he returns home by command, 
 to resign his office, he discovers that through the circulation 
 of books from the pious jailer's library, there was not a 
 European Christian in a populous cantonment near Bangalore, 
 who had not embraced the belief of Life in Christ. It is in fact 
 travelling through India with almost electric energy. 
 
 Mr. Skrefsriid, in Santhalistan, whose immense linguistic 
 knowledge gives additional authority to his words, as an 
 interpreter of the Asiatic Bible, openly avows his coincident 
 belief in this doctrine of Eternal Life through the Immortal 
 Saviour, and his boldness on those mountains will encourage 
 very many. 
 
 In China a solid foundation has been laid in Hankow, by 
 the courageous and able London missionaries, Mr. Griffith John 
 and Mr. Evan Bryant. During the past ten years they have 
 cleared outfrom the hymn-books and catechisms all unscriptural 
 phrases on human destiny. Mr. Bryant has openly taught for 
 ten years what he believes to be the revelation of God on Life 
 Eternal, and his words will not fall to the ground. For such 
 is the nature of this truth that sometimes one single hint or 
 sentence of direction sets whole companies of people reading 
 their Bibles in a fresh light, and when that process begins, 
 especially accompanied by earnest prayer, it is seldom long 
 before some of the readers see as in plain daylight that the 
 Bible was not written to teach man's natural immortality or 
 the everlasting torments of lost souls. In truth, future punish- 
 ment does not occupy in the Bible nearly the prominent posi- 
 tion that it occupies in mediaeval and modern theology. The 
 
47 
 
 chief topic of the Bible is Salvation by Love — the only Gospel 
 which reaches lost souls; and as for those who "choose 
 death," and "-judge themselves unworthy of eternal It/e," they are 
 with few words abandoned by the Apostles to the awful doom 
 of the death eternal. All menaces, all arguments, all sensa- 
 tional alarms would be wasted upon unbelievers; and therefore 
 the Bible is comparatively silent. 
 
 Lastly, Christianity in Japan is waking up to behold the 
 same glorious light of truth rising with healing on its wings. 
 Several of the American and European missionaries in the 
 Japanese Empire have embraced these views of Divine Truth. 
 
 The Rev. Walter Dening, in Hakodati, is probably the 
 ablest Church missionary in that distant post. Formerly in 
 Madagascar, he has now been ten years in Japan. He is a 
 learned scholar, and translates into Japanese such works as 
 " Mozley on Miracles," yet has equal facilities in the colloquial 
 dialect, so that he commands attention from large congrega- 
 tions of the common people. Mr. Dening, face to face with 
 Japanese Buddhism and Atheism, has found the weakness of 
 the traditional faith, which sets forth a God, at whose moral 
 character those ingenious, thoughtful Japanese smile with 
 incredulity, or sneer with contempt — a God who will create 
 countless immortals in danger of endless misery, yet leave 
 them in the dark for thousands of years, without allowing them 
 to hear one word of the only remedy. 
 
 Mr. Dening was compelled to re-examine his creed. He 
 sent home for the books which in England are setting forth the 
 doctrine of Universalism, by Canon Farrar, Dr. Cox, and Mr. 
 Jukes, and he sent also for other books on Life in Christ 
 only. He has embraced with ardour the latter belief. He 
 is recalled by his Directors, to give an account of his defection 
 from their standard ; though the Prayer Book does not contain 
 one single word requiring belief in the Immortality of the soul, 
 
48 
 
 or in endless torments. We await the result of their delibera- 
 tions. If Mr. Dening is recalled because he will not preach 
 €ndless torments to the Japanese, or natural immortality to the 
 Buddhists, all England will hear of it, and England will, I am 
 confident, blame, not Mr. Dening, but any Committee, how- 
 ■ever venerable, which should insist on missionary articles of 
 belief, which are not articles of the Church of England. 
 
 But enough. I have told you now a story, my brethren, 
 which is true, I believe, in every syllable, and it is as wonderful 
 as it is true. In presence of such facts all personal recollections 
 sink into insignificance. For ourselves we say to-day only 
 this : — thank God that it was allotted to us to take part in the 
 latest revival of such a truth ; a truth which brings joy and 
 gladness wherever it shines forth; brings intenser faith and more 
 personal love to Christ, who " saves our lives with a great 
 deliverance;" more unbroken confidence in God, whose justice 
 and mercy have alike become more intelligible ; brings more 
 solid conviction of the truth of the Gospel as the only light of 
 life beyond, and gilds the tomb itself with the radiance of the 
 blessed hope of resurrection. But here let these personal 
 references end. The progress of great truths is hindered by 
 all self-regard. Let us lose the thought of past disrepute in 
 public rejoicing. The battle is half-won. It has been won 
 by many soldiers of Christ, by steady prayer, by'steady sufiFer- 
 ing, by steady witnessing, by ceaseless Scriptural reply to the 
 adversaries of the truth, who are now mostly weary of the 
 conflict. As for ourselves, God will deal with us as he thinks 
 good. As for the doctrine of Life in Christ, it is rooted in 
 sound criticism of the Word of God, it is rooted in antiquity, it 
 is rooted in myriads of able minds and earnest hearts, and it is 
 certain to triumph. 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 THIRD KDITION, REVISKD AND ENLARGED. 
 Price Four Shillings ; in large Crown 8vo, 544 pp. 
 
 LIFE IN CHRIST: 
 
 A Study of the Scripture Doctrine on 
 
 The Nature of Man, 
 
 The Object of Divine Incarnation, 
 
 And the Conditions of Humotn Immortality. 
 
 Cotttfttts: 
 
 BOOK THE FIRST. 
 ON THE NATURE OP MAN AS CONSIDERED UNDER THE 
 LIGHT OP SCIENCE ONLY; WITH OTHER PRELIMI- 
 NARY QUESTIONS. 
 
 BOOK THE SECOND. 
 THE OLD TESTAMENT DOCTRINE ON LIFE AND DEATH. 
 
 BOOK THE THIRD. 
 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT DOCTRINE ON THE OBJECT OP 
 THE DIVINE INCARNATION, AND THE METHOD OP 
 REDEMPTION. 
 
 BOOK THE FOURTH. 
 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT DOCTRINE OP FUTURE PUNISH- 
 MENT. 
 
 BOOK THE FIFTH. 
 
 THE BEARING OF THE DOCTRINE OF LIFE IN CHRIST ON 
 THE FAITH AND PRACTICE OP MANKIND. 
 
 " To what extent the group of doctrines for which Mr. White haa 
 contended haa won the acceptance of Christian people I cannot tell. 
 I believe that for the moment the main current of opinion is running 
 strongly in favour of universal restoration ; but that doctrine seems to 
 me to be so destitute of all solid foundation that it is impossible for it 
 to remain as a permanent article in the faith of the Church. I believe 
 that in a few years the main body of opinion in the Free Churches, at 
 least, in this country, will be in favour of that suspense of judgment 
 which very many recommend ; and I cannot hut believe that, after 
 that, the main body of opinion will bo found substantially on the side 
 of the doctrine of Life in Christ." — Ret. R. W. Dale, of'Sirmingham. 
 
BY THE SAME AITTHOR. 
 
 PRICE TWO SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE. 
 
 The Tone and Teaching of the New Testament 
 
 on 
 
 CERTAINTY IN RELIGION: 
 
 Being the Merchants' Lecture for October, 1880. 
 
 " In these days, when nothing is surer of applause than doubt and 
 indefiniteness with regard to religious truth, it is refreshing to come 
 across so powerful a set of arguments in favour of religious certitude 
 as is found in this book. We have often had to difEer from Mr. 
 White's teaching, but we can give this book our Jullest and heartiest 
 recommendation. He shows that strong faith is not merely religious, 
 but scientific, in view of the facts upon which it is built, and that 
 the only folly is unbelief and uncertainty. We should like every 
 minister and student to have a copy of this lecture, and master it 
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 ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON. 
 MENZIES & CO., EDINBURGH.